Merry Christmas!

Baking day!

 Ever since my children were just barely able to reach the countertop we've been baking cut out sugar cookies at Christmas. It's one of my favorite traditions. My kids are now 19, 22, and 24 years old but we still have fun!

 

 Now, though, the girls do a lot of the work. K mixed up the sugar cookie dough and she and M cut all of the cookies out and baked them. We all helped with the decorating. Here are my son's creations:

M cut out and baked all of the gingerbread men after I made that dough.

 I had a lot of fun decorating them this year. We found cookie decorating frosting in bottles that look like glue bottles. Once we got the hang of using them, they were great to add creative details.

We also made chocolate no bake cookies, peanut butter cup bars, and Casey's saltine cookies. I'm gonna try not to think about the 2 1/2 pounds of butter we used making all of those wonderful treats, lol.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Merry Christmas!

I am at work so this is just a quick note to wish everyone a blessed and Merry Christmas! I so appreciate all of the friends I've made in blogland. I have learned many new skills and I am constantly inspired by others' talents. Enjoy the holiday!

A shepherd with a lot of animals to watch over

My daughter and I had a fun afternoon looking through thrift and antique shops looking for animals for her nativity. We found the lambs and the calves that way. The donkey, ox and cow came from Tractor Supply. A doll I made many years ago that no longer had a home suddenly aged and went back in time to become a shepherd. ;) Daughter number 2's nativity is now complete.

More teapot ornaments

 I found several more tea sets this week. These three all started life as Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. With a little work they turned into these pretty ornaments. These are the ones I will give to my sisters-in-law. I love the shape of the lid.

All three have tiny decorated silver trees inside. I left the wallpaper out this time since the back of the teapot is painted anyway. I like it better because the light can shine through the paint and light up the little tree.

I also found 2 more sets like my teapot ornament so I made a red one and a blue one for my tree. :)

I love thrift stores!

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 I had to pick up a prescription today in a nearby town that has both a Goodwill and a Salvation Army store. I had to make quick stops at both, ;). I found the rocking horse and fireplace frame to use in the elf house. The table and chairs are half scale and very detailed. I will find a home for them somewhere.

The best purchases were this stable and sheep. Last year I made a nativity set for my older daughter. This year middle gets her set. She liked this Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus that I made many years ago when I first started making dolls. They used to be mounted on a wooden plaque base. I freshened them up, repaired damages and repainted where necessary. Now they look quite at home in the stable. The sheep was a lucky find - a random nativity piece with no other pieces. He's very nicely scaled for this setting. I need to shop in a few more thrift stores and farm supply stores to find more animals, though. The cat on the barrel in the back was also added by me. Not pictured but now in the scene is a rustic pot back by the barrel. The animals need water, you know. :) The star is a polymer clay ornament I made several years ago. It covers a flaw at the peak of the stable.

Oh, and I also found a denim skirt and a sweater and some ornaments for the tree today. Not a bad haul for less than an hour between the two stores, lol.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

The promised teapot

 The back "wall" is papered with tiny green stripes and the floor is cork. There's just enough room for a tiny decorated tree. This one is silver and has a snowy skirt.

I used dark green enamel paint so it would stick to the teapot and have a bit of shine. The glitter was just for fun - and to help the dark green stand out against the tree. I will be looking for more of these sets. I want to make more ornaments!

Decking the halls

 I had to run to the local Family Dollar for dog food this morning. I can't seem to go in there without looking around and I ended up buying a large box of silver glass ball ornaments to play with. This blue and red ornament was made by decoupaging tissue paper shapes onto the ball. Then I sprinkled it with fairy dust - a very fine glitter.

 On this one I painted sections with silver glass paint. That gave a pretty matte finish to those sections that contrasts very nicely with the shiny silver.

 

 This one got stripes with chunky white glitter. I had a lot of fun just playing. I did several others but these three are my favorites.

I also found this tiny princess tea set at Family Dollar. The pieces are nicely scaled for dollhouse use. I just need to make them look much less pink and plastic, lol. The teapot is made to hold all the pieces. I had planned to paint it to look like a porcelain teapot to hang on the tree. Silly me - I didn't even think about putting a mini scene inside. It's a good thing my hubby did. ;) That's gonna be a project for tomorrow during the football games. I promise to show you the results tomorrow evening.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

It's Christmas around the house

 This is our living room tree. I get to decorate this one however I want. For the past several years I've used vintage and vintage style ornaments. Even the topper is a vintage replica. Under the tree I have a little village I started collecting last year. Almost all of the pieces have come from thrift stores. It's been fun to add to over this past year.

This is our family tree. We have Christmas morning in our master bedroom so that's where this tree is - it's also the largest room in the house so we can have a large tree. This is the first year for the blue lights and sparkly garland. The rest of the family love all blue, and since I get to choose the lights for the downstairs tree, we went with their favorite for this one. The new lights are blue LEDs. I must say that the blue is growing on me. The LED lights are really nice. I made the tree skirt many years ago. It has angels and stars appliqued on it.

We also have several nativities and my Santa collection spread throughout the house.  My middle child is living at home since graduating from college and she has a small tree decorated with chiffon butterflies and Tinkerbelle ornaments.

It's very festive here!

Santa's House featured!

Santa's House has been featured as the dollhouse of the month over at My Small Obsession! The link takes you to the website but Gaye also has a blog by the same name. Thank you very much, Gaye!