As the Christmas season was just getting into full swing we received the rather unwanted news that my Husband was being made redundant. As I’m sure many of my readers have been in a similar situation or know someone who has been through redundancy knows, it’s not good at any time of the year but it doesn’t exactly get your Christmas off with a swing. We decided right there and then that we needed to cut back wherever possible to save as much money as possible in the run up to Christmas, no luxuries and no expensive nights out. One place that we knew we would be able to save some money was on Christmas cards, honestly, you nearly have to take out a second mortgage these days just to buy Christmas cards so I decided to enlist the help of the tiddlers and we set to work on making our own Christmas cards, crackers, decorations, place-mats and do you know something? We have had so much fun doing it all, I will definitely do it again another year because it helped to keep the Christmas spirit alive.
Shortly after our news broke, I received an email asking if I would like to take part in a crafty Christmas review for Debt Free Direct who were launching a campaign to encourage people to make their money go further and get crafty for Christmas. They have lots of great ideas about ways to save money and get creative with what you do have. To take part in the challenge we were sent a Craft pack containing a luxury card making kit, a fun card making kit, stickers, Christmas stamps (which my children LOVE) and a Handmade Christmas crafts book which is packed full of ideas. I couldn’t resist the chance to make these gorgeous ‘Handprint Baubles’ and Fingerprint Christmas Cards with the children.
Looking through the Handmade Christmas book there are LOADS of things that I would like to try ready for next Christmas but I might need to start in May to have everything ready in time because I always seem to run out of time at Christmas???
I’d love to know how you have managed to save money in the run up to Christmas and link up any ideas for a Handmade Christmas that you had done.
Merry Christmas xx
DISCLAIMER: We were sent the above pictured craft pack (top picture) for the purpose of this post. All words, opinions and images are my own and may not be copied without my permission. I have not been instructed what to write.