Frugal Bath & Body Works

I got an email today about their Signature collection (the body washes, lotions, and sprays).

The collection is buy 3, get 3 free right now. The lotions and washes are $10.50 each, making it 6 for $31.50 before tax/shipping. The spray I originally added, I didn't realize was $14.50, so I ditched that, because of course, THAT one didn't ring up free.

Then, there's a coupon code- 20holiday

It takes 20% off the total, and knocks shipping down to $3.00 flat.

The total in my cart right now is $28.20 after shipping, but before tax.

But, for 6 Christmas gifts, it's not a bad price. These are the full size bottles.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is enjoying their day with loved ones, good food, and relaxing!

Treat Day- Christmas Is Almost Here

After a mini-meltdown last night over cleaning, Christmas, and wrapping, I regrouped, and slept. Today, I jumped right into the last of the wrapping, which was for extended family. On Thursday, we'll make the 90 minute trek up to Mount Pleasant for Christmas with Nick's family. On Saturday, we'll make the 70 minute trek over to Sparta for Christmas with my dad & step-mom, then with my step-mom's family.

I had to get everything wrapped and sorted still for all those get togethers, so I turned on a Christmas movie and got to work. As soon as that was done, I tackled Christmas treats. Oh, boy, did I tackle them.

Today,  I made Christmas Crack, Peppermint Crack, and so far, 4 dozen mini-muffin Chocolate Chip Cookies, complete with chocolate melted into the center. I still have Turtle Cookies to make, more chocolate chip cookies, and then, both peanut butter & gingerbread cookies.

 

I love warm gingerbread cookies, all soft and squishy straight from the oven. Oh, so delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, before my melt down, I made Christmas snowflake coasters, inspired by Jessica's over at Mad in Crafts.  I found the snowflakes in blue, though, not white. Luckily, I had plenty of white glitter felt on hand to use with it.

This morning while I was wrapping, I was trying to decide what to do with them, and decided to turn them back into ornaments by adding blue ribbon loops to each one. From there, I added a small bath & body item to the front, and wrapped them up for the younger girls on Nick's side of the family. He has a younger sister, and 2 girl cousins who are in their early 20's. These made great gifts for them, and were frugal- I had all sorts of samples on hand that I picked up at Bath & Body Works for $.50 each months ago. The ornaments cost about $1.50 to make 6 of them, so each gift cost me less than $1.00!

 

So, while I was in a Christmas funk yesterday, I've decided to just go with the flow. I will finish up what baking I can today, and that's that. It will be enough. What baking I'm doing today will be split up for taking to the various parties, and another small plate to my neighbor across the street. He's such a helpful neighbor- he's used live traps to get animals out of our backyard, he fixes our cars dirt cheap, lends us tools when we need them, and helps when we need help.

I sent over a plate of goodies earlier this month, and he told me it's the only time he gets homemade goodies, when I send them over to him. So, I decided I'd send another plate over there.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your sanity stay in tact, along with mine!

Christmas Candy

This week, I need to get going in the kitchen a bit. Here are a few of the recipes I'll be making.

Christmas Crack, found via Jessica at Mad in Crafts

You'll Need:
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
a sleeve of saltine crackers
12 oz. chocolate chips

In a saucepan, combine the brown sugar in the butter and bring them to a boil.  Boil for three minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cover a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil.  Cover the foil with a layer of saltine crackers.

Pour the buttery/sugary mix over the crackers, making sure they are all saturated. Put pan in the oven for 10 minutes.

Take pan out and sprinkle chocolate chips over the crackers. Let sit until chips soften. Spread the chips with a spatula or the back of a spoon.  Freeze for two hours.

Remove the pan from the fridge and peel off the aluminum foil. Crack it up into pieces, whatever size you’d like. Store in an air tight container, or bag.

Peppermint Crack

You'll Need:
a sleeve of Ritz crackers
38 Andes Mint candies (regular packs come 28 to a box, Dollar Store packs come 10 or 12 to a box)
Crushed peppermint candy canes

Bring water to a boil in a pot, then add a smaller pot, or smaller metal bowl on top to create a double boiler. Melt the Andes chocolate in the bowl.

Dip the crackers into the chocolate to cover, then set on waxed paper, and sprinkle with crushed candy canes. Let cool, and store in an air tight container, or bag.

Peppermint Bark

You'll Need:
1 bag White Chocolate Chips
1 bag Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 teaspoons Peppermint Flavor Oil
Crushed peppermint candy canes

Line a jelly roll pan or cake pan with wax paper, very lightly buttered.

Melt the semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Add 1 teaspoon peppermint oil, and stir. Pour onto the greased wax paper and let harden.

While the chocolate is hardening, melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave, again stirring every 30 seconds (to prevent scorched chocolate) until melted. Add 1 teaspoon of peppermint oil, and half the crushed candy, and stir well. Pour the white chocolate onto the semi-sweet chocolate, then sprinkle with the remaining crushed candy canes. You can also add red sprinkles for color. Let harden in a cool spot, then lift the wax paper out, and break the bark up. Store in an air tight container, or bag.

Festive Fudge

You'll Need:
1 bag baking chips, any flavor (Chocolate, white chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch, etc)
1 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk!)
1 spoonful peanut butter, optional (tastes great with chocolate chips!)
crushed peanuts, optional
crushed peppermint candy canes, optional

Line a Jelly Roll pan or cake pan with wax paper, very lightly buttered.

Melt the baking chips and milk together. If adding peanut butter, stir this in as the chips and milk melt together. Stir often, to prevent scorching.

Once the mix is melted, add any additional ingredients you wish to add, stirring them in well. Pour onto the greased wax paper, and let harden. Lift out of the pan using the wax paper. To cut, use a pizza cutter for super easy, fast cutting.

Enjoy your holiday!!

Good Morning

I forgot to post anything yesterday. Gilly was home sick, though she really wasn't sick anymore. I had sewing to get done, which of course, I didn't get done. Gillian's dress is done, though, so that's a bonus. She's wearing it now. Mom, of course, forgot to pick up tights for it. She's currently wearing pink camo tights with it. -sigh-

I think perhaps I was overly ambitious with 25 days of Christmas Ornaments. I hate the idea of giving up on it, but right now, I know my time is going to be limited, as school is out for Christmas now.  I'll post when I can, but I'm not sure just how often that will be.

Today we're driving a bit over an hour away to go to my mom's house for Christmas. My oldest daughter, Raegan, is going to be staying with her until later this week. Mom had surgery on Wed, and can use the help around the house.

I'll try to post later today!

I did it. I did the impossible.

The gifts for here are all wrapped. The only things left to wrap are craft items for other people, but I still have to commit myself to exactly who is getting what, and see just what all I have to finish making.

I'm relieved, though, to have gotten that much of it done. No worry about wrapping in front of the kids now. I sorted all the stocking stuffers out, as well, and got them separated into bags. That way, I can just stuff the stockings right away on Christmas Eve.

I got ambitious and hung all the stockings, as well- all 18 of the ones that go in the living room. 3 in the dining room window. That's not counting the 24 mini stockings for the stocking advent, though only 8 of those are still hanging.

Have I mentioned in the past I just love stockings? 3 over the window on the curtain rod, 4 hanging staggered on either side of the window. 3 above the mini tree, and 1 on each side of the mini tree. 2 in the entrance way to the living room.

We got a surprise gift in the mail. It's either from Nick's Uncle or Father, but we're not sure which. Nick's Uncle used to send us a gift from Swiss Colony, but hasn't in several years due to expenses. We loved them so much, the past few years, we've ordered a small set ourselves to snack on during Christmas. This year, we opted not to.

But there it was today, a big box from Swiss Colony. It has sausages, cheese, 2 mini hams (and boy, do they taste good!), some cakes, candy, and nuts. Now, we just have to splurge on some crackers.

Productive Morning

Time is growing short. Can you feel the pinch? I know I'm feeling it. This morning, I have to wrap. HAVE to. Once the kids are done with school, that's it- I'm relegated to wrapping in the bedroom on the bed, which I hate. So, I have today and tomorrow, and then it's bedroom city.

Already this morning I have cut yarn for the kids to do yarn ornaments tonight, which I found on another blog this morning. Since they will be today's ornament of the day, you will see those later.

After doing that, I did up 2 quick Teacher's gifts for the kids to take into school tomorrow. I don't have much money, so I went with what I had on hand. Remember the spring clips I found at Goodwill in my basket of goodies? There was an Apple one. I had hoped there were two, but alas, only one apple. I used that one, and a flower shaped one to make the gifts.

For Gillian's teacher, I used the apple one, then Mod Podged red paper to each side. One side just says Happy Holidays over and over again in white on red. The other side is the center of a poinsettia flower with a snowflake center. From there, I used a sponge brush to stain the wooden bases with red & brown ink. I mod podged over top of that so the ink won't stain anyone elses fingers.

For Chris's teacher, I took the flower, and used the same red Happy Holidays paper on one side, and a black and white pattern on the other. I used red ink to stain the base, and once more, mod podged over the ink. My brush and the mod podge turned pinkish. Oops! Ah well, better than the fingers, I guess.

It was a fast project- about 10 minutes from start to finish.

Aside from wrapping, I need to finish Gillian's dress. Last year, I bought the cutest dress at Goodwill. It has a green velvet upper, and the skirt is long and full dark green taffeta. It's actually bigger than a circle skirt, that's how full it is. When I got it, I had visions of a tree skirt. After all, it was much too big for Gilly. Well, Gillian fell in love. Last year, I had the horrid sewing machine, so I used a plethora of safety pins to hoist the longer-than-ankle-length skirt up, and tighten the dress.

This year, I got ambitious. I decided to make a bubble skirt out of the dress, which this year, was still ankle length on her. I thought- easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I thought wrong.

{the skirt was not fully extended- thus, bigger than a circle, and also, inside out}

{the inner slip I sewed to create the bubble}

{the ruffles created by pulling the top thread of the machine stitch}

The skirt, being so full, was TOO full to hand pleat into a bubble. UGh. When did I figure that out? After I had hand pleated almost the entire thing, and ran out of space on the fleece slip I sewed into the dress. Yes, fleece- I live in Michigan. It could be 60 degrees on Christmas, or it could be -15. Fleece seemed the logical choice for added warmth, since -15 is far more likely than 60 (though, it has happened).

I undid all the pins, and brainstormed. After all, the slip was already sewn into the dress. I remembered the many tutorials on how to sew a straight stitch, and pull it to form a ruffle, and thought... well, I can do that. I hope.

So, I did. I failed to take into account, once more, the fullness of the skirt. The thread broke no less than 3 times. I sewed across the ruffles in many places, so they wouldn't be lost when the thread broke. After a Loooooong time, I finally had the entire thing ruffled.

From there, I tacked the skirt to the slip in 4 places, but ran out of time to fully stitch it to the slip. I tried it on Gillian last night, and of course, one of the tack's tore out. -sigh-

She better love this dress.

Christmas

I transformed a few of the photos I took yesterday into my new Christmas desktops!

25 Ornaments - Day 14

I realize this post is late in coming. I honestly thought I had written one up, and had it set to automatically post. Guess not, huh?

In stead of sorting through gads of photos to find one of my own, I am (once more) featuring an ornament I found on another blog. I remember making these (or something similar anyway) as a kid, and loved how colorful they were.

Take a peek over at Life As I See It to check out Jessica's awesome Tin Foil Stained Glass ornaments.

{photo credit: Jessica at Life As I See It}

My Tree

 

 

Three years ago, we relocated from a rented house to an apartment about 70 minutes south of where we lived. The apartment was actually larger- we went from 3 small bedrooms to 3 good sized bedrooms and 1 huge bedroom. However, we lost the garage storage space. That meant giving up a lot of items. For instance- every last piece of outdoor Christmas decorations, gone. And my tree, though that was easier to give up. It was a cheap one to begin with, and all of the prelit lights no longer lit up.

When Christmas came around, we weighed our option and our budget, and I bought a fairly inexpensive $35 white Christmas tree. I loved it. I couldn't believe how nicely it showed off our ornaments, and how pretty it was.

Last year, I was longing for a green tree again, though. A "normal" tree, that is. After Christmas, I found one on clearance- a 7 1/2 foot tall prelit tree. I love it! But, I decided as soon as I bought it, that I would keep my smaller 6 foot white tree. See, last summer, we moved again, and bought our first house. It's large- 4 real bedrooms, plus 2 rooms that could be bedrooms, except they lack closets to legally be called bedrooms. Plus a large dining room, a nook, a large kitchen, living room, and a family room. Plenty of space!

Right from the moment I bought the 7 1/2 foot tree, I knew I would have two full size trees put up this year. We put the new tree up weeks ago, with the kids doing all the decorating, as they usually do. It's nice, and I love it.

I lacked the ambition & time to put the white tree up, though, until today. Not only did I get the tree up, I also finally ripped down the horrible stapled valances the prior owners had put in the dining room. They weren't bad, but not my taste. They also had some blinds up in the large windows back there, but the blinds were all in various states of not really working. We finally were able to figure out today just how to remove those stupid things.

So, the tree is up. It had 300-400 lights on it, all clear, as a prelit tree. I added 500 more. 400 were multi colored (with 200 of them blinking), and 100 were solid purple. So it's pretty well lit. I had 1 extra strand of purple, and 1 strand of blue, so I put those around the two windows back there.

I love the white tree. I did all bright colored ornaments, mostly in aqua, purple, and pink, but also oranges, greens, and reds. I love, love, love having my own tree to decorate not. It's not all designed and perfect, but it looks nice, and it'll be a welcome site when we arrive home every day.

 

 

Last Minute Ideas

I'm always so excited to see what my blog buddies have come up with next, when I log in, and rarely am I ever disappointed in new posts to read. With Christmas less than 2 weeks away, time is of the essence. Time to finish decorating, shopping, wrapping, and, of course, crafting.

Is there enough time left? Who knows. I have my first get together next weekend. I think I'm done. I finished last night, and have decided that despite the other ideas I have floating around in my head, that's it. Each of my 3 nieces, and 1 nephew have a gift. My mom has a gift. The rest of us don't exchange gifts individually. We each bring a wrapped ornament, and we blindly pick the package we want, then we can trade with someone who picked before us.

I digressed, didn't I? I do that a lot.

Here are some ideas I found on blogs, and around the net, for last minute items to make for Christmas. Enjoy!

Donut Snowman, the Paper Pony- Frosty never looked so good!

{photo credit: The Paper Pony blog}

Surprise Christmas Balls, Alpha Mom- A cute ball ornament filled with surprises along the way.

{photo credit: Alpha Mom website}

Snowflake Coasters, Mad In Crafts- A cute wintery set of dollar store coasters.

{photo credit: Jessica at Mad In Crafts blog}

Make A Frosty Kit, That's So Cuegly- Make a kit to have on hand for snowman building. Yes, you can buy them premade, but they are no where near as stinking cute!

{photo credit: That's So Cuegly blog}

Make a Cookie Kit Gift, Blue Cricket Designs- This makes for a great neighbor gift. To give this gift to someone at work, or school (without immediate access to a fridge), swap the dough for a cookie mix.

{photo credit: Blue Cricket Designs blog}





There you have it! Some great frugal gifts to give this year, or crafts to make, or items just to have on hand!

Lights, Lights, Lights!

Well, being winter, it gets dark early. Here it is, not even 6, and I have been out to photograph my Christmas Lights. I love them! The only problem- Santa isn't lit up. He takes a full sized light bulb, so tomorrow when it's not so cold, I plan to replace it.

25 Ornaments - Day 13

I recently discovered just how much fun Mod Podge is, much to my husbands, erm, "delight". With my delight, I've been searching up new projects, and went over to Mod Podge Rocks, which is an awesome blog. She has some pretty fabric & paper mache Christmas ornaments she mod podged with gold glitter Mod Podge.

 

{photo credit: Amy at Mod Podge Rocks!}

Fabric Ornaments

You'll Need:
Paper Mache ball ornaments
Fabric Scraps
Scissors
Mod Podge
Embellishments- ribbons, buttons, gems, etc.
Flat Paint Brush (I use foam brushes- 6 for $.99 at Hobby Lobby)

To see how to make these wonderful fabric ornaments, check out Amy's post on Mod Podge Rocks!

Glitter... Everywhere!

In a classic bout of, "Just WHAT was I thinking?!??", I finished a project last night. I didn't get good photos of it, because it was dark out. The flash washes it out, and the natural light turned everything yellow. Ugh. Today I will get some natural light photos.



Where should I start? Earlier this week, the night the storm was just starting, Nick had to run into Lansing, so we both went. Of course, we stopped at Michaels, as well. While looking around, I was hesitant to pick up any Christmas specific crafts (because I still have many, and because, frankly, I have too much to get done before Christmas), but Nick found a cute set. It has 2 reindeer and a sleigh, all flat wood, but they have stands with them, so they can stand up. I liked it, but said no, but Nick realized I liked it, and stuck it in the cart. It was on clearance for $2.49.



Thursday night, I was contemplating what to do with it. I could certainly decoupage it, but I was worried at the time involved in getting the paper cut just right, and hesitated to do it. Then, I got "The Idea". You know... "The Idea" that later turned into "Just WHAT was I thinking?!??"

What was it? Oh, sure- "Why not cover the entire thing in glitter?" -slapface- Yes, glitter. It's not huge, but it is good sized. Each piece is about the size of a regular paperback novel. Ok, so here I am, with this brilliant idea to cover them in glitter. I had plain mod podge finally (also thanks to the mid-week Michaels run), and plenty of glitter left over from the craft day we had last weekend.

Gold for the reindeer, and red and gold for the sleigh, is what I was thinking. I wasn't sure what to do with the stands yet. Friday morning I sat down to do it. I wasn't sure what to use under it, but knew I should have something. I used a big ziplock bag, simply because it was sitting there. Note- they aren't horrible, but they are not, perhaps, the best surface for keeping ALL the glitter where it belongs.

After 1 coat, it became apparent that a second coat would be needed. Maybe not an entire second coat, but at least a spotty second coat. The first reindeer I did, I added a full second coat, but it used way too much glitter. On the next side, I used only 1 coat, and then did spot fill where needed, and you can't really see a difference.

Either way, I had only gotten two sides of 1 deer done, and 1 side of the second deer done when I ran out of gold glitter. Sadness! Dollar Tree run, it was!

When I came back, I was armed with a lot more glitter. And other stuff. I set the project aside, though, for a bit.

I just got done with it. I was naive when I started, and opted to glitter all the EDGES of the reindeer as well- despite some spots that were extremly hard to get the mod podge into. On the sleigh, I did not. Today I will use glitter glue to cover the edges. It won't match exactly, but it will cover the edges without my sanity being the victim.

In the end, I had 2 golden reindeer, one with a red nose, 3 green glittered stands, and 1 sleigh, glittered with gold runners, a red sleigh, and green trim on the sleigh. Oh, and carpet, pants, hair, CATS, fabric, and a desk coated with gold, green, and red glitter. Yes, the cats sparkle. They did not look amused when Mommy was grinning at them last night, and oohing and aahing over how pretty they were.

Yes, it's everywhere, as the title of the post might suggest. I was SO careful with it, and yet, it was everywhere. Just... everywhere. I'm suddenly very hungry. And re-thinking my love of Glitter. I mean, I love me some serious Sparkle. LOVE LOVE LOVE sparkle. Always have. My mom called me gaudy when I was a kid, for my love of anything that sparkled. Well, I did not out grow it. Until today, maybe.

That's not fair. I still love glitter. I just have no desire to work with it again. I was meticulous when I cleaned up- sweeping the glitter into piles, and trying to get it back into minuscule containers. I have a nearly full container of red/gold/green combo glitter.

-sigh-

And the sick thing is, I can't bloody well wait to use it on something.

I have a problem. The first step is admitting it.