Gingerbread Houses ~ Decorating Fun!

We had so much fun with my mom and Pepo visiting this past weekend. One of the holiday projects we did during their visit was decorating gingerbread houses. The girls had a ball with this holiday activity and I thought I would share some photos of their experience.

First we had to gather up all the candy.......lots and lots of candy.

These red ruby dishes are very special to me. My Grandma Ethel collected a large set of this dishes in all shapes and sizes for me. They are so beautiful and I always pull them out around the holidays. I really should use them more often because they really make me smile when we use them. The little dishes were prefect for all the different types of candy.

I did not make the actual gingerbread for the houses. Maybe someday, but for now, I felt lucky enough to find the time to gather up all the supplies and complete this project. I bought a kit for our houses that had this handy tray to help the house stand up. The houses are held together with a delicious white icing. I mean, what's the fun of a gingerbread house if you can't eat it, right? I know you can purchase these kits at many different big box stores.

Of course, you and I both know that the most fun part of decorating a gingerbread house is sampling all the candy. Miss Matilda certainly was in charge of quality control, but she did manage to get some candy onto her house.

Savannah was very focused on her house decorating and she had some help from Pepo and Grandma Jane.

Here is Matilda's completed gingerbread house.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how this little miss was going to do decorating her house. She has been giving us a run for our money lately, but to my pleasant surprise she was really into the task at hand.

Here is another 'quality control' photo. There were lots of those.

Savannah had to put her final finishing touches on her gingerbread house to make it look just right. And it did. Both of their houses were absolutely beautiful! We really had so much fun with this activity that I definitely think we will do this again next year!

So, do you decorate gingerbread houses with your children or grandchildren?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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Homemade Popcorn Balls ~ Recipe

There is something very nostalgic to me about homemade popcorn balls. This year I decided to whip up a big batch of these sweet treats to share with our friends. These do not take long at all to put together and you can do a large batch of them in no time. Wrap each one up in a clear cello bag with some bakers twine and you've got a sweet little gift that anyone would be happy to receive.

Homemade Popcorn Ball Recipe

Makes 8 - 10

Ingredients:

8 cups popped popcorn

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup butter

Directions:

Place the popped popcorn into a large mixing bowl. In a medium sized saucepan, combine the corn syrup, water, salt, brown sugar and white sugar. Place over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat slightly and cook until the mixture becomes a thick syrup (about 15 minutes). If you have a candy thermometer, wait until the mixture has reached 260 degrees. But if not, just eye-ball it.....you'll be fine.

Remove mixture from heat and stir in butter. Once the butter has melted completely, pour the mixture over the popcorn and stir to combine. Allow the covered popcorn to cool slightly, you want to be able to handle it without burning yourself, but you don't want it to set up.....so don't wait too long. Shape the popcorn into fist size balls and place on wax or parchment paper. Allow to cool completely.

Wrap up each individual popcorn ball with some fun and festive wrapping. I used clear cello bags, green bakers twine and a 'Merry Christmas' washi tape........but there are all kinds of fun ways you could wrap these up!

Or you could just put them on a platter and serve them as is..........

Little ones love popcorn balls, so make sure you grab one for yourself, otherwise they will be gone before you know it!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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DIY Christmas Pillowcases

As I've mentioned before, this year we are having quite a few visitors during the holiday season. I decided to whip up a bunch of Christmas pillowcases for all of our house guests using my '15-Minute Pillowcase Tutorial'. I thought it would be a festive and fun gesture to have new pillowcases for our house guests to use to rest their tired heads.

These pillowcases were made using the '15-Minute Pillowcase Tutorial' that can be found HERE.

 

These pillowcases sew together really quickly. You can make a bunch of them in assembly line style in no time. The longest part of the process is actually cutting all the fabric, but again, assembly line style is key if you are making a bunch.

The only part of the '15 Minute Pillowcase Tutorial' that I changed was the little accent strip in between the main part of the fabric and the edge band fabric. For these pillowcases, I made the accent strip half as wide as I did on the other pillowcases. You can do this either way, but for these pillowcases I just wanted to see what it would look like with a smaller strip. And to tell you the truth, I think I like it better. But if you want the accent fabric to be more noticeable, definitely go with the wider measurement from the original tutorial.

I used Anna Griffin's 'Isabelle' fabric collection for these pillowcases. I don't think it is still in print, but you should be able to find some of the collection here and there if you like this line......just do a Google search.

This is the same fabric that I used for our Holiday Tablecloth (tutorial found HERE). I am just so drawn to the vintage look and feel and since I had some left over I thought, why not turn it into some pillowcases?

This fabric is high-quality quilting cotton so it feels great against the skin and washes very well. Make sure to choose a nice, quality fabric when making these Christmas pillowcases for your special house guests, family or friends.

We have our second round of company coming for a visit this weekend.....my dad and brother. I'm really looking forward to spending time with them and letting them choose their Christmas pillowcase! Pin It

Cottage Christmas Outfits 2012

I was very lucky this year that my mom asked if she could make the kids Christmas outfits again. Of course I said yes, and I wanted to share some pictures of the darling dresses she created for the girls and the adorable bow-tie she created for Caspian Finn.

This past weekend we had our early Christmas celebration with my mom and Pepo. We went out to our favorite seafood brunch restaurant and were able to get some pictures of the kids wearing their sweet Christmas outfits.

These dresses were made from the Charlotte Apron Dress Pattern (Size 6 Month through 10 Years) by The Cottage Mama. My mom added a darling little elf onto each of the girls aprons. It was such a fun, whimsical touch.

Caspian Finn had his own matching bow-tie which I thought looked so adorable on him. He didn't even seem to notice that he had it on. I just love boys in bow ties!

This special restaurant has a lake inside with lots of fish. The girls like to get some fish food and feed the fish. It's a highlight of this special brunch.

The dresses look like they match from the back, but they are different on the front with different colored fabrics on the apron and the bodice front.

I might be kind of in love with these shoes from Livie and Luca. They are just too fun for the holidays and the girls love wearing them!

Our favorite brunch restaurant happens to be an old seafood place in town and they have this giant shrimp (or lobster......I'm not sure what it is) out in front.

So those are just a few pictures from this weekend of the kids wearing their holiday outfits. They will be wearing them again this week for their school holiday party and to Christmas Eve Mass.

Are your Christmas outfits all ready to go?

I can't believe Christmas is only a week away!

Cottage Mama's Note: Most of the fabric is from Anna Griffin's 'Isabelle' collection.

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