For today’s post, I have put together a little round-up of Blogmas At Home 2023. This has been my first time participating in Blogmas and I’ve really loved it! It has definitely been a lot of work and there have been a few stressful moments, but, on the whole, it was much less crazy than I expected it to be. In fairness, I spent a good long time preparing for it in the months leading up to December. It was a lot of work, but fun work, you know?

So, here’s what’s been happening over the last 24 days on the blog…

Table of Contents

• Blogmas At Home 2023: In Summary
  • General Christmassy Posts
  • Bullet Journal
  • Away From Home
  • Baking
  • Crochet
  • Knitting
  • Hand Sewing
• What I’ve learned…
• Big Milestones

Blogmas At Home 2023: In Summary

24 days of posting meant 24 separate posts in December and I really let my creativity run WILD. As well as several slightly less-crafty (but just as Christmassy) posts, I also posted in each of the following categories:

• Bullet Journal
• Away from Home
• Baking
• Crochet
• Knitting
• Hand Sewing

So, without further ado, here are the 24 posts of Blogmas At Home (not including this one, though, so I suppose this is really only a summary of 23 of the posts…?), grouped by type for super-easy navigation:

General Christmassy Posts

I tried my hand at gift guides this year and I had so much fun deciding what to put into each one- I definitely think this is something I’d like to keep going every year. I ended up making 3 this year, one for each of the main craft-types on the blog:

2023 Bullet Journal Gift Guide

2023 Knit & Crochet Gift Guide

2023 Baking Gift Guide

I also included a couple of posts that were really just a bit of festive fun:

Christmas Cookbook Collection

Christmas Eve Traditions

Bullet Journal

I included 4 bullet journal posts (though it was originally meant to be 6- more on that later!). Two of those posts were setups from my everyday journal…

Bullet Journal Setup: December 2023

Bullet Journal Setup: 2023 Review Spreads

… While the other two were focused on the initial setup of two different journals- one for myself (the reading journal) and one as a present for my mum (the knitting journal):

2024 Reading Journal Setup

2024 Knitting Journal Setup

Away From Home

I don’t post very often in my Away From Home category (I am very rarely away from home), but the first week of Blogmas At Home included 2 WHOLE outings:

Christmas at Blenheim Palace 2023

Christmas Tree Farm Visit

Baking

There’s been a lot of baking on the blog over the past 24 days. Of course, I made a post on our annual gingerbread house:

Gingerbread House Tour

I’ve also been posting the recipes for my own, super festive takes on some classic bakes:

Almond, Rosemary and White Chocolate Yule Log

Christmas Pudding Macarons

Reindeer Macarons

4-Ingredient Iced Star Biscuits

Perhaps even more excitingly, though, I also launched a new series on the blog, Baking Around The World, with two festive cookie recipes from Italy and Germany:

Sicilian Pizzicotti

German Mandelhörnchen

Finally, I also threw in an easy, last-minute, edible gift idea:

Toffee Popcorn

Crochet

Despite crochet being my favourite yarny crafty, I only posted one crochet post- I can’t believe it! On the bright side, it was something super special- my first EVER original pattern:

Santa Baby Blanket Pattern

Knitting

I shared 2 knitting-based posts this month (that’s double my crochet output!). The first was the third instalment in my Project Knitwear series, which follows my attempts to learn how to make my own clothes. This time around, I tackled socks:

Snowy Nights Socks (Project Knitwear #3)

The second was another original pattern release, which made a great debut on Ravelry! I am particularly proud of this one- it’s perfect for using up scraps and oddments of fingering yarn:

Embroidery Hoop Ornament Pattern

Hand Sewing

One of my posts included a craft that I have never previously posted about: hand sewing. It also inspired me to make a new section on my blog for ‘Other Crafts’- these are crafts I don’t do quite as often as my usual ones, but that I do dabble in, or want to try out. This post was all about a fun, festive birthday gift for my mum:

Starry Garland Tutorial

And that is a little glimpse at all of the posts I have shared over the past 24 days! There’s been a real mix of crafts, ideas and adventures and I’m super proud of each and every one of my posts.

What I’ve learned…

Doing this challenge has taught me a lot about the process of blogging and my own creativity. I thought I’d shared some of the lessons that I have learned throughout this process:

• Start your bullet journal setup for the next year MUCH earlier than you think you need to!

Remember how I said I had planned to include 6 bullet journal posts in my Blogmas At Home schedule? Yeah… The reason they aren’t there is because I simply ran out of time. It’s a shame, because that means my 2024 and January setups are still on my to-do list and I’ll have to post them much later than intended. It’s not the end of the world, though! I’ll be able to do a much better job of them because I have allowed myself the extra time to finish them properly. I always mean to start my yearly set up so early, and I never do, so maybe this time, the lesson will finally stick and I’ll be more prepared next year!

• Writing a post doesn’t need to take that much time.

Okay, admittedly, I tend to write loooonnnnggg posts. What can I say? I love to waffle. But before Blogmas At Home, writing a post felt like such a big job. Writing a single post in one day was either not feasible, or, if I managed it, it took all of my energy to do so. Because of the added time limit and constant output of Blogmas, I got much faster at writing posts. In fact, one day, I even wrote 3 and a half posts! I feel like I have proved to myself that I can do it quickly, which will give me a lot of confidence coming into the new year.

• The ‘photo stage’ is not the insurmountable task you think it is!

I always feel very overwhelmed by the prospect of taking and editing photos- mainly because I have absolutely no prior experience in it, so I used to procrastinate the photo stage as much as possible, which, inevitably, made me dread it even more. Because I’ve had to take so many photos over the past month or so, I think I’ve really gotten into the swing of it and it doesn’t feel so unmanageable now- I’m already procrastinating the ‘photo stage’ a lot less!

• Start preparing for Blogmas EARLY (as in, like… maybe even January?)

Blogmas is a lot of work. While it was more manageable than I expected it to be, I still think I could make it even easier for myself and put myself in a position to provide even better content. I’m thinking that I could do some little bits and pieces throughout the year, so that, when December comes around, I can provide high-quality content, but still have lots of time to enjoy my holiday season. Plus, I just feel that testing out these new recipes and projects and ideas at December is not exactly conducive to minimising the holiday stresses- if I were to do my testing throughout the year, I could just have fun with my Christmas projects at Christmastime (and maybe even take a little bit more time off!).

• Don’t be afraid to try new things.

I was terrified by the prospect of sharing a pattern to Ravelry. I didn’t think I had enough experience, ability, or understanding of the community for it, and I had such a fear of receiving bad feedback. However, my two pattern releases ended up being the most rewarding (and, incidentally, successful) posts of Blogmas At Home for me. The fact that I was so scared made me even prouder when I actually pressed the button to publish that first pattern, and it made me appreciate all the positive feedback I received even more! I have been lucky so far, because all of the responses I have received have been so overwhelmingly kind and uplifting, but I am not dreading the inevitable negative feedback quite so much as I was before. I wonder, is this… growing up?

Big Milestones

Over the past 24 days, I have produced a lot of content. As a result, I’ve experienced a lot of big milestones, so I thought it would be fun to share them! During Blogmas At Home 2023, I:

• Shared my first ever crochet pattern (on here and on Ravelry!)
• Shared my first ever knitting pattern (again, on here and on Ravelry)
• Launched a new series on the blog (Baking Around the World)
• Made my first pair of colourwork socks
• Made a Yule Log/Swiss roll (successfully) for the first time

So, a lot of firsts! I’ve never been the best at trying new things, but I have (rather surprisingly) enjoyed all of the challenges that have come with participating in Blogmas this year.

And that’s a wrap (pun absolutely intended) on Blogmas At Home 2023! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have, and that you have the merriest, happiest Christmas tomorrow.

Stay holly and jolly,

Gemma

xxx

Getting the Christmas tree is something I look forward to every year- it feels like such a wholesome and festive activity. I don’t often make posts in the ‘Away From Home’ category (largely because I am rarely actually away from home), so it’s super weird that I’ve posted two in the past week. I swear, I’m still very much a homebody!

Anyway, I took some photos from our trip to get the Christmas tree and I thought it would be fun to share them here. Let’s get a tree, shall we?

The place where we’ve been getting our tree for the past few years is actually a café/farm shop, so, of course, we went early and had breakfast before we so much as looked at a single tree. What can I say? We have our priorities in order. I had this breakfast bap- with sausages and a hash brown, which I had for the first time last Christmas and have dreamt about since. Can confirm, it was as good as I remembered. The addition of a hash brown continues to be life-changing.

Next we went into the farm shop, which was decorated very festively and had lots of seasonal snacks on offer. I was, however, talked down from buying a large quantity of goose fat- this was fair enough (it was rather expensive), but I, with my love for super crispy (practically fried) roast potatoes, took it pretty hard.

Finally! We get to the trees! Unfortunately… they were all a little… strange? It was a pretty limited selection and none of them were quite what we were looking for.

Also, this one had a full-on pile of feathers beneath it? I couldn’t take a good picture because I was trying to be ✨surreptitious✨, so as not draw attention to a potential pigeon massacre, but there were a lot of feathers, right under the tree??? I was disturbed.

We had to give up on the first place, so we headed to a little farm we had seen on the way. It had a much better selection! We found one we liked almost immediately.

The farm also had a bunch of animals around- this sheep was called Bruno. He seemed to take a liking to me and I was OVERJOYED, but then I realised he was just interested in the lingering smell of sausage and hash brown bap on my fingers. It was very humbling.

There was also a very waggy dog, who had somehow made his way up to eye level, among the tree tops. He seemed happy to be there, though. Easier to survey his domain from the higher vantage point, I guess.

This donkey was staring at the wall like this for a while, which made me chuckle because our old dog used to do exactly the same thing. Apparently one of the donkeys (maybe this one?) will be starring in a school nativity this year, so perhaps he was practising his freeze frames.

After we picked up our tree, we stopped in at (yet another) farm shop on the way home. I didn’t get him, but I thought this little reindeer was very funny.

And that was our tree-buying experience this year! It was much more involved than usual, where we typically go to one place and find a tree within 10 minutes, but it was all the more memorable for it. Also, if we had found a tree we liked at the first place, we never would have met Bruno the sheep! Sometimes life just works out.

I’ll see you tomorrow for Day 7 of Blogmas At Home! Stay merry!

Gemma

xxx