Blogmas Day : Illustrating and writing an Elf book for my daughter!

I have alway wanted to illlustrate and write a children’s book! When I was looking at the Elf on the Shelf book, I really didn’t like the way it was written and really encouraging bad behaviour which I felt wasn’t great with a toddler who already loves doing her art work on our white walls (Banksy who?) Anyway I did my usual thing of………right well, I’ll make my own instead! So it took me a year on and off. I drew the illustrations and then painted it in water colour and wrote the story to accompany the illustrations. I then had a bit of post production editing to do! That was a challenge doing it with your finger on a tiny phone screen (note to self don’t you that again!)

I was inspired by some true events (from her Elf adventures last year!) I wanted her to read it each year and feel the excited to hear the story and love the picture!

I wanted to create a fun memories but I didn’t want to encourage some pranks that would get out of hand! Nothing rude/adult humour or gross!! Not into any poo jokes! So fun, clean (figuratively speak ing only of course!) So the Elves got up to a lot over the 24 days and they got caught so here is some of their mischief!

There was a huge snowball fight so we had to include this in the story! It made me think that this is how the elves would look, mid fight! After the Elves snow ball fight Phoebe and I then had a mini snow ball fight with her mini pom-poms which was great fun! The livingroom was cover in tiny pom-poms (we kept find them in random places!)

I also wanted to include my handmade advent calendar that I made for Phoebe so she will know it was specially made for her!! She also had really cute tights with candy canes on last year so I wanted to include those in the drawings too! She also had a tartan skirt which she was wearing last year and will be a tradition we want to continue because I always wore tartan at Christmas too!

Phoebe’s Birthday is in December so I wanted to include that in the book and make sure she knows it’s her special day And she’s extra lucky because her Elves bring her an extra special present on her birthday as well as from Mummy and Daddy!

We are making it a tradition each year to see Santa! We saw him with his reigndeer last year! We are hoping to have breakfast with him this year!

I wanted to include our Weymouth Christmas scenes which I had painted on my plates. It’s Santa flying over Weymouth Habour. I’ve included lots of tiny details like I’ve made the purple shop My Christmas Emporium because one day that’s the dream to own my own shop for all year round. There’s a women at the front window looking in. My old turquoise car is included because we tried to get many a tree into it so that was definitely a little inside joke as I always forgot how small the car was! There’s a couple pushing a pram which is meant to represent me and Sam with Phoebe. There’s the girl with the sleigh full of presents with her too dogs and a hot chocolate stand and someone building a snowman too! The Christmas tree is meant to be our big town Christmas tree, all the houses have wreaths and trees and some have garlands with red bows. I made it snowy because I love snow and the Santa and his reigndeer flying over Weymouth. You can also see a tiny Sammy the seal too!

All the days a crossed of on the calendar and it’s Christmas Eve Phoebe’s looking in to her Christmas Eve box with her jinglely reindeer antlers and lots of presents including new pjs, her Christmas book and a cup for hot chocolate! You can see our stockings are hung by the fire and we are ready for Christmas!

This is Phoebe’s Elves celebrating Christmas Day. Last year we left a Santa boot glass full of milk, Phoebe‘s special Christmas plate she made with her hands and feet, cookies and carrots and Santa’s snowy foot prints too! The presents show her dolls house and her big tall doll in the giant tablerone shaped present. I also included her p stocking and Santa Sack!

Santa and his elves are back at the North Pole and the Elves are having a disco! there’s a tiny sign showing Santa’s gone on holiday! He will be back next year!

I’m proud I’ve created this book for Phoebe and I hope she will love it!

I want to do more books for her so watch this space!!

byeeeeee Festive Friends XX