It’s that time of the year again! No matter how hard I try to keep festive activities to a minimum, things never quite seem to work out. Thankfully, having to be frugal doesn’t necessarily mean resorting to basics, and can sometimes be the stimulus for creativity. It does help if you have lots of paper lying around though!

For the giant modular snowflake above, I just used cheap A4 printing paper. The kirigami instructions were easy enough, and it didn’t take long for me to produce a few to hang around home and office.

I continued the origami theme when it came to everything else, including the mini gift buckets you see above – each containing ingredients and recipe for either Mulled Wine or Hot Chocolate, along with assorted treats. It’s a bit similar to the gift jars I made awhile back, though far more fiddly, since those only involved a few leftover present toppers, and jar covers which I generated digitally.

Things would probably have been simpler if I’d re-used the gift tags I made last Christmas (left image below), but what can I say? I just got a little too carried away with Japanese-inspired papercraft!

Fortunately, there are no culinary expectations of me this year, what with hubby roasting the potatoes and mum-in-law sorting the turkey out. So I can simply sit back and enjoy my handiwork.

Hope the festive season brings joy to everyone!