12 Months of Christmas March 2012 Linky Party

This post was late getting up due to an emergency trip out of town last week.

March is here - only nine months until Christmas. I plan to have all my Christmas presents made by August. That's only five months away! How are you doing with Christmas gift making?

12 Months of Christmas March 2012 Linky Party!!

If you have been sprinkling Christmas throughout the month and want to share what you are doing, join in the fun! I'll leave this up for a week so you have plenty of time to get your post up.

Starting in April, The 12 Months of Christmas Series will be hosted at my new blog, The Nomadic Homestead. I've wrestled back and forth with moving The 12 Months of Christmas over there and finally decided that for my sanity, I need to move it. This blog will always be here but I will not be posting as regularly over here.

Date Box - 12 Months of Christmas Series

I loved the idea of A Year of Dates from My Mix of Six but found it too late to create it for Christmas 2011. For Valentine's Day this year, I created my own version of A Year of Dates. I purchased a lidded basket. Inside I put a few of his favorite things and a homemade card. The card contained a simple poem telling him I would fill it with items for one of our date nights freeing him from the planning and the inevitable "What do we do??"

A Year of Dates from My Mix of Six

The Date Box

Starting in April, The 12 Months of Christmas Series is moving to my new blog, The Nomadic Homestead! I have been working behind the scenes over there since late January and it is finally up and going. I will be posting less here and more over there. Don't miss out on the fun! Come take a peak at NomadicHomestead.com.

Mama Jan's Sugar Cookies - 12 Months of Christmas Series

Photo by Boomette

Nothing says Christmas like homemade goodies and this month's recipe is sure to a be a favorite.

This recipe comes from the student assistant of my mother-in-law quite a few years ago. If baked on stoneware, they turn out very soft. A metal cookie sheet makes them crispier.

Mama Jan's Sugar Cookies
½ cup butter, softened
1 large egg yolk (room temperature)
1 cup sugar (I used evaporated cane juice.)
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour, sifted
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon pure almond extract

Cream together butter and sugar.

Add egg and mix well.

Sift dry ingredients together and blend into sugar mixture. Mix well.

Add extracts and blend well.

Cover with plastic wrap or in an airtight bowl and chill one hour.

Roll out on a pastry cloth to thickness of half your little finger and cut with cookie cutters.

Bake at 400F for 8-10 until edges are golden.

Originally posted on Food.com.

Initial Ornaments

A few years ago, I drooled over these adorable Monogrammed Family Ornaments from MADE. I loved how the letters filled in the entire space of the circle. I loved the idea of making them for gifts as Dana described, one for each member of the family (and a star!) I love the contrasting thread that made the letters pop!

Monogrammed Family Ornaments from MADE

But it was too late in the season when I found them to make them as gifts that year. Here is our version:

I used contrasting thread and hand-cut the letters. Unfortunately, I had to use my sewing machine due to my carpel tunnel acting up. It is impossible to do hand-sewing or knitting (and sometimes even typing) during a flare up! Even my cutting isn't the best during a flare up. Yuck!

What do you think?

12 Months of Christmas February 2012 Linky Party

Wow! February flew by and it's time again for our linky party! How have you sprinkled Christmas throughout the month of February? 

Snowball Balloon Ornament

Vanilla Sugar

A Photographic Gift 

12 Months of Christmas February 2012 Linky Party!!

If you have been sprinkling Christmas throughout the month and want to share what you are doing, join in the fun! I'll leave this up for a week so you have plenty of time to get your post up.

A Photographic Gift

The saying goes "A Picture is Worth 1000 Words." That pretty much sums it up. As someone who lost most of her baby pictures when her childhood home flooded and I was away at college, photographs are extremely important to me. But I digress.

Photographs are important. My kids are in the middle of their elementary years. They are literally changing befor emy eyes every single day. I thought they changes alot as babies. But again, I digress.

Something I have been done for a good many years is to take a picture of my boys at Christmas. We haven't done the the Christmas card thing since I hand-embossed all out cards one year and then forgot to send them. I now just take a photo each each and give it as part of the Christmas gift. I like to frame them and everyone gets the exact same thing - a posed, happy, close up of my boys' faces. (Well, except for this year. Totally never got around to doing them this year. Then I thought I'd send them for Valentine's. Now I am shooting for Easter. Moving on.)

My plan has always been to display them year-round but pull them front and center to decorate my mantle during Christmas. And, now that you know I have fake families in my frames, I need to take my own suggestions.

I actually take another picture in the summer for my husband's birthday, which is exactly six months later in June. I have even taken the summer picture in the same spot for the last few years down at his parents' house. This makes the would-be display really special since we can see the growth of our boys. (Again, with the take your own advice, and frame them, Dawn!! I do have one photo of my boys in the half-bath - the company bathroom.) I love walking in there to see it and always love seeing the photographic gifts at our families' houses too.

A photograph is a gift that will be treasured. A few times over the years the photograph was the only thing we could do for our families due to finances. I plan to continue this tradition throughout the years and give my boys a set of theior own when they leave home.

Do you give photographs as gifts? Have you ever received one? Are they as treasured in your family as they are in ours?

RECIPE: Vanilla Sugar

 

 

Vanilla Sugar is something I always have in my kitchen. I don't use it every day, but when we do make a treat, Vanilla Sugar is something I most often use as my sweetener. (In our house, a treat is defined as an occasional yummy that we make occasionally, usually to celebrate a holiday or event. It may contain more processed ingredients than we eat on an everyday basis, in this case, Vanilla Sugar!) 

 

I began making Vanilla Sugar over five years now and my kids even ask for it in recipes. It just a little adds umph to whatever recipe you add it to. And I don't know about you, but I am always looking for a little umph.

 

First, let's talk ingredients. Quality ingredients make a quality recipe. And cheap ingredients just don't belong in anyone's kitchen. ("Frugal" does not equal "cheap." My kitchen is very frugal, but I don't use cheap stuff. And that, my friends, is another post altogether.)

Snowball Balloon Ornament

Martha Stewart's Snowy Balloon Ornament

Can you believe it is February? I certainly cannot. Though the calendar says it is winter, my part of Georgia has not really seen winter weather yet. It is totally bizarre to listen to my boys through an open window while they jump on the trampoline out in the yard without jackets! And I am sitting at my desk in a tee shirt.

This month's ornament is one I have wanted to make for some time. I want them in all colors to match my living room though we will probably end up making them in red, white and green. Wouldn't they be neat in a tri-colored Christmas yarn?

I grew up with what we called The Grown-Up Tree and The Kid Tree. The Grown Up Tree was a live tree, usually cedar. It was in the living room where you entered the house and it matched our living room, white lights, ornaments perfectly spaced. It was basically my mom's tree.

The Kid Tree was in the den. It had colored lights and funky ornaments my sister and I made through the years. That was where Christmas was for us, where we put the presents and where we sat and gazed at our tree.

I have only had one tree in my house since leaving home. I am considering a Grown-Up Tree and a Kid Tree when we get settled again.

Do you have multiple trees in your house? What rooms are they located in? 

12 Months of Christmas January 2012 Linky Party

Welcome to the end of January and our very first 12 Months of Christmas linky! Have you been sprinkling Christmas throughout the month? 

I'll be honest, I've tried. I've thought about it. I've attempted to make our ornament a few times with my boys but it hasn't happened yet.

We've had a lot of illness in the house and 12 Months of Christmas took a backseat. Well, while we are being honest, a lot of things took a backseat. But that is one of the very reasons I love homeschooling and blogging. We can take a break when we need to.

It is also a bit challenging to think of Christmas when we have just come out of the Christmas season. We missed some things we usually do (like making ornaments!) I have a plan for one so it is on the agenda for tomorrow - with or without my boys!! With the beautiful day we have forecasted, making Christmas ornaments may not be on our minds!  

12 Months of Christmas January 2012 Linky Party!!

If you have been sprinkling Christmas throughout the month and want to share what you are doing, join in the fun!

Dawn's Perfectly Pumpkin Bread

This is my most requested recipe. It comes from the very first cookbook I ever bought. We make it year round for breakfast and snacks but folks especially request it at the holidays.

Homemade Gifts from the Heart 2011

Today I am going to share what we made for last year's Christmas presents (2011.) We made more presents than we have in years past due to finances and a few other things we'll get to as the year goes on.

2011 Handmade Christmas List 

Remote Control Pocket Pillow

Fort Kits


Paper Airplane Folding Kit
I printed several copies of the easier planes along with instructions on how to fold them.

Rag Quilt 
(Made this twin sized for my hubby. Pics coming soon!) This was truly a labor of love. It consumed more time than I intended it to. I re-purposed materials (sheets and curtain panels) from the thrift store and although I knew I was going to make it and had all the materials, got started really late!

Peppermint Sugar Scrubs (Mini Tutorial coming soon!)

Re-purposed Chalkboard Frames (Mini Tutorial coming soon!)

Do you make any homemade gifts?What homemade gifts did you give last Christmas? Have you thought about making any this year?