Whale Plushy

For this last Christmas, I decided I wanted to make something personal for two of the babies I was doing gifts for. I planned to do one for Dexter too but haven't gotten around to it yet. I swear I do way more crafting/sewing for gifts than for myself/us. Any one else that is crafty do the same thing?

I found this tutorial when I was looking for a stuffed animal to make. I wanted something fairly simple and who doesn't love a whale!

Here is the tutorial with printable pattern pieces and I followed it step by step. I did the larger size whale and I'm glad I did because some of the curves were a little tricky to sew around and it would have been even harder with a smaller pattern.

You could add eyes with buttons but I like them without. It takes more stuffing than I thought it would and I used a little corner tool to help push the stuffing into the small areas but you could also use the opposite end of a wooden spoon. This makes a great gift for someone! I would definitely make another one and hopefully I'll get around to it eventually :)

Hand Painted Nativity Set

My favorite Christmas present I received was this handmade Nativity set from my mom. After her and I found this stable at a local antique mall, I really wanted a set made from the pegs like she does for Disney Princesses, super heroes, etc. So it wasn't a surprise but I cannot imagine all the time and effort that went into this gift. There are 3 camels, 3 wise-men, 2 sheep, Mary, The Angel, Baby Jesus, Joseph, a donkey and 2 shepherds. And the addition of the wooden star to the stable completes the scene. Each peg is so detailed (even more so than this photo does justice) and I know it will be something I look forward to putting out every year.

I think this just goes to show how much handmade gifts are appreciated. I love making gifts myself, looking through things people make and design on Etsy and buying at local shops. So much thought goes into these types of items and isn't just something you can pick up at Target that a million other people have too (don't get me wrong... I really like Target, I just think handmade gifts are exceptional). It's fun to think about passing down these handmade things to future generations too just like when my mom gives me something that was made for her or for my grandmother etc. it feels special to have something that was theirs.

Merry Christmas from the 3 of us

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We had a great Christmas and we're so lucky to be able to stay in town this year. We shared some big exciting news on our Christmas cards this year (and also on facebook a few days before our cards were mailed)! Thanks to Brittany Lauren Photography for capturing this fantastic photo.

We are just so happy and grateful to be pregnant and expecting a little summer baby. It makes it even more special that Eric's brother's wife (our travelling partners in crime) is due in February and one of my best friends (that also lives in Charlotte) is due in March! We will find out if our munchkin is a boy or girl next month :)

We feel so blessed this year and have so much to look forward to in 2015. Can't believe that is just 4 days away!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to you and yours!



Oh and I'm really proud of myself for designing our card myself this year in photoshop... making different cards and quotable prints has been so fun.

Toffee Bars

This year for girls Christmas baking day, I decided on a bar cookie since the past few years I've done drop cookies. I looked through a cookie exchange cookbook my godmother gave me and picked Toffee Squares. I thought they would be so much easier than drop cookies and they were for the 2nd batch due to some modifications to the original instructions but the 1st batch didn't turn out exactly how I hoped. I've adapted the recipe and instructions below so you have an easier time. I love how most of the ingredients are things you usually have on hand. I highly recommend the cookbook though for anyone that like to make cookies... it has so many different kinds of cookies and great tips for hosting a cookie exchange (and drink recipes).

Toffee Bars
slightly adapted from Very Merry Cookie Party, makes about 40 squares

Ingredients:

- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 cups flour

topping:
- 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds (I did 1/4 cup almonds and 1/4 cup pecans), toasted
- 1/2 cup toffee baking bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 13 by 9 inch baking dish with parchment paper. In large bowl beat together butter and sugar on medium until combined. Beat in egg yolk, salt and vanilla. On low gradually beat in flour just until mixed. Press dough evenly onto bottom of baking dish parchment. Bake in center of oven for 20 minutes.

Melt chocolate chips in microwave (50% power 30 seconds at a time until you can stir it well into melted chocolate). Pour over crust and spread evenly with a spatula. Top with nuts and toffee bits.

Toffee should be completely cooled before cutting into squares. I actually put mine straight in the freezer to store it for a couple of weeks. The night I needed it, I took it out that morning and once thawed cut into squares. So this recipe freezes really well!

The first batch I did, I followed the book's instructions for the chocolate and it didn't melt at all. So I ended up with a topping that didn't stick well and felt apart a lot but it still tasted great... just not the pretty and easy to eat kind. I highly recommend you apply the chocolate like I described earlier.

This is what it looked like before I put the pyrex lid on stored it in the freezer. 

Pretty cookie display at our party. Some other cookies from the cookie exchange are there too... thumbprints, shortbread/snowballs, butter cookies, gingerbread cookies. 

Toffee is one of Eric's favorites so he really appreciated the choice of cookie this year and I do have to say they are quite delicious!

Christmas Mantle

Our Christmas mantle this year is just slightly different from last year. Of course the wooden reindeer I got at HomeGoods last year had to be up there again.

And I also added these wooden vintage snowmen my godmother made me several years back. These are really special to me because she made their hats out of my godfather's socks who passed away suddenly 5 years ago. Now whenever I look at the mantle (which is often because it is sorta opposite our couches and I just love our mantle) I think of him :)

The Santa basket on the floor is also from my godmother. And the stockings were made by my mom. The garland is from target.

Whenever we are home we have our mantle lights and tree lights on because you can only enjoy them for what seems like such a short amount of time... and where in the world is the month of December going?!?

Here is the mantle from last year. One year I'm going to think about doing something more white/silvery/gold instead of the typical red and green.

DIY Wood Block Nativity Set

I made this DIY Wood Block Nativity set last December for my godmother and by the time I finished it was too late to post for it to be of use to anyone else so I've been holding onto this for almost a year. But now you have about a month to make one for yourself or for a gift for someone else! It wasn't a quick craft  considering paint drying time and such but I am really happy with how it turned out.

DIY Wood Block Nativity Set

Materials:
- 2 by 2.5 inch piece of wood, at least 20 inches long
- 2 by 4 inch piece of wood by at least 42 inches long
- a thinner pieces of wood big enough for a 13 inch by 14 inch piece and a 7 inch by 7 inch piece (I think I used a piece that 1 or 1.5 inch thick piece)
- craft paint of your choosing
- for the images I cut white vinyl on my Silhouette machine using purchased nativity set shapes that I sized all together to fit on the blocks ($3 for 3 sets of shapes). If you are a painter you could also just paint or draw on the images but I am not a painter. I did the stable by making the shape with painters tape to get the shape I wanted but every other shape was from the Silhouette shape "store".

Cuts: (inches length listed first, then inches height - all widths are 2 inches except the camel and the stable)
Joseph                               2.5 by 6
Jesus                                 3 by 2.5
Little sheep                        3 by 2.5
Mary                                 4 by 3
Standing Shepard (x2)          4 by 6
Kneeling Shepard                 4 by 4.5
Big sheep                           4 by 3
Camel                               7 by 7
Wiseman kneeling               4 by 4.5
Wiseman 4 point crown        4 by 5.5
Wiseman 3 point crown        4 by 5.5
Donkey                              6.5 by 4
Cow                                   7 by 4
Stable                                13 by 14

Cut the blocks as shown above or ask your husband nicely to cut them :)  I wrote a name on the bottom on each one in pencil so I could keep track of what it was. 

Paint the blocks on at least the sides that will be showing or you can go ahead and just paint all the sides. You can use cheap sponge brushes.

Follow the Silhouette instructions for adhering the vinyl to the blocks. Here are close ups of all of the blocks.

There is extra of your 2 by 2.5 inch piece of wood so I used that to stabilize the stable since it is a bigger piece of wood and could easily fall over. Pun intended. I just screwed it into the back at the bottom.

My godmother loved her gift and it was fun to make a handmade nativity set that will last for years to come! This would also be a great set for kids to play with that they couldn't break. If kids are playing with it just make sure all the edges of the wood are sanded well.

Enjoy!

Christmas Home Tour

Since I already showed you the mantle in detail, I want to recap what the rest of the house looked like decorated for Christmas. I still have all the decorations up and we plan to take them down next weekend so we can enjoy them as long as possible.

Here is the outside. We used icicle lights, lighted garland and wreaths, plain wreaths, lights along the sidewalk, LED color lights in the bushes, lighted present boxes, a penguin, a wooden snowman sign and wooden reindeer (which we borrowed from my parents) that we put a spotlight on. Oh and you can't forget the cranberry wreath on the door.

It looks like this when it is completely dark. I believe it is important for your outdoor decor to look great during the day and at night.

After driving around to look at lights this year (an annual tradition) we have some ideas for improvements next year.

On the inside in the family room we did two trees this year... the tree we have had for several years now and a 7 ft skinny tree Peggy gave us. I really liked the skinny tree since it was easy to decorate and didn't take up much room. It might sound like a lot to do two trees but last year we didn't even have a tree up or hardly any Christmas decor since we were trying to sell the first house and went to FL for Christmas.

This was prior to having a new tree skirt for my skinny tree sent to me by Peggy.... it looks even better with a proper tree skirt.

I'm sure this won't surprise you but we have a Clemson tree too.... its a mini metal tree. You can sort of see it in the breakfast area in the photo above. I swapped out the red napkin under it for a white one which looked much better with all the orange. I usually get one or two Clemson ornaments each year which I love love and now they have a tree of their own. I added some orange and purple balls to fill it out.

We also put lighted garland on the staircase.

As a reminder here is the mantle again.

I put around other Christmas decor like homemade Santas and angels and snowmen out. And the clay pot tree my mom made us on the coffee table.

I also have a couple of plates up in the kitchen area and a silver wire tree on the kitchen table.

We did our Christmas card ribbon door again on the pantry door. I really like getting the mail during the holidays and adding cards to the door.

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday this year! The worst part will be taking all the decor down so I'm just enjoying it all while I still can.

4th annual Gingerbread House Making Party

We had such a busy December this year but couldn't miss doing our annual gingerbread house making party... it is one of my favorite traditions. This year we had to squeeze it into a Sunday evening a couple weeks before Christmas. I only took pictures with my phone this time.

We didn't know this at the time but this was actually the last meal Eric and I had prior to the terrible stomach bug of 2013 that plagued more than two dozen from Eric's family.. so it's not super easy to look at these food photos. I think it might be awhile before making some of these items again... funny how that is. I will say that at the time the food was delicious!

Katie made this really cool "wreath" with cheese, olives, tomatoes and crackers using kale as the base.

We had a really great time hanging out with friends and made some spectacular "houses".

Katie and Kyle opted to do a tree as their house this year. After considerable thought the gingerbread house committee allowed this. It has a beer bottle underneath to hold it, really clever!

You might think this house fell apart but Eric and I made it this way on purpose.Naturally, it has the abominable snowman attacking it leaving a wake of destruction.

Can't wait until the party next year.. the big 5th annual!

Christmas Mantle

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here is our lovely Christmas mantle! This was the first time decorating the mantle for Christmas and I really like the way it turned out. The lighted garland is from Target, the wooden reindeer is from Marshalls, I made the dollar store glass hurricanes several years back and filled them with red and silver balls. My mom made our stockings (mine when I was little and Eric's when we got engaged), the snowman is from Hallmark several years ago and the wooden Santa basket is from Peggy which I filled it with pine cones.

Very simple components and easy to put together. I didn't want it to look over-cluttered or too busy.

I only wish the mantle could stay up longer... this year the Christmas decor time is even shorter with how late Thanksgiving is. I'm not sure how I will redecorate the mantle for winter but part of me kinda wants to keep the wooden reindeer. I've grown attached to it and how awesome it looks up there against the white mantle, white mirror and gray walls... maybe I can pass it off as a deer....

Hope yall have a Merry Christmas!

Gift Guide for Her

If you are trying to figure out what to buy for that last minute gift for your mom, your sister, your mother in law, your girlfriends, your niece, your wife (assuming any husbands read this blog)... you are in luck!

While you don't have time on your side and you need to act quick Christmas is in 6 days people! here are some great gift ideas for the ladies/women/gals in your life. Or perhaps you are all set on your holiday shopping and you can pin this to save for birthdays, Mother's Day, etc.


Bowls - I love love these bowls and have also given them as gifts. I have 6 of them (in different colors) that I'm currently using as decor but they would also be great for soup, ice cream and holding fresh fruit like lemons. At $5 a piece you really can't beat that PLUS Anthropologie does free gift wrapping. They are sold individually in stores so you could mix up colors or get all in one color.

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Scarves - I think I own an embarrassing amount of scarves but I know people with even more scarves than me so a girl can always find room for one more scarf. Especially a fun polka dot one. Although I don't have much red in my wardrobe (all the more reason to buy it right?!), I like the red one.. perfect for the holidays and winter time. Would look wonderful with a gray, black or cream sweater.

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If you need to physically shop due to the time crunch I suggest Francesca's or Target.

This target one is pretty and looks cozy. I also recently saw some very similar to this in target but also with metallic strands intertwined.... swoon! It was all I could do to not buy it but I was in warm FL at the time so I resisted. This would go with anything.

Label maker - If you have an organized gal in your life this is perfect! I have it on my wish list this year and I cannot wait to buy fun bins to label and organize all my closets. My friend Katie told me about the I Heart Organizing blog and this is the same label maker she uses.

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Recipe books - The holidays always has people thinking about cooking. Here are some cookbooks that I think would be winners. I definitely want to get my hands on the Avocado one... yum!

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I actually picked this up recently at Marshalls for around $10 which is another great place to look for cookbooks

Books - If novels might be more her speed then let me recommend a few great books I have read over the past year. Most are chick lit but a few are not. And most seem to be quick shipping... of course if your gift receiver has a kindle then that makes gifting even easier.

On the Island - Tracey Garvis Graves.  Everyone that I know that has read this has enjoyed it. I think I blew through it in 3 days it was so good. If you only pick one book off this list, this is it!

I've Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella.  Laugh out loud funny. Would make a great movie.

Can You Keep a Secret - Sophie Kinsella.  After I read I've Got Your Number I picked up this one and it was funny and lighthearted too. I think I'm definitely a Sophia Kinsella fan.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn.  Finishing this up currently. It's definitely not chick lit... a bit twisted but the mystery/crime solving piece of the story is intriguing

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple.  Okay so I haven't read this yet but I gave it to my sister and she said it was great so I'm going to be reading it in the near future (hint, hint, Laura).


Travel containers - These would make travelling (whether on a plane or just weekend car trips) with your toiletries a breeze. The cheapo ones from Walmart are okay but such a pain if they crack or leak and you constantly have to replace them or double bag them. I plan to get some before my next trip. They come in 2 sizes - 1.25oz and 3oz. Think having both sizes would be handy... 3oz for things like lotion and body wash and 1.25 oz for face wash and creams.

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Colorful skinny belts - I have two of these skinny belts from Target - cobalt blue and orange. I also have a similar one in yellow. They are great pops of color with dresses and target has a huge selection of these in store.

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Candles and soaps - If all else fails, I haven't met a girl that doesn't like a great smelling candle and/or soap so pop on over to Bath and Body Works (or Yankee Candle). Here are some smell-worthy scents from BBW, my go-to place for candles and soaps.

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Tis the Season, Leaves, Meet Me in Tahiti, Fresh Balsam, Cranberry Pear Bellini, Cinnamon Nut Bread and really anything with Cinnamon in it in my humble opinion.

Any favorite BBW scents? I'm looking forward to stocking up at the next semi-annual sale.

Hope this help you find the perfect gift for her!