Homemade Picture Display

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas, I know I did!  One of the highlights of my Christmas day was getting to talk to my brother and brother-in-law who are currently serving missions for our church.  We had sent a package to each of them a couple weeks before Christmas so this was one gift that I had finished well in advance of the holiday rush!  I made each of them this fold-up personalized "picture frame" that they could set on their desks in their apartments.  They both turned out really cute and I think they will like them.

The first thing that I did was cut squares out of mat board to become the base for my pictures.  They have pre-cut kits at the craft store that you can buy but I had some of this leftover from another project so I just cut my own.  I then covered the front and back with paper and punched holes in both sides (except the front cover and back cover which only need holes punched in one side.)  I then mounted my pictures in the center of each page and tied them all together with some twine.   

The final touch that made these really personal was actually on the back.  I put these little envelopes so that each person could write a note to them and put it on the back of their picture.  This way they could always have a little piece of home with them!

These turned out really adorable and were pretty simple to make.  You could certainly embellish them more than I did but they're boys and I figured in their case the simpler the better.  The best part about them is that they fold up and so they are really easy to store and move around.  I hope you all have a Happy New Year and can't wait to see what new adventures this year brings!

Christmas Goodies!

This week I was helping my Dad get gifts together for the people he works with.  I found these awesome little goodie boxes at my local xpedx store (I love that place by the way, they have just about every kind of bag, box, envelope, or paper you could think of.  I'm like a kid in a candy store there!)  We decided to fill them with some home made cookies and some fun holiday candy.  I decided to use some of my personal favorites including, peanut butter cups, almond roca, and peppermint balls. 

After the cookies had cooled I wrapped them in some plastic wrap and tied a piece of ribbon around the top.  I put them on one side of the box and then added a piece of tissue paper to hold our other little goodies on the other side.  I ended up using 6 peanut butter cup, 6 peppermints and 2 almond rocas along with 5 cookies per box.

After we had finished assembling them we simply stuck a tag on the top of the box and they were ready to deliver.  It ended up being really simple but turned out so cute!

I wanted to share my cookie recipe with all of you also.  I love this recipe, I got it years ago and have been making them this way ever since.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 cups brown sugar

4 cubes butter or margarine

3 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

6 cups flour

2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. soda

1/2 cup oatmeal

Cream together sugars and butter.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Then dry ingredients.  Mix Well.  Then add chocolate chips and oatmeal.  Spoon onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

(I make these in my Bosch mixer but I'm sure a kitchenaid would work also.)

Happy baking!

DIY Peppermint Topiary

The other day I came up with this fun idea for a homemade topiary that looks like a peppermint.  My Mom needed an idea for gifts to donate to our local festival of trees and using what we had around the house I came up with these.  They turned out really cute and only took me about an hour to make!  We used foam core board, a bamboo skewer, pages from an old book I use for crafts, a little bucket, and some red paper.  First I cut a circle out of the foam core the size of the peppermint, then you take pages from the book and tear them into small pieces (the trick is you want them to be small enough that you can't read whole sentences but big enough that it doesn't take a ton of time to cover your circle).  Then you glue them onto the front and back making sure that you cover the whole circle.  I didn't worry if the paper went over the edge because it was really easy just to trim it after the glue dried.

The next step is to cut peppermint swirl shapes out of your red paper.  I eyeballed the first one and then traced it to make the rest.  I ended up with 5 "swirls" on each side (so 10 total).  Then you glue those on top of your paper covered circle.  I then modpodged on top of the whole thing once everything was glued on.

You're almost done now!  Next I stuck the skewer in the bottom of the circle and then stuck it in a piece of floral foam that was glued to the bottom of my bucket.  To finish it off we also modpodged some vintage Christmas pictures to the bucket, but you could use any type of container you wanted.  We also added a piece of ribbon around the skewer and glued some red twine around the edge of the peppermint because it gave it a more finished look.

All in all it was an awesome and inexpensive Christmas decoration!  I love the vintage feel of it with the old book pages and vintage holiday images.  If you would rather have it more modern you could always use a shiny metal bucket and just plain white paper, there are lots of ways you could personalize this project!  Also a little tip I thought I might add, if you have problems using an actual book you can color copy the pages and use those instead.  That way you don't have to rip up a book.  And here is the finished product!  I hope you all enjoy the tutorial and fill your home with Christmas cheer!