Christmas dump, part 5... blueberry breakfast cake

oh, Pinterest!  how you inspire me with recipes and projects!

I made this for breakfast on Christmas morn.

it was gone very quickly.

I think my family liked it.

Christmas dump, part 4... creative wrapping

I couldn't help myself.  I just had to hot glue buttons onto my gifts this year!

Christmas dump, part 3... green velvet whoopies

my sister-in-law (not you, Deborah) was calling them Grinch pies as my nephew was downing them Christmas day.  All I did was replace red food coloring with green... maybe something to think about in March???

"my poop was green today from your whoopie pies." - Katherine, my niece

Christmas dump, part 2... DIY sparkle letters

I love handmade gifts.  I love giving them and receiving them.  Here's what I did for my nieces this year...

I came across these chipboard letters at the craft store so I painted them with acrylic paint.

easy peasy.

then a little mod podge and glitter.

I love sparkles!

added a felt flower and some ribbon to the back!

ready to hang on 2 little girl walls!

Christmas dump, part 1... elf doughnuts

I hope you had a super fantastic holiday!

This week I'm posting my Christmas projects that I finished up last week and didn't blog about.

I can't say this was my idea... this has been floating around Pinterest throughout the holiday season.

I thought that since I was spending Christmas with the nieces, it would be a fun project to do (and it was fast, too!)

Cheerios, powdered sugar, candy melts, and sprinkles!

powdered doughnut.

green sprinkles!

setting up for the elves to go back home.

yum yum!!

Oscar loves wreaths

He just loves Christmas time. He can't get enough.

send me an angel... right. now.

so at our little shindig the other day, I decided to give these a go.  

inspired by this pin.

cream cheese + peppermint extract + powdered sugar + powdered sugar + powdered sugar + just a little more powdered sugar = these little angels

don't you love my heavenly effect?

DIY Christmas dishtowel

I got crafty last week and decided to put some fabric flowers on a dish towel.

(for fabric flower tutorial, click here.)

so I picked up some scraps of red, green and yellow and made fabric flowers (minus the hot glued buttons)

figured out how I wanted the flowers on the towel and then pinned them in their spot.

sewed buttons on.

this keeps the flowers in place.

you have to make sure that you catch the fabric on your needle so be sure that your flower middles aren't too large (or buttons too small!!)

and done.

something that can be easily done while watching episodes of Intervention you've DVR'ed.

it's a really good show.

partay!

we had a little Christmas get together this weekend.

we served a few treats...

simmered some wassail (I also made eggnog from scratch, not pictured)...

handy John hung up my handmade snowflakes...

we put out fresh flowers (time for the cats to throw up everywhere!)...

and Oscar enjoyed some new laps.

Happy Holidays!!!

my Christmas wreath

feliz navidad!

Christmas bird

I love having an embroidery machine.  It saves me a lot of time and money when I need something done.  Here's a little something I threw together last night in an attempt to make my kitchen a little more Christmasy...

oscar loves Christmas lights!!

our first Christmas.

So Thanksgiving came and went and it was a glorious feast... now I need to run 100 miles this week to make up for all the junk I ate.

My brother's mother-in-law gave us an "our first Christmas" ornament this weekend and it was so nice.  I was excited because I wanted to have one to hang on our tree... when I pulled it out of my suitcase to show the mister, it fell off of the hook and shattered.  Sad day!!

So I decided to throw together an ornament for us to have on our tree.  We happened to have some clear balls (ornament balls, sickos!) and some old programs from our wedding.  So I cut up a program (minus the front piece with the birds and the date) and stuffed the ball with the cut up program.

it was a fast project... and sentimental!  Can't beat it!

DIY burlap stockings

too soon???

nahhh.

I decided to hand embroider names on the stockings... 

you know, just to be more difficult and time consuming.

I found a pretty font, printed everybody's name and traced it with a pencil on fabric.

It's not too difficult to make your own template for a stocking.  So I got 3 pieces of card stock, taped them together, drew a big fat stocking and cut. it. out.

hand embroidery time!

using the template, I cute out 8 pieces of burlap and 8 pieces of lining

using pinking shears, I cut squares of the names I embroidered 

I sewed the names on the unfinished stockings, then sewed the stocking together inside out, turned it right side out, put a ribbon on it and...

aw.

aren't we a cute family of stockings!

light tent

I got a new camera for Christmas.  It is really nice and I'm really excited about it.  I can now try to take even better pictures of the things that I make.  Today, I made a light tent to use as a background for my items.  Here are some pictures of it...

the box with a light.

David puts a scrabble tile in the box.

still working on making the lighting perfect, but not to shabby.

I hope everyone and anyone who reads my blog had a great Christmas or whatever other holiday you may celebrate!!!

Saturday night's all right for playin'

David was asked to play a Christmas song for a small show in town Saturday night, so we put together a little somethin' and played.  David was on the bass guitar and lead vocals while I played keys and his regular drummer Landon drummed and sang as well.

This is the clearest picture I have of us... with random Emily's head at the bottom.

Merry Christmas!  I hope to blog again before Christmas actually happens.