There are so many of us here now and we certainly are a wide variety of different people with a lot of different ideas and skills. It is these ideas' and skills' that I thought we might be able to share as a community.

When my children were younger we did not have a lot of money and so when birthdays and christmas rolled round I was always scratching to find something for family members that did not cost me an arm and a leg. You can only give photos' as presents so many times, but you can make something useful, tasty or just plain decortative and they can be made over a period of time so that you don't have to panic when that time of year rolls up on your doorstep.

What I would like is for anyone and everyone to contribute their own ideas', it could be a bottle of flavoured oil to cook with or pot pourri baskets, a plate of biscuits, a photo frame or album.

Christmas decorations can be expensive to buy but we can make some of them with little effort and much pleasure and all for a fraction of the cost of store bought items. So if you have an ideas' please throw them in the ring and let others share the joy and knowledge.

All you need to do is tell us how to make it and if you can give us a picture of what our finished product might look like so that we have a guideline to go with.