The post on Christmas Eve.

We've had a busy Christmas Eve day, full of centerpiece arranging...

 

...chocolate cover pretzel making (I swear we didn't intend for them to come out looking like they would glow if we held a black light over them)...

...final gift creating (more on the latter after I give it to my parents)...

...and emails about SALE PENDING! Yes, that means our offer on a house has been accepted, signed, and sent to all those wonderful people that help us through the tedious part of this process. Says our realtor: "Rick, how will you ever top this Christmas gift for Erin ever again?!" We are now 60+ days away (God willing!) from being the official owners of an amazing old house that is near our families, has enough room for several sets of twins (hi Mom), and needs some decorating TLC...which is exactly what we wanted!

This chocolate to drizzle over our chocolate-covered pretzels, however, is not exactly what we wanted:

Not sure what happened, but for some reason the food coloring made the chocolate really thick and non-drizzlable. So, I had the brilliant idea of adding milk, thinking it would thin the chocolate out. Right?

Wrong.

Garbage can, meet our latest DIY disaster.

This is why I blog about crafting and not cooking.

We're praising the Lord for our marriage, our families, all of our many blessings, food on our table that looks nothing like that mess above, and the most perfect gift that He sent us so long ago. We're doing our best to keep Christ at the center of this Christmas season, as we do in every season!

Merry Christmas!

The post with the wine bottle wrap.

We went to a friend's Christmas party this past Saturday, and our wine gift was looking a little naked, so I made this festive wrap for it (inspired by a similar project I saw in my holiday Paper Crafts magazine).

I started by cutting some lightweight cardstock to cover the height of the label and snugly wrap the circumference of the bottle, and then I used my Cricut to cut out circles from regular scrapbook paper in sizes between 1" and 2".

The next step was to arrange the circles on the lower edge of the cardstock before adding some coordinating buttons.

Then, while I coaxed the accordion fold accent into staying glued together and not coming wildly undone, it nearly coaxed me into breaking into the wine right then and there. Seriously, I have never tried to accordion-fold paper into a circle before, and let's just say that I was almost as frustrated as the day we had to learn about proofs in math class. (If Fluffy is a poodle, then Fluffy is a dog. If Fluffy is not a dog, then Fluffy is not a poodle. If Fluffy relieves himself on the carpet and chews up my favorite pair of high heels, then Fluffy will wish he was never a dog nor a poodle.)

Well, that last one might not have been in my textbook. Although it would have made 9th grade math class significantly more interesting. As it was, we had to amuse ourselves by placing bets on when the dead plant in the window would spontaneously combust.

Anyway, I was feeling considerably agitated with Fluffy the accordion-fold medallion, but I did figure it out eventually. And it got easier after I did it more than once.

I would try to explain the process in writing, but it would probably make even less sense than that Fluffy nonsense above. Maybe I'll make a video of it--with Rick playing the accordion in the background! Get it? Clever, right?

Consider yourself warned if you ever click on a video we produce. ;)

The final touch was tying on the wired ribbon and adhering the bane of my existence the accordion-fold medallion with double-sided foam. I also added some self-adhesive gems to the bottom rim for extra holiday sparkle.

Voila!

We don't deal with full bottles very often (I tend to prefer the empty ones from strangers' recycling bins), but I thought this was a fun way to dress up a hostess gift for our friends.

And in case you were wondering, Rick can actually play the accordion. He taught himself, which was a process much speedier than the process by which I taught myself how to accordion-fold paper (and not full of nearly as many dramatic sighs).  If you're feeling skeptical, just ask our downstairs neighbor to vouch for his musical abilities. Or Gingerbread. She takes up residence under the bed when he breaks out that particular instrument. :)

The post with the felt poinsettias.

I saw this picture in my Paper Crafts magazine last week and was drawn to the felt poinsettia embellishment on one of the cards. (I could not get it to scan well...hence the weird coloring.)

I knew it would be pretty easy to make my own, so, on our fateful Black Friday trip to Joann Fabrics, I showed up at our cart holding sheets of olive and oatmeal felt. Rick looked at me like I was mildly insane (he does that now and then) before reminding me that I wanted to make poinsettias. As in flowers that are typically red, pink, or ivory. As in flowers that are only brown if they are dead. He really shouldn't have been so confused, because, after all, we do like to keep our plants good and crispy around this place, sort of like this poor plant that my cats like to munch on.

Anyway, I managed to smuggle the alarmingly non-traditional poinsettia colors into our cart without too much trouble. When we got home, I started cutting out petals (freehand, so as to be perfectly imperfect like a real oatmeal poinsettia--ha) with the deliciously sharp new fabric scissors that I had also purchased on our trip. They are definitely not your mama's safety scissors.

I spent a few minutes playing around with the  petals until I got them layered in the imperfect way I wanted. Then, all I had to do was hot glue them together, add the leaves and the pearl center (they're just individual beads glued on), and ta-da! My oatmeal and olive felt poinsettia was complete.

I think one of these flowers would look gorgeous on an all-white stocking, which I am planning on making as soon as Rick stops guarding our generic store-purchased ones with the machete we borrowed from a house on our house hunting tour. (Just kidding....he's only wielding a butter knife. No need for alarm.)

On a serious note, though, he did say that my poinsettias were unexpectedly charming.

Those might not have been his exact words.

But, he's learning to trust my instincts. :)

I'm linking this up to Centsational Girl's party today...check it out for tons more DIY Christmas craft ideas!

The post about the practically free Christmas decorations.

Last weekend, we put up our tree. Surprisingly, there has been nary an ornament knocked off by our kitties (although several have been swinging back and forth at alarming rates), but we're fairly certain that if we had a real tree, Gingerbread would have climbed it at least, well, two or eighty times by now. So, we're counting our blessings that so far, we have not yet had to experience the holiday joy of removing sap from kitty fur.

This weekend, in our continuing quest to decorate our apartment for Christmas, I took a few minutes and put together the following practically free groupings. And when I say practically free in the title of this post, I mean that, since both were created exclusively with simple things that we already had around the apartment (and none of the things cost very much in the first place). The first one features the candle jar I "made" a couple weeks ago, some decorative balls, and free books from a yard sale covered in festive scrapbook paper.

The other one on our coffee table features an old frame spray painted white, red and green scrapbook paper, some decorative balls, and glass bottles yanked from my unsuspecting neighbors' recycling bins.

My recycling hunt is, sadly, on hiatus until I can wear fewer than six layers when venturing outside. No time for digging through recycling bins when I have to spend my spare minutes digging my car, driveway, and occasionally my husband from underneath a mountain of snow. :)

Anyone else done anything simple and cheap as they decorate for the holidays this year? Do share. :)

The post about fabric, Black Friday, and mooing.

After a great deal of begging, groveling, and promising not to spend more than four hours there, I finally convinced Rick that we should go to Joann Fabrics on Black Friday. And though we both lived to tell about it, I am still questioning my sanity. I decided that there were five glaring clues that should have told us to turn around and run madly in the opposite direction (had I been in my right mind and not a "Look at all the stuff that is 60% off and I have an additional 30% off coupon in my back pocket" trance):

Clue #1: Entering the store and being greeted not by some pleasant seasonal tunes, but, rather, the sounds of a small child perfecting his ability to make ear-splitting cow noises.

Clue #2: Pulling ticket number 126 at the fabric cutting counter at precisely the same time that shopper number 89 was being serviced.

Clue #3: Glancing nervously around the cutting area and finding ourselves in the presence of 30+ other shoppers wielding carts stuffed with approximately every fabric item in the store.

Clue #4: Watching number 103 getting her pile of fabric cut for 35 minutes straight. Her cart was like a Mary Poppins handbag, I tell you.

Clue #5: Still hearing the continuous cow noises after being in the store for 45 minutes.


We ended up putting the to-be-cut fabric back (what can I say; the deep discounts were just no match for the mooing) but did leave with $29 worth of merchandise that, had it been full price, would have cost us $85. So all was not lost.

And I, once again, got to be grateful for my ever-so-patient husband, who actually left laughing and making cow noises of his own.Thank goodness for a sense of humor, right? :)