I got a bit caught out this year. One husband snowed under with work and one child with the flu. It has been an interesting run up to Christmas tied to the house nursing a sick child for five straight days. Without cards or wrapping paper to hand, and a need to hand out both cards and gifts to friends who were going away for Christmas, I had to get inventive.

In fact, you can see my gift wrapping in the photo above. For this I used some brown paper I had to hand, and ribbon I kept in my ribbon box (I save all odd bits of ribbon I get, you never know when it will come in handy). Having researched lots of fabulous ideas on the internet, I decided to go with buttons as my theme. I keep every spare button just in case.  Many for clothes that have long gone in the charity bin. And you know what? Buttons make me happy.

Who isn't cheered up by the sight of a button? And some pretty ribbon? So here's my ideas, and the other ideas I found, for making festive time that little bit more fun. And the best bit is, if you've already got a few odds and bods about in the craft drawer, most of these can be done for absolutely no money at all.

Okay, these festive nail decorations are simply over the top but the rest of the page does have some really sweet ideas for Christmas nail decorations - although I'm pretty sure that between the cooking, cleaning and child care, I don't stand a chance of keeping my nails like that for too long!

Here's something fun to keep the kids busy while you're running around doing your Christmas preparations this weekend! And you can keep it for yours to come too. Enjoy making Salt Dough Ornaments.

No doubt your child has already dropped plenty of hints for whatever their main present will be. In our house Lego Star Wars is a definite winner.

But what about those few smaller presents, and the stocking fillers (if you do them)? Last year we all got some great bargains through the sales. My favourite was a magic set I picked up in a flash sale for £5. Another PlayPennies parent managed to grab the entire set of Diary of a Wimpy Kid for a fraction of its normal cost.

But don't worry you haven't necessarily missed out. There are still Christmas bargains available. Unfortunately many of the bargains that people have found were sold out. But not all of them. Here we've gathered the best of what's still out there. I've looked through our posts here on the blog, and asked our PlayPennies parents. And here's our top ten.

These easy Gingerbread Houses look so much simpler than the toothpick and icing sugar contraption I battled last year! And you can make a whole village. I may actually have to try that this year!

Use this Great Little Trading Company promotional code to get 15% off when you spend £50 or more. The site sells items for children's bedrooms, as well as furniture and other accessories, plus toys for indoor and outdoor use, and lots of other useful items. The code worked when my basket contained sale or special offer items, but it only took 15% off the full price items.

Click here to use your Great Little Trading Company promotional code*

• Discount: 15%
• Minimum spend: £50
• Promotional code: SPROUT
• Expires: 18th December 2012

To use this code, go to the Shopping Basket page and enter it in the Promotional Code box. I have bought a few items from here over the years. They do really lovely, nicely designed and built furnishings for children's rooms as well as accessories. The site also sells toys and games.

I tested the code out on this Family Frame set, priced at £50 but on offer at half price when purchased with any other item. And also this absolutely gorgeous Traditional Wooden Nativity set. I've always wanted one of these, and at £25 it is a little pricey but then I hope I'll be using it for many years to come. The special offer took £25 off the total, and the code another £3.75 making my bill £46.25.

There are lots of other stylish storage solutions on the site, and I had better warn you, it is easy to spend hours browsing!

Thanks to JulesB777 at HUKD!

As we settled into our seats I had a nagging doubts. Was I about to scar my seven year old son for life?

We were at Zippo's latest circus show, Cirque Berserk, currently on at the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, nightly at 7pm and 8pm. It was advertised as taking  its inspiration from the dark and twisted fairy tales of the brothers Grimm and others. Cirque Berserk is a very contemporary circus thrill show with strange characters, motorbikes, knife-throwing, fire, quad bikes, ultimate high wire and more. I was told by the lovely lady who arranged our tickets that she had gone with her five year old nephew, and he'd loved it.

Normally, we wouldn't review anything that was so local to one geographic location. But Winter Wonderland is a brand that is spreading, it is also running ice skating rinks in two other locations. Plus the Christmas holidays are one time where many people like to squeeze in a trip to London for a spot of shopping. And Winter Wonderland is within walking distance, or a couple of stops on the bus, from Oxford Street. So what was our Cirque Beserk experience like?

Does your dolls house need some Christmas cheer? Well, here's a tutorial for a miniature Christmas tree - probably also useful for table decorations, cake toppers and other pursuits requiring a mini Christmas tree.

Think you know all about why Xmas is not a good abbreviation, or where our Christmas traditions come from? Maybe you do - but then maybe you've just been believing in popular misconceptions all these years.

Perhaps instead of charades you'd like to indulge in a little game of your own Christmas QI after Christmas dinner this year. If so then this feature is about all you need. You'll have to invent your own klaxon sound though for when your family's version of Alan Davis comes up with a 'well known' but erroneous fact!

So here's what we've found. Perhaps you've got a few nuggets of your own that you'd like to add to the end?

As an aside, if you're looking for some Christmas cheer to add to your computer and like the photo above (we certainly did!) then click on it. The photo is available as wallpaper, and the link will take you to its website.

At Home With Ali has such a sweet idea for creating a Christmas Village and it will be so easy too. A great to -do item for littlies and loads of fun to eat over the next few weeks too!

My 1st Years have offered PlayPennies readers a pre-Christmas discount of 10% on all the gorgeous gifts and goodies for babies.

Go for something special for baby's first Christmas

• Discount: 10%
• Expires: 10 December 2012
• Discount Code: PP10

My 1st Years stock clothes, Christmas stockings and bags, plush toys, baubles and loads of Christmassy accessories.

Stocking fillers start at £7, so £6.30 for you, for a personalised Santa hat, and 'baby's first' items start at £8.10 for our readers for a super cute snowglobe.

There are lovely cushions, bibs, babygrows and even shoes that you can choose from, personalise and enjoy for Christmas.

Orders over £15 have free delivery in the UK, otherwise postage is a very reasonable £2.50. Final shipping for Christmas delivery will be 21 December, so there's plenty time still to get your orders in. All orders are delivered in a free luxury gift box, so you could even post it directly to your intended recipient.

Do you have a special Christmas planned? Well here's a festive photo checklist to make sure you don't miss a picture or let a memory pass uncaptured.

Spend, spend, spend. It is the season t'be completely broke come January. Christmas places enormous pressures on your wallet. It can be hard to juggle everything, and often common sense goes out the window as we get caught up in the idea that Christmas should be perfect in every way.

One of the best ways to save yourself a ton of cash this Yuletide season is, of course, to keep up-to-date with all the fabby deals we post here on PlayPennies. It saves me a fortune every year.

There's lots of other ways to save cash too. Start planning early, work out a budget and stick to it, go with home made decorations and cards instead of buying them. Make sure you cover the bills that have to be paid first, before you start spending. That sort of thing.

Most important of all though, make sure that Christmas doesn't hit you financially in ways that are completely avoidable and unnecessary. Here we put forward our top five money traps you can avoid at Christmas. Maybe you've got your own too - let us know in the comments at the bottom if we've missed anything!

Click here to read more...

With just a month to go to Christmas, here are 25 gift ideas for something a little extra special, made with love. Perfect for if you're planning on keeping off the streets and away from the shops this festive season, and giving out home made gifts.

Use this Tesco promotional code to get £1.50 off the price of Christmas Cards, including personalised cards.

Click here to use your Tesco promotional code*

• Discount: £1.50
• Applies to: Christmas cards
• Promotional code: XMASOFFER
• Expires: 28th November 2012

I am completely impressed with this offer. I tested the code out by making personalised photo cards to send to family. This uses the photo you choose at the main photo, and although the design is pre-set you can include your own words. A great idea as, for example, one of his grandmother's is known as Nanny and you just never find cards with Nanny on it!

You can also fill in the middle of the card, and put stuff on the back too. There are a range of other Christmas cards to choose from - you don't have to opt for a photo one but there's also lots of other cards that can be personalised.

The smallest size costs £1.79. So with the code applied this comes down to 29p. And it gets better. Delivery by first class mail is free, so that is 29p delivered to your door.

Be warned, I found the site excruciatingly slow. Something to do perhaps while you're watching your favourite TV show.

Thanks to welsh_cake at HUKD!

Is it possible? Can it be done? A stress free Christmas? Print out these printables and plan and prepare for a stress free Christmas!

We're starting to get into the Christmas spirit at home and I'm beginning to think of decorations and occasions and things to do. We have some felt and a few bits and pieces lying around so I decided to make pencil toppers* with my three year old.

Materials:

• Felt or card
• Scissors
• Glue
• Decorations
• Pens and pencils

To start with, create your Christmas design in duplicate - we created two trees, a star, and a snowman. I folded two sheets of felt and of card in half (together) and cut it. The most important thing is that they should be identical in shape.

Glue the outline, making sure to leave the bottom unglued. Decorate the designs with pompoms, sequence, or colour the card and decorate with stickers or glitter.

When it's all dried you can put glue on the end of a pencil or pen, and insert it into the shape, and there you have a pencil (or pen) topper. You can also glue the lid of a pen to have a decorative pen lid.

*Yeah. I have no idea what the point is either, but my daughter loves it! Maybe you can use the pens to write all your Christmas cards with!

If you've decided to go the 'make-your-own' Advent Calendar route, then you may want to consider adding activities to the daily candies, if you have candies at all. I ran out of ideas a few days in, but here's a list with 24 activities for you and the family that you can use as a guide and tailor it to your area, activities and interests.(And here's another fab list too!)

This week's feature is bought to you courtesy of my laziness. I live in a 50s built house, with a large window at the bottom of the stairs, at the front of the house. Last year I had this fab idea. Son and I would spend some great bonding time together, and make a huge cascade of paper snowflakes, big and small, flowing down the window.

Yeah, well, that was the idea. The reality turned into something a little bit different. First, paper snowflakes actually take quite a long time to do. Especially if you want proper snowflakes rather than doilies. Second, seven year old boys do not have that much patience. So after about snowflake number two it was just me sitting there, snipping away.

Finally, after three hours of work, I had enough snowflakes to fill one corner of one half of the window. Whoop-de-blimin-do.

This weekend I sat down to find another, better, decorating idea. And crucially it had to be cheap. I have absolutely no room for extras in this year's Christmas budget. I was amazed at what I found, so I went searching for more. And here's the  top five, fabulous, fun and free (well cheap, and possibly free if you already have the material to hand) Christmas decoration ideas I found.

Click here to read more...