Pretty Christmas Packages

  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go... The city workers were busily putting up the street Christmas decorations yesterday. Just seeing them go up & knowing that Christmas is getting ever closer makes me so happy.

  My Christmas shopping is getting closer & closer to being done. With me bringing gifts into our home, I'm coming up with hiding places for them as well as imagining pretty & creative ways of wrapping them. Wrapping gifts is seriously one of my favourite parts of Christmas. As usual, I've found lots of inspiring ideas on Pinterest. (A blogger's best friend!) :)

  Here are some of my favourites.

  I've found lots of packages wrapped in sheet music with touches of other elements added in. Silver or solid coloured paper with pinecones, ornaments, & hand made flowers add the beautiful details that make a gift so attractive. (All gift images via Pinterest. Specifically, these are collected in my Christmastime Is Here board)

  This grouping of brown paper packages has me humming "My Favourite Things"! I love all the different ways you can personalize brown packing paper! I especially thought the idea of sewing a gift into paper cut in festive shapes (3rd photo in) was super creative. 

  Lace doilies are easily found in thrift stores usually by the bag full. What a great way to upcycle them - on a pretty package wrapped with ribbon!

  And once your package is wrapped, don't forget about the tags! You can make you own, buy them, or there are many, many free printable ones you can download & print off at home. There are so many cute graphics out there. You can find anything to suit your colours or taste. (These printable images are collected in my Fonts & Printables board.)

   Are you feeling inspired? I sure am!! I am itching to put on a Christmas movie (maybe White Christmas or Holiday Inn - I love a good musical!) & wrap presents to my heart's content. 

 I'm curious. Do you wrap your gifts as you buy them? Or do you wait until the last minute & wrap them all on Christmas Eve? Do you wrap them & hide them or put them under the tree? 

  Every family is different. I enjoy hearing about the differences in people's traditions. Even the seemingly unnoticed traditions like wrapping gifts as you go or staying up late on Christmas Eve wrapping them so that your kids will think they're from Santa on Christmas morning. 

  Ooooo! Christmastime is here!

Enjoy your day!

Linkin' Up:

5 Minutes Just For Me

Merry Berry Cheese Bars

  So far, my Christmas baking is going well. Two recipes down, a few more to go. Today, I'm going to share a favourite recipe that I've been making all of my married life - 11 years now. 

If you like cheesecake or cranberries, then you'll enjoy these! This recipe originally came from Eagle Brand.

Merry Berry Cheese Bars a.k.a. Cranberry Cheesecake Bars
makes 24-36 bars


crust:
2 cups unsifted flour
1 1/2 cups oats
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened

cream cheese layer:
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup lemon juice

berry layer:
1 can cranberry sauce (you can use whole berry, but I prefer jellied)
2 Tbsp. corn starch
1 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.

1) With mixer, beat flour, oats, 3/4 cup sugar & butter until crumbly. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the mixture. Press remaining mixture on bottom of greased 13x9 inch baking pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

2) With mixer, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth, stir in lemon juice. Spread over baked crust.

3) Combine cranberry sauce, corn starch, & 1 Tbsp. brown sugar. Spoon over cheese layer. Top with remaining crumb mixture.

4) Bake 45 minutes or until golden. Cool & cut into bars. Refrigerate leftovers.

~~~

I hope your family enjoys these as much as we do!

Enjoy your Monday!

Linkin' Up:

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Craft-O-Maniac

Made By You Monday

Everything Under The Moon

Chef In Training

Ta-Da Tuesday

Today's Creative Blog

Let Birds Fly

Home For The Holidays

Handmade Holiday

Crafty, Scrappy, Happy

Tatertots & Jello

Cup Of Delight

'Tis the Season for... Peppermint

  Christmas is drawing ever closer. Thankfully, I got a bit more of my Christmas shopping done yesterday. One step closer to being done. I personally like being done with gift buying by the time December rolls around. Then I can focus on wrapping, decorating, baking, cooking, & having fun with my family & friends.

  One of my favourite flavours of Christmas is peppermint. I've found a wonderful collection of Christmas goodies featuring peppermint on Pinterest. I'm planning on making some (not all!) of these goodies this Christmas season. I am having a hard time deciding on which ones though. Any votes for your favourites?

Frozen Peppermint Cheesecake

Peppermint Crunch Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peppermint Sugar Cookies

Candy Cane Kiss Cookies

Peppermint Meltaways 

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Peppermint Profiteroles

All photos via Pinterest. 

So, what are your votes? Are you feeling inspired to make any of these for your family? I have the Peppermint Meltaways on my list to make this week.

Have a great weekend!

Linkin' Up:

5 Minutes Just For Me

Pinterest Recipe Reviews Pt. 2

  How's your week been so far? Here in Saskatchewan we are trying to stay warm... cuz baby, it's cold outside! I'm trying to keep things cozy in our little nest. Christmas tunes are playing (click here to hear our new favourite album) & I've been doing some Christmas prep. We're starting to feel the Christmas spirit & I, for one, love it!

  Several weeks ago, I did my meal planning via Pinterest. Well, I'm here to finish off the reviews on that group of recipes. (Here is part one if you missed it.)

Lemon Chicken Breasts

  This was an amazing chicken dish! SOOOOOO tasty! The only thing I did differently was I used skinless chicken breasts instead of skin on. If you're a fan of lemon, you will love this as much as we did. I will definitely be making these again.

Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies

  Okay, this recipe wasn't on my original meal plan, but I was going to a girl friend gathering & had to bring something. ;) These cookies are crazy good! If you enjoy sweet & salty together, you will certainly enjoy these bundles of yumminess. In Canada, we sadly don't have the caramel pieces she lists in the ingredients so I used butterscotch chips instead. I think they were a pretty great substitute. I will be making these again.

Mini Frittatas 

  My kids helped me make these for supper one evening. They are easy & tasty. One note: do not mix in the salt with the eggs like it says to. It all settled to the bottom & most of the salt ended up in one of the frittatas. Yup, I got that one. Yech! But the rest were very good. I would just sprinkle some salt into each cup next time. I'll make them again.

  So now that I've finally made most of what was on that original meal plan, I'm off to do another one! A family's gotta' eat, after all. Might as well make it good.

Enjoy your day!

Office/Craft room/Guest Room Makeover

  Before I start today's post I have to tell you that I'm so excited to be able to add a new "I was featured on" button to my small collection. Yesterday, my Christmas Banner was featured on Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night. I totally did a happy dance when I found out! I feel like Sally Field - "You like me! You really like me!" (I have to be honest though. I didn't actually know who said that until I googled it.)

  Anyway, onto today's topic - our office/guest room.

  When we moved into this house, this room (in the basement) was actually divided into 2 smaller rooms, but you had to go through one room to get into the next one. Also, the wall connecting the two rooms was just a temporary wall. So we took down the wall to open up the space. The side that is now the office was decorated as an 80's diner or something. Kinda fun, but so not my thing.

  If you've looked through my Home Tour page, you know that I love colour on the walls! I am not afraid to paint... like, at all. I guess growing up in a decorator's home, some of my mom's courage rubbed off on me.

  My colour inspiration came from the turquoise chair. I love the colour turquoise & wanted to incorporate it into the house somewhere.

  I chose a scrapbook paper line that I loved that had turquoise, pink, & brown in it. It was the Urban Prairie line from Basic Grey. Those were the colours I matched my paint up with.

My craft table

    This table is made of two small book shelves & a glass table top we found in the as-is section at Ikea. It has a small chip out of one corner & didn't have a base. It works perfectly & even has a bit of an aqua tinge to the glass.

  A few weeks ago, my mom (an interior decorator) came over & helped me reconfigure the furniture in this space. I love how it looks now! 

  After mom & I reconfigured the furniture, I set to work cleaning up my desk a bit. I added some decorative scrapbook papers to my pen jars & the front if my little box of drawers. I'm so happy with the results!

What do you think? I'm loving crafting in this space. It's my happy place. And hopefully a pleasant place for our guests to stay.

Oh, before I go, I want to keep things real & show you the pile of stuff I had to remove from the office before I took the photos. Just so you know that my office is not always never that neat & tidy. 

I almost always have some projects on the go on the desk.

Enjoy your day!

Linkin' Up:

Let Birds Fly

Turquoise Lovin'

Update

This was featured on: