I have one last Christmas dessert tutorial for all of you who have holiday parties extending into January. We had our last holiday party this weekend. The drink of the day was spiked hot chocolate. This was so simple to make and it tasted delicious!

Ingredients:
- Milk or water (I used milk)
- Hot chocolate mix*
- Whipped cream or cool whip
- Whipped cream vodka or Baileys Irish Cream
- Marshmallows
- Peppermint candy
- Sprinkles

* I went with a hot chocolate mix instead of making this from scratch. I've never made hot chocolate from scratch and wasn't really up for taking it on while hosting a party. I decided to put my efforts into "dressing up" the hot chocolate.

How to do this:
1. Prepare marshmallow snowmen before the party. Skewer three large marshmallows. Draw faces using a toothpick and black decorating gel.


These are the finished marshmallows. I kept my snowmen pretty simple, but I've seen some fancier ones online. I particularly like the ones on Dukes and Duchesses.



2. Prepare the peppermint candy garnish. Unwrap the candies and place in a quart-size Ziploc bag. Use a mallet to crush the candy into small pieces.

3. Heat milk in sauce pan, whisking it regularly to prevent scorching. Don't let the milk boil.

4. Mix the hot cocoa mix with the milk.

5. Add some whipped cream vodka or Baileys Irish cream, if you want to spike your hot chocolate. We made alcohol-free hot chocolate for the kids and they were still a big hit!

6. Add a dollop of whipped cream. Then garnish with the peppermint candy and some sprinkles. Enjoy!

We just finished up with our last holiday party this weekend. We hosted the Christmas party, so I had the chance to try out some of the ideas I've been swooning over on Pinterest. I ran across the JPEG of these, but I couldn't find an actual tutorial for doing them, so I thought I'd write my own.

Ingredients and supplies:
- Strawberries
- Cool whip
- Chocolate jimmies
- Knife and cutting board
- Strainer
- Wilton cake decorator

 How to make these:

1. Cut off the tops of the strawberries. Cut them straight across so the strawberries can rest on that surface.

2. Wash strawberries.


3. Cut off the bottom 1/3-1/4 of the strawberries. Keep the bottom and main parts together so you'll be able to match them up.

4. Using one of the round tips in the cake decorator, add about 1/2-1 inch of cool whip to each strawberry.

5. Replace the bottom of the strawberry to make a hat.


6. Add a dab of cool whip to the top of the hat and to the main body of the strawberry.

7. Add chocolate jimmies to the cool whip "face" to make eyes.

8. Enjoy!

Materials and supplies:
- Round ornaments (I used matte white)
- Sharpie markers--ultra fine point  - black, orange, red
- Craft paint (I used light blue)
- Foam brush
- Paper plate (for paint)
- Ribbon
- Scissors
- Little toddler hands :)



How to make these ornaments
Step one: Paint your toddler's hands with craft paint, using a foam brush.

Step two: Place the ornament in the palm of your toddler's hands and close his fingers around the ornament. Wait about three seconds, then open his fingers.


Tip: I had the best luck with matte ornaments. We tried doing a few handprints on clear ornaments and ornaments with a shiny finish, but the handprints smeared. You might be able to pull off these ornaments with clear or shiny finishes with an older toddler who would stay more still.

Step three: Place the ornaments to dry. I just used the holders that came with the ornament packaging.

Step four: Repeat steps 1-3 for each ornament. I had the best luck when I painted his hands again for each new ornament.

Step five: Let the ornaments dry for about an hour.

Step six: Use your black Sharpie and draw the eyes, mouth, top hat, and three buttons.

Step seven: Use your orange Sharpie to draw a little triangle for each nose.


Step eight: Use your red Sharpie to draw a scarf (optional). I added this step because I thought my snowmen needed some accessories. I just drew a thick line, then added some wispy lines on the end, for fringe.

Step nine: Write your toddler's name and year on the other side of the ornament. I printed the letters, then added little dots at the end of each stroke to make it look nice.

Step ten: Cut the ribbon to hang the ornament. Tie the ribbon into a knot and cut off any excess ribbon.


Step eleven: Watch grandparent's swoon over a homemade ornament from their grandchild. :)

I love a decorated front porch nearly as much as I love decorating my mantel. I decided to up my front-porch game this year and to go further than the standard wreath.

Here's the finished product. What do you think?


This was pretty easy to put together--much faster than my Autumn front porch. And it didn't even require power tools!

Here are some of the inspirations for this year's front porch:

Centsational Girl -  I love the hanging ornaments and the large planters on either side of the front door.
Better Homes and Gardens - Love the fancy, yet rustic garland around the door.
Tumblr pic (no attribution found - Delightful symmetry.
Heart-2-Home - My inspiration for the joy wreath (see below for how I did it).



Joy wreath
This "JOY" decoration really spoke to me from Heart-2-Home. I'm not big into hanging seasonal decorations on the wall, so I thought a wreath would be the perfect solution. I also thought it would be fun to put the letters vertically, instead of horizontally.

I also thought it would look nice to contrast the glitz of the jingle wreath with burlap fabric. It took less than an hour to make.

Material and supplies:
- Two wreath forms
- Letters "J" and "Y"
- Ribbon
- Burlap
- Christmas floral wreath
- "Jingle" wreath
- Puh pins
- Hot glue
- Eye hooks (I used three)
- Nail or wreath holder

How to make this:
1. Cut burlap fabric in approximately 3-inch strips. I used some leftover burlap fabric from my burlap mat project.
2. Wrap the burlap around the wreath. Use push pins to hold the burlap in place.
3. Attach eye hooks to the back of each letter to attach the ribbon.
4. Tie the ribbon to the wreath and use a dab of hot glue to align the letters.
5. Use ribbon to attach the wreaths together. I started with the top wreath (J) and added extra ribbon at the bottom to tie it to the jingle wreath. Then I did the same to the next wreath, tying the jingle wreath to the "Y" wreath.
6. Add some Christmas floral pics to make the project look more finished and to hide some of the areas where you've attached the wreaths.




I wanted to hang Christmas lights on the porch this year, but that didn't happen. Instead, I decided to hang snowflakes. I bought a package of foam snowflakes from AC Moore in a few different sizes and bought some snowflake ornaments. I cut long strings of ribbon and hot glued the snowflakes to the ribbon. I hung them from the roof of our porch with 3M mini hooks. The roof of our porch is vinyl or plastic, so we can't nail anything into it.

I liked the look of these snowflakes. Unfortunately, the hooks didn't hold up against the elements. Within two rainy/snowy days, many of the hooks fell down. I'm still looking for a better solution that can handle the outdoors because I really liked the look of the hanging snowflakes.

What do you think? Have you found any solutions to hanging snowflakes, lights, or even planters from your porch, if you don't have a traditional wood roof? I'd love to hear any suggestions!

I fell in love--with a picture. It wasn't the first time, either. This picture from Better Homes and Gardens had me obsessed.

I followed the tutorial from this page: Felt Medallion Window Garland on BHG.com. It took me about three hour total, between folding the paper, hot gluing the paper, and hanging it in the window.

Materials and supplies (for each medallion): 
hree 8x10 pieces of paper, decorative paper, hot glue gun, scissors, circle cutting tools (I used a 2-inch paper punch and a 4-inch paper cutter. I also used a small piece of garland for the center of each medallion.


Here are the steps I followed:

1. Accordion fold an 8 x 10 piece of card stock in about 1/2 inch folds.
2. Fold the paper in half lengthwise, to make a fan. Hot glue the middle folds together.
3. Hot glue three fans together to make one large medallion.
4. Cut out a 4" circle. I used this Martha Stewart circle cutter. Cut slits around the edge of the circle, to add some texture.
5. Cut a 2" circle. I used a 2" hole punch for this.
6. Glue the circles together, then glue a pinch of garland on top of it.
7. Make as many medallions as you need to fill your space.
8. Punch a small hole in one of the top folds of the medallion and string the medallion onto a ribbon.
9. Cut out some extra 4" circles. Glue two circles together between the ribbon.
10. Tie onto the curtain rod.


I'm actually not thrilled with how it came out. It's a little more "Carnival" than I was going for and I wish I had made the medallions a little smaller. At least it's festive though!

If you've been reading my blog (or you've listened to me swoon over decorating), you know that I LOVE me a decorated mantel. It's one of my favorite places in the house to decorate. Also, because it's such a small space, it's easy to switch up the look for relatively cheap.

I decided to decorate the mantel a little differently this year. I've been obsessed with garland the last few months and I wanted to find a way to work that into my mantel, without doing a pennant garland like I did for Halloween and Andrew's race-car birthday party.

Here are a few of my inspiration pictures:

Houzz
Better Homes and Gardens

Here's what I came up with:


I didn't have any satin ribbon like the second inspiration link (boo hoo!), so I substituted some extra gold garland. I then hung some small ornaments with red ribbon and curled the ribbon ends. I finished the mantel with a picture from Andrew when he was 1 and a hand print of his from that same year. I also added in a few knick-knacks that find their way to my mantel most years. Then I added some holiday picks to fill it out.



What do you think? Have you done anything different with your mantel this year? Are you finding inspiration on Pinterest?