Merry Christmas From Our House to Yours

Christmas Treat Bags

I went back and forth on what to give to Camryn's teachers and my friends. I always end up making cookies. But this year I at least spiced it up a bit. I am in love whoopie pies and thought of doing Red Velvet to make them more Christmasy.  

 They are delicious and so easy when you make them with a cake mix. Three ingredients, butter, cake mix and eggs. 

 Then I just added crushed candy cane around the edge of the cream cheese frosting.

I found this printable on pinterest here. It took a while to get the spacing right on the bag and 15 crumpled bags later I had a cute finished product. So excited to give my treats out this year as opposed to the plastic wrap paper plate look. Merry Christmas!

Orange County Swap Meet

Another Christmas DIY

I have just been in craft mode these days and when I find a little inspiration it makes it so easy for me to take off with it. Lucky for me, my friends and I had a craft night to help me get started on my projects. I had seen this garland on Pinterest and knew I needed it. Well after seeing that felt balls cost close to $25 for 100 I nixed that idea and thought about pom poms. 

 All I needed was a large needle, thin crochet yarn, and 5 bags of pom poms  (we have a 7 foot tree). They have a lot of colors to choose from at Michaels but I thought this mixed bag worked well with our tree. And instead of $25 per 100, they were $2.79. Much more like it. So it turned out to be close to $17 for the whole thing.

 So much like my last tutorial I just strung the pom poms on in the patterned I liked. This time was much easier though since I didn't have to tie knots to make them evenly spaced. The pom poms are just hard enough that they will stay pretty well without knots. Unless you have young kids that you know are going to be pulling on it. Happened once when my daughter got mad and yanked the garland off the tree on the way to time out-no biggie though I just pulled them apart again. 

 I tried to make a line as long as possible stringing to the middle as far as I could pull without getting it tangled. Then I would change the needle to the other side and go toward the middle again. This made it so much faster then trying to string all the way to the end of the yarn. 

I love the way it turned out. We went the inexpensive route this year since we won't even be here for Christmas and got a douglas fir which aren't my favorite.  However, with the added garland it gave the tree just  right amount of character. I can't wait to use this year after year.

New Adventure for Twigg

This weekend we are off to the Orange County Swap Meet. I am excited to try this out and see what all the hype is about. I have never been to the OC Swap Meet, but from what I here it is like no other swap meet. I guess that is Orange County for you. I am hoping to clear through a bunch of inventory to make room for winter and spring trends. So if you are in the area stop by between 7-4 on Saturday. My prices will be cut and deals will be flying! Wish us luck as there is a lot do before our big day. 

Elf Gender Change

If you know my daughter she is all girl. She is constantly asking if things are for boys or girls. If they are for boys she won't have anything to do with it. This year I knew I was so excited to do The Elf on the Shelf Tradition, but once I saw there were only skin color options (which is awkward in and of itself) I knew I needed to make some additions.

 Here is the boy/plain elf:

And here is my girl elf creation:

With felt I already had I made a ball on the end of the hat, bow, buttons and skirt to match the collar. Such an easy makeover and I think it makes her so cute. Now we won't have to sell the fact that the elf is a girl, she will clearly be able to tell. 

Shipped Out

I love Click & Ship. It is my new best friend. Before I had 2 kids it was no problem running to the Post Office. Now I don't even know what I would do with out my beloved postage scale, computer and the man that comes to my door to take these away. Cyber Monday was not stressful-just fun.