For Your Sweet Heart at Christmas

Lovely pastel blues and pinks featured in this interactive treasury.

Holiday Colors Treasury

Lovely holiday treasury created by 

 Judy Aussenhofer of Aussen Wolf Designs. 

All items are found on Etsy.com

It's Christmas Time Treasury

Happy Holidays!

Christmas gifts and decorations from Etsy.com

10 Ways to Put Christ back in Christmas!

1) Give God one very special gift just from you to him

Maybe your gift to God will be to forgive someone you've needed to forgive for a long time. You may discover that you've given a gift back to yourself.

Perhaps your gift will be to commit to spend time with God daily!


2) Set aside a special time to read the Christmas story in Luke 1:5-56 through 2:1-20

3) Set up a Nativity scene in your home

4) Plan a project of good will this Christmas

A  adopt a family, visit the elderly, help them do shopping or yard work. Find someone with a genuine need, involve your whole family and see how happy you can make someone this Christmas. 

5) Take a group Christmas caroling in a nursing home or a children's hospital.

6) Give a surprise gift of service to each member of your family

The idea of giving an unexpected gift of service to members of your family is to demonstrate Christ-like love and service. You might consider giving a back rub to your spouse, running an errand for your brother, or cleaning out a closet for your mother. Make it personal and meaningful and watch the blessings multiply.

7) Set aside a time of family devotions on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning:

Before opening the gifts, take a few minutes to gather together as a family in prayer and devotions. Read a few Bible verses and discuss as a family the true meaning of Christmas. 

8) Attend a Christmas church service together with your family.

9) Send Christmas cards that convey a spiritual message.

10) Write a Christmas letter to a missionary or to a solider.


Source: about.com

Christmas Coiffe Collection

Christmas Coiffe

  Curated By: IslandsOfTime

ArtFire.com

Handmade Jewelry

Great hair accessories for you Christmas Coiffe
Thank you Islands of Time for creating this lovely collection and including my poinsettia hair clips.

Red and Silver Gift Ideas For Cyber Monday

Great red and silver gift ideas.

Just click the picture of choice and it will take you to the website.

Special thanks goes to Suzanne and Tony Hughes for creating this lovely treasury.

Home Decor Treasury

Great gifts ideas for your home.

Home is where the heart is.

Take a look at these great items.

All items are found at Etsy.com

Blog Feature

MattsCraftyWife featured my Mrs. Claus apron in her blog about Christmas online shopping.

Check out more about this article at http:\\mattscraftywife.blogspot.com

Thank you Matt's Wife for featuring me.

Holiday Elf Aprons

Want to get a jump on the holiday parties?  Have a costume party to go to?  I've got just the thing for you.  I've have made several elf aprons that will make you the hit of your next party.  All aprons are fully lined and ready to be shipped.   These are the first of the costume aprons I've made other than the French Maid Aprons which are always a hit.

Green Giant Apron or Elf Apron

Green with red triangle trim elf apron

Red with green triangle trim elf apron

Check out my shop:  Heartandsowdesigns.artfire.com

My Handmade Christmas Gifts

This year like every year I try to find something to make different for my grandchildren.  They so look forward to something handmade from grandma.  One year I didn't make anything for them and they were very disappointed.  So now I make sure I make them something even if its a little thing.  This year my time was limited due to my business but still wanted to make them feel special and that grandma loves them and thinks of them often.    Here is a few of the pillow cases I made for my grandchildren this year. 

A Different Christmas of Poem

This video poem was sent to me and I wanted to share with you!  It brought tears to my eyes just watching it.  Enjoy!

Having a Blue Christmas on Artfire!

Blue Christmas

Curated By: Crochetedlitt...

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

 
Special thanks goes to Crochetedlittlethings for creating this collection.

500 cookies? Pizzelles

Holidays are about traditions and family heritage. Making cookies is has been a Christmas tradition as long as I can remember. But when you marry you combine traditions with your spouse and come up with your own traditions. My husband's mother always make these Italian cookies called pizzelles. No he's not Italian but the doctor who his mother worked for was so she picked up this tradition and added it to there family's traditions and we have too.



Makes 150 pizzelles
6 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla or anise extract (pure)
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar

1. Beat the eggs until smooth. Add the oil and vanilla or anise extract. Onto the mixture, sift the flour and baking powder. Add the sugar and blend vigorously all of these dry ingredients into the egg mixture until smooth. The mixture will be sticky and stiff. Test by dropping the mixture from a small teaspoon or demi-tasse spoon. As needed, add a few tablespoons of water so that the mix drops conveniently as a ribbon in two to three seconds. If the mix is too thin, add a few tablespoons of flour.

2. Set the Color Control Dial of the Pizzelle Pro® to about 3 - 3 1/2 and bake using the red/green light cycle for timing. Alternatively, bake for approximately 45 seconds, open the lid briefly to examine the color, and bake longer as desired to create a darker/browner surface. The baking time can be shortened slightly by increasing the Color Control Dial reading about 1/2 unit.


Please note that when we make the recipe we mix the eggs, oil and sugar and vanilla beat together. In a separate bowl mix the flour and baking powder together and slowly add to liquid mixture a cup at a time. It is best made and easiest if you have bread dough beaters as just a regular mixter you can burn out quickly because the dough gets really hard to mix.

I personally start with a quadrupled batch of dough to begin our cookies, my family only likes the vanilla ones so that is all we make. We had tried anise, almond, and lemon, which are good but vanilla is the best. It takes me by myself 4 hours to make this cookies, I find it makes about 250 cookies. I use my pizzelle press which only makes 2 cookies at a time and my daughter uses my mother-in-laws press as she is no longer able to make them. When I have help it only takes 2 hours to make these cookies.

This year we made 2 quadrupled batches of 500 cookies. We use them to eat and give away as presents. Everyone loves these cookies and look forward to them every year. You just can't eat one.

For your pleasure I have included the history.

History of Pizzelle Traditions
It is generally believed that pizzelles were originated in a middle region of Italy in ancient times to mark an annual celebration. Initially baked over an open fire with relatively simple but effective irons, the early pizzelles often were proudly embossed with the family crest or some hint of the village of origin.

Over time it became tradition to use pizzelles to celebrate any holiday or festive occasion, but inevitably there were pizzelles for everyone at Christmas and Easter. The modern patterns found on these delicious waffle cookies most commonly are floral on one side and a woven basket-like pattern on the other.

The recent increased popularity of pizzelles is the result of greater recognition of their delicious versatility. For example, pizzelles, when still hot, can be formed into cylinders, cones and mini-baskets that can hold a wide variety of delicious fillings for festive occasions. The range of taste experiences that can be created with fillings of formed pizzelles is virtually endless.

It's Beginning to Look like Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting my holiday decorations. It took me forever to finish it all, even with it all being less than normal. Too much pretties to put out and then take down so this year I decorated sparingly but it still looks good if I say so myself. I started Thanksgiving weekend and finished it about a week afterwards but then I would add touch ups as the days went by.


Main tree in the living room


Fireplace in the living room


Dinning table decor



Buffet decor, if you haven't already noticed I love the Victorian look.


Patriotic tree in the family room



Nut crackers on the entertainment center. The family room is decorated in things my husband loves and my room is the rest of the house. hehe. Well at least I gave him a room. We did share the office but I just recently took it totally over too. I had to have a place for my business.

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Top 5 Tuesday Treasures

Today's Top 5 treasures found are listed below. If you would like to have your shop featured here on my blog you will need to pick your favorite and list it in the comments along with your shop address. You may also include your blog address if you have one. The next 5 items and shops will be picked randomly from the "Raffle King." Next posting of Top 5 will be next Tuesday! All comments are welcomed but please note that unless your shop is opened you can not be considered as a contestant. Also all shops must have viable items for sale.

Be sure to invite your friends to be featured here and to check out the other shops great items.



Winner #1 Liberian girl painting by Sabbio Cinnamon Tree
Shop: sabbio.etsy.com


Winner #2 Merry Christmas Cards by The Art of Joy
Shop: TheArtOfJoy.etsy.com
Blog: stuff.joycharde.com


Winner #3 Royal blue vintage necklace by Noell Desiree
Shop: noelldesiree.etsy.com


Winner #4 Coffee Pot Christmas Cards by Coffee Pot People
Shop: CoffeePotPeople.etsy.com
Blog: coffee-pot-people.blogspot.com


Winner #5 Sandwich Buddie Bag Firefighters by The Green Haven
Shop: TheGreenHaven.etsy.com

Snowman Chef Apron

This bib style apron the perfect holiday apron! Cute snowmen and holiday themed. Whether you use it for cooking, hostessing you will sure find plenty of uses for this apron.

Made from 100% cotton has a red background, with green, white dots. Colors included are yellow, blue, and black. It has one pocket on the bib.

One size fits most.

Length: 28.5"
width: 25"
side ties: 30"
neck strap: 13"
bib width: 9"

Machine wash and dry, cool setting

Artfire front page featured

My poinestta apron is on the front page of Artfire! I'm so excited. I have never seen any of my items on the front page of one to the shops I list my products.