Gingerbread Kitchen

Remember when you and your young hubby were crammed in a tiny one bedroom basement apartment and even 1 box filled with holiday decorations just seemed to overpower the tiny space? I do. Gradually through the years, we have moved to slightly larger apartments, to a small house and now we are in a medium sized house. As the size of our home has grown, so has the size and quantity of my holiday decoration boxes :) We had only been in our house a few months last Christmas, so I didn't have enough decorations to fill all of the spaces last year. I added a few and brainstormed for ideas of what I could do to all of the remaining spaces. I have several nativities and a snowman theme throughout most of our main living areas. However, I thought it could be really fun to have a different theme in the kitchen. I had seen a gingerbread theme in someone else's kitchen (my mom's) and I decided to copy it for this year. When I mentioned my idea to Mom, she decided to give me most of her gingerbread stuff. She has since moved on to a different theme and her stuff was just collecting dust in a box in the attic. I graciously accepted! Some of the figures I place on my countertop and some I placed in the space above the cupboards. As you can see, I need to add a little bit more. I have some gingerbread craft ideas that I hope to make over the next couple weeks to add to the collection. Most likely, it will take me 2 or 3 Christmas seasons to finish collecting gingerbread decorations for the kitchen. It should be fun!

I have a small, slender tree that I can put in a corner of my kitchen. My mom has one too, and she also gave me her gingerbread ornaments. Many I could simply hang on the tree. She did give me some cookie cutter ornaments that I modified. She uses the traditional reds and greens in her holiday decorations. However, I have decorated my house in the really bright red and lime greens that are popular right now. So I added brightly colored ribbon and bright red and green picks to the cookie cutters so that they tie in better with my color scheme.
My mom also had these really cute tiny gingerbread men ornaments meant for a miniature tree that she had glued to ribbons and used on her slim tree. However, my tree is smaller than my mom's and with all the other gingerbread ornaments and cookie cutters it was already too full. So, I glued ribbons that matched the cookie cutter ornaments to the mini ornaments making a loop. Then I strung these up on the curtain rods in the kitchen windows for a little window decoration.

Kind of a fun effect and it helps spread the gingerbread theme throughout the kitchen.

I just think this little tree is darling, and it is so fun to have so many Christmas decorations in my kitchen. I spend enough time there cooking and doing dishes that it is really nice to have it decorated along with the rest of the house!

Refinshed Kitchen Table

My little family of four became a little family of 5 one year ago. We had a small bistro sized table in our kitchen that we could barely squeeze all four of us into. Most of the time, the kids and I would eat in the kitchen for breakfast and lunch. Then, when my hubby came home, we would use the dining room table for dinner. But, I was sick of the mess created by eating in the dining room everyday, so I wanted a bigger kitchen table. I knew I had about a year until the baby would be eating with us at every meal to find something bigger for the kitchen. A new table and chairs set wasn't really in the budget, so I started scouring local garage sales and craigslist. I wanted a farmhouse style oval pedestal table. In August, I found this gem for a steal! The table and all 4 chairs for just $50. It was so cheap because the owner had tried to refinish it by painting it black but had botched the paint job. That may have been a deterrent for other potential buyers, but not for me. I scooped it up and planned on refinishing it right away. But life happened, and I didn't get started on it until November. I spent almost every naptime and several nights working on it. Hence the lack of projects posted in November! I was only working on this! I had to get it done by Thanksgiving when I had family coming into town. First I sanded and stripped off the black paint and the varnish and stain underneath the paint.

This step took forever. Turn out, chemical stripper really doesn't work when it is freezing outside!
Originally, I planned on being really creative with my finishes. I was going to use a blue or green tinted stain. I think it would have looked nice, but I decided to go with something more neutral in case I ever decide to change my color scheme. It simply took way too long to remove the old stain and I don't want to have to refinish this table again any time soon. I ended up painting the pedestal and legs in the same white as the trim on my walls. Then, I used a natural stain on the table top before applying multiple coats of polyurethane. I love the result. Classic and fresh looking. I was also able to find a bench online that has a similar natural stain on top and white base. Perfect. Now I have a table that will grow with the family!

Placemat Scripture Tote

One of the other wards in my church building was making these scripture totes for Super Saturday this fall. I thought they looked cute and fun, so after googling them, I found a tutorial I liked and sewed one for my sister's birthday. They are made from placemats and ribbon. All of the pictures I found online used plain placemats and dressed them up with pretty ribbons and flower embellishments. However, I know K's fav colors are red, yellow and brown and I couldn't pass up this darling stripped placemat. I sewed on plain yellow ribbon to counter the stripes on the tote. Then, I couldn't find any yellow silk flowers that I liked, so I made these awesome fabric rosettes. They look complicated, but they only took about 3 minutes each! I love the way the tote turned out and K loves the gift! This tote is large enough for her scriptures, Relief Society manual and her hymn book. Perfect!

Give Thanks Banner

This was a super cute, fast banner to make. After my Trick O Treat banner fiasco, I wanted to make a cute banner for Thanksgiving that didn't take multiple nap times to make. I created this in one evening! First, I traced my letters onto Heat N Bond, then ironned them onto brown felt and cut out. Second, I cut out squares of natural and orange burlap that I sewed together. I ironned one letter onto each burlap square. Then, I attached felt stickers that I found at my local craft store. Next, with an exacto knife, I cut two slits into the top each square so that I could run a length of brown grosgrain ribbon through the banner. Finally, I hung on my mantle to enjoy!

Thanksgiving Tablescape

I hosted Thanksgiving this year, and I wanted my table to look nice. I had plain white china for the placesettings, but I didn't have any fall table linens. I made napkin rings from some left over wired ribbon that I tied in a knot and glued together with hot glue. Then I sewed this awesome table runner out of orange burlap and corn husks. I found the idea and tutorial here and I just had to make one for myself. I made it for my table when it is completely extended. I enjoyed it so much, that I think I am going to make a second one that is shorter for my everyday table length next year.

 I just love how pretty the table looks!

Pumpkin Candleholders

Check out these super easy, quick pumpkins! I wanted some cute candles for my dinner table on Halloween. I got the idea from my SIL only instead of using Mason jars, I used baby food jars and paint instead of mod podge and tissue paper. It was a very fast project. Maybe only 30min to make 6 jars. I kept the brush lines in the paint to resemble to lines found on a pumpkin. Just took a little orange and green paint, plus a little raffia. These are the perfect size for a tea light candle. The candle does make the jar get quite hot, so I plan on using the battery operated fake candles next time!

Modern Book Pumpkin

Modern Book Pumpkin

I copied this idea from my SIL Meagan.

Difficulty Level: Easy
Time: Plan on watching a couple movies while working on it!




Step 1: Take an old hardcover book and rip of the cover. Then, begin folding each page in half.
When my kindergartner saw me doing this, he was horrified that I was ruining a book! However, I quickly reassured him that we were actually recycling because I no longer needed an ancient thesaurus when I have it online. This pacified him!

Note: This step can take a long time depending on how may pages the book has. I would not recommend working on this craft during precious nap times; work on something more complicated then. This craft is perfect to work on while sitting around watching TV or hanging out at your MILs, etc. This book took me about 5 hours to fold.
Step 2: After folding all of the pages, you need to glue to spine together. I used a lot of hot glue but looking back, probably using E-6000 glue would have worked better.
Step 3: Glue the front and back pages together. This, along with gluing the spine of the book creates one continuous cylinder.
Well, almost continuous. You will definitely still have some gaping in the back.
But the front looks marvelous.

Step 4: Next, I glue a small branch to the top to form the stem of the pumpkin. My SIL made the stem from black craft foam, along with eyes, nose and mouth for a jack 'o lantern.

Step 5: I tied a little raffia around my stem.
Step 6: Then I tied a bow from orange wired ribbon.
And tada: the finished product! My book pumpkin. This pumpkin stands at 10inches tall plus the stem. I plan on making 2 more from different sized books to have a nice small, medium and large trio.