Holiday Food & Crafts!

I know--a non-baby post!  Shocking, amirite?  Maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this "mom" thing.  (*snorts* Yeah...don't worry, there are plenty more "adventures in parenting" posts to come. I know enough to know that I don't know ANYTHING.)  

Christmas is my favorite time of year, and since our little man is still immobile, this is probably the last year we'll be able to have a nice, fully decorated tree for a few years, so I'm enjoying it.

Since Baby J takes his best nap in the mornings, that's when I'm able to get the most stuff done, including Christmas crafts (and gift wrapping, of course)!  Granted, I don't have a TON of free time, so I tried to keep things fairly simple, but all in all, pretty happy with the results!

1) Keepsake Baby's 1st Christmas Ornament:  You've probably seen variations of this one floating around Pinterest and Facebook.  I took a clear plastic ball ornament, then managed to cram one of Baby J's now-too-small hats into it, along with one of his hospital bracelets, and a little sheet with his birth date stats on it.

2) Mistle-toes Ornament:  This one has also been pretty popular on the interwebz this Christmas.  I made a small batch of salt dough (1 cup flour, 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup water) and tinted it with food coloring till I got a nice deep green.  Then we rolled it out, floured the top lightly (so his foot wouldn't stick) and stuck his lil' feet down on it...after which he promptly curled his toes and got a bunch of dough stuck between his toes, which he was NOT at all happy about. (SUCH a prima donna.)

SOoo...then after we cleaned his feet and calmed him down, we trimmed around the footprints, poked a hole in the heel, and baked them in a 300F oven for about 30 minutes.  Once cooled, I coated them with clear coat.  Then I took some bells that I got half price after Christmas last year, painted them red (and clear coated them as well).  I used hot glue to affix the two foot prints together, with their holes overlapping, then strung two bells through the hole.  Ta-Da!

3) Button Ornament:  This is a reprise of the one I did last year, only I used purple & various neutral colored buttons.  Went to a friend as a gift.

4) Spiced Pecans:  I usually make my spiced pecans in the microwave, but with a baby napping in the next room I didn't need the beeping every few minutes.  So I made them in the oven instead, using this recipe (though I added a bit of cumin, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and a pinch of cayenne in addition to the cinnamon).

5) Simmering Potpourri:  My in-laws family Christmas this year involves a $10 homemade gift exchange, so I made a quad of gifts--a jar of the spiced pecans, steak rub (next section), some gingerbread sugar scrub (see below), and a jar with all the ingredients for this simmering potpourri. (Hint:  use mandarin oranges or satsumas so they fit into the jar easier)...the link includes a free printable!)

6) Mocha Steak Rub:  I saw this on an episode of Brunch with Bobby Flay (because there's a lot of Food Network on while I've been on maternity leave) and it sounded really tasty and pretty easy to make!  We tested it out on some t-bones before gifting it (because when you have a food blog, it would really suck to give someone a foodie gift and then find out it tastes horrible).  To add a "cajun" flair, I used Community Coffee's New Orleans blend with chicory instead of the ground espresso.  The chocolate flavor is pretty subtle, but I LOVE the coffee flavor--I want to make some of the chocolate BBQ sauce that's also in that link and see if that helps to enhance the flavor.

7) Gingerbread Sugar Scrub:  I don't know about you, but my skin gets super dry & cracked this time of year, especially my feet.  So I really love sugar scrubs.  Now, I learned my lesson from that coffee scrub I tried last year, which was more hassle to clean out of my shower than it was worth.  So this year I decided to go with a scrub that was less likely to make a huge mess in the bathtub, but that would still be full of Christmas spirit. I saw the recipe for this gingerbread sugar scrub on Pinterest and since we had everything already on hand, I gave it a go.  YUM. (smell wise--I haven't actually tried eating it...though you probably could!)

Ornaments!!!

I had a pretty productive today today…of course, not like “cleaning the house” or “mowing the yard” productive.  Instead, I made two new ornaments for our fabulous new Christmas tree.  Yup—I finally got to upgrade from our little scraggy 5-foot tree, to a beautiful, full, PRE-LIT-WITH-1000+-LIGHTS tree that I got at a thrift store for $100.  SO happy.

Well, when you add 2.5 feet to your tree…you need more ornaments, amirite?  Not that I don’t already add to my ornament collection annually.  Or have a bunch of Eeyore and Marvin the Martian ornaments that I don’t even put up anymore since I switched tree themes.  But..I mean… come on… PINTEREST.

So I started the morning with a cup of coffee, and the fixings for a button ornament:

- styrofoam ornament (48c at WalMart)

- pearl-ended straight pins ($1.97 at WalMart)

- and LOTs of buttons (free, from my mom’s button collection)

Instructions not really necessary on this one—you start with one button, add another… stagger colors & sizes and layer when appropriate to fill in the white spaces.

And then, I wanted to do my own take on the “book pages” ornaments.  I didn’t have any old sheet music, but I do have this random old Catholic Missal from 1966. I’m not 100% sure where it came from—either I picked it up at a thrift store or it came from a box of books at my Nana’s house…either way, it’s been sitting on a shelf in my house, unused, for several years.  So I fugured I might as well put it to good use.

Here’s hoping you can’t go to hell for cutting up a 50 year old liturgy.

 

I pulled a few pages from the Advent, Christmas Vigil & Midnight Mass liturgies, and cut out poignant bits that referenced Christmas.

 

Then I took a blank paper ornament (60c at Hobby Lobby) & used Modge Podge to adhere the paper to the ornament, turning the pieces at different angles and trying to get good coverage (while making sure lines that I really liked didn’t get too covered up).

When it was fully covered, I did one final thin layer of Modge Podge, and sprinkled it with glitter.  Let that dry, and then I took it outside & sprayed it with a clear coat (to help the glitter not fall off).

 

I’ve got a few other blank paper ornaments, so I might make a few more of these. I love the way it turned out!

And then, to wrap it up, I re-vamped this wreath.  Last year, I hung it on our front door, and the neighborhood birds thought the beautiful berries were real—so they pecked it to death.  I’m hoping no birds were harmed permanently.  So this year, I snipped off the sprigs with damaged berries, and then added all the pine cones & some extra greenery & cinnamon sticks. (Oh, and hung it indoors this year, so no birds would be at risk.)

 

Christmas with the Feaux’s!!! (Part One)

Happy Holidays, y’all!!!  And so it begins—the countdown to Christmas!  Is all your shopping done?  Miscellaneous crafts completed?  Homemade gifts distributed?  Christmas parties attended?

In years past, my Christmas tree has been a bit of a mish-mash of ornaments collected over the years.  This year, we decided to go with an outdoorsy, natural, bird-esque theme.  To make it more of a challenge, I gave myself a budget of $20 for new ornaments & decorations.

I had several items already in my collection that work quite nicely; little critters for the branches, and we used the red & white glass balls that we already had since they would seem sort of “berry-ish”:

  

At Hobby Lobby, I picked up some small birds at 50% off ($4/pack of four):

(Behind the cardinal you can see my hand-blown ornament from Springfield Hot Glass—couldn’t leave that off!)

The Hubs & I had an adventure going around town, picking up pinecones from the local parks (FREE!!!).  And thanks to Pinterest I learned to bake them for about 30 minutes to kill all the little critters inside of them.  I had a large pile of bows already, so I used some craft wire to attach the pinecones to the bows.

Then, of course, another Pinterest project!  We made some cinnamon salt dough ornaments using a bird-shaped cookie cutter (59 cents at Hobby Lobby).

One batch of dough will make about 20 ornaments.  I put about half on our tree, and used the rest as gifts.

And with so many birds, they really need a place (or two) to sleep….

($1 per house, plus $3 for the wood stain)

But what we REALLY needed was something for the top.  Something impressive.  Something regal.  And…something that cost about $8, because that’s all I had left in my budget.

Meet Bubo. ($7.99 at Gordmans)

And of course, there’s also my new friend Hootie, sent to me by my friend Sarah:

So there she is.  Our little tree!  With tax, our tree “remodel” came to just over $20!

Later this week we’ll show off some more of the décor, and some homemade Christmas gifts, eh?