Christmas Tour

Welcome to our Chritmasy home...

All lit up and so festive.

Don't you love that fluffy garland?

Daytime view (oops... cord...ha!)

A wreath on each window

(purchased 9 of these 30" babies last year for each window 75% off at WalMart $2.50 each)

I love our little Santa near our front porch

Our mailbox and Christmas flag

Now, come on inside and grab some cider and smell the cinnamon... ha.. que this Christmas music...

Dining Room table

Dining room tree. I am thinking next year I want a tall skinny one and use this one for Christmas cards.

The ornaments I made from the old music sheets. I LOVE these!

Sign by the front door

I hung a cranberry wreath on the window near the tree and one on the back door

Our tree.. (cords again...ha... oops)

Cozy chair near the tree

stockings on the mantle

The garland is so fat I could not fit anything else on the mantle. It looks better in person. My mantle never photographs well... ha. I have lanterns with red ornaments on the hearth, however, at this time, they have been borrowed for a party. HA or I would have a picture of them.

Christmas plates in the kitchen corner

Window above the sink

towel and rug

Coffee bar

I used a plate and put the napkins on top

our kitchen table

LOVE this sign

above the china cabinet in the kitchen. I got the topiary last year for $6 and the lanterns are filled with vintage glass ornaments

powder bath. There is also a small tree on the floor.

love the soap dispenser

Isn't this pillow so cute?

That's pretty much it! Hope you enjoyed it!

PS-I know I wanted to do a burlap theme this year but time ran out and I had some trouble finding ornaments and such. I am thinking for sure next year. I have already made a few purchases and want to make some things for next year. Time got away from me this year, where did this year go?

White House Christmas

I always look forward to watching The White House Christmas on HGTV. I recorded it the other night and finally got to watch it. It was so good. All the fresh fruit and greenery is wonderful ( I don't even wanna know how much money all that costs)   And the wreaths and garland are so beautiful. I just love it! It takes months of preparation and hours of work to put the whole thing together, it is definitely worth watching to get some ideas and see how it all comes together. Here are a few pictures...

The famous gingerbread White House

love the garland and the wreaths hung by natural ribbon!

The Green Room

The Red Room (of course)

I love the wreaths and red ribbon on the large windows.

Is it no fabulous? I think it would be neat to volunteer to decorate there wouldn't it?

There are still some more options to watch, go to the website. If you haven't seen it this year, you are missing out on some great ideas and gorgeous trees, garland, wreaths, lights etc.

My Sisters Birthday

Happy 23rd Birthday to my lil Sis!

I got one of these for my sister for her birthday, it is small but it was only $3 (1/2 off at Hobby Lobby of course). I love the verse, I am thinking about getting a few more of these for gifts, and one for myself.

I also made her a photo book from Shutterfly, which turned out really good. I used pictures of her engagement pictures, wedding showers, bachelorette, bridal portraits, wedding and honeymoon. Here is a peek...

I knew that she would have a wedding album so I wanted to include the other events. I made it a few months ago when I had a coupon for a FREE photo book! SCORE... so all I paid was shipping. It takes a lot of time and you have to patient but it is a wonderful way to save your memories.

I made a few for myself way back when. One for our "Hawaii-Moon" (as we called it) and one of our first year of being married.

I gave her her gift on Friday night. She and her Hubs came over and we had Taco Soup and watched Home Alone. Fun times!

We spent yesterday celebrating with our family and the girls had a baking day! Yummy!

We made some delicious Thumbprint Cookies. These are my favorites!

     Thumbprint Recipe

2 sticks (1 c.) butter

1 c. sugar

2 eggs, separated

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 c. finely chopped pecans

Tinted icing

Cream butter and sugar with egg yolks until fluffy. Stir in vanilla. Add flour, pecans and salt; mix well.

Roll dough into 1" balls,  Place on greased cookie sheets and make a thumbprint in each. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until done. Cool.

Fill thumbprint indentation in each cookie with tinted icing.

TINTED ICING

2 c. confectioners' sugar
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2-3 tbsp. water
Few drops food coloring, as desired

Not at all a great picture but here we are... baking away! We made baked apples, fudge, chess bars and the cookies.

Here are the pictures from the CRAZY Christmas light house we went to see after the Nutcracker...

One more thing..... that has nothing to do with this post....

I scored this platter at Goodwill for $1.50. Another find for my plate wall! I actually really like it, it is crackled some and has dark spots but it is perfect for my plate wall. YAY!!

I Finally Made Something I Found On Pinterest

I have been on a HUGE Pinterest (my Pinterest boads) kick lately. I decided to actually make a few things I found on there. Go figure!

The first thing  I made was some home-made sugar scrub to give as little gifties. Here is the Blog I used to make it.

What you'll need for the sugar scrub:

- mixing bowl and spoon

- 3 cups white sugar

- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp. good quality oil (I used olive oil, but you can use any nice, non-smelly oil)

- 10 drops of yummy-scented essential oil per jar (I went with lavender)

Combine your sugar and oil, mix it up well, and divide into separate bowls (if you're planning to flavor them separately). Add your essential oil, stir, and divide among your jars. 

Done! Easy peasy

Here is how mine turned out. I decided to buy stickers and put their initial on the front and tie ribbon on the jar. So easy and so cute!

I think they turned out pretty good!

Then, I also decided to make these delicious crackers!

Crack-tastic Crackers

1 – 1 1/4 cup canola oil (you decide how much you want to use)

1 packet Ranch dressing mix

2-3 Tbs. red pepper flakes (I used close to 3…a little warm)

4 sleeves of Saltine crackers (give or take…however many you can fit in your mixing bowl)

1) Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl for a good long while (5-10 minutes), to really get the crackers coated. Eat a few if you want.

2) Lay them out on a cookie sheet and drizzle the yummy, ranchy, peppery oil that’s in the bottom of the bowl, over the top of the crackers.  Bake at 250 degrees for 15-20 minutes, stirring them around about halfway through

Let them cool in a bag for 24 hours. Serve

Yummy!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Christmas time is in full swing and I am loving it all! Our house is all decked out with Christmas lights, wreaths and bows on every window, my new garland around the front door and of course, the inside too! I will have to share pictures soon.

 So far I have helped put up 7 trees and have NOT STOPPED listening to Christmas music (my poor husband thinks he is married to an Elf)... do you not just love Nat King Cole "The Christmas Song"? And my new favorite...

I am a HUGE fan and this CD is so great! He has another Christmas CD I have but it only has 5 songs on it. This one is much better, if you haven't listened to it... what are you waiting for? He also had a Christmas Special the other night which was good too!

My shopping is almost all done. I am even getting a little crafty with some of my gifts, which hopefully I will make today and share a little later. Today is my catch up day!

I am loving all the Christmas movies. So far I have seen quite a few of them but have a lot more left to watch.

 I can't wait to watch my favorites...

This has become a classic at our house, I LOVE it!

Makes me cry every time!

Hilarious movie, we quote it all year long! HA! SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Mother and I got to go to the Chattanooga Ballet last night to see the Nutcracker. I have always loved it and was in it 3 years in a row when I was a little girl, it brought back so many memories!

The snowflakes!

We also went by and saw the Electric Company's Christmas window display, so neat, it was almost like being in NYC.

We also drove by a house that has the craziest Christmas lights and decor I have ever seen! He lights the whole thing up and fills up the yard with blow ups and all kinds of things. We go every year and there is always a line to see it. The sweet man was outside talking to all the people and told is he has been doing it for 30 years. WOW! Talk about an electric bill...HA!

What a fun, Christmasy night!

Ladies Christmas Tea

This past Friday and Saturday night was the Ladies Christmas Tea at our church. This year, the tea was a lot different then previous years so the theme "The Change" was very fitting and everything was great! My SIL sang a beautiful song and my very talented MIL did some of the speaking. 160 ladies accepted Christ, how awesome is that?

I was mainly in charge of the dessert tables... yummy. And I helped decorate the stage a little bit too...

The stage looks so Christmasy! It is a little hard to tell but we had almost a living room set up with 2 couches, and a few tables with black and white lanterns on them.

These 2 lovely ladies were part of a hilarious skit at the beginning and end of the program! HA

In previous years, ladies had tables and a sit down meal. This year, the tea started in a large tent outside and had the program inside the renovated sanctuary. The tent was beautiful with lanterns, lit trees and wreaths. All of the tables had black linens with black and white damask overlay and lanterns as the center pieces on hi-top cocktail tables. The ladies first stop in the tent was cheese and crackers, then soup, cider and on to the dessert table.  Where we had cake pops, cheese cake bites and thumb print cookies.

Here are a few pictures of the dessert tables....

It looked so festive all lit up!

What an awesome 2 nights that I was blessed to be a part of.