Baking Frenzy!

Whew, I am done!  I am a little wiped out and the kitchen is in shambles but it was worth it.  Next year I will start sooner that's for sure.  Some of this was for gifts for Prince Charming's Command Staff, etc...and the rest are sweets for our Army guys pulling an all nighter tonight. After about 20 jars of homemade apple butter, 10 loaves of honey wheat bread, pineapple upside down cake, mini carrot cake bites, chocolate mocha cupcakes with peppermint/marshmallow butter cream, my fridge is full of tasty-tempting sweets!

Yum!!! Now just to keep the crew out of them until delivery.  This is probably my last post for a week.  Have a Great Christmas break everyone!  God Bless!

More Gifts

Finally, a slower day for me this week!  I was able to knock out a few gifts while Little Miss M napped.  I had to make a 'Monster Doll' for my nephew and wanted to make a couple of teacher and MIL gifts.

Then Jen over at Tatertots and Jello had this great tute for a felt flower for gifts.  Diva's teacher is a big GA fan so we thought this would be a fancy way to sport her colors. 

Please excuse the lazy, no make-up look...at this point it was becoming a long 'kid' evening....I did get a compliment on the jacket though as soon as I walked into a meeting.



I love it on my purse!



I also decided to keep going with the 'rosette' rings I tried a couple of weeks ago and add some earrings.  Too much?  Maybe (my husband thinks the earrings are too big, but he is a man)...anyway, here is my day yesterday.



I just started with smaller strip for earring.





 





Cute right!



Again no makeup and Crazies taking the pics...what do you think, too big?  Maybe better with my hair down. 







Whew, thank goodness for naptime!  I still need to paint a couple of trays, and I still have a set of glasses to paint....not sure with what or for who...but I am ahead for once!~amie



p.s. linking up over at It's a Hodgepodge Life and Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Our First Advent

We have been here in GA a little over a year now and will probably be here at least 1 more, so I am trying to start a couple of new family traditions while we are 'settled'.  The Crazies are now 8, 5, & 1 so I wanted us to do the Advent countdown this year.  I saw this cute idea over at It is what it is and thought it was the one for us.  We are not putting up our big tree this year (I know, boo me) because we are traveling some and Little Miss M is into EVERYTHING!  I can just see her pulling the whole thing down.  So, we have our mini trees out and fun things hanging from ceiling...and I loved this idea because I could hang it on the wall for more decoration.  She even gave us the free printable, how easy is that!  Seriously, go check out her fabulous blog!

Here is how ours turned out...and the kids are loving it!  Skater boy is even keeping up with each day and they love getting the bag off the wall.  Thank you - It is what it is- for making this an easy Advent project.

Chalkboard Trays

I just finished another gift idea...a plastic tray turned into decorative chalkboard.  I found a plastic snowman tray in the shape of a Christmas ornament at the thrift store for a $1.  I painted over the tray with chalkboard paint, my son was sad to see the snowman go.  It took about 3 coats...I forgot to take pics til the end. I let it sit overnight and then 'conditioned' it...does that really make a difference?  Anyway, then I pulled out the chalk markers and started playing.

Now I just have to decide where to leave it....cute though, right?  I also bought a couple of long, rectangular trays while I was there for gifts for friends. I figure I can paint them and write a message on there for them, and send some chalk.  Too easy.

Gift Ideas

I am playing around with some ideas trying to get my Christmas gifts ready.  Remember I am new to crafting so I have to play a lot...sometimes a few times before I get things the way I like them.  Anyway I wanted to paint some glasses for someone with some theme, just no idea where I wanted to start.  So I practiced on some for my Crazies at home.  I got some glasses from the $ store, some Folk Art gloss paint from Hobby Lobby and some stencils and here you go.

I tried blue paint first but it was so transparent and I didn't have the patience to see how many coats it would take.  Then the paint kept slipping through the stencils or moving around before it dried and messing me up...so finally I used a dry erase marker and drew on with stencil and hand painted.  It's not perfect, but I'll take it.  I have a small set of 4 I am thinking of doing with red snowflakes for someone, we'll see how that turns out.  Wish me luck!