An Advent Calendar that is Adorable and Easy!

November 22, 2014Advent Calendar, Christmas Gift Ideas, Creative Giftsadvent, advent calendar, advent calendar ideas, Christmas gift, Christmas Ideas, diy, gift, kids, present, socksWelcome to my blog!

Everyone loves an advent calendar to help count down the days before Christmas! Last year, in the last days of November, my 17 year old son said to me, “you are putting up the advent calendar, aren’t you?” I was actually considering not doing it, he was getting pretty old for such a thing. Next thing I know, my 20 year old daughter is asking me if I was planning on sending an advent calendar to her college apartment!

What did I tell you? Everyone loves an advent calendar!

Here is a link for Advent Calendars for the College Student!

Here is a video presentation!

Years ago, when my children were tiny, I began this tradition. The socks I hung were all sewn together from fabrics that I had used on projects for the kids. The fabrics ranged from curtain fabrics and costume materials to pajama flannel. Some of the stockings had pointy toes, round toes, but my proudest was the cowboy boot from fake leather – so cool!

So – if you are a seamstress. Going this route would be very special for your kids! Pull out all your fabric scraps and get sewing.

If you are not a seamstress – no worries. Here is an idea that is cute, inexpensive and easy! Does anything get better than that?

What do you need?

Socks!

I used tiny socks because they are so darn cute! The sizes ranged from 3 months to 2 years! Pick an assortment of colors, stripes, whatever you can find!

Ribbon

Clothes Pins

Good Stuff to fill the socks with!

Along with candy, I like to add things like sticky notes, hand sanitizer, markers, and automatic pencils with accessories. In one sock they may get the pencil; the next day they receive the lead that goes with the pencil and then the eraser…

Other ideas: small toys, nail polish, money, lip balm, hair clips, a harmonica, fun paper clips…

Years ago, I put together an advent calendar for a beloved & wonderful niece ( She reads my blog!) The first year, I sent the socks fully stuffed with goodies so it was ready to hang up on the first day of advent. Each year after that, I would just send the stuffing and her mother crammed it in the socks for me. Because the advent calendar was also her Christmas gift, she had a 25th day and into that stocking she would find her Christmas gift – usually a gift card!

Just one more idea for those of you with a beloved and wonderful niece, nephew, blogger…

The final items to include in the advent stockings are jokes and riddles. Sometimes I will give the riddle one day and the answer the next. You will find tons of them on the web, but this year I found something special!

These are lunch box jokes from a fellow blogger and these are perfect for an advent calendar! Here is the link to so you can print up some of your very own – Christmas Jokes!

Now that you have gathered your supplies, the rest is easy.

The socks will need to be numbered from 1 to 24. I punched out circles of card stock, numbered them and hot glued them to the socks. Let me tell you, those numbers aren’t going anywhere!

Using clothes pins, hang the stockings on a ribbon, leaving plenty of ribbon on either end for tying up the calendar!

Now for the fun part – filling the stockings!

You better get on this soon!

Hot Chocolate Bar

November 19, 2014Holidays, Hot Chocolate Barcandy bar, chocolate, Chocolate spoons, Christmas Ideas, cocoa, diy, drinks, entertaining, holiday party, Hot Chocolate, kids drinks, kids menu, menu, partyWelcome to my blog!

As adults, we plan fabulous parties thinking of everything an adult might enjoy. We tend to overlook the fact that kids will be present at our gathering and may not enjoy the same things! This year, when planning your holiday party, create a special treat just for the kids!

So kids – this is for you!

Hot Chocolate Bar

Set up an area where the kids can choose treats to stir into their mugs of hot chocolate. Bowls heaping with cut-up peanut butter cups, peppermint patties and marshmallows will be a welcome sight for the wee ones. Include candy canes and chocolate spoons for stirring their personalized drink!
And don’t forget the whipped cream – Must have whipped cream!

Cinnamon – that’s another great addition. Sprinkle some of that on the whipped cream – so beautiful!

Just in case there is an adult or two that enjoys a nice mug of hot chocolate, have a few mini-bottles of assorted liquors for them to add to their mugs! There we go – thinking about the adults again!

Liquor Bottles for the Hot Chocolate Bar

How to make Chocolate Spoons!

This recipe will make 8 Chocolate Spoons
Heat 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 tsp coconut oil in a double boiler over barely simmering water. Allow the chips to melt and then stir until smooth.

Using plastic or wooden spoons ( I couldn’t find them, but I know they exist!)
Coat them well and make sure the bowl of the spoon is full of chocolate!
Set on wax paper to cool

Heat 2 oz of cut-up caramels and 1/2 tbs of cream in a double boiler over barely simmering water.
Allow the caramels to soften then stir until smooth. Drizzle the melted caramel over the top of the chocolate spoons. If the caramel isn’t drizzling well, thin with a little water!

The caramel sticks to everything therefore, I would avoid getting it on the bottom of the spoon! The kids won’t be able to pick them up!

Also, I use a small glass bowl over a small pot of simmering water. A regular double boiler is way to big for this tiny amount of caramel!

Flourless Mocha Brownie

November 17, 2014Flourless Mocha Brownie, Gluten-free Recipes, Recipesbaking, brownie, chocolate, chocolate brownie, flour-less, flourless, mocha, mocha brownie, recipeWelcome to my blog!

Who wants a delicious brownie with none of the flour and all of the delicious taste? I do!
This recipe is one of my go-to desserts when having a party.

I like to cut these brownies into bite-sized pieces and top them with a chocolate covered espresso bean! Guests seem to like desserts that are small – why? I think it’s so they can eat 5 of them and not feel guilty – hmmm.

Here is the recipe for you to try!

Flourless Mocha Brownie
½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
dash salt
½ cup cocoa powder
2 tsp Espresso Powder

Genache Icing
2/3 cup cream
1 cup chocolate chips

Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans

Heat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 9” square pan by spraying generously with cooking spray. In a double boiler, melt the butter and 1 cup of chocolate chips over barely simmering water. Whisk until smooth.

Melt Butter and Chocolate Chips in a double boiler!

Chocolate Mixture for Flourless Mocha Brownies!

Remove the top of your double boiler from the heat and stir in the sugar, vanilla and eggs. Mix well. Sift together the cocoa powder, espresso powder and salt and add this to the egg mixture. Stir until just combined and pour into your prepared pan.

Flourless Mocha Brownie is ready for baking!

Bake for 12-15 minutes until a cake taster comes out almost clean.

Flourless Mocha Brownie ready for it's Genache glaze! — Flourless Mocha Brownie ready for it’s Genache glaze!

Allow the brownie to cool in the pan for 10 minutes then turn over onto a cutting board. Allow the brownie to cool completely. In a double boiler melt the chocolate chips with the cream over barely simmering water.

Prepare Chocolate Genache with Cream and Chocolate Chips!

Whisk until smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before spreading over the brownie layer.

Drizzling Genach over the Flourless Mocha Brownie!

After the genache has stiffened, cut the brownies into bite-sized pieces. Top each brownie square with a chocolate covered espresso bean. Enjoy!

If you clean your knife after every cut, you will get perfect pieces with no crumbs!

Here is an easily printable recipe for you![gmc_recipe 1725]

Lighted Christmas Balls

November 11, 2014Christmas Ideas, Outdoor Decorations for Christmaschristmas balls, Christmas Ideas, christmas lights, easy christmas decorations, lighted christmas balls, lights, outdoor christmas decorations, outdoor christmas lightsWelcome to my blog!

Balls wrapped in Christmas lights creates a beautiful outdoor Christmas scene! — Balls wrapped in Christmas lights!

I love Christmas and I love getting outside and putting up the Christmas lights – provided it’s not below zero! I don’t go Griswold crazy, but the lights go up every year!

Last year, I discovered a very cool picture of a park where large lighted balls were placed in an open snow-covered area. The look was magnificent. Each ball was large – I would guess 3-4 feet around and wrapped in a single color of christmas lights. The balls were haphazardly placed around a lighted christmas tree and the look was stunning and something I knew I had to try!

There was one problem with this project, to effectively cover balls that large would require many more lights than I was willing to purchase. Solution – use smaller balls! My yard isn’t that big anyway, but having 4 foot balls scattered though out my yard would be very cool! Maybe next year!

First things first – where to get the balls to wrap? Last year when I tried this, I used grape vine balls! Grape vine balls are wonderfully decorative during the day because they are natural looking and look awesome laying about a dormant flower bed. The problem with grape vine balls is that they can easily be crushed under a foot or more of snow – it happens!

This year I have been purchasing metal garden spheres. These are much sturdier and I have used them in lots of decorating projects – I love multi-functional objects!

On each sphere, I simply wrapped a single color of christmas lights and you can see the lovely look it provides. This effect is especially nice when it contrasts with white lights in the rest of your Christmas lighting.

How many lights did I use? The small ball has 210 lights and the large balls have 300 lights!

One more tip – wind will move the balls so anchor them! I use a tent anchor, but anchors for landscape edging would work well too!

We finally received some snow!

And more snow…

Happy Holidays!

Magical Outdoor Christmas Lights

November 11, 2014Christmas Ideas, Outdoor Decorations for ChristmasC7, Christmas Ideas, christmas lights, diy, easy christmas decorations, lights, mini lights, outdoor christmas lights, outdoor lightingWelcome to my blog!

Mixed Christmas lights makes for a beautiful tree!

Once upon a time, when I lived in Iowa, I spotted the most fabulously decorated tree along a downtown street. It was a deciduous tree decked out in colored christmas lights and every time I passed it I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was magical. There was something about it that made it stand out from all the others.

Finally, after closely inspecting the tree, I figured out what it was that made the tree’s look so special. The colored lights hanging on the tree were of two types – mini lights and large solid bulbs. The combination of lights created such a cool look that I had to replicate the effect!

The key to creating this look is to make your two types of lights as different as possible, while keeping the colors the same. I used mini colored lights and large colored lights.

Large Christmas light bulbs come in multiple sizes. I would suggest using size C9 – if you can. Mine are C7, but I wish they were C9. In case you haven’t already guessed it, all that C-talk is the bulb size! C7 means it’s a 7 watt bulb, C9 is a 9 watt bulb!

Also, I would suggest using the solid colored bulbs because the large clear bulbs look too much like the mini lights – so go solid!

Now the question – LED or traditional lights. LED mini-lights are very bright and what I choose to use. When it comes to the larger C7 or C9 bulbs, the traditional lights are brighter than the LEDs, but the brightness also dilutes the color of the bulb. I prefer to use the large LED lights because the color is greater and the electricity use is so much less. The picture below shows all LED lights both minis and C7s!

There is one more benefit to this mixed up Christmas light look! The large bulbs are clearly visible in the daylight hours, giving a nice look to your tree 24/7!

Happy Holidays!

Halloween Decorations for 2014

October 29, 2014Halloween Celebration, Halloween Decorations for 2014, Partieshalloween, halloween cupcakes, halloween decorations, pumpkins, spider webs, spiders, witch hatsWelcome to my blog!

There is nothing scary about the Etched Pumpkins, but they are beautiful!

For those guests who forgot their costumes, a basket full of treasures for them to discover who they will become for the night!

Don’t look up!

The mantel is all decked out for Halloween!

The Mantel was my favorite! Find out how to make the Cheese Cloth Spider Webs and Creepy Captured Critters on the links provided! The bats on the wall are cut from card stock and create a nice effect!

The Bloody Halloween Candles were very fun, but we almost had a mishap! A guest ran into the candles with her fabulously large floppy hat. Luckily, the hat snuffed out the candle and a crisis was averted! I immediately relocated the candles to an area absent of floppy hats!

I loved the chandelier! It was so easy and is simply draped with Spider Web Cheese Cloth! The Tulle Wrapped Pumpkins worked wonderfully under all those webs! Definitely not a place for burning candles!

Everyone loved the floating witch hats! Using fishing line, I simply suspended the hats between my two pendant lights. Fishing line is easily threaded into a needle so sewing the fishing line into the tip of the hat was easy! I threw on a few embellishments and voila – fun floating witch hats!

I wanted a delicious, but creepy dessert. I topped red velvet cupcakes with black dyed cream cheese frosting and dripped them with blood (red frosting gel) before serving!

Even my parents attended my party this year and they had a wonderful time – those devils!

I hope you all have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Creepy Critters Halloween Decoration

October 27, 2014Creepy Captured Critters, Halloween Celebrationbugs in jars, cheese cloth, creepy, decorations, halloween, halloween decorations, spider webs, spiders, Spooky decorationsWelcome to my blog!

This is so easy and so fun! I saw something similar on Pottery Barn where they sell the most wonderful creepy bug vase filler! They placed the bugs in jars, lit them from behind and what you see will make your skin crawl – I love it!!

What do you need?
Large Plastic Bugs
Clear Glass Jars
Tulle
Rubberbands
Ribbon

A string of lights

How did I do it: I stuffed a large plastic bug into a jar so the beast is standing up, for the most part! I then “sealed” my jar with netting or tulle, secured it with a rubber band and tied on a ribbon. I could have simply placed the lid on the jar, but we all know bugs need air, thus the netting! Plus, it creates a creepy feeling that they might just escape!

Now for the light part! I have fairy lights so I used them. Fairy lights are LEDs and look like tiny little droplets of light on a thin wire. These worked perfectly tucked behind the bug filled jars! Fairy lights are very cool!

If you don’t have fairy lights, regular white christmas lights will work too. I like to use led lights because they don’t get hot and they use a lot less electricity! To camouflage the lights, I used a bit of cheese cloth spiderweb! Yes – I have a post on Cheese Cloth Spiderwebs too! Check it out!

Enjoy your captured critters!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Cheese Cloth Spider Webs

October 27, 2014Cheese Cloth Spider Webs, Decorating, Halloween Celebration, Halloween Decorationscheese cloth, cheese cloth spider webs, decoration, halloween, halloween decoration, spider websWelcome to my blog!

What I love the most about cheese cloth spider webs is how easy they are to put up, take down and store!

I like to go a little crazy decorating for Halloween, but I don’t want to spend days putting it all together and days taking it all down.

What do you need:
Cheese Cloth
Tea

How to make them:
Purchase cheese cloth from any fabric store. It is very inexpensive! I like to make my cheese cloth look dirty so I pull out all the old tea bags that have been sitting in the cupboard for way too long and make a big pot of tea. After the tea is a nice dark color, I place the unfolded cheese cloth in the tea and let it soak. I allow the cheese cloth to soak 10-20 minutes.

After dyeing, I remove the cheese cloth from the tea, gently rinse and let dry. You can see in the above picture the difference in color after soaking in tea!

Now for the fun part! Drape the cheese cloth wherever you want that eerie effect! As you do this, rip holes in the cloth, and cut it where you want it to hang down. Where ever you cut the cloth, pull on it and the sharpness of the cut will disappear! Experiment with the cloth to create the effect you want!

I also like to use a length of the stained cheese cloth as a table runner for my Halloween table!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Pumpkins Wrapped in Tulle

October 22, 2014Halloween Celebration, Halloween Decorations, Parties, Tulle Wrapped Pumpkinsdecorations, fall, halloween, halloween pumpkins, pumpkins, thanksgiving, tulle, wrapped pumpkinsWelcome to my blog!

Wrapping pumpkins has become quite popular lately and is something I have been doing for years! Rather than purchase a wrap, make your own with tulle.

Tulle is a netting like material that is very inexpensive and comes in a variety of colors! Go to the fabric store and purchase tulle and ribbon, that is all you will need. I like to get black tulle and orange ribbon, but whatever colors you choose will be great!

What do you need?
Pumpkins
Tulle
Ribbon
Rubberbands

For large pumpkins, measure the height of your pumpkin and cut a square of tulle that is double the height plus 12-18 inches! Place your pumpkin in the center of your square, gather the ends at the top and secure at the stem with a rubber band. Now tie on your ribbon and trim the edges of the tulle – done and beautiful!

I also like to cover small pumpkins and place them on candles holders! This makes for a wonderful centerpiece!

The small pumpkins require a 12 inch square of tulle. Tie it up with a ribbon and you have created a delightful Halloween decoration that will last right into Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!

Bloody Halloween Candles

October 19, 2014Bloody Halloween Candles, Decorating, Halloween Celebration, Partiesbloody halloween candles, halloween, halloween candles, halloween decorationWelcome to my blog!

Here is a super easy Halloween decoration anyone can make in just a few minutes with candles and empty wine bottles. If you don’t have any empty bottles, then my advice is to take your time – empty the bottles slowly! No need to chug!

Supplies:
White Candles
One Red Candle
Empty Wine Bottles
Dirt!

Let’s begin!

I wanted my wine bottles labels to look old so my plan was to pull out my paint and glaze and attempt to give the labels an antiqued look when I thought of a much easier idea! Just rub dirt on the label! Dirt is safe enough! Just last week, I watched my nephew eat dirt and he seems fine!

After rubbing the dirt into my wine bottle labels, I gently washed them and let them dry!

Now for the blood!

Light the red candle and as the wax melts simply drip it over the candles and the wine bottles. The wax will form nice drips and clumps that look like coagulated blood – disgusting!

That’s it – see how easy that was!

Make sure the candle is firmly inserted into the wine bottle and that you burn them in a safe location!

Happy Halloween!

Renee Loves DIY

The only thing better than creating something beautiful is to share it with others!

An Advent Calendar that is Adorable and Easy!

Hot Chocolate Bar

Flourless Mocha Brownie

Lighted Christmas Balls

Magical Outdoor Christmas Lights

Halloween Decorations for 2014

Creepy Critters Halloween Decoration

Halloween Cheese Cloth Spider Webs

Halloween Pumpkins Wrapped in Tulle

Bloody Halloween Candles