Christmas Cheer #12: Christmas Menu

We're finally here! The last Christmas post! And it's about one of my favorite topics: Food! I really wanted our Christmas menu to be perfect. We don't do dinner like a lot of people do, we do more of a lunch with lots of appetizer-ish foods. The idea is to eat all day long. I spent a LOT of time on Pinterest and kraftfoods.com to come up with the best menu and (with Madre's help), I think it was awesome. We had 7 people to feed:

1. Ham & Cheese Sliders

2. Mini Lasagnas

3. Homemade Chips & Salsa

4. Caprese Skewers

5. Poinsettia Mimosas

Check out the recipes after the jump!

Christmas Cheer #11: Lights and Stockings

Since this was our first Christmas in our house, we really wanted to make sure we got some lights up. Turns out, it's a lot harder without a ladder. Cory kept climbing out of our bathroom window and jumping onto the roof to get all the lights clipped up. It scared me every time. Since we put them up really late (and lacked hardware), we only put a few up. I was very happy with them though!

The multicolored ones blink. Pretty :)

We also put the same multicolored lights about our kitchen cabinets and along the back of our living room. Yay, lights!

Stockings! Since we were hosting Christmas, we wanted to fill stockings for everyone. We don't have a fireplace, or any sort of shelving/mantle in our front room yet, so we got some of those 3m hooks at the hardware store. They had pretty brushed silver ones, so they fit in really well and didn't look awkward. I hung them on the wall, and they were definitely strong enough to hold the stockings! I think they looked really good, and it was much better than laying the stockings out on the floor or windowsill.

Ho Ho Ho!

Christmas Cheer #10: Christmas Critters!

My critters like to get into the holiday spirit as well, so I thought I'd post some photos of them. Here we go!

When I was making the Rein-Beers, Sinatra kept playing with the antlers. I told him if he didn't leave them alone, I would put some on him. Guess what happened.

After awhile, he forgot they were there, and fell asleep. 

Kira and Jovie were very excited about their stocking. 

Kira would not let it out of her sight. 

Squeaky ball for Christmas! Yay!!

Bucky was so handsome with his Christmas bow.

He even went outside to show it off to the neighbors.

Merry Christmas from all of us to you!

Christmas Cheer #9: Rein-Beers!

This is one of my favorite posts because I LOVED my rein-beers- they're so cute! I got the idea from LifeOfAModernMom (check out her post here). I decided to make them for a couple of Cory's friends and our brothers.

It was as simple as wrapping brown pipe cleaners around the tops (I cuts some up and wrapped them around the bigger ones to create the antler look), and then gluing on googly eyes and red pom-poms to make the faces. I didn't have a hot glue gun (I do now-Thanks, Babe!), so I used tacky glue and then let them sit on their backs overnight.

We got 6 packs of Leinenkugel's and mixed them up so everyone would get a variety (we also got a 6 pack of Woodchuck's Hard Cider for our gluten free amigos). We put them under the tree and everyone loved them!

This was my first attempt. I ended up changing the antlers a little bit.

Rein-Beers!

Sinatra wanted antlers, too. He was very "helpful".

Deer in the headlights with Rein-Beers!

Christmas Cheer #8: Gifts from the Kitchen

Like I said earlier, I wanted to do all homemade gifts this year. I figured that one "craft" was enough (those hand warmers took a really long time), so I decided that my other gifts should come from the kitchen. I get bored with making cookies, so I wanted to do something a little different. After scouring Pinterest, as per usual, I came up with some really good ideas and narrowed it down to

1. Peppermint Hot Fudge

2. Cinnamon Honey Butter

3. Cinnamon Sugar Almonds

4. White Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Check out the recipes after the jump!

Christmas Cheer #7: Hand Warmers

I saw a link on Pinterest (Follow Me!) for these really cute heart shaped hand warmers. I thought it was a tutorial, but alas, it was not. It took me to someone's Etsy shop so I could BUY these cute little suckers. As much as I would love to support someone else's Etsy shop, I vowed to make my gifts, and my budget wouldn't have allowed me to buy them anyways. My only choice was to make them myself!

I started with just some basic pieces of felt from Michael's. I got the $0.30 sheets in dark red and off white. All I did was cut out hearts from the felt (just like in grade school- fold the page in half so both sides are symmetrical!). I matched them up and made sure they were the same size (and did any necessary trimming). 

Since these were going to my family, I wanted to personalize them a little bit. I posted a couple of weeks ago about losing my grandma. She was known for her love of cardinals. I wanted to bring them into the gift, so that people would think of her when they held the hearts in their hands. I looked up a picture of a cardinal, and sketched it out on the red felt (it was very rough, not detailed at all). It worked out pretty well to just hand sketch and cut them out- most of them actually resembled cardinals! To attach them to the hearts, I just sewed them on- sort of like I would've sewn a button.

Once I had matching hearts, I started to hand sew them. I got thread and needles for Walgreens because I didn't have any, and it was the only place that was open (seriously, it was pretty classy.). Once I got most of the way around, I stopped, and filled them 2/3 of the way up with rice (regular cheap rice from the store-just don't use instant!). Once they had rice, I continued sewing all the way around the heart until it was completely shut. Ta-da! Hard warmers!

After making 10 with cardinals, I was pretty sick of trying to cut out a bunch of tiny birds and I was running low on white felt, so I ended up making 10 hearts out of the red felt and matching them up with the other hearts as pairs. They looked really cute! I tied them up with string and put a note on that said "Put me in the microwave for 30 seconds, and I'll keep your hands warm for 30 minutes to one hour!"

Christmas Cheer #6: Homemade Tree Skirt

It took us a long time to get our tree up, and since it was our first tree ever, we didn't have a skirt for it. I got some inspiration from Pinterest (Follow Me!), as usual, and then tried to figure out how it would best work for me.

The two tutorials I looked at (HGTV's here and MyCrazyLife's here) were pretty much the same, both for a no sew ruffled tree skirt. I knew that any sort of ruffles would not only repel Cory, but attract the kittens. I have enough trouble keeping the critters away from the tree, so I opted for a simpler option.

We went to JoAnn's and found the most amazing burlap!

We loved it because it looks like it has Santa Keys all over it! For those of you who don't know the story of the Santa key, here's a brief explanation: If you don't have a fireplace, Santa has no way to get into your house unless he has a Santa Key. You take an old key with ribbons around it and hang it on the door so Santa can use the key to get into the house to deliver his presents. 

Since we don't have a fireplace, I thought this would be perfect!

We got 2 yards of fabric, which cost about $12.00. Sweet. I cut a 48"x48" square out of the fabric, and saved the rest for later:

Next, I folded it into quarters like the tutorials told me to, then folded the smaller square into a triangle.

I flipped it over so I could cut more comfortably, and cut the top corner off to make a circular-ish shaped skirt. Now, before I did this, I practiced on paper, and it was REALLY hard for me to get a perfect circle. Since I couldn't even do it would computer paper, and I only had a certain amount of fabric, I decided not to go for the perfect circular shape, but to try for a scalloped edge instead.

Next, I cut the middle. Most tree skirts obviously have a circular center, but I wanted to see if I could make it work with a star-shaped center. I might go back and edit this next year because it honestly was a little annoying to try and put around the tree, but it looks really cool on the ground. I just cut a V shape at the bottom of the triangle:

and Viola! Skirt!

I did spend a little time rounding out my scallops a little more and making them more symmetrical. It's not perfect, but it was good enough for me. All that was left was to cut a slit in one side so it could be wrapped around the tree. Unfortunately, we have a GIANT tree stand (seriously...it's huge), and the skirt barely covered it:

I didn't like how it looked at all, so I ended up putting the skirt completely under the tree and tree stand, and then wrapping the extra fabric around the tree stand itself. It looked SO much better!

Before:

After:

The edges did fray a little bit, but that could be easily fixed by using fray-blocking glue. It didn't look too bad with the burlap, though- it kind of fit the look.

Christmas Cheer Update!

Hello! Remember in my first post, how I said I had 4 blogs that had all been abandoned? Well, I am determined to keep this one up, but it's just going to take a little bit of getting used to.

My Christmas Cheers have been reduced to 12. I know that Christmas is already over (except for me! I celebrate another one tonight!), but since we went homemade with all of our presents this year, I didn't have time to make everything AND blog about it.

Get ready for a blog post bonanza, folks, because some homemade gifts and Christmas cheer are on their way!

Christmas Cheer #5: "Subway Art"

20 more days until Christmas! To get in the mood, I watched one of my favorite Christmas movies: Elf. One of my favorite Christmas quotes from the movie is "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear". I've been seeing a lot of "Subway Art" on Pinterest (follow me!), and I thought that I would make my own Christmas/Elf themed "art" to put up on our wall. I'm only halfway done, so I'll have to post more later, but here's what I have so far:

So I know it's not exactly like the normal "Subway Art" since all the lines are not the same length, but I like it. I think I'm going to add in a couple of designs to even it out a bit. Then I'll print it out, frame it, and viola! Super cheap Christmas decoration!

More cheer later!

Christmas Cheer #4: Recycled Magazine Trees

Happy Football Sunday! Go Packers!

Okay, I know that's not Christmasy, but I don't care. 

Alright, here's the festive-ness. Last night I stayed up wayyyyy to late (How I Met Your Mother is finally on Netflix!) and found a fun (although time consuming) Christmas tree craft using old magazines. Check out Martha Stewart's tutorial here.

Here's how I did it:

Christmas Cheer #3: Snowflakes

Happy Weekend! Since I'm home by myself tonight, I thought I would try a couple of holiday crafts since, despite my best efforts, our house is still decoration-free.

I am trying to make a craft bench for myself, but since I haven't really started yet, I don't have very many craft supplies around the house, so I had to get creative. My project was to make snowflakes to put on our sliding glass door. This is SUPER easy, and involves a lot of techniques that I learned in elementary school. Honestly, this is probably more at home in a house that has kids in it, but, hey, I thought I would bring back that little kid Christmas Cheer and give it a shot.

We used to cut out snowflakes using printer paper and tape them to the window, but I thought I would take the "classier" route that does not involve tape. Fortunately, the people we bought our house from left a bunch of contact paper in our basement. It is supposed to look like "granite", but it doesn't really. I definitely won't be using it for my drawers or shelves, so I gave it a try. Here's what I did:

Christmas Cheer #2: Stocking Stuffers

Happy Friday!

Most people are super excited about the weekend, but in our house, it just means that there is more work than usual. These weekend shifts are killer!


On a happier and more festive note, I started picking stocking stuffers for Christmas morning! It took awhile, but I'm excited to play Santa! Check them out after the jump! (Note to family: Please don't click the link! Santa presents are a "surprise"!)

25 Days of Christmas Cheer

Happy December!

I am amazed that we don't have any snow yet. This is WISCONSIN! I hate cold weather, but once the calendar turns to December 1st, I am ready for snow! I've been slacking a little on posting regularly, but that's (hopefully) about to change. I'm going to be posting every day until Christmas with something festive. Warning: some may be boring, and you probably don't care, but I promise I'll have a couple tutorials or something to help bring some Christmas cheer into your homes, too :)

Christmas Cheer #1: Well, day one isn't very exciting. However, we are hosting Christmas at our house for the first time ever, so we a have a lot to get ready. Here's what went down at our house today:
1. Order stockings for everyone
2. Order lights for the tree
3. Turn on the Christmas Music!

There are still a lot of things on our Christmas to-do list, so hopefully we'll have more exciting Christmas Cheer for you soon! (If anything, maybe this post will make you feel better about how much further along in your decorating you are-ha!)

Grandma.

I was planning on putting up some pictures of our new entertainment stand with info on how we did it this week, but a wrench was thrown into the plan on Thursday morning. I got a phone call from my dad telling me that my Grandma was dying. Cory and I packed up the car at 10pm, picked up my brother, and drove to St. Louis. We got there around 4AM, and after a quick nap, there was a whirlwind of activity. We all met with Hospice Care around 9:30 am, and by 5:30pm, Grandma was at home in her own bed, just like she wanted. Unfortunately we could not stay as long as we would've liked due to everyone's schedules, so we had to say our final good-byes the next morning. We'll be thinking of her over the next few weeks, but sadly, I'm sure we'll be making the trip back down very soon.

I Love You, Grandma!

We've got Stripes!

Here is what our "living room" looked like before we moved in:

BLECH! (...sorry previous owners...)

We finally got some paint on the walls a couple weeks ago (I know, I suck at blogging as things are happening). We are huge Wisconsin Badger fans, so we wanted to do a Badger theme without having bright Cardinal Red EVERYWHERE. We settled in a red, white, and brown theme.

We started by painting the largest wall a nice, rich red (Behr's Paint & Primer in One in Allure). The rest of the walls were covered in two coats of an off-white (Behr's Swiss Coffee). With a couple of coats, and a few touch-ups to go, the room looked like this:

(Please ignore the crazy amount of things on our floor)

After living with it for a couple of days, I decided that the Swiss Coffee alone was just too light (for those of you who don't know me, I don't do well with lack of color!), and was trying to figure out how I could add color without straying from my color scheme. Inspiration struck when I was watching TLC's What Not To Wear and the room Stacy & Clinton were in while tearing apart this poor woman's wardrobe was horizontally striped with light browns. Perfect!! 

I was nervous about picking a color to coordinate, but I ended up with one that was just two shades lighter than the Swiss Coffee (Behr's Oyster). When I was painting it in the wall, I was pretty sure it was too light and was NOT happy about needing to do it all over, but it started out perfectly. My mom came over to help us measure, tape, and paint because she's fully awesome.

I was SUPER impatient and wanted to take all the tape off an hour after we painted, but it ended up needing an extra coat, and Cory convinced me to be patient (i.e. bribed me with food). FINALLY, we took the tape off (seriously, that's my favorite part), brought the couch in, and hooked up that TV!

...aaaaand here's our after:

I love my stripes!

To be perfectly honest, the room looks different already, but I'll be posting soon with how we made our super cheap and super awesome entertainment unit. 

Happy Halloween + Housewarming

After a week of menu planning, last-minute painting, and cleaning, our house was put together enough for a housewarming party! All the food was a huge hit- so here are some links to the recipes I used:

Appetizers:
Homemade Tomato Basil Soup: This was the first time I made homemade tomato soup, and it turned out really well! I ended up taking the whole tomatoes out and chopping them up a bit to make the soup a little smoother. Since we just did little cups of soup with mini grilled cheeses, the whole tomatoes made it hard to eat.
Ham & Cheese Sliders: These were absolutely amazing. I got some super tiny ham rolls, and all 24 of these were gone before dinner. For the sauce, I used fresh finely chopped onion in place of minced onion spice, and spicy dijon mustard in place of yellow mustard. I think they really added a lot to the sandwiches. I think I am going to make some more of them and keep them in the fridge so I can have them as snacks throughout the week.

Dessert:
Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins: Even though, I don't like pumpkin, I knew everyone else did, so I thought I'd give these a try. They look super difficult, but they were actually really easy! The only additional tip I have is to use a hand mixer to make the cheesecake filling. In my first batch, I tried hand mixing it, and the texture just wasn't right. My professional tester (read: husband) preferred the second batch by far.
Pumpkin Pie Dip: As delicious as everything else was, this was by far every one's favorite. I sent extra home with most of our guests, including my mom, who is an AMAZING cook (I was so proud of myself!) We put out fresh orchard apples and cinnamon sugar graham crackers as dippers- they both were flying off the plate. If you want something super easy to take to a holiday party, I definitely recommend this!

For drinks, we had spiked hot apple cider and an array of Oktoberfest beers, as well as some Sprecher Root Beer for anyone who didn't want alcohol. It was overall a great night, and I wish we had more leftovers so I could have some for lunch today!

Budgeting

While looking for inspiration for the empty bedrooms in our house, the discussion of a nursery has come up more than once. However, in order to fill said nursery, we need to save up some money and set a household budget. If you're like me, you kind of guess how much you are spending each month, and pay things off as you can. We go out to eat a few times a week, and buy things for the house as we need them (what, a sweater is TOTALLY a household item!), and try to figure out where all of our extra money went at the end of the month. I tried making a spreadsheet, but since my husband and I just recently joined bank accounts, it was difficult to figure out who owed what, and how much extra we had, let alone figure out what we could save.

Enter www.mint.com. This website is SO cool! I've only spent a little over an hour on it so far, but the ability to enter as many bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc as we need to so we can BOTH see what's happening is great! It also comes up with a budget for you and tells you when you go over. My favorite part so far (other than the fact that it said I was underbudget on my clothes allowance) is send me tips and tricks on how to save money and improve my credit score. I'm obsessed with this little app-and yep! it's available on smart phones, too!

There are a couple of other budgeting ideas I have seen that I like, but one in particular from todaysnest.com that I think would work great in conjunction with the wonderfulness of mint.com. For the full details (and printable envelopes), check out this link: http://www.todaysnest.com/todays-nest/2010/09/todays-money-budgeting-with-cash-envelopes.html

I'll post pictures of my envelopes once I print them out and get this started!

Our House: Before

I've spent the majority of my morning painting and taping, and taping and painting, so I thought I would take a break to remember how much progress we have made. Here are some photos of our house when it was on the market.

My walls are on their way to being more colorful! More updates to come!