How Sweet it Is!

Popping in today to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas! Hope you enjoy this time with your families and friends and consume many sweet treats! I've been doing a little baking and sharing with the neighbors. This year's treats are Russian Tea Cakes (Pecan Balls) and mini Banana Bread loaves. 

It sure is convenient to have crafty supplies on hand to making pretty tags for our baked goody trays. I used Doodlebug's adorable and festive Home for the Holidays collection. 

Here at the Martin house we have a lot of activities planned between now and New Year's Eve so blog posts will not occur daily as usual. But I won't be gone for long because I have a lot more I want to share with you in 2015! 

Baking Time!

Guess what I'm going to be doing much of the day? Baking! Baking! Baking! First, I'm going to run to the store and clean them out of sugar, chocolate and pecans...then the baking will commence!

These are the goody boxes I made last year...

...snow balls, fudge, peanut brittle and pecan thumbprints, oh my! My neighbors love me! ;)

To preserve these sweet memories I put together this scrapbook page with Doodlebug's Home for the Holidays collection along with a handful of snowflake die cuts.

This year I plan on making the pecan (snow) balls again, sugar cookies and something new, lace cookies, a recipe I discovered on Pinterest.

Tomorrow we have family visiting so I'll be baking for them too.

Ahhhh....it's the most wonderful sugar-filled time of year! 

Goodbyes are Difficult

It is with a heavy heart this morning that I write this post. Doodlebug Design has posted the names of their 2014 design team and unfortunately I'm not on it. Creating for Doodlebug for the past couple years has been great fun and an honor and I will really miss it!

I thought I'd take this moment to show you a couple extra projects I've made recently and haven't shared yet.

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This card was created with the festive Home for the Holidays collection.

This design was made with the Happy Harvest line.

I'd like to Congratulate all the talented ladies on the new 2014 team! I look forward to following you along and seeing the fun Doodlebug creations you inspire all of us with!

Thanks for an amazing couple of years, Doodlebug! :)

75 Degrees in December?

Would you believe Christopher left for school wearing shorts? In December? Might not be too unusual if we lived in Arizona, Southern California, Florida or Texas, but we live in North Carolina where it's been pretty darn cold lately! So...I'm going to enjoy every moment of it before Mother Nature returns us to our regularly scheduled winter weather!

For something a little more December-like, here's a Christmas card I created with Doodlebug Design's Home for the Holidays collection.

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Lots of yummy little details went into this project...vellum snowflakes, holiday print washi, rhinestones, sequins, enamel dots and baker's twine, oh my! Makes for a pretty festive card, don't you think?

T.G.I.F!

Neighbor Gift Giving

Christmastime is sweets time! Whether you enjoy baking something up in your kitchen or fill a jar with your favorite candies, these goodies make delicious gift for your neighbors!

 I filled this Ball jar with home-baked snowballs, otherwise known as pecan balls. These irresistible powdered sugar dusted cookies are a household favorite! And I love how easy they are to make, requiring just a few ingredients!

Pecan Balls

1 Cup Butter

4 Tbsp. Sugar

2 Cups Ground Pecans

2 Cups Sifted Flour

1 Tsp. Vanilla

Powdered Sugar for Dusting

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Beat together butter and sugar. In a food processor or blender, finely grind pecans and add to butter mixture. Mix in flour 1/2 cup at a time, being sure to scrape down your bowl. Add vanilla.

Using a tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop balls onto a lined cookie sheet then roll gently in palms to make round. Bake for 11-12 minutes, until slightly browned. Cool for about 10 minutes before rolling in powdered sugar.

Doodlebug's Home for the Holidays glittered snowflake paper and the 'let it snow' tag matches my snowball cookies perfectly!

Here's the lid. Cute, huh? Love the badges!

Some years I make ornaments to go with my treats...something to hang on the tree and enjoy year after year.

Using the same papers and snowflake theme as the goody jar, I decorated this star shaped cookie cutter. I simply used a foam brush to apply a thin layer of Aileen's craft glue around the edge of the star and applied a strip of patterned paper. Then came the decorations...tag and snowflake die cuts along with a sticker, rhinestone, baker's twine and jingle bells. That's it! Super simple!

Festive Friday

How was Thanksgiving? Ours was absolutely delicious and relaxing! It was a gorgeous sunny day, the turkey was juicy, Dan picked the perfect wine and it all ended with a heavenly slice of pumpkin pie topped with real whipped cream! :)

So today is Black Friday, huh? At our house we call it festive Friday since it's a tradition to spend the day putting up the tree, sipping cocoa and trying to keep the cats from loosing their little kitty minds when all the pretties come out!

Among the decorations we'll be setting out this little mailbox style advent calendar I created a couple weeks ago with Doodlebug's Home for the Holidays collection.

Tucked inside are 24 rolled up pieces of paper with activities, money and goody coupons.

If you don't want to chance your child pulling out this activity on your most hectic December day, you can assign numbers to each roll.

This little mailbox tin was purchased at Target, in their dollar spot section.

What do you think of the Home for the Holidays line?

Isn't this little holiday house adorable?

Ah....to be a kid at Christmas time! Well, it's pretty darn cool being an adult this time of year too! ;)

I'm off to deck the halls. Wishing you a fabulous day and weekend!

A Top Dog Dies Christmas

Hello, hello! I have a couple Top Dog Dies projects to share with you today using one of my favorite die sets, the Ornament and Tags #1 Die Set. 

A lot of gift giving goes on during the holiday season which means you'll probably be needing some tags at some point. To create a these ornament shaped to/from tags simply fold a piece of paper in half. Then lay your die on your cutting platform and place the folded paper just inside the die's cutting edge.

After I cut my tags, I used the Snowflake Trio Die Set to make colorful snowflake accents.

These pretty patterned papers and rhinestones are from Doodlebug Designs' Home for the Holidays collection.

For my next project I wanted to show you how beautifully Top Dog Dies cuts felt.

Using the same ornament die set and some good quality felted wool, I cut two of the ornament shapes along with the decorative top layer then blanket stitched them together, filling with cotton.

I love how every little detail of this die cuts easily and makes such a pretty little ornament. A little baker's twine and a shiny jingle bell complete the project.

For years, I don't even remember how many now, I've made ornaments for my friends and family. I think this design will be the one for 2013. Does anyone else do a yearly ornament? 

Hope you have a super day! :)

Holiday Thank You Notes

Hello! The other day when I was making some holiday greetings, I remembered to create a couple Christmas thank you cards as well. This one was created with a set of  Papertrey Ink snowflakes and sentiment dies and Doodlebug's Home for the Holidays collection.

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Some of your holiday thank you notes can be left over Christmas cards without sentiments on the front like this Santa design.

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This adorable glittered Santa accent is also from Doodlebug's Home for the Holidays line. I gave him a great big piece of candy to hold...now isn't he sweet? ;)

I'm going to go now and work on a holiday scrapbook page. I haven't created a page since September so I'm feeling a bit rusty. It's a page using more Doodlebug goodness that I'll be sharing with you sometime in December. :)

I hope you have a super day!