Make your own: Christmas Eve Plate for Santa & Rudolph

I'm not going to lie, I've been buying bits of Christmas presents for my little boy since about September. Nothing major, just stuff like a monkey ball fire-er, some wooden trucks (Aldi you beaut!) and a foam sword. He'll only be 11months at Christmas so I don't feel the need to buy him a motorised convertible Range Rover Evoque just yet. I currently have my eye on a new foam ball pit and my Mum is going to help me make him a ti-pi. I think he'll be happy with that!

Apart from a few snazzy in-expensive presents, I also want to start some Christmas traditions that we can do together for years to come. Again, I am a serial maker, so when surfing the beautiful (but sometimes quite unrealistic) waves of Pinterest I came across several tutorials for making your own Christmas Eve plate that you leave out for Santa & Rudolph with a carrot, biscuit and milk/brandy on, those dudes need refreshments, they are delivering presents all night! In the tutorials I had found, the plates had been hand drawn with permanent marker Sharpies then baked in the oven. 

After doing a bit of research I decided to do my own. I popped down to The Range and picked up a small white plate, small glass milk bottle and a random pack of permanent markers all for under a fiver. 

Firstly, I drew around the plate on a piece of paper and marked out where I wanted the words 'To Santa & Rudolph, love from Fynn' and where I was going to stand the milk bottle. I then turned the plate upside down and drew my initials just to have a practise writing on the ceramic with the marker pen, once I felt confident I began! 

I used a pencil to roughly mark out where I wanted what, then I drew the first coat, I let this dry for a few hours then went over the top to make it darker and added little dots to the ends of the letters. In the middle of the plate I 'dotted' some areas where Santa's milk and biscuit will go and also where Ru's carrot will be placed. 

Once I had completed my design, I left it to air dry for about 24 hours. The day after I pre-heated the oven to 170 degrees and put the plate in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes. I then turned the oven off and left the plate in the oven until it had cooled - if you get it out before it's cooled it will smudge! 

Bingo! All done and so cheap and cheerful! I stuck to black and white, but you can get some fab colours of sharpies from WHSmith and just go crazy*

*remember kids and permanent markers don't mix well! Enjoy getting creative!!  

Love, Jess :)