It is Christmas Around the House

 

     You may remember the wreath I made for Halloween using ribbon. I wanted to see how it translated into a Christmas wreath and it was a fun project. A girlfriend came over and we had a craft day. She used burgundy and gold ribbons and it was really interesting to see how mine turned out whimsical and fun, while hers was elegant and classy. You can find the tutorial to make a ribbon wreath here. Use a variety of ribbon colors and textures for whatever holiday you are doing. I added two of my Annalee dolls for a little more fun.

 

Around the rest of the house...

 

 

A snowman tucked into my

twig wreath in the kitchen.

 

This year red is the color in my house,

 along with several snowmen and

quite a bit of "sparkle"!

 

 

 

Little hints of color to brighten the kitchen.

 

     One of my few new purchases, this sweet little wooden plaque with glittered stockings. I found this in St. Charles, MO for only $7.99 and it had to come home with me.

 

Snowballs in a bread bowl?

 

 

 

 

I think this is my favorite spot in the house this year.

 

 

     You can't have a Disney daughter without adding a bit of Disney Magic to the house. How many other women my age got Sven from the movie Frozen for their birthday?

 

Are you seeing a pattern?

Snow people, wildlife, red, silver and green.

 

     This sweet little snowman was another St. Charles purchase. I got him in a gallery, he is made of recycled products and this one is called Snowman Praying. Love.

 

     The hallway and guest bath have a bit of snow and also kept some seashells. The ornaments on the candlesticks are made of shells and if you look closely, you will see the starfish in the picture above. I love mixing all sorts of things around my house. There are no rules, just love the things you use!

 

 

     What I really wanted was a gorgeous holiday quilt set from Pottery Barn, what I got was my grandmother's Christmas quilt across the bottom of a plain white quilt. Much more practical and yet it still adds just a hint of Christmas to our bedroom. Just a little hint of holiday color can really make your house festive.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed your tour.

Come back soon!

 

 

     I was asked yesterday if I would review what looks to me to be a great gadget. I turn down a lot of requests to try merchandise, but this was something I would buy for myself if I had known it existed. I wanted to mention it here before I even get mine because I know many of you are still Christmas shopping and this looks like a great gift idea for almost everyone. The Powerocks Magicstick is a portable battery that keeps your cell phone powered on-the-go. You charge this colorful gadget with the included USB cable and then it fits in your purse (or pocket), and you can re-charge your phone while you are walking around the mall, or any other event. I can't wait for mine to get here so I can try it. I can't tell you how many times I am shopping for the day and my phone is down to almost no charge. I will be doing a review as soon as I get mine and try it out.

 

 

Tree 2013 and Topper Tutorial

 

     Of all my posts since I started blogging, the two most popular are my tutorials on making a tree topper and tying a bow. You can find both on my sidebar. I took a little blogging break (unplanned) but I didn't take a break from decorating for Christmas! When I started getting messages asking me where the tree topper for this year was, I decided the break was over. I actually liked my tree decorations last year so much, for the first time I considered using the same theme two years in a row. I did repeat some of my decorations, but I did use ornaments this year along with lots of red, polka dots and bright green.

 

     I found these fun red, green and polka dot balls and used them as the starting point for my topper. They look a little alien to me, but happy.

 

 

Red glittered twigs make the next layer.

 

Another layer, this time with green sticks.

 

     The bunches of sparkling green leaves are added to fill in the front of the topper and are placed slightly lower than the other "ingredients". At this point, using a fine wire, tightly wrap all of the layers together leaving long tails of wire on each side. Don't worry if things seem too close together, once it is on the tree you can pull and adjust the spray of twigs and leaves. Wire the topper to the top of your tree and then add your bows. Just a reminder from past tutorials, many people only put one bow on the top of their tree at the base of the tree topper. I always use 3 or 4 bows (this year I used 3). Tie the bows about the same size and wire them evenly around the top of the tree. It makes your topper much prettier from all sides.

 

 

 

     I used ornaments in green and red/white stripes along with redbirds, ice crystal covered twigs and some wispy green roping that I cut into pieces and layered around the tree for texture.

 

 

     Of course I think a tree is prettiest in the dark, but the picture below shows it in the daylight. I was happy to find polka dot wrapping paper and ribbon too.

 

 

     I don't know about the rest of you, but it certainly feels like Christmas is coming quickly this year. My shopping is done and my packages are wrapped, so I feel like I can breathe a little bit now.

 

     Thank you to those of you who worried about me. We were very lucky when the tornadoes hit our area a couple of weeks ago. The closest was about 20 miles away and we certainly were hiding in our basement. We lost our big Bradford Pear tree in the front yard and had enough roof damage that the roof has to be replaced. I have been dealing with insurance, tree cutters and adjusters and we are still in the process of trying to get things done. So many others in Illinois lost their homes and loved ones that we feel very blessed to only need a roof.

 

     I am anxious to see all of your decorations. Thanks for visiting!

 

I am joining Kim @ Savvy Southern Style for

Wow Us Wednesdays



Cookie Time!

 

     Back in the days of children at home, neighbors that exchanged gifts and a busy social calendar around the holidays, cookie baking was a big deal at my house. It was not unusual for me to make 10 or 12 different kinds of cookies and dozens of each kind. These days, the house is quiet around the holidays, neighbors don't "neighbor" the way they did in our old home town and the kids aren't here. My husband would rather eat Little Debbie Oatmeal things (fake-icky) than homemade and I would be in big trouble, eating my way through everything! I still make sugar cookies that my husband likes and a candy that is my daughter's favorite (recipe coming in a later post).

 

     I made these cookies last year and simply linked the recipe. This year, I thought I would actually show you the process. I have made several sugar cookie recipes over the years and we have decided these are our favorite. The recipe makes a huge batch and while this year I actually rolled them out and used cookie cutters, last year I rolled them into balls and slightly flattened them before baking. It is much faster that way. If you have ever had Cheryl's Cookies (mail-order), these taste very similar. They are soft, not overly sweet and have an excellent flavor.

 

NOTE-One batch of frosting doesn't quite make enough for all the cookies. We don't mind having a few without frosting, so I just make one batch. If you want to frost all the cookies...double the frosting recipe.

 

Ingredients:

6 egg yolks

4 whole eggs

2 cups real butter (soften to room temperature)

2 1/2 cups sugar

7 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

 

Frosting:

1 pound powdered sugar

1/2 c. butter (soften to room temperature)

1-2 T. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

 

 

 

 

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth.

 

 

     I like to put my eggs (the 6 yolks and the 4 whole eggs) into a glass or measuring cup before I start the mixing process. It makes it easy to add them to the butter/sugar mixture. After the butter and sugar are smooth, add in the eggs, one at a time and blend until smooth.

 

     In a separate bowl, place the flour, salt and baking powder. Slowly stir (first by hand and then with mixer) the dry ingredients into the sugar/butter/egg mixture. You can see above how yellow the wet ingredients are from all those egg yolks.

     You will end up with a large bowl of slightly stiff batter which you should chill for one hour before forming into cookies.

 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

 

     After an hour, take part of the batter and form into a ball. On a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thick and cut your shapes with cookie cutters. You can also just take the chilled dough and roll it into tablespoon sized balls at this stage and flatten them before baking. Bake on greased cookie sheets (I lightly ran the butter wrappers over my cookie sheets) for 8-10 minutes. You do not want them to brown around the edges. Allow to cool on cookie sheets for 5 minutes before moving to racks to cool completely.

 

     For the frosting; blend softened butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk with a mixer until smooth. You want the frosting to be smooth and spreadable, but still somewhat thick. Add milk very slowly until you get the texture you want. At this point, you can separate the frosting into small bowls if you want to color it a variety of colors. I wanted most of the cookies to be simple since I have to transport them to Florida. I cut most of mine with a biscuit cutter and frosted them with white frosting and added sugar/sprinkles.

 

 

     I tinted a little bit of the icing blue and cut out a few large snowflake cookies, topped with snowflake sprinkles. They really looked like snowflakes before I frosted them...now, they look a little bit like crabs!

 

 

Nothing says Christmas like the smell of cookies baking. 

 

 

 

Christmas Theme Preview and a Chris Mann "Roads" Review

    I was recently contacted by One2One Network to do a review on Chris Mann's new album, Roads. My answer was an easy YES! You see I had been following Chris Mann since watching him on The Voice last season. He came in 4th place, but he could have easily been the winner.

    What I loved about Chris is that while he is trained in opera, graduating from Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music in 2004, with a degree in vocal performance, he has the ability to also look and sound like a pop star. The only person that I can think of that has that same ability is Josh Groban, they both are what I guess I would call "cool opera" and are able to blend the two genres into something amazing.

     Roads is an eclectic mix of songs, ranging from Willie Nelson's Always on My Mind and Lady Antebellum's Need You Now to Ava Maria. Chris also co-wrote two of the songs on the album.

     My feelings about the album are a bit mixed, but it certainly has nothing to do with the amazing voice of Chris Mann. Every song he sings is perfection. I personally am not crazy about a couple of the cover songs (My Way, Always on My Mind) so as I listened to the CD, I found myself thinking, "I love this" and then, "oh, I never liked that song". My favorites are The Blower's Daughter which he sings with Christina Aguilera and Falling (which he co-wrote). It is truly a beautiful album by a man with a beautiful voice. You can listen to The Blower's Daughter by clicking here.

Playlist

Roads
Need You Now
Cuore
The Blower's Daughter Feat. Christina Aguilera
My Way
Unless You Mean It
Always On My Mind
On A Night Like This
Ave Maria
Falling
Viva La Vida 

Now, for a little bit of Christmas is Coming!

 

     I think most of you know by now that I like to "theme" my decorations each year. Yes, I was a good mother and always had a tree with the kid's handmade ornaments and their favorites, but now that they aren't here for Christmas (and neither are we) I go with whatever strikes me that year. Believe me, I don't have to add much to what I already have to change themes. I thought I'd share the trees from the years I've been blogging. My tutorial on making a tree topper is on my sidebar and it has the most views of all of my posts.

 

 

 

     Last year, the vintage tinsel tree with blues, turquoises, hot pink and peacocks! It was a fun one to play with and required almost no lights on the tree.

 

 

 

     2010, the tree and the house were done in silvers and golds...I always think this is the most elegant combination and the easiest to do.

 

  

 

     In 2009, I went with bronze, chocolate brown and hints of turquoise. It was really different, but I loved the look.

 

 

     So, just a sneak peek at what is happening around here this year. I'm not feeling all glitzy and glamerous...I'm feeling a bit nostalgic and wintery. I also have decided to make it easy on myself this year so that I have time to roast a few chestnuts and have a cup of cocoa in front of the fireplace. More to come, after Thanksgiving.