Christmas Ornaments 2015

We have a family Christmas Ornament tradition that started in 1977.  You can see the ornaments through the years on my earlier posts.

Here are the 2015 ornaments.

 The ornaments were made using fabric yo-yos that were made by our grandmother and aunt many years ago.  The yo-yos were tacked together to form a bedspread and dresser scarf. We cut them apart and used them as the center of our ornaments (saw the idea on Pinterest).

I have learned recently that they are also called Suffolk puffs. There are videos on how to make yo-yos and ideas for using the in crafts on You Tube.

The larger circles were cut from felt using a Big Shot.  We used embroidery floss to do a blanket stitch around the felt circles. Floss is also used to tack the circles together through the centers and make a bow on the front. 

 We got started on these at a Sisters Retreat in Galena IL in August. Here are the stacks of circles.  We each made a prototype and took our share home to complete over the months.   They really turned out cute. 

 For our Wehrheim Christmas Gathering, our brother, Ron, had made this house to hold the Christmas tree.  This is based on one our Grandmother Wehrheim had made many, many years ago for their tree.  Our parents continued using it through the years. This house brings back many Christmas memories.

 We placed our 40+ ornaments on the tree.  It certainly filled it out nicely.  It's always fun to display the ornaments and then distribute them later in the day.  The younger generation enjoys delivering each ornament to its owner (they all have tags with the names) and it helps them to learn some of the names and faces that they don't see very often.

A closeup of some of the ornaments on the tree.  I think these are one of my favorites.

Valentine's Weekend

Sort of a weekend wrap-up.  We kept both the grandkids Friday night so our daughter and son-in-law could celebrate his birthday and have a night without kids.  It all went well - why wouldn't it with 3 adults catering to a 2 month old and an almost 3 year old.  

Saturday morning I made a Valentine breakfast.  Heart shaped pancakes, strawberries and whipped topping.  Yummy!

It wa this little guy's first night away from Mommy.  He did great!  Went to sleep about 7 p.m.   Woke at 1 a.m. and had a bottle and right back to sleep. Then slept until after 6 a.m.  He had plenty of smiles for us.  Here he is asleep in my arms.  About the only way he will take a nap for his mommy is in a moby wrap.  I held him close and he was doing a lot of squirming so I put a burp cloth over his head and he settled right down and went to sleep.  So of course, I made the sacrifice and sat and held him throughout the nap :-)

On Sunday, we had about 1 3/4 inches of snow/sleet mixture.  I had planned to make chili anyway so it was a perfect day for that.   I started with my mom's basic chili recipe - 1 lb ground beef, 15 oz can chili beans and 15 oz can of tomato sauce -  and added a little extra seasoning.  Tom likes it thicker so I use crushed tomatoes.  Here is my recipe - Crock Pot Chili.  It was pretty good!  
I always like a peanut butter sandwich on the side - like we always had in school.

I did a little prep cooking on Sunday too.  Since I had a doctor's appointment on Monday afternoon and knew I would be rushed to get supper done, I got a head start on some Chicken Cajun Pasta.  This is one of my PREP COOK recipes.  I mixed together all the sauce ingredients and then put it in the refrigerator.  When I got home today,  I planned to cook some linguine and serve with the sauce, but it just seemed easier to heat up the sauce and add a little water/chicken broth and some penne to make a one skillet pasta dish.  It was perfect!   As Tom said, that's one recipe I need to keep.

Pasta and Dancing Hippos

Pasta and Dancing Hippos

I started this post a few days ago and didn't get very far :-) So will finish it up here before posting about the past weekend. 

This is a family favorite - Pepperoni Macaroni.  I found the recipe in a copy of Quick Cooking about 15 years ago and everyone liked it, especially Rebekah.  It is one of my 'comfort' dishes.  

I finished up this quilt square recently.  The theme for a stitch-along was Noah's Ark.  A stitch-along is not for a designated recipient but just everyone who wants to committing to stitch for a specific theme and the squares are all donated to a quilt charity - this one was for Love Quilts Brazil.   The squares will not necessarily be used in the same quilt but will just be kept on hand to fill in as needed to complete a quilt or for an emergency quilt.  
I thought this was a fun pattern - and kind of stretched the theme.  These two hippos thought they were going on a cruise :-)

Retro Baking

Got out my Pampered Chef tube pans last night to make some French Bread for a bridal shower today.  I had planned to just pick up a baguette at the store and slice it thinly to serve with the hot bacon dip but I did not make it to the store.  So thought I would make my own.  Then when forming the dough into loaves, I thought of the tube pans from Pampered Chef (do not see them in their online catalog but did see some other sources when I googled for Pampered Chef tube pans - E-Bay and some kitchen supply sites).

 I hadn't use these in years - probably not for the last 10-15 years at least.   They worked beautifully.
I used a French Bread recipe from my bread machine cookbook with the dough setting then put it into the pans and let it rise for about 20 minutes.  It had already filled the pans so removed some to leave about 2 inches of space to allow it to raise some more - worked beautifully.   It was a nice crusty bread.

Great served with this Hot Bacon Dip.  Mixed this up this morning and while it baked I got ready to go to the shower.  Literally took it out of the oven, wrapped and snuggled it into insulated carrier for my Pyrex casserole and took it to the shower.  Still plenty warm when we ate.  I got several favorable comments on it too.

Thought it was kind of cute with my heart shaped quiche plate and the heart and flower shaped bread slices.  And there was enough left over that we can have some with our Super Bowl snacks tomorrow.

Comfort foods and craftiness

I've tried a few new recipes this week - mostly inspired by Pinterest.  All were hits so I have saved my versions to my Recipes blog.  I rarely use a cookbook any more - just my blog or a search on Pinterest when I need a recipe.

My Crescent Chicken is a combination of 2 recipes I found on Pinterest.  I had some shredded chicken in the freezer that I used and it was okay.  I think I would like it with large chunks of chicken.  I would also add some more seasoning to the chicken mixture next time - chopped onion and poultry seasoning maybe.    I used the Jumbo Crescents (had never seen those before - are they new?)   You could use regular crescent but would have to use less filling and would need more crescents. 
I used Parmesan cheese on top and I think next time I will use cheddar.  Might add a little cheddar in the filling too.

Tonight I made Tuna Casserole.  I have to confess, my tuna casserole is usually a box of Kraft Mac N Cheese, a can of tuna drained and a can of mushrooms drained.   Mix up the Mac N Cheese according to directions and add the tuna and mushrooms.  This recipe was worth the extra effort.
I found the original recipe here. That recipe only called for 8 ounces of noodles - half a bag - but I went ahead and cooked the whole bag thinking I would save half to use for buttered noodles some day this week. But when I got the sauce mixed up it just looked like way too much for half the noodles so wound up using them all. 


Another dish was one I made up as I went along, Mushroom Skillet Dinner. It is similar to a beef stroganoff and is like making hamburger helper - but from scratch. Tom really liked it - he ate it for supper the next 2 nights.  I love making large casseroles so we have leftovers for a few nights - just add a salad or some veggies and maybe some fresh fruit.   He likes it too since there is less clean-up in the kitchen. 

Tomorrow night we are going to a local barbecue place.  They are having a fundraiser and it's a good excuse not to cook - right? 


I have also been busy crafting - finished up this guy -

he will be going to Love Quilts Brazil by way of Quilts for Older Children and Adults. 
And I have doing some knitting - a new project is a temperature afghan.  I knit a row for each day of the year and the color I use is based on the high temperature for that day.   I got the idea here.  I used some different colors and assigned them for every 10 degree interval from 'below 0' to '101 and above'.   Probably won't need the below 0 since we rarely have a high in that range but just in case, I planned for it.

Mine is knitted rather than crocheted.  I looked at several ideas and the crochet ones were all overly long - some were about 12 feet long - 365 rows.   I found a stitch gauge that would be about 6 feet for 366 rows (leap year) and I added a navy border.   It will be interesting to see the colors.  I will give it to my husband on New Year's 2017 - so if you know him, don't say anything around him.   I am using his recorded daily high temps since he is such a weather nut. 
The brighter blue is for 0-10 degrees and the golden row is for 51-60 degrees.  You can see we had a day of 51-60 and then 2 days later we had 0-10 - only in the Midwest :-)  And the bright orange row is 61-70 degrees.  Quite a variety already.  Some have a row done that marks the end of each month.  I am debating about using the navy for that so between Jan 31 and Feb 1, I would do a navy row.   I think that might give it more meaning for him. 

Balloons, Balloons, and Balloons

I got several new balloon stamp sets and punches from the Occassions catalog.  Here are some of the cards I have made with all those balloons. 

I have some strips of this DSP left from our family shoebox party in October and it has been sitting on my craft table since then - so rather than put it away I just used it for some cards.

The sentiment and balloon strings are from the Party Wishes stamp set.  I used the new Balloon Bouquet punch.  It has 2 sizes of balloons.  Whipped up several cards in no time.

Colors are Bermuda Bay, Tangelo Twist and Crushed Curry. 

Negative punch on the strip with the DSP behind and then I used the balloons on the card as well.  This balloon punch is from the Party Punch pack.   It also has a cupcake and a candle. Colors are Tempting Turquoise, Tangelo Twist and Crushed Curry. The sentiment is from the stamp set, Party with Cake.

Same DSP - and used both the balloon punches to look like the balloons were floating off into the distance.   Colors are Crushed Curry, Island Indigo, Tangelo Twist and Pool Party.

Everything wasn't balloons though.  I bought the Tree Builder punch some time ago but haven't used it so thought  I should at least make sure it works.  The bird, tree and clouds are all pieces from the punch.  The colors are Tempting Turquoise, Chocolate Chip, Crushed Curry, Tangelo Twist and Whisper White.  The sentiment is from the Endless Birthday Wishes stamp set. 

And here is one that has been laying in my stash for a while.  I made it to use up some of the retired DSP months ago but just didn't know what I wanted to add to it.  I needed a card to send to a friend so grabbed the retired Haute Couture stamp set.  I added a bit of white gel pen to the images to give them a little depth.  I really like how it turned out!

Dino-mite Cards

I've been busy making cards - and it feels good!  Haven't been spending much time in the craft room lately and I am running low on birthday and anniversary cards.  So today I spent several hours playing with some of my new toys.

The first as the No Bones About It stamp set.  It is a fun set with lots of  two step designs.  The photopolymer stamps make it so easy.

 I got the idea for this card on Pinterest.   There are SO MANY card ideas there.   I have several boards of pinned ideas.   The colors are Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Elegant Eggplant, Garden Green and Tangelo Twist.

While making the pieces for the first card, I went ahead and made duplicates.  Didn't want to make the same card so here is a different design.



And one with a balloon.  The card base is Island Indigo and the balloon is Pool Party.  

And how adding a star. 

For this one I used the Botanical Garden Vellum - free during Sale-a-bration.  The leaf design in the vellum shows up well against the Island Indigo card stock. I also used Pear Pizzazz and Night of Navy.  I stamped on the vellum with Tuxedo Blank Memento ink.  

 Another idea from Pinterest.  This one uses a circle of vellum stamped with the dinosaur body overlad on the skeleton piece.   The vellum is attached with a mini brad so you can slide is off .....

and there are the bones.   Who knew dinosaurs could be so much fun?  I certainly had a good time with these.