Vintage paper bell

Years ago, my grandmother, who has now passed on, gave me a box of vintage paper goods -- place mats, table cloths, centerpieces, cardboard cutouts of Pilgrims and Easter bunnies, etc. In the box was a green honeycomb paper bell. I remember seeing bells like this at my grandmother's home in the 1950s. I didn't use the bell, though, because it was missing the little clips that hold it in position. Finally I realized, a year or two ago, that green paper clips would work just fine for the purpose. And they do!

My granddaughters made the red paper chain this past Christmas, and I thought it made a great addition to the green bell.

Over the river and through the wood

Here is one of my very favorite ornaments. It was painted by my friend Marilyn many years ago. The pattern was from a Country Handcrafts magazine. It could be done on a ball-shaped glass ornament as she did, or could also be painted on a wooden circle. The wooden circle is the easier option, and is what I chose to do when I made one of these ornaments as a gift for someone. Either way, these ornaments are so pretty!

Hot Chocolate gift idea

Found this picture in my "Blog Posts in Progress" folder and thought I would share. It's a couple of jars of my homemade hot chocolate mix just waiting to be tucked in a gift box or basket. You can find the recipe by typing "hot chocolate mix" into the search box at the top of this blog. These cute jars are from the dollar store!

Holly Leaf Cookies

I decided to share this recipe (not sure if I've posted it before or not) because it is the same basic cookie recipe as the one pictured on the recipe card in the preceding post. I just adapted it to make holly leaf cookies. The recipe is from my dear friend Marilyn's mom, Fran. It is a wonderful cut-out cookie recipe!

HOLLY LEAF COOKIES

1/2 cup solid shortening
1/2 cup (1 stick) real margarine
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon orange extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
Green food coloring
Cinnamon red-hot candies
Green decorating sugar

Combine the shortening, margarine, sugar, salt, flavoring and eggs in a large mixing bowl; beat well. Add flour and mix well. Mix in enough green food coloring to tint dough light green. Cover dough and chill thoroughly.

On a floured surface, roll a small portion of the chilled dough about 1/4-inch thick. Cut with a holly leaf cookie cutter. Place leaf shapes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Trim each cookie with 1 or 2 cinnamon red-hot candies for holly berries, placing the candies at the stem end of the holly leaf. Sprinkle each cookie with green decorating sugar.

Bake in a preheated 375º oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool. Repeat process with remaining dough.

Yield: 2 to 3 dozen cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutter used.

Decorating my kitchen island for Christmas

My kitchen "island" -- actually a repurposed shaker-style (but formica-topped) desk made for me by my dad -- is one of my favorite places to decorate in my Christmas kitchen. The past few years, I've done some variations on this theme.

The little table topper is simply a hemmed piece of fabric with a baking theme. The large Mitford teacup is filled with Christmas cookie cutters. The little rolling pin recipe holder was a gift from my granddaughters, and the cookie recipe is from a dear friend. Cookies are yummy too!

The vintage cookbooklet is like one my mother used to have, which I remember poring over avidly at Christmas time. I bought this one at a book sale some years ago.

Better late than never

I came across some photos of our 2009 Christmas tree in my "blog posts in progress" folder. Since today is Rudolph Day (the 25th of any month is Rudolph Day), what better time to post these photos at last?

One more...
Those large paper candy canes were made by one of my granddaughters. She learned how to make them in school. By the time Christmas was here they were hanging from the tree and most doorknobs as well!

Christmas fabric napkins

I've been going through my folder of "blog posts in progress" and found these pretty fabric napkins I had made for one of my daughters for this past Christmas. They are all Christmas prints. This was a great help in reducing my stash of Christmas fabric. For my other daughter, I used all blue/white Christmas and winter prints -- like snowflakes, snow scenes, etc. A very quick and easy gift!

A vintage card

I've been sorting through some old boxes of photos. Every now and then a vintage card will surface among them. Here is the most adorable one I've found yet!

A fun gift idea for kids

I decided to show these pictures on my Christmas blog because the recipient of this birthday gift (my 6-year-old grandson) will be less likely to see them. I plan to make several more of these for other grandchildren as well.

I found the pattern here. It is available in a pdf as well. It did work up very quickly once I got everything translated from centimeters into inches and cut out.

The idea is to use three different fabrics for a cute and colorful chef's hat. I wanted to use only fabrics I had on hand for these, so had a bit of trouble finding the right fabric for the puffy top. I finally decided this dark red checked top would be okay.

Sam likes trains, so a train print worked for the headband part. A black and white Mary Engelbreit check was the perfect binding, coordinating with the railroad crossing signs on the headband.

This picture shows the snaps that make it adjustable. If this turns out to be too big for Sam, we can add another set of snaps.

For the gift, I will include 2 baking mixes with the hat.

Hope someone else can use this fun idea!

Paper twist angel ornaments

The angel in this photo is one of my favorite handmade ornaments. Years ago when my daughters were at a Christian boarding school, their school held a craft fair in the fall. I always loved crafting ornaments for that fair, and this paper twist angel is one of several I made at that time. It was a pattern in Country Handcrafts, later called Crafting Traditions. Ever since, I've wanted to make more of these because they really are very cute.

I've kept all of the supplies on hand. I literally had everything I needed to make more of these angels, but I just hadn't found the time. I even acquired, by way of someone else gifting me with their crafting leftovers, a number of the cute little puffed satin stars and other shapes to use for the angels to hold. Also, over the years I've found other cute little items like wreaths. gifts, lanterns, etc. that would work well in the angels' "hands". I just didn't make any angels...

Fast-forward to this year. After Christmas, I decided I really wanted to make at least one of these and send it to a dear friend. My friend loves the color green and so her angel had to have a green dress. I would have given the angel dark hair like my friend, but couldn't find the dark doll curls I know I have somewhere. Her angel would have to be a blonde! My friend also enjoys tea and all things tea-themed, so I wanted her angel to be holding a teapot. Lo and behold, I had several teapot ornaments I had made years ago out of Sculpey® clay (also from a Crafting Traditions issue). I simply cut the gold hanging thread off one and glued it in the angel's "hands".

Voila! A very customized ornament for a very dear friend!

yo-yo wreath ornament

Some time ago I posted a picture of a yo-yo candy cane ornament one of my granddaughters had made. Her sister started a yo-yo wreath but tired of it quite quickly. I decided to finish the ornament myself and put it in my stash. Here it is!

I photographed the ornament on the glass-topped desk (with wintry cards under the glass) where I do a lot of my crafting. Very inspirational!

This year's tags from last year's cards

As I've mentioned before, I usually save Christmas cards for a year, keeping them corralled in a pretty wooden box so that (if I think of it) we can try and pull out a card every day and pray for the person who sent it. Good intentions that I seldom follow through on for very long.

When I take the previous year's cards out to put in the ones from the Christmas just past, I don't throw the old ones away, but instead get out some tag templates, scissors, cord or string, and paper punch to turn them into gift tags for the next Christmas. Here is the batch I made in January.
They're sort of all jumbled together, but you can get an idea of some of the pretty tags that were made from the cards.

There's something very therapeutic about playing with paper and scissors on a dreary winter day, don't you think so?

Two projects from last year

I may have showed these projects before, but want to do so again. They are both a good reminder to me of the wisdom of working on Christmas projects all year round. These are both things I finished last spring or late winter, projects I found in some old Christmas magazines and just wanted to make. It was such fun getting them out to use this year!

This little red felt skate was so much fun to make!

I adapted it a lot. The top cuff was supposed to be fake fur. I used some jumbo loopy chenille which I had on hand, and really liked the result. This project came from a 1960s Christmas magazine.

After taking down the Christmas tree, I couldn't bring myself to put the little skate away just yet. I hung it on my Christmas ribbon board. But then, when I took that down, I added the skate to my Valentine ribbon board, where it fits the wintry, red and white theme just fine.

This table runner which I made last spring turned out to be a real lifesaver this holiday season.

I used it Christmas Eve and far beyond. We had a houseful of people most of January. This runner covered so much of our table (even with all the leaves in) that it was very helpful keeping the table clean and also cushioning serving dishes. This project was from a 1980 Decorating & Craft Ideas magazine and I just love the result. It makes me smile every time I look at it. This winter I hope to make some of the matching placemats.

So if there were Christmas projects you didn't get to this past holiday, don't give up and just put them away. Go ahead and work on them right now! Next Christmas, you'll be glad you did.

Candlewicking Christmas tree skirt

I thought I would take a minute to share photos of my Christmas tree skirt. This is one I made many years ago. It is candlewicking, done from a kit which my parents gave me. It took me quite some time to finish this project -- stitching the lace around the edge was more time-consuming than the actual stitchery! -- but I finally did and have used it every Christmas since. You really can' t see much of the tree skirt in the above photo, other than that pesky lace, so here are more that I finally thought to take this year.

You can see that the main motif is a beribboned heart between two doves.

In between these main motifs are smaller motifs of a candle. Here's a closeup of a candle motif.

I keep thinking I would like to make a new tree skirt, perhaps a crocheted or patchwork one. But I'll hold on to this one for its sentimental value.

Sweet little ornament

Here is a cute ornament idea. Our daughter remembered the felt handprint ornaments I had made for her siblings years ago. For those, I had traced around their hands, cut 2 of each handprint, placed matching prints together and stuffed them lightly as I sewed the two together by hand. I had embroidered their name and the year on the front of each ornament.

Being a busy young mom of three, my daughter figured out an easier way.

She traced the hands and feet of her kids onto red, white and green craft foam and cut them out. She cut a photo of each child into a circular shaped and glued it to the hand print, then added the name and age to the footprint, attaching the two prints with thread so the ornament just loops over a branch. Cute idea! Maybe other moms would like to try this.

Soft fabric trees

One new thing I tried this Christmas was making some soft little fabric trees. I had seen these on a blog quite some time ago and had saved the pattern. This year I finally got around to making a couple of these. They didn't come out quite as nicely as the ones I had seen, but they are cute.

I thought a blue tree would be nice in the upstairs bathroom. This particular blue isn't exactly right, but I liked the fabric (which I had on hand) so much that I used it anyway.

This tree is resting on an inverted footed glass dessert dish.

I made a green tree, too. Here you see it with other items on a hutch shelf.

Later I had the inspiration to put the tree in a Christmas teacup.

If others would like to try making these sweet little trees, the pattern may be downloaded here:

soft fabric trees

Some great after-Christmas deals

Understand, I am not one who rushes to the stores the day after Christmas to shop the clearance sales. I know all too well that those 50% off prices will, in a week or two, become 75% off prices, and then, sometimes even 90% off a bit later. So my tendency is to wait a couple of weeks.

But this year, I had to go grocery shopping the day after Christmas. We do the shopping for my elderly parents and ordinarily go on Thursday nights. Well, that was out this year, with stores closing early on Christmas Eve, and so was Friday night... in fact, the entire week was too full to do the shopping on a different day. So, Saturday it was (and I make it a rule never to grocery shop on Saturday! Too busy!), so we went about 7:30 a.m.

I barely glanced at the clearance stuff in Walmart, though we did eyeball the fake trees with an eye to getting one later if they go to 90% off. My hubby did buy some clearance candy.

We unexpectedly had to pick up a prescription for my dad at the second store, and had to wait for it. So, we walked over to Marshalls. And that is where I found the wonderful deals. Impulse buying for sure, but such fun for only $7.96!

First I found some terrific Christmas coffee on clearance for only 2.49 a bag.

I bought 2 bags. One was hazelnut, and the other a cinnamon-hazelnut blend called Christmas Blend, I think. We sampled one of them and it is wonderful! Then I froze them for later use.

Then there was this cute little glittery house for only 99¢!

It doesn't look exactly like the others I have, but I couldn't resist. I want to make some of these, but if I can add one to my collection for pennies, I will, of course.

I love that the brand is the old-timey Shiny Brite. This is the bottom of the house.

And then there was a much larger glittery house.

It reminds me of a church, although there is no steeple. This was only $1.99, so you see there was no way I could resist getting this one, too.

In other terrific buys, I noticed that our local Hannaford supermarket had the Almond Bark (confection coating) in with its Christmas clearance merchandise. I bought 2 packages of the white chocolate coating at 50% off. This week it is 75% off, so I got some of the dark chocolate as well. This coating has a 2-year shelf life, so it will keep awhile. And actually, wouldn't it be great to use in making candy for Valentine's Day and Easter?

It's so much fun to get a good deal, especially on something you can really use!

Mini spool wreath ornament

Here's an easy, easy ornament that is a lot of fun to make and could use up some of your crafting odds and ends. As you can see, it requires 7 mini craft spools. You glue ribbon around these -- you could use ribbon of the exact width for the spools, or use any width and cut it to fit, as I did.

Then you string the spools on a length of chenille stem, stringing 6 pony beads alternately with spools. I can't say the exact length of chenille because I made these ornaments a long time ago, but probably half a chenille stem would do. When beads and spools are all in place, twist the ends of the stem together to form the circle for the wreath.

Finish by tying (and/or gluing) a bow of contrasting ribbon to cover the twisted stem ends. Add another loop of ribbon or thread for a hanger, and you're done.

Happy New Year!

I pray that all of my readers and friends will have a happy, healthy 2010! I hope to be in the Christmas kitchen a lot more often throughout this new year, and I'd love for you all to join me in my kitchen. Hope to see you there!

And now, the actual 2009 baking list...

I thought I would take a minute to share what I actually baked for the Christmas season, and a little bit about each recipe. Quite a few of these items are still in my freezer awaiting a family Christmas party this weekend.

Cookies:

Pepparkakor -- Crisp spicy cut-out cookies. I made them in the shape of hearts and Christmas trees and sprinkled the tops with red sugar. Still have some of this dough left to bake, in fact.

Whipped Shortbread*-- round little molded cookies, perfectly white with tops dipped in sparkly red or green sugar. Easy to make and a great favorite. These are the cookies in the photo above.

Eggnog Logs* -- nutmeg-flavored cookies shaped like little logs. Frosted with an eggnog-flavored frosting with "bark" markings made by fork tines, and then sprinkled with nutmeg.

Sacher Torte Cookies* -- round chocolate cookies filled with raspberry or apricot jam and then the tops drizzled with melted chocolate.

Peppermint Tree Spritz -- pressed chocolate cookies in a Christmas tree shape, sandwiched together with green-tinted, mint-flavored confection coating and then half of each cookie dipped in the same. I only made these for old time's sake, but I probably won't be making them again. They turned out to be a LOT of work, much more than I bargained for. Delicious, though.

Almond Raspberry Thumbprints -- almond-flavored thumbprint cookies filled with raspberry jam and drizzled with almond-flavored icing. These are pretty and delicious and are fast becoming a must-make cookie. Would be good with apricot jam, too, but the raspberry is so pretty! (From Cook & Tell, my favorite recipe newsletter.)

Dipped Cherry Cookies -- round molded cookies filled with chopped cherries and white chocolate. Each cookie is dipped halfway in melted white chocolate and then in red or sparkly white sugar. From Country Woman magazine. This was my first time trying this recipe, but it won't be the last! Pretty and delicious.

Double Drizzle Pecan Cookies -- a molded brown sugar cookie topped with pecans and drizzled with penuche and chocolate. Easy, yummy and impressive with the two drizzles. From Country Woman magazine and fast becoming a must-make.

Hazelnut Shortbread -- super easy shortbread with toasted hazelnuts added. Made in a square pan and cut into tiny squares. Recipe (from Cook & Tell) suggested a confectioners sugar frosting drizzle. I had some of the penuche glaze left from the above recipe, so used that. Excellent choice!

Chocolate Mint Crisps -- easy chocolate molded cookies with a melted Andes mint swirled on top of each one. Delicious and easy -- the dough is made in a saucepan! Fast becoming a must-make cookie. From a special Country Woman Christmas magazine.

Fruity Lime and Raspberry Spritz -- used this recipe to test out a borrowed cookie press. These easy and colorful spritz cookies are made with fruit-flavored gelatin. Nice flavor! Recipe found on the internet. Nice fast way to make a whole bunch of festive-looking cookies.

Candies:

Heavenly Delight* -- our family's favorite layered chocolate and peanut butter fudge. Made 2 batches of this and may need to make another when family visits in January.

Four-Chip Fudge -- made with butterscotch, peanut butter, milk chocolate, and semisweet chocolate baking chips. No real cooking, as it's made with sweetened condensed milk; just heating and melting the chips, basically. Easy, yummy and makes a huge batch. From Taste of Home.

Chocolate Mint Candies -- I've been wanting to try these for awhile, but won't bother with them again. The photo (in a Country Woman Christmas magazine) showed lovely squares of milk chocolate candy with minty white chocolate sandwiched between. Mine turned out more like bark, or even shards. Not worth the price of the confection coating and chocolate chips used to make them.

I had also intended to make some little mini-loaves of bread and fruitcake for gifts. The first batch I tried failed so miserably that I scrapped the entire notion.

So there is my Christmas baking report! We'll have a houseful of family for several weeks in mid-January, so no doubt I will be doing plenty more baking.

* Recipes marked with a * are "must-makes" for the Christmas season.