Christmas Decor - Part Duex

Finally getting around to posting the rest of our holiday decor that we have around the house.

Here's the tree all trimmed out with our family ornaments, we have a mixture of handmade, hand painted balls, and special bought ornaments that have been passed down to us from our mom's and now as little one is getting older and making them at functions they are being added.  I love remembering who they all came from.

Little arrangement on the one end of our tv cabinet.

 

This is on the other end.  The deer and lantern were both yard sale steals - finds & just added some garland I ripped apart that my Gramma didn't want anymore.

 

My father-in-law made this nativity set.  For the past 3 years we've gotten 3 pieces each.  You can't really tell from the pictures, but these pieces are HUGE.  Beautiful but HUGE.  They do come with some lovely glass candle sticks, but we never light them. 

 

Chistmas ball tree that my mom made last year as a present.  Love it! 

 

This little guy my mother-in-law made one year, I think he's so just the cutest! 

 

I love this Santa candle, especially how it looks like ribbon candy with the design. 

 

This is on our bathroom sink, my friend made it last year.  I have a bright green bathroom and this just continues with the bright theme and love all of the colors. 

 

Here's a portion of our decorated wall of shelving.  Many homemade items on here also.

I love pulling out all of these goodies every year, especially the handmade ones.  They mean the most to me and I look forward to being able to pass these down to my girls some day, as some of them have been passed down to me.

DIY - Christmas Gifts

In our families we always make a homemade gift.  Typically, I've done ornaments in the past and occasionally the Hubs will do something with his woodworking.  But this year with the Hubs working his crazy schedule I remembered two DIY gift ideas I'd seen around the Blog-land.

First, I saw earlier this year when Chris @ Just a Girl posted a tutorial - the ever so popular Tile Coasters.  Total cost per gift was $3-4.  You really can't beat that and they are super simple and go quickly!

Here's the materials we got: tiles from our local hardware store, a pack of the 12x12 cork tiles (4 in a package), staz-on ink in brown, package of clear stamps, and the spray sealant.

 Here's the hubs measuring out the size we needed for the bottom of each tile.

Bottom of the tile after the cork was glued on.

The finished product after stamping and the spray sealant.  We decided to have two of each design in each set.  We made 8 sets total.

The second gift I stumbled across were these amazing JOY plaques that I fell in love with instantly.  The tutorial is posted over @ Shanty2Chic. Total cost of this project for me was about $15 per set, I ended up having to order the candlesticks and finials online as my craft stores selection was pretty null.  I didn't take step by step pictures of this project, Hubs and me worked on them a little bit each day and are so pleased with how they turned out.  We made 7 sets of these.  Here's our finished project.

There's still time if you need a simple inexpensive christmas gift for someone.  Go out and get your supplies, they will love recieving something handmade.



And - when you happened onto my page did you notice that little one is entered in a contest?  If you have a moment please go take a gander over @ parenting by dummies and vote.  Little one's #28 in case you won't be able to tell, as her bum is the only thing you see and not her face.

Christmas Decor - Part 1

I have a bunch of photos.  Here are some pictures of the garland I made this year and a rag-garland.  The worse part for me is capturing the glitter that's in the garland, just don't feel like the pictures have the sparkle it does IRL.  Everything including the greens for this garland I got on clearance last year after Christmas!!!  I ended up winding 3 greens together to get it thick enough and then just kept on sticking and wiring in the goodies I had.  Love the green and bronze colors.

Here are some close-up's. 

 

 

Last year my mom made me this button wreath and it needed something added up above, so in a couple hours I whipped together this rag-garland, I have another longer one in the big arch of our living room.  And love the look of our door now. 

 

Cinnamon Dough Ornaments

Last year around the blog-o-sphere I saw tons of great Christmas decor ideas and I knew I wanted to do the cinnamon dough ornaments, after seeing them here and there.  After Christmas last year was walking around Target when there in the automotive section was a lonely red shiny tree with a red glittered bottom for only $2.49.  I was so excited obviously someone had put it down after changing their mind but alls I was thinking was SCORE!  So, it's been sitting on a shelf in my basement ever since.  I dug it out the other day and looked up a recipe and here's what I came up with.

Cinnamon Dough Recipe
Ingredients: 3/4 cup of applesauce (do not use homemade) & 1 cup + 2 tbsp of ground cinnamon
Directions:  Preheat oven 250 degrees, mix ingredients, use cookie cutters for desired shape, use a straw to make a hole for your ribbon/rope, place on cookie sheet, put in oven for 2 1/2 hours, flipping them over occasionally.

Here's my tips:

• This was a very very very wet dough to work with (ok, I wouldn't even call it a dough, it's mush), sprinkle ground cinnamon on surface you plan on rolling it on, sprinkle on top, and coat your rolling pin several times throughout the rolling process.  
• When placing your holes make sure they are far enough down if it's a narrow shape (like snowflake) so there's no cracking.
• Easiest way to transfer these to a cookie sheet, is to coat a spatula with some cinnamon and slide it under your shape, the excess areas will break away.  I started trying to use a knife, but b/c it's mush, it wasn't working very smoothly. 

Here's a picture of them before transfering them to the cookie sheet.

After letting them cook, I broke off any excess little pieces from the sides.  Used some red and white baker's twine I had around and hung them on the tree.  Only disappointment is they are sort-of hard to see on the tree.  But they do smell rather yummy when you walk by.