(Another tardy) Guest Day Thursday: Laurel’s Candy Wreath

Micki’s mother-in-law has made the most darling candy wreaths for years for her neighbors. It is so cute!!! And, you get to eat it. She taught us all how to make them at craft day, but hers is the only one finished. You basically tie about a billion candies on and then attach a pair of scissors and let people cut candies off for a treat. I don’t know about you, but I would hate to ruin that gorgeous wreath by taking a piece off! Isn’t it darling?!? It isn’t very expensive either, because you can get the candy cheap, and then the scissors you can get at the dollar store. The rest is just a hanger, newspaper, ribbon and curling ribbon. It is very time consuming, but so worth it, because they turn out so cute! Thanks Laurel for letting us share your wreath!!!

This post will be edited as we join parties to share this darling creation!

What’s Cookin’ Wednesday: White Chicken Chili (Teri)

Edited: Sorry this is posted so late, we were in Vegas this week, and weren’t able to finish it.

I have a fabulous group of book club friends who have supplied me with a ton of delicious recipes, and they have granted me permission to share them with you (thanks girls!). This is a great cold weather recipe. I know we have shared a few soup type recipes already, but the are so versatile for cold weather.

White Bean Chicken Chile

(Thanks Angie & congrats!!!)

6 cans Great Northern Beans

2 small onions

4 cans chicken broth (or bullion to make a scant 8 cups)

1/2 tsp chopped garlic

2 cans diced green chilies

1 1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

24 oz. sour cream

3-4 cooked and cubed chicken breasts

Throw all the ingredients into a crock pot except he sour cream and cook all day. 8-10 hours on low or 4-6 hours on high, or until you eat it. Add the sour cream the last hour.

Angie’s note: This makes enough to feed an army. I usually only make half for our family and have plenty of leftovers. It’s great for a freezer meal. Just don’t freeze the sour cream.

Teri’s note: I didn’t have cooked chicken, so I threw it in with everything except the beans and cooked it on high for the morning. At lunch I took it out and chopped it and turned it down and added the beans. It was plenty cooked and had great flavor. I don’t love the flavor of green chilies so much, so I dumped them in a strainer and rinsed them, they still gave good flavor without being overwhelming, if you love green chilies just dump them in.

I decided that this week while I was posting my recipe, I would post my first tablescape and join Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday. Here is my table. I have small children, and wanted to make the table kid friendly, so I used my everyday dishes instead of my china. I will list all my patterns, etc. at the end of this post.

This is a view of the whole table (with my too bright sunshine yellow walls….if I haven’t mentioned it, I rent, so some things I have not yet invested in to change, however we will be repainting).

My beautiful cupcake tier that my friend made for me for Christmas was my centerpiece.

Here’s the rundown:

Dishes by Corelle called Callaway (inherited from my Grandma)

goblets pattern called Lonchamps

Salt & Pepper shakers by Gibson called Holly Celebration (part of my Christmas dishes)

Water carafe purchased at a garage sale for 25¢

All ornaments purchased at Dollar Tree

Cupcake tier made for me by a friend (thanks!!!)

tea light holders on clearance last year at Pier One I think

tea lights Ikea

napkin rings (square acrylic risers under tea light holders) purchased as a wedding gift at Mervyn’s

Tablecloth on clearance at Walmart last year

We are participating:

Tadpole Tuesday: Homemade Soap (Teri)

**If you are one of my daughter’s friends, don’t keep reading unless you want to see part of your Christmas present**

In an effort to make more homemade Christmas presents, my darling daughter wanted to make something for her friends. When I was blog stalking back in October I found these darling soaps, and knew that it was a craft my daughter could do with just a little help. I also thought that most girls love fun bath products. I found some darling silicone muffin trays in Christmas Tree and Snowflake shapes at Target in their bargain section for $2.50 and some Christmas Tree shaped silicone ice cube trays at Dollar Tree. I think the cute shapes made all the difference. I bought the glycerin soap for molding at Michael’s and used a 40% off coupon. I bought the scents and glitter on clearance at Michael’s. Total for twelve large soaps and twenty small soaps for less than $20, but I will be able to use the molds and glitter for multiple other projects, and the scents for at least one more batch. If you adjust for that I spent about $10. No too bad for that many darling soaps. I will try and give you a short version of how to make these, if you want to know the exact steps go here.

We cute the glycerin into pieces and melted it in the microwave, after it was melted, we added the scent and the glitter.

Then we filled the trays (just a little note, the glycerin sticks to the sides of the container and the spatula, we just let it cool a little, and melted it again in the microwave and used it. I was apprehensive because of the glitter, but we didn’t have any trouble with it sparking).

We let them cool undisturbed for about twenty to thirty minutes and then my kids popped them out of the molds.

I tried to stage them so that you can see how cute they turned out. I wanted some Christmas paper, but I wasn’t at home and wasn’t going to have another chance to take a picture later, so I apologize for the busyness. Don’t you think they are so fun? We will defiantly be making more.

Mystery Monday: Christmas Elves & A Rat

For those of you who missed last weeks Mystery Monday, we are posting all about our Christmas traditions every Monday in December. If you missed last weeks post, you can read it here.

Since our girls were little the Christmas Elves have visited our houses. Our kids each have special pillowcases that have a little pocket that the Elves put a surprise in. I hope you can see the cute little pocket in the picture. Even though they are almost teenagers, they still get just as excited about the Elves. Now that they are bigger, the Elves leave things like lip gloss and nail polish. Their little brothers get things like toy cars and bouncy balls. It starts on the twelfth of December, because the last night that the Elves come is the twenty-third because the stockings get filled on the twenty-fourth.

Ever since Micki’s husband was little, his family has had a “Christmas Rat” under the tree. This is a cute little burlap rat that holds candy. There are specific candies that tradition dictates must fill the the rat, they are, York Peppermint Patties, Rolos, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups. One year Micki and her sister-in-law were sent to get the rat candy, and they bought crunchy Reese’s cups and Hersey’s Kisses instead of Rolos, when they arrived home with the candy they were promptly sent back to the store to purchase the correct candy. They now understand the proper care and feeding of the rat. All of the siblings in Micki’s husband’s family now have their own Christmas Rat to fill. The grandkids think it’s fabulous because they have unrestricted access to candy. Isn’t he cute?

What are some of your unique Christmas traditions?

We have to apologize for the sporadic posts, we are in Lost Wages (aka Las Vegas) for a conference and we have limited (free) internet access. This post will be edited soon to include a picture of the darling Christmas rat.

Edited: We are linking up to Somday Crafts Christmas Traditions party

Guest Day Friday Featuring Us

Okay, so we were just trying to get both Guest Day Thursday and Feature Friday done in the same post. It’s been a busy week, and this post didn’t get done earlier, so there ya go. We are featuring one of the projects that we did at craft day (click here if you missed that post). We wanted to do a chunky Christmas decoration that was still pretty simple to create (not so sure that chunky and Christmas belong in the same sentence, but it is what it is today). Here are our NOEL blocks. Sorry there are no pictures of the steps, we were just having too much fun to take the time to take pictures of the whole process. It's pretty simple though, cut a 4x4 down to size (or get friendly with the guy at Home Depot and learn his life story while you spend two hours there getting stuff cut, and then he feels so generous, that he doesn't even charge you for all those cuts. But we wouldn't tell anyone that that's what happened, because we wouldn't want to get the nice guy at Home Depot in trouble). Then you paint them your desired color, Mod Podge on some cute paper and apply the vinyl letters. Voile! It was so fun to see how different everyone's turned out depending on the paper they picked.

Micki’s blocks

Micki’s other blocks (this set has already been gifted)

Teri’s Blocks

Our “guests” blocks (really we were all Laurel and Micki’s guests in real life, but lucky for us, in bloggyland they get to be our guests)

Laurel’s blocks (she painted hers after we left, and the burgundy blocks instead of the cream really show off the letters and give the blocks a whole different look, Micki’s were painted this color and then distressed)

Sabrina’s blocks

Shannon’s blocks

Trish’s blocks (Teri so loved the cute little bird that she had to copy, but her bird met with an untimely decapitation and subsequent Mod Podge assisted surgery, that’s all she is admitting to at this time)

Rozanna’s blocks

Amey’s blocks (had to include the little strip of wall color at the bottom when editing, because it matches the blocks so well)

Suzanne’s blocks

Jackie’s blocks

Sara’s blocks

Michelle’s blocks

Just an editors note about the pictures. They were taken by different cameras, different photographers and in different lights. I have tried to edit them as much as possible to reflect the creativity of the project.

We hope you have enjoyed our celebration of a simpler side of Christmas decor and crafting. Isn’t it fun how one project can have so many unique looks?

Edited to add parties we are linking up to:

Strut Your Stuff @ Somewhat Simple

What’s Cookin’ Wednesday: Laurel’s Most Famous Chili

This recipe was given to Micki's mother in law by and old Italian man who worked with her at the school district when her sons were little.

2-15 ounce cans pinto beans in chili sauce (I use the ranch beans with jalapenos and take the jalapenos out so the sauce is spicy)
1-15 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes or diced tomatoes
1-15 ounce can tomato sauce
1-6 ounce can tomato paste
1/4 T cumin powder
1 T chili powder
1 T salt
1 T pepper
1 T sugar
1/2 T garlic powder

Chop 1 large onion and brown with 1 pound hamburger. Drain off grease and mix with top ingredients. I throw it all in the crock pot and set on low for a few hours. That way it seasons well and the onions are soft (my husband doesn't like crunchy onions).

*Edited to add: Teri's family doesn't like it as spicy or salty, so she uses the chili beans in mild sauce and cuts the salt and pepper down to 1 tsp.

Tadpole Tuesday: Micki's Nativity Crafts

With mom's help with the glue gun my kids made Nativity Kits to proudly display by their trees on their dressers. I personally think it goes nicely with the black tree and the crooked tree. :)
This is what it started as:

This is what it ended up as:

Also participating in Somewhat Simple's Strut Your Stuff Party