Christmas Home Tour

Hello and welcome to our home. Here are some pic's of our country Christmas.

This is our living room.  I just made the "Peace" sign yesterday. I still have to add a scripture verse about Jesus being the Prince of Peace in small writing at the bottom, distress it a bit and stain it. But I really like it and it's filling a void along that wall.

Closer image of the tree and St. Nick in a wagon I got from a yard sale this summer.

This is our nativity area. It's above our office desk, which is all open from the living room.  I made the star from an antique folding carpenter's ruler.

I bought this little ornament from the thrift store still in the box. I love it! It has the Christmas story passage from the bible written out.

This is in our dining room.  I have a lot of our old fashioned decorations there.



This is the old fashioned Christmas tree in the dining room.

This is the little tree in the kitchen. I decorated it with gingerbread men, candy canes and cinnamon stars.  It is actually just the top of an artificial tree. I have been cutting up the rest of the tree for crafts, but I saved the top for just this reason. I put it in a crock.

Here are some of my gingerbread decorations and a lamp I made using an old flour sifter.

This is all the kitchen decorations.  The shelf is a little bare, because I ran out of decorations.  Our house that we moved here from was smaller, so the decorations don't go as far.

This is always my favorite room of the entire house, the bathroom!

I bought the angel doll last year on clearance and I made the light.

I use most of our snowman decorations in the bathroom.  There is the snowman tree in a crock and many more snowmen here and there.

Well, that completes our tour. Thank you for stopping by.

Steamed Cranberry Pudding

For the last few years I have been looking forward to a very big craft show in a near by city so that I can buy Cranberry Pudding. My friend, Lisa, showed them to me when we went together and I have bought one every year since.  When I bought it this year, I looked at the ingredients and thought, why not see if there is a recipe on the internet? The very first search result looked exactly right and when I made it, it was exactly like it! Now I can save that $20 that I spent on the pudding. The only real expense is the cranberries, but one package makes 2 puddings, so very minimal.

I found the recipe on All Recipes and you can find the original here.  I only made one change to decrease the amount of molasses a little bit. So here is my revised recipe;

2 tsp baking soda
1/2 c hot water
1 Tbsp sugar
1/3 c molasses
1 1/2 c flour
2 c fresh cranberries

In a bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the water. Add sugar and molasses, then stir in flour and cranberries.  Pour into greased bunt pan and cover with tin foil.  Place in a pot with 1" simmering water and simmer on low heat, covered, for 1 hr 10 mins - 1 1/2 hrs.

The best part about this recipe is the sauce, which calls for;

1/2 c butter or margarine
1 c sugar
1/2 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla

Cook until hot and simmer for a minute or two. Serve over each piece of cranberry pudding.

This pudding is so good! I can't stop thinking about it. Thank you Jane Walker for posting your recipe on All Recipes!




This post is linked up to; My Healthy Green Family Happy and Blessed Home Living Well Spending Less

Quick, Cute Christmas Projects

I wanted to share some quick, cute Christmas crafts we have made here.

I made these ornaments with the kids a couple of years ago, but every time I pull them out, I love them! They remind me of ornaments I made with my mom as a child. We used tuna cans with both ends cut out then, but this time we used an old zinc screw canning band.  We glued some cotton on the inside bottom. Then we glued in some figurines from the dollar store.  To finish it off, we tied some ribbon around the outside and looped a string, tied in a loop with a stamped tag on it, through the ribbon to create a hanger.

 

 

 

 

I saw something like these "snow globes" on Pinterest. So, I made my own out of a salt shaker from the thrift store, some salt, a red bead cut off of bead garland and the top 2/3 of a little tree from the dollar store.  I looped some wire through the holes in the lid for a hanger and I finished it off with some homespun and pip berries.

 

 

Rebekah made these snowman tags to sell at the craft shows I rented a table at this year.  First I coffee stained some office tags.  Then she stamped "Frosty" on each one and glued buttons to look like a snowman, leaving a little space for the scarf.  Then she rubbed the edges in the ink to made them look old.  She tied thin jute through the hole for a hanger.  They turned out absolutely adorable!

 

 

Then there are the rustic cinnamon stars that I posted about here.

 

 

 Also, I made these cinnamon gingerbread men ornies that I posted about here. 

 

 

I love the creativity that just flows so freely this time of year.  Have fun crafting!

 

This post is linked up to Ginger Snap Crafts My Healthy Green Family Happy and Blessed Home

 

Living Well Spending Less

Christmas Project - Snowman Sled

I put together a project I had seen on Pinterest from a store called C & C Furnishings.   It is a snowman in a wooden sled with grapevine garland, greenery, accents and lights and theirs looks like this;


Well, I noticed we had an old wooden sled just sitting out in the snow.  And I have had some grapevine garland for so many years that I haven't used and I bought a snowman on clearance last year that I thought would be perfect. First I rolled up an 8' strand of artificial garland with lights in it and stuffed it in the curved bottom. The snowman sits on top of that and I stuck the accents into the garland.  I wrapped the excess lights around the grapevine garland. This is what mine looks like;

 

 

 

I'm happy with it.

 

This post is linked up to: The Dedicated House, Happy Days Farm, Nifty Thrifty Things Hope in Every Season Ginger Snap Crafts

 

Bible Verse Advent

My daughter from Country God Girl is featuring a Bible Advent on her blog for the next 22 days.  It is so cool to see the Old Testament point to Jesus' coming.
Check it out if you have a chance.

This post is linked up to; A Mama's Story