Homemade Caramel Candies

The end of last week I got to spend the day with some of the best girls in the world!  
My Mom and nieces and two sweet girls that are like sisters to me...we spent the whole day baking and making and it was such a great day.

We tried this for the first time...

Caramel Candy recipe from Martha Stewart
They are amazing!

These white and chocolate covered cherries from one of my mom's recipes...

These chocolate and toffee covered pretzels....
So much yummy stuff!!!

Letter Gift Tags

My big gift tag idea this year was to use my letter stencils and the fun new metallic sharpie markers in gold, silver and bronze....

My stencils are well used *translated* gunked up with acrylic paints...so I made the lines thicker to clean up all the jagged edges left after I traced them.

Doodlebugs real name starts with an "S" so of course he keeps insisting that all the "S" tags are his...how do you explain to a 5 year old at Christmas that other people's names start with "S" as well?!??!?!?

We have a few repeat letters so I added some other colors so I could tell whose gift was whose....

you could write the full name on the back as well...

Handmade Christmas Tree Decorations

Made some trees:) After seeing some ideas on pinterest --

last year right after the Holidays I pinned the wire ones because I had just made a slew of wire stars...

See that post here....

I had thought about using cardboard cones then as forms to help make the wire ones.  My sister used them to make angels years ago recycling cereal boxes and pop boxes 

(or soda boxes whichever you prefer...)

The styrofoam ones are expensive--

Or maybe I'm just cheap

Then this morning I saw this post...
Time to make some trees!

At this point I decided to spray paint our little cones just in case the salts or whatever I put on them didn't cover completely 
we used silver and gold of course--

We colored some Epsom salts for the 3 small ones. Rolled the trees in Mod Podge and then the salts.... 

And that was probably a good idea since the salts don't really cover it solidly...glitter would probably have been a better choice.

The one on the far left is gold with lentils glued on...

They're a nice little handmade decoration to add to the ever growing collection at our house...

Clothespin Snowflake tutorial link

Last year when I finally caved and started on pinterest I pinned these from Stephanie over at Under the Table and Dreaming...
Here's a link to her tutorial 
Tutorial from Under the Table and Dreaming

This is my version that Doodlebug helped me make....there's ALOT of glue on these snowflakes!!!!    
I chose to paint ours silver but this is a nice fairly inexpensive Christmas ornament.  We already had a huge bag of clothespins but even if you had to buy them they aren't expensive....

After we made some of those Doodlebug started making a bunch of these little angels....(the star is a separate thing I made last year)
Smart boy!  

Cinnamon clay

Ok all you mommas out there who are about to have kids at home on Christmas break....

This is a good one....

You'll need Cinnamon and Applesauce and that's IT!

 For those of you who need "exact" measurements I don't have 'em....dump out some cinnamon into a bowl.

 *BEFORE* you let your 4 year old dump it out explain that ground cinnamon DOES NOT taste like cinnamon rolls....

 Start adding your applesauce in a little bit at a time and mixing it up...

Your house will smell like a picture out of Country Living or Martha Stewart :)

Yes I said it will smell like a picture.....

 You might want to save back some of your cinnamon (we had two jars) to use in case you add too much of the applesauce.  It also works well as your playing with your clay to keep the clay from sticking to everything...think flour on cookie cutters or your hands...

It should look something like this.....you'll know when you've got it right it will work just like clay.

 We used the nonstick silicone cooking mats and our mini cookie cutters 

 And of course just PLAYED!  Don't forget to use a toothpick to make holes if you want to be able to hang them...

They make great little ornaments.  They also smell really great if you sit them on your stove top ~~~ of course you have to actually use your oven to warm them up so they smell good :)

 The beautiful ornaments below were made by Doodlebug who got a little stressed that his hands were getting dirty... This from a child who LIVES in the dirt all summer....

But it reminds me to tell you that it will stain your towels if you don't get it all washed off your hands.  I'll let you decide how I learned that one....

Wire stars

Finally posting about my wire stars I made awhile back!  I've been too busy living my life to post about it on my blog....and making gifts which I can't post about  until I know they've all been given!!!

 These are all over our house and were really quick and easy to make.

 Here's the wire I used.  I think we paid $8 for it at Lowe's...you'll need pliers to wrap the ends around each other to finish the star.

 Here's the jig I made to bend my stars.  From point to point (left to right across) it's 6"

 It doesn't have to be perfect and the wire is pretty easy to bend so you can straighten and bend it by hand.

 I cut off about 24" pieces of wire for each one...

 Because I used screws I had to stretch it out to get it off the jig.  If you wanted to get fancy you could  use dowel rods and it would just slide off and keep it's shape.

 I love these little buggers!  I mixed them into the tray on my table with the epsom salt ornaments....

 hung them on my living room window with some bright red ribbon... (you can see how I wrapped the ends in the photo below)

 hung them around the mirror in my hall bathroom with the red ribbon...

 They were fun to make and I like things like this that I can save and reuse next year.  And I like having alot of them....

 I even put 3 of them on top of our tree this year because I have a whole thing with tree toppers.  Why are there only 2 choices....scary angels or stars covered in lights or glitter???????

 And outside who can compete with this Holiday Decor?!?!??!  They've been here since the end of October...

 Their favorite time to fire up the equipment and make lots of noise is about 6:30AM or 2PM.....

God Bless us every one!!!! Right?!!?!!?  

Merry Christmas!!!

Pottery Barn Twig Reindeer knockoffs

I made my first set of these about 3 years ago I think.....

 My sister saw these (photo below) in the PB magazine and asked for them for Christmas as a gift.  I think they are $60 or so for a set of all 3 but you can buy them individually as well.

 I really liked them but not $60 liked them and I wanted a set...so I went out to my back yard and started snipping off twigs...

 Gather a lot more than you think you'll need so you can choose good pieces especially for the head, body and antlers.  It's best if you don't have to do a lot of glueing.

 I used hot glue to attach the legs.  Spray painted them silver and added the little red berries for a pop of color...

 They would be really cute in many other places in my home BUT with a 4 year old and 1 year old they are safest on top of the Hoosier Hutch :) and even there it's risky!

 Here's another epsom salts decoration from Martha Stewart...I had these candles on hand but the blue candles look really pretty in their magazine...

On another note....my paper mache mantel decorations were featured on Krrb.org's blog!!!!  I'm always flattered that people even look at all this craziness so a big thank you to them I was honored :)

Epsom Salts ornaments

My husband called these "grinch" ornaments :)

 I bought the epsom salts for another decorating idea I had, but decided to try this too...

 A box of 9 clear, glass ornaments and some salts with yellow and green food  coloring

 I've seen people use it just white and it looks like snow.  I wanted a little color to go along with our brightly colored chairs.

 But it will be nice to be able change it out for another color in the future if I want....

 Those are the rest of the plastic tube of snowflakes that we first hung in front of the fireplace.  And all the other things I already had as well. 

 I've learned to buy things in quantity that I can use in lots of different ways...one year the jingle bells were in a large glass jar with a candle.  The silver pine cones were for my son to decorate with last year.  

I'm working on some wire stars right now too that may or may not work out!  We'll see....