It’s that time of year, to add a little glitter and sparkle to every surface of your house!  I do love a little glitter, well let’s be honest, I do love a lot of glitter.  There are few occasions in life when “more is more”, but Christmas is truly one of them.  I have just finished getting the basement all decked out for Christmas.  Here is a photo of the fireplace stripped down and ready to get dressed up for Christmas.

I like to have an “everlasting” Christmas tree, with no watering or mess to worry about, and the ability to last a whole month.  I do slightly miss the great smell and richness of a real tree, so I always use real greens on the fireplace mantel.  They do dry out, but they are relatively undisturbed so they don’t usually make too much of a mess.  I do have a couple tips for using real greens.  Be very careful about where you rest them as you work, because the sap can easily get on your new carpet or hardwood floors.  Usually you can’t see it at first, but then as people walk on it, it is so sticky that it collects dirt and looks horrible and is very hard to get rid of –yes I am clearly speaking from experience here!  Also protect your mantel for the same reason.  I usually just use some clear basket wrap, that can’t be seen, but protects the wood from the sap.

Now for the fun part!  I layered greens and added a few turquoise accents to match the room.  I have birch tree wall paper, so I love the addition of the birch bark wreath and tree at Christmas.

The votive holders have battery powered candles, no real flame near all that soon to be dried out greenery.  The fireplace itself was custom made for us by my very talented brother-in-law Shaun, it’s made of concrete and wood.  The other side holds the TV and our stockings.  I made the candle a little more Christmasy with a little faux snow.

This is our cozy family spot during the holidays.  It has the family tree with all the ornaments that the kids have made, and we’ve collected over the years, and from all our vacations.  Santa will leave the presents down here Christmas morning, and we’ll gather here for Christmas movies and relaxing over the holidays.

On the other side of the room is a play room, filled right now with a giant cardboard gingerbread house, check it out here.

Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up at The Girl Creative, Skip To My Lou, Todays Creative Blog, Under the Table and Dreaming, Tatertots and Jello, Blue Cricket Design, and I Heart Naptime.

Maddie felt it was very important that Mommy have a birthday cake.  Although Dad was bringing one home, she felt it wasn’t really a birthday cake unless it was homemade.  So, she took matters into her own little hands.  She went to her supply of cake mixes and got to work!  We purchased a set of great kids baking mixes from Sears, check it out here.  Maddie selected a vanilla cake and vanilla icing.

Maddie put her mix into a bowl, added milk as directed, and stirred the lumps out.

Next, she put it into her heart shaped mini baking pan, and baked at 350 for 10 min. 

Tip:  Instead of using a toy easy-bake oven, which never seems to bake very well, use your toaster oven.  It still looks mini and toy-like, but cooks evenly.  Of course it gets hot so Mom or Dad’s help is needed.

While it was  baking, Maddie helped clean up.

After baking and letting it cool it was time to make the icing and decorate!  Maddie used vanilla icing and fresh berries, since Mommy’s not so keen on the sprinkles

Here is the beautiful cake and the beautiful baker!

Then, we got set up for the party, which I was informed can not begin until big sister and Daddy get home. 

Life truly is a party, when you’re blessed with a thoughtful little baker like this!

The weather’s really nice today, and it seemed like a great time to do some outdoor decorating.  I decided to do my urn and front door wreath today.  I spotted in a flyer last night that the Metro had fresh wreaths for $9.99 and after making one in the past, I think the 10 bucks is worth it.  So I picked up a plain Jane Balsam wreath, and then headed to collect some greens.  If you don’t have a source for greens, then they too are readily available at grocery and flower stores.  Here’s what I collected.  (The red dog wood branches are for a future project, I’ll keep you posted.)

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Last year (pre-blog) I added birch poles to my urn.  I collected the birch, and cut it to varying heights, then I anchored it in cement.  Birch has become so popular, you can now buy the poles where ever you buy your greens, or a good florist could order them for you.  The birch poles are heavy and you don’t want them tipping your whole urn over in a breeze, so you need to anchor them in cement.  Just use a little cement mix and water and mix it up in a large ice-cream container (make sure the container fits in your urn first ).  Then stick in the birch and let it set overnight, this way you can remove the birch in the summer or next Christmas for a different look.  Another tip, I used my step ladder set up over the urn and little string to hold the birch in place overnight while the cement set.  I love how it turned out.

After it’s all set, you can add a little soil on top to push the greens into.

I had a variety of greens, including a little cedar, juniper, pine, and balsam.  I like a mix of greens, but all one kind is also really beautiful.  Use what ever you have.  Some of the branches needed a little trim to make them shorter, or create a place at the bottom to push into the soil.  I just started working, and continued stuffing in more until I liked the look.  Here is the beginning.

After I had it to a fullness I liked, it was time to guild the lily.  I added in some branches I found with some purplish-black berries, and some glittering snowflakes.

I have a snowflake theme this year, but at this point you could take it in any direction;  red bow and berries, silver Christmas balls, and glittered pics, or a more natural look with birch bark star ornaments and rustic twig balls.  The sky is the limit! 

I also added a little sparkle to the wreath.  I started with inserting a little pine into the existing wreath.  I liked the mixed ones at the store but they were over double the price, so since I had other greens on hand, I just stuck a few small pieces in.  I like how it turned out.

I found some fun sparkly snow flakes at Walmart, I bought the large ones for the urn, and some small ones for the wreath.  I added a little fine wire to attach them to the wreath.

I also added a snowflake bow, that I had my sister make-up for me, it’s handy having a sister who’s a florist

I’m really pleased with how it all turned up, and hopefully after this weekend, we’ll have some Christmas lights up to.  The snowflakes are really pretty and festive, but I won’t mind it that’s the only snowflakes we see for awhile! 

Merry Christmas!

This post is linked up to: Crazy Christmas Crafters with I Heart Naptime, Tatertots and Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, Blue Cricket Design, House of Hepworths, Mad Skills Party, Funky Junk Interiors, and the DIY Show Off Holiday Highlights Party.  Enjoy some great ideas from all these other friendly bloggers hosting link parties.

Last Christmas I made this quick and beautiful project for my little girls.  I found sweet, feathery angel wings at Pier One Imports, that were originally a Christmas tree ornament.  They were very inexpensive, check them out here, and they’re available again this year.

I decided to frame them and turn them into art.  I picked up some great, shadow box frames at Ikea.  It’s the Ribba, for $10, have a look at it here.

I used some pretty scrap book paper as the backgrounds;  one pink with white polka dots, the other a textured Japanese paper.  I was inspired by the childhood prayer, and decided to print on my computer the phrase “Angels Watching Over Me My Lord”.  I picked a pretty font, and printed on simple white paper.  I assembled it all with my trusty glue gun for the wings, and some double sided tape for the paper.  I cut a piece of heavy cardstock, and taped the decorative paper to it, then I just snipped the hanging cord off of the wings, glued them to the background, and taped the phrase underneath.

I love the way they turned out, and the girls enjoyed finding them under the Christmas tree, on Christmas morning.

Nice to be reminded, that the angels are watching.

This post is linked up at Tatertots and Jello and Funky Junk Interiors.

In all the excitement of preparing for my women’s ministry Christmas event last week, my 3 year old daughter decided she was hosting a Christmas tea party. She is a great thrower of tea parties, and she thought that if mommy was breaking out the Christmas trees, then she needed in on the action too. This week has been a little less busy, so I thought I would make her some felt Christmas cookies for her tea party. We have made some before, see them here, but wanted these ones to be a little more festive.

I started out with a small star cookie cutter and traced around the outside to make a paper pattern. Then I pinned the pattern to the felt and cut out two for a front and a back to our “sugar cookie”.

I also traced around the inside of the cutter, to create a smaller star for the icing, and cut it out of yellow felt.

To create the front of the cookie, I sewed the yellow icing to one of the brown cookie pieces.

After that, I sewed on some small beads that look exactly like the coarse sugar you decorate cookies with.

After putting the “sprinkles” on, I sewed the front to the back. About half way around, you add a small amount of stuffing, and continue until all the way around.

I used the cookie cutters to create Christmas trees, and gingerbread men also.

I found some really cute mini-buttons at the fabric store, that I used on the gingerbread men, and for the stars on top of the Christmas trees. I also made some simple round “M and M Christmas cookies”, just like the ones we made in a jar here.

After they were all sewn, Maddie set up her little pink Christmas tree in her room, and her cute foam gingerbread house, that I found at Dollarama on the weekend for $2.

With a sugar cookie and a cup of pretend tea under the a pink Christmas tree, life truly is a party!

Check out my new post here, on how to make a felt cookie counting game, and felt tea bags!

This post is linked up at Tatertots and Jello, Under the Table and Dreaming, I Heat Naptime’s Crazy Christmas Crafters, and A Little Lovely.