Crafty Christmas

A few years ago I decided to give homemade Christmas presents instead of buying them.  I felt that a homemade gift would be more from the heart and the receiver would know how special they are to us.  Also I hated fighting the increased crowds during the holiday season.  When I informed Aaron of my plan his only comment was "Don't become that crazy knitting aunt in the family!"  We all have that family member.  Mine was my paternal grandmother.  I never knew what would be in the box when I opened presents from her like the Barbie with a hand knitted dress I received when I was 18! But then she would give gifts that are so special to me like the handmade quilt with my name on it (which is sitting on my couch right now).  I hope my Crafty Christmas gifts fall in the fun and special category!

This year I created "Warm Wishes" baskets.

 

 

 

I bought some clay pots from Wal-Mart, painted them a glossy red, then wrapped electric tape around the top and cut the belt buckles out of silver scrapbooking paper.

 

 

Inside each one was a mason jar with hot cocoa and homemade marshmallows along with a bag of "coal" or mint chocolate covered homemade marshmallows.

 

 

 

 

I made the cards, labels, and bag toppers using a Silhouette Studio system.  I got it for my birthday and I love it.  It works like a Cricut system, but you use a computer and download images from the Internet to cut.  I even made a Razorback banner with it for Football season.

 

The main part of the baskets were the melted snowman cookies.  The idea was that all the warm wishes melted the snowmen!

 

 

There were two flavors:  almond sugar cookies with gingerbread cake ball heads and chocolate sugar cookies with Andes mint cake ball heads.  The cookies were covered in royal icing with royal icing carrot noses and chocolate limbs and buttons.  They ended up reminding us of Calvin and Hobbes snowmen!

 

I had a blast creating these this year and can not wait to get started on next year's presents!







1st post!

Aaron and I  had such a wonderful 2012 with lots of changes to our lives.  We started off the year as an engaged couple and became husband and wife on March 24th. It is amazing that such an important day that we worked on for months can go by so fast.  We were lucky enough to have family and friends join us in celebration.

This summer we traveled to Hawaii for a belated honeymoon.  It was so beautiful there, I did not want to come home.  After viewing some property listings (and their price), I realized that I would not being staying.  We enjoyed hiking, kayaking, exploring, a luau and amazing food!  I will have to post a more indepth recap later with some of the great pictures Aaron took.

When fall came we were ready to cheer on our Razorbacks.  To say they had a rough year would be an understatement, but we were there every game praying and hoping for a victory.  We are expecting a much better football season this year.  We are Bielievers!  WPS!

 We finished out the year with a move to Bella Vista.  It came as a surprise even to us!  We were just planning on looking around at a few homes and next thing we knew we found the perfect house for us to move into the next phase in our life as a family.

While reflecting on these events, I realized that I had captured them (well majority of them) in pictures, but I did not do a good job of journaling them.  So I decided to start this blog to share our adventures, crafty projects we complete, recipes, and local reviews.  I hope you all enjoy!  And let the adventures begin!