Noel Wreath

This year my Christmas decorating is being done in bits and pieces. Since my attention is often elsewhere...

 ...I'm finding it a little more difficult to get things done. And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way! 

  One of my little Christmas projects was to spice up one of my plain faux wreaths that I had purchased years ago. I found this picture on Pinterest and fell in love with the wreath:

via

 
I got out my Cricut and cut out four shapes out of card stock. I then cut out the words on black card stock. I glued them onto the shapes (You can see the glue as it's drying. I like to keep it real folks!).

I traced around the shapes with pencil and then a black sharpie.

I poked two holes through each shape and threaded some hemp through each shape. 

It was then ready for the wreath. I just wrapped the hemp around two branches of the wreath. 

It was so simple! I like that it is easy to take off and change if I decide to do something different next Christmas. 

 I looped a piece of white ribbon around the top of the wreath and hung it in the front window of our living room.  

Festive! Easy! The best type of Christmas craft when you don't have a lot of time. :) 

 Tomorrow we're going to have a guest blogger highlighting her beautiful Christmas tree! Check back tomorrow to see who it is!  




I'm linking up this post to a Very Merry Vintage Style. It's Share the Love Wednesday! 

 

A Different Kind of Pie

It all started with Pinterest. One late night, perusing the recipe section for that snack that I could make in a matter of minutes to satisfy my hunger. I scrolled down the page and then I found it.

via www.blueeyedbakers.com

The ramekin, the dough... the oven. All the elements to make one delicious treat. The baked cookie pie. At the sound of the name trumpets sounded, the fountains started to shoot off in a beautiful display, and fireworks exploded... too far? 


All I know is that this little cookie pie changed the way I look at cookie dough. Never again will I attempt to just make cookies after I mix the ingredients together, instead I will squish the yummy dough into a ramekin and fill it 3/4 full, and bake for 13-16 minutes in the oven at 375 degrees. And once the dough is cooked, but not fully cooked (do not confuse the two), will I be able to take the ice cream out of the freezer and scoop one two scoops onto the top of the cookie pie. Then I can sit down and enjoy this treat with a hot cup of tea. Yum. 

via www.blueeyedbakers.com

I have made the baked cookie pies a number of times already, maybe too many... But every time I make them, it seems that Heidi is not too far behind the dinging sound of the timer on the oven. Though it is fun to enjoy this treat with a friend, and since my husband does not enjoy hot cookies (don't even get me started), I usually end up eating these alone while he snacks on the uncooked leftover dough... We are a match made in heaven. 


Here is the recipe I use from blueeyedbakers:


1 stick unsalted butter, cold & cubed 

1 stick margarine, cold & cubed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semisweet chocolate, chopped or chips
1 cup milk chocolate, chopped or chips

In the bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until well incorporated.

Into the bowl, add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips/chunks.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Fill ramekins 3/4" deep with raw, room temperature cookie dough. Set ramekins on baking sheet and bake in the middle rack of the oven for 13-16 minutes, or until the top is just slightly golden brown. You're aiming for slightly undercooked cookies. 

Eat these straight out of the oven!

Enjoy these baked cookie pies with family and friends over the holidays. They are sure to be a hit! Also, today we are linking up Heidi's Merry Mantle post from a few days ago to this blog here. So check it out for more ideas on how you can decorate your fireplace mantle for the Christmas holidays!  

Inspiration!

So instead of decorating for Christmas, I've been pinning some inspiration. Once my craft supplies are let loose out of their plastic wrap prison, I'll be decorating like a madwoman. Hopefully my basement is on its way to being finished and actually (hopefully?) done by Christmas.

Here are some of my favourite DIY Christmas pins:


        

                                                                          Source: vintagejunky.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                                 Source: bhg.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                        Source: meandalice.blogspot.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                          Source: theyellowcapecod.com via Melody on Pinterest

                                                                        Source: lucydesignsonline.com via Melody on Pinterest

What great Christmas crafting and decorating have you been up to? Do you do a mostly "homemade" Christmas? 

Starting Over

So I struggled a little bit with what to write today. It's not that I haven't been in the mood to craft or haven't had the time, it's more that I don't have access to any of my crafting things or a space in which to do them. On Tuesday night, my husband and I came home from a date to find that our entire basement was under two inches of water from the extreme amount of rain that we had had. It really wasn't the perfect ending to the date. Instead of us putting the girls into bed and settling down to read the books we had bought, we ended up calling my parents frantically trying to get some help so that we could empty our basement as fast as possible including what is our family room, our storage room and my craft room/office. On Wednesday, we went back downstairs to assess the damage and figured that we would have to put everything through our insurance. For both of Thursday and Friday, contractors and clean-up crews were here tearing everything they could out of the basement and putting some industrial fans down there.

So that brings me to my post. I would love to be downstairs making beautiful things and decorating my house for Christmas but I simply can't. It's actually quite funny. I can see everything in my craft room but they have it all pretty much wrapped in plastic and I can't get to any of it. The rest of my house is a disaster as well and I'm missing things because they're under of piles of things that should be in our storage room.

On the bright side, no one was hurt with the flood. None of our actually important documents or things were ruined including our electronics. And, as a bonus, I get to redecorate our basement which was on our list of things to do for the winter. The flood just hurried us up a little bit. So for the next few days, I might be posting about things that we're picking for our basement. We're already planning on putting wainscotting on the lower half of the walls since they had to tear out that half of the drywall anyways. We're also considering putting ceramic tile instead of carpet down since we were informed by our contractor that this is not the first time that our basement has flooded. I do not want mildew. We'll compensate for the coldness with large area rugs.

This is the one that my husband likes:

http://www.homedepot.ca/product/6-x-6-arno-riverbed-ceramic/953052

Correction: Apparently THIS is the one that he actually liked:

And this is the one that I like but obviously just the style. It would have to be a porcelain look-a-like since I am neither crazy nor rich:

http://www.homedepot.ca/product/12-in-x-12-in-bianco-polished-marble/906371#BVRRWidgetID

Tell me what you think!

Bananas, Bananas, Bananas!

On a soggy December morning, there is nothing better than a fresh warm loaf of banana bread, and a hot cup of tea. Thankfully I had some rotting ripe bananas in my freezer waiting to be cooked into some sort of concoction. So today was the perfect day to try out this recipe I found on Pinterest. 

via fatgirltrappedinaskinnybody.blogspot.com

To be honest, I get very sidetracked while baking, and flustered, and forgetful. I like to get out all the ingredients I will be using in the recipe so I don't lose track of what I did and did not add to the bowl. 

Unfortunately this did not help when making the banana bread today. 

Thankfully the bread still turned out beautifully, and I am happy that I was able to have a fresh snack for my company that was over. 

My niece Bella trying out the banana bread :)

 All in all, I found it was a good recipe to try, and I will definitely be using it again in the future. Also, it will be a good recipe to have on hand for the holiday season ahead for any Christmas brunches I might attend!

Have you found any good recipes lately on Pinterest? Or have you pinned anything that you are dying to make? I find the recipes that I pin usually turn out awesome, and are good ways to spice up our weekly menus!

A Little Bit of Christmas

As I said yesterday, I really love Christmas. I love the anticipation, the search for ideas months before December, Christmas music, my favourite Christmas movies (Muppet's Christmas Carol anyone?), the many delicious smells, watching the snow drift slowly down, getting the Christmas tree, and of course...decorating the house!

  This year I'm especially looking forward to it because it's our little guy's first Christmas! 

(6 months old yesterday! This is going by way too quickly)

  He's not on the move quite yet, so I'm still able to place a few vignette's around the house, but next year they will have to be all up high! 

  On our coffee table is a basket that holds our remotes and my wireless computer mouse. I decided to fill up the decorative bowl (from a garage sale for $.25. Jackpot!) with silver Christmas ornaments and put the mercury tree (which is actually plastic. $3.99. Thank you Value Village.) on top of stacked books. 

I love how the mercury tree looks like the ones that I've been seeing around Pinterest. You know, the expensive ones from Pottery Barn? Love the look, but not the price.

 

 In our living room, we have a bookshelf from IKEA that holds some of my nice white dishes and baskets of cookbooks. On top of the bookshelf, I have my white platter and cake plate from HomeSense. 

 

I put a few silver ornaments underneath the glass dome that I also got from a garage sale. I then tucked two fake Christmas trees from Dollarama in white ceramic jars to add a little height to the back. 

 

Epson salt went into the little glass votive candle holder to make it look "wintery" and I placed a small ornament on top of the pedestal plate. The tall iron pillar candle holders in the back were a present from my sister-in-law. They are the perfect finishing touch to add a little glow to the mix.

   

 I'm linking up today with Courtney from A Thoughtful Place, who is hosting a Christmas vignette showcase from many different bloggers. If you are looking for an idea for a vignette, why don't you check out Courtney's blog? There are some talented ladies out there!

 If you missed it on Tuesday, Faith linked up with Cassie from Hi Sugarplum! with her wine bottle glamour.    

  Happy December 1st!