I'm so rock'n'roll

Start with an empty tin - one that's originally contained the impossibly-named cheese Gybna Baida works well (and the cheese itself, a feta-esque fair, is very good value for money). Please wash and dry the tin properly before setting out to do anything else. You will also want to have scissors, glue, and some rough, grainy paper.

You'll also need pictures. Print out your own favourites from your flickrdom, but be prepared to spend forever looking through your old stuff and getting momentary maudlin attacks. If you don't have a flickrdom, curse lustily and blame yourself for this thoughtless oversight.

Spend an evening trimming strips of paper to glue onto the tin. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Spend more time trimming your pictures to fit the tins. Glue the pictures onto the tin(s), too.

Make sure to photograph some key steps of your efforts.

Be totally pleased with the unique little biscuit tins you've created, even though the size of the paper strips and pictures is by no means exact and perfect, and there will certainly be the odd gluey bulge here and there. This only adds to the hand-madedness of the things. Congratulate yourself super smugly not only on having made your nearests and dearests Christmas presents, which have cost you practically nothing at all but your time, but also because describing the process provides you with a blog post for your daily blogging effort, which has also cost you practically nothing at all but your time. Reward yourself with a ciggie on the balcony. Feel less self-congratulatory about the fact that it is your twelfth and hence the last-but-one you are allowed tonight.

Decide firmly that you will varnish the tins tonight. No, tomorrow morning. Honest. Just write the blog post for now.

Discover that blogger refuses to upload the pictures illustrating some key steps of your biscuit-tin efforts. Feel cheated and decide to post now and amend with photos (and comment replies) later.

Go to watch Dr Zhivago, part 9 of 11 (it is a Russian effort and for your money, you prefer it beyond measure to the book, which you think is the totally terriblest Russian "great" you have ever made yourself wade through). Keep reminding yourself you'll need to remember to bake some biscuits to put in the biscuit tins. You'll need the reminding.