Reindeer Chocolate Orange Cover

Every Christmas we get together with 6 other couples for a Christmas lunch, which usually turns into a day long very boozy affair - its great fun. One couple always hosts and boy do they host! There is Bucks Fizz upon arrival, an absolutely amazing Christmas meal and several heavenly desserts, including, of course, a Christmas pudding which is lit with brandy. All very yummy!

This year I decided to make some little gifts for all the girls (don't feel sorry for the boys, they would not appreciate my hard work I can assure you). Whilst on the retreat in Carcassonne I had got chatting to one of the other ladies who said that every year she makes chocolate orange covers for the girls at her work, and I thought that that sounded like a perfect little token gift, to which I knew I could give that personal touch by making them, knowing noone else would bring anything similar - none of the group are crocheters. Or crafters even. What's wrong with them ? Don't they know what they're missing out on?!)

I had a look on Etsy and found this sweet little pattern for a baby reindeer chocolate orange cover from Make Do and Craft. Have a look at her shop, she has the cutest little crochet patterns, and the one I bought was very well written and easy to follow.

Oh by the way, if you're not from the UK you might be thinking "what the heck is a chocolate orange anyway ?". Well its like it says really, its chocolate in the shape of an orange.

When you open it up it has about 20 segments, and the chocolate is orange flavoured and simply DiViNe. As a child I always had a chocolate orange in my stocking, and it just wasn't Christmas without one. So I trotted off to the supermarket and bought 6 chocolate oranges. And I can report that I did not even eat any of them!! How's that for self-restraint!

Over the last week or so I've been working away on the various reindeer body parts.

OMG those antler pieces were SUPER-FIDDLY to do, there were 24 pieces altogether, I was going cross-eyed one evening working on those. The main piece is a round ball shape that fits snugly over the orange.

Then the mask sits on top of that and is sewn on ...

Then the other pieces are all sewn into place to make a sweet little reindeer ...

Isn't he so cute ? I think these are even cuter than the pigs in blankets that I made :) 

Next I wanted to make some lovely little Christmassy fabric gift bags to wrap them in. I coudn't find my Christmas fabric anywhere (I've no clue where loads of stuff is since we moved house last year) but I did find a pack of tartan fat quarters which I thought would fit the bill.

Doesn't it just scream Christmas ?? I especially love this one ... makes me think of cosy pyjamas ...

I am a very messy sewist, so don't look too closely, but I managed to turn the fat quarters into some little drawstring bags ...

.. and finally I made some little tags to go on the bags. The crocheted holly leaf is a pattern from Attic24, you can find it here. Bit of hot glue and a red button and - ta-da - some cute little gift tags...

I bagged up the oranges, and attached the tags, and here they are all ready for Christmas ...

I couldn't help myself but take a load of photos of the little reindeer though, they are very photogenic! ...

I'm not normally organised enough to have hand-crafted Christmas presents done in early November, but I have a deadline to work to - tomorrow I'm going into hospital to have my gallbladder removed. Its done by keyhole and I should be home the same day, and hopefully will recover within a couple of weeks. I'm hoping Mr EC will step up and do the cooking, laundry and taxiing the kids around, meanwhile I'm going to use the enforced rest to crack on with my fireside blanket, I've been saving it especially for this reason :) Wish me luck!

Til next time have lots of crafty fun,

Jillxxx