Hall Decking

A few shots of  Holiday Spirit overtaking the Living Room and Dining Room.

Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly...Tis the season something jolly!

Hey kids! I made your favorite cookies: Christmas trees for the girls and bloody spearheads for Bart!

Merry Christmas to you, Merry Christmas to you, good luck with that Christmas stuff and a Merry Christmas!

Frosty Fix Up

 I bought this guy off the side of the road at a run down thrift store many years ago.  His black paint was all scrapped up, someone had colored his hat band with a red and green crayon and some tiny critters with sharp teeth chewed a hole near the base of his back.  For years he remained in this state and I didn't even put him in the Christmas decor mix, he just stayed in the garage....
Finally this was his year.  I cleaned him up, removed the crayon debris and with the help of the multi surface paint made by Martha he is all spiffed up!

I couldn't do anything about the critter hole... He just has to keep his bum to the "fire" and pretend it melted off!

Glupert and Bumpkins

Pumpkinbutt has 2 elves (EOTS DIY) that visit him every year before Christmas named Glupert and Bumpkins.  I thought I would share a few of their shenanigans this year:

They flew his paper space ships from the ceiling fan. 

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They roasted marshmallows in front of the cardboard fireplace.

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They brought us doughnuts (along with mini doughnuts for themselves) for Christmas morning.

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Joy {Division} To The World!

Continuing with the Alt-Goth-Emo theme...  black tree with mildly glitter-fied black and white band images:

the tree topper, Ian Curtis-Claus:

Goth-y Christmas to All!

Pumpkinbutt picked the Christmas theme this year.  And he picked Alterna-Emo-Goth Bands....Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure.....

I am not going to deny shaping the kid's musical tastes, but he chose this as the theme all on his own.
So... we went with it.  The Mr. happened to find this perfect Christmas Winter pic of The Cure building a snowman.
I made the wreath by wrapping 3 strands of garland around a wire frame and attaching white pom poms and images.

I was inspired a bit by a wreath I saw at Target:

And, yes, you may have noticed...We do live in the Old Grandview Place.  Just don't throw rocks through our windows please!

Vintage Crafty

I found these two vintage crafted up Santas at the thrift last week for 2 bucks! They are made out of glass hurricane lamps and felt.  I put a small candle inside them (not shown) and they looked pretty neat!

What walks down stairs....

alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound? A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!  Everyone knows it's Slinky!  It's Slinky, it's Slinky, it's fun, it's a wonderful toy!  It's Slinky, it's Slinky, it's fun, it's a wonderful toy!  It's fun for a girl or a boy!

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I had no idea there was a variety of slinky toys other than the spring deal it's self and Slinky the dog.

Dial-A-Cookie Cookie Press

 I picked up this Mirro Dial-a-Cookie Cookie Press a few years ago at a thrift and finally used it today.  I had no idea I had been letting this fantastic-hours-of-enjoyment-device just collect dust in the closet.  It works really fast and the cookies are super cute!

It comes with 12 different designs of cookie pressing fun to be had.  Bar, star, daisy, snowflake, club, heart, diamond, spade, tree, butterfly, scottie dog, and a camel. Yes, a camel.  You got me, camels must have been popular in the 1960's.

We decorated them all crazy like and then scarfed them while writing out Christmas cards.

 Here is the basic Spritz recipe if you happen to have a Cookie press sans recipe booklet :

Scotch Tape for the Afterlife

Use Scotch Tape for those "Odd-Shaped" packages....Last year everyone's least favorite Grandma got the bottom section to this gift.  This year she gets the lid.  Everyone hopes it's her last Christmas and are not ashamed to say it with a coffin! If she lasts till next year maybe she will get a back hoe to get started on digging the hole.

The frisky side of Santa

Chocolate-CHIP Cookies

The extra special Santa Shrine Cookies that are a part of the offering to St. Nick, came from a recipe within the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book . They just called them Chocolate-Chip Cookies though.

The 1953 version is apparently one BH&G's most popular cook books.  So much so, that it was reprinted in 2005. The entire book was reprinted with an aged look, having a "nostalgic patina"!

Each category in the cook book binder is divided by super cute illustrations of happy baking and cooking scenes....

There are 50 color illustrations of lovely garnished meals and place settings...

Here is the sacred recipe.....it is very basic, but more importantly, it is Santa approved!

St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine

 

For this month's DIY Holiday Decoration Challenge on Dollar Store Crafts I am submitting a St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine.

St. Nick gets a lot of requests this time of year. Best to get in a good word for yourself, especially if you happen to be on the infamous naughty list . Shameless and utter worship may help! Why not build him an illuminated shrine? After all, he is a Saint, right? This shrine is made out of shiny stuff (his favorite color) and cheap materials (it will be dark and his vision isn't the greatest). Simply write your request on a piece of paper and slip it into the enchanted stocking.  Offer food and/or beverage (a flaming rum punch wouldn't hurt), say the magic words ( "shiny tinsel and a silver bell, please bring me what I wish for or someone will be getting hell...I mean a mug of wassail" ), and elfin magic will whisk away your hopes and dreams to the big man at the North Pole. It's just that simple!

A couple of close ups of the shrine. Magic stockings can be found at your local thrift store :

The elfin mystical reindeer express:

Behold! The Shrine in full offering and worship mode!

and like I said before... if you happen to be on the naughty list, a bit of a bribe...er... love offering of cold hard cash may be helpful....Even St. Nick has his price.

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To make your own Shiny St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine, locate the following ethereal items at Dollar Tree:
1 silver aluminum pan, 1 Santa face ornament, 1 strand red garland, 4 sets silver glitter bells, 1 package green glitter " Merry Christmas" ornaments, 1 silver glitter star ornament (I bought 1 set of red glitter reindeer but did not use).

Items I had on hand were: small red felt Santa figures, reindeer, pixie, silver glitter snowflake stickers, and one of those lights-on-a-cord deals that is used for Christmas village houses. They sell them at Dollar Tree also, but I had 1 or 10 already around here.

Construction involves using hot glue and wire to attach everything to the pan.  Cut a small hole in the back of the pan behind St. Nick's head to insert the light in to produce the heavenly glow.  I lined the cut out hole with some electrical tape to protect the electric cord from being severed and thus diverting the Christmas wish to surviving electrical shock.

Please be aware that results may vary... I mean, you could be so far down on the naughty list that even the cash won't work!

a few finds....

 I stumbled across a nest of old jigsaw puzzles recently at a thrift.  The puzzle pieces are faded to the point that completing the puzzle, if all the pieces are even there, is going to be a major challenge. But I loved the boxes... what to do with the boxes?  

I also picked up these cutie reindeer and a LUMBERJACK elf! He was a gift "To: Mom  From: Keith 1983". We are going to redate him for 2012 in remembrance of our lumberjacking days!

For serious, I would love any ideas on how to use the puzzle boxes for some DIY fun/decor.

Sunbeam Mixer Juice Extractor

We slapped on the Juice Extractor attachment to the lovely Sunbeam and "joggled" some grapefruit juice!

I posted about my sweetheart Mixmaster several years ago here.
Recently, I was able to get my mits on a bounty of FREE grapefruit.  No, it didn't require me to scale fences after dark and chunk them over... that's what I have the kid for! No kidding, the grapefruits were obtained perfectly legally.

As mentioned in the older post, when I bought the mixer it came with the original owner's booklet.  Here are some of the sold separately accessories:

Good lord, no.... if I ever have to grind meat for food...that is just gross. I think i would rather eat sticks from the yard. I can imagine it being an extreme hassle to properly clean that thing anyway.

 I am really liking the Slicer and Shredder attachment.  Grates cheese and chops ice and is all contained in a neat looking hopper!

The Butter Churn claims to help make butter easily and quickly... I can't imagine it being any easier than reaching an arm out and picking some up in the dairy section for a buck 50.