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Sixth Day of ubu Christmas: Our Homemade Present Competition
This year people served by ubu decided that they wanted to join in the festive fun by having 15 days of crafting competitions leading up to Christmas. Each day has its own special theme. So far we have had some amazing entries for our competitions and today has been no exception.
This is the sixth day of our Christmas competitions. We asked the people we serve to share with us the homemade Christmas presents they have been making for their friends and family.
We were thrilled and inspired by all the effort and enthusiasm that has gone into the making of these unique gifts. Everyone who joined in the competition and all of those who have helped and supported the people we serve have made this a really special event.

Allison lives with greater independence in Newcastle, enabled and supported by ubu. She has made a Christmas stocking, a gift for one of her family members, in her arts and crafts class. Alison goes to her class almost every week and she really enjoys meeting her friends there. Alison has a lot of fun designing crafted items, and has built up a whole range of valuable skills. The Christmas sparkle contest has given her an opportunity to make something special and also to use some of the techniques she has learned in her classes.

Ann-Louise, Emma, Gemma and Paige who live in together in Blackpool, enabled by ubu, have been very busy making gifts this Christmas. A range of brilliant homemade presents have come out of the crafting sessions they have enjoyed together.
Using salt, flour and water, they were able to make some fabulous salt dough ornaments. They crafted a Santa, angels, Christmas tree and snowmen. They all had a great time painting the decorations ready to give to loved ones as gifts on Christmas Day.

Here is an amazing, decorative Christmas gift made by Charlotte who lives in Spalding. Charlotte decided to make a Christmas table centrepiece as a present for her father this year. It was crafted with a wicker basket, cake frill, tinsel, fir cones, holy and mistletoe. The table decoration has been finished off with a beautiful red candle which could be lit to celebrate the Christmas meal.

Meanwhile in Louth, Emma has been busy creating a superb reindeer pillow. It was only a few months ago that Emma decided to try taking up a sewing class. What a fantastic result! Emma has learnt some valuable new skills and is having lots of fun too, meeting new people and getting more and more creative. She is really excited about giving this beautiful pillow as a gift to her niece this Christmas.
Angela from Middlesbrough has designed a brilliant and unique calendar which has glitter, sparkles and stars. Angela is really looking forward to giving this to her mother on Christmas Day.

It was certainly hard to choose a winner as every entry was fantastic. But once we saw Roy from Harrogate’s decorative mug we knew we had found a special gift. Roy created this colourful, hand-painted cup for his flatmate Anthony as a Christmas present. It is always nice to receive a present at Christmas but it can feel even better when it has been made especially for you. Roy says “I really enjoyed painting it and I can’t wait to see Anthony drinking a nice warm cup tea on Christmas Day from it!”