Christmas Punch

Here is the recipe for a delicious and festive Christmas punch!

I usually take this to Christmas parties that I go to, and I

always have lots of people asking for the recipe.... it's so

easy, that you really just HAVE to try it!

Two 2 liters of Ginger Ale

1 can of Frozen Lemonade

Green and Red Maraschino Cherries, drained

**Optional-the picture above shows sliced fruit as a garnish**

Pour all ingredients in a large punch bowl.

Freeze over night. Thaw for a couple hours before

serving.  I usually serve the punch while it's still slushy

and icey... but it's still good when it's completely thawed.

Hope you have a blessed holiday... and don't forget

why we REALLY celebrate CHRISTmas!! God bless!

**Christmas Cards 2011... and 2010**

I love getting photo Christmas cards from people,

so I decided when I got married that I would send

photo Christmas cards too =) I wanted to share this
year's Christmas card with y'all... and throw in last year's

card too.  Here's the front and back of the cards:

I bought silver tinsel garland and used a cricut to cut

out the letters, and then just hot glued them to the garland.

My sister, Rebekah, took the pictures one day when

Isaiah and I went to visit her (and her hubbie) in Louisville, KY.

We went to a local park and Rebekah just started clicking away.

It was pretty cold, so we didn't stay outside for long!
And Isaiah was such a good sport about it!!

The same evening, we uploaded the pictures to Vistaprint.

I choose an oversized postcard.  Since the garland said

"Merry Christmas," I didn't feel like it was necessary to have

the design of the card say something as well.

Here's some other pictures from that day:

 

 

 

 

AND... here's the silly pictures when we needed

to have a little fun!!

This yawn meant I was TIRED and DONE!

But it really was fun and took less than an hour.

Thanks sis for taking, uploading, and editing

the pictures for my Christmas card!!

And here's our Christmas card from 2010... since we got

married earlier that year, I decided to use a wedding picture.

This was a Vistaprint creation too....

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!
God bless!

DIY Mesh Ribbon Wreath

While shopping at AC Moore one night, I saw

these mesh ribbon wreaths that I thought were really pretty -

but they were $60 and $70 each! After inspecting them

a little closer, I decided I could do it myself.  So here it is!!

 So... I bought a green garland wreath for $4 and this gold mesh 

stuff, that I'll call "ribbon" that was originally $10, but of course,

I used a coupon. There is a ton of ribbon on the spool, so it can be

used for multiple wreaths.  I also went to the Dollar store and

bought 10 clusters of round ornaments. With these items, plus my hot

 glue gun, I was set. **Just so you see the size of the mesh ribbon,

here's a stock image of it, in red**

This was SO easy - I couldn't believe anyone would charge (or pay!)

$60 for a wreath like this... All you do is gather about 10-12 inches

of ribbon, push it together, and use a piece of the garland on the wreath

to hold it down.  I have made two of these wreaths and did 6 sections on

one wreath, and 5 sections on another.  I like 6 sections better than 5.

Once the mesh ribbon sections were secure, I placed the cluster

ornaments between the mesh ribbon section, and on the inside and the

outside of the wreath. I also used a few leftover ornaments that

I had laying around to fill in some gaps where I didn't need to use

a whole cluster, but wanted a little something.  I hot glued all of these

in place.  You'll want a high temp glue gun for this.

The picture above is of the 5 section wreath. I left the inside of

this wreath plain, but you can always hang something from the middle.

On the other wreath I made with 6 sections of ribbon, I added a

snowflake ornament - I just hung it on a piece of the green garland. 

The color combinations and the variety of things you can add to

this kind of wreath are endless =) Hope you enjoyed this post... 

Next, I hope to share my Christmas cards with you!



DIY Ornament Wreath

I recently made my first ornament wreath and I absolutely love it!

It's super simple to do, but just takes a little bit of time.

I started out with a green garland wreath from AC Moore,

it was on sale for about $4.  The one I got was a 24" wreath. I spray

painted the top and sides silver, just in case there would be any gaps

between the ornaments (and there was, so I suggest not skipping this step!).  I

bought a variety of round ornaments from the Dollar Store - it takes more

ornaments than you think - I used over 100! I made a mess in my house for
a couple days, but it was definitely worth it.

Remove the hardware from the top of the ornaments. Using a high temp glue gun, 

hot glue medium size ornaments along the inside of the wreath. Then, hot glue

 large ornaments around the outside of the wreath. Fill in the rest of the wreath

with all the different sizes. You probably won't be able to glue all the ornaments

to the wreath itself, and will need to glue many of the ornaments to each other. 

AND... Voila! You have a beautiful custom wreath.

Hang it on your front door, or on a mirror, like I did.
You'll be glad you made this wreath - it's so festive and stunning!

I've made another kind of Christmas wreath and hope to

post it soon.  Have a wonderful day and God bless!

Bandana Theme Reception

A couple weeks ago, my church honored a very sweet couple,

Charles & Patsy Escue. They have served at our church for

over 30 years, and we wanted to recognize them. I was asked to do the

decorations for it and was happy to help in any way possible =)
And of course, I enlisted the help of my mom and sister!!!

Since we had quite a few events at church recently with a "fall theme,"

I decided I wanted to do something different. Charlie is a good ol' country

boy, so I decided to use bandana's as the main decor with a red/white/black
color scheme. Here's a few pictures of the overall view of the room:

We had some scrap fabric and construction paper that we used for the

pennant. We threaded a needle with fishing line and wove it in and out at the top

of each fabric square, and attached the fishing line to the top of the black scrims with

thumb tacks. Straw wreaths were wrapped with bandana fabric donated by a

friend from church (thanks, Debi!) and the large, single felt flower was the

perfect touch (here's a tutorial on how to make the felt flower).

The white fabric that we used as curtains was already at the church, and 

we cinched them by using leftover fabric from the wreaths. Such simple and

easy ideas that all came together beautifully and cost next to nothing!  



The food was potluck (finger foods and desserts), brought by those

who attended the reception.  I had my mom wrap forks inside the napkins

and tie with a variety of ribbons, and we displayed them in a black basket

lined with a bandana.  The drink dispensers were decorated with a

bandana ribbon and a couple bandanas in the bottom of each dispenser.

The red runner on the food table was also fabric that the church already had =)



The lattice was decorated using bandanas that we borrowed

from many different church members. *As people dropped off bandanas

for us to borrow, we put their name on a small piece of masking tape

and immediately put it on the bandana. That way, we knew everyone would

get back exactly what they brought.* We tied the bandanas together

and attached them to the lattice using fishing line and little bit of white

duct tape.  The black fabric was draped to hide where the lattice

was hinged together. Since the church already had the lattice and black

fabric, this decoration did not cost a SINGLE penny!!!



The tables were decorated using a mixture of black and white tablecloths

(that the church already owns), mason jars, tissue paper flowers,

and a personalized frame. Thanks for letting us borrow the jars,

Mom and Debi! My sister made the tissue paper flowers (tutorial).

We attached them to a pipe cleaner (instead of floral wire), and weighted

them down by hot gluing two glass rocks to the end of the pipe cleaner.

Each mason jar was also tied with a cute, coordinating ribbon. The frames

were originally silver and used at my sisters' wedding for table numbers,

then we spray painted some of them black and used them to display prices at

a craft fair. So, for this reception, we just changed out the ribbon, and had my

mom type up 5 different things about Charlie and Patsy (information was

provided by the wife of the Escue's oldest grandson - thanks Jaime!) It was so

sweet and the perfect touch for the centerpieces! Too bad my iPhone pictures

weren't good enough to distinguish the words on the frames. A red bandana on

each table gave a pop of color, and black chair covers (from my wedding)

always dress up a room and instantly make it look so much nicer!

 



The dessert table also had centerpiece decor on it (minus the frame),

and we included another basket of forks. For the coffee cart, we used

leftover fabric from the wreath as a runner.

One of the family members (Jaime, who came up with the sayings for

the frames) also made a board of pictures of Charlie and Patsy

over the years. It was so sweet! It was even decorated with the

bandana theme =)  The personalized candle was from my sister and me.

And of course, we had to decorate the trashcans...

we couldn't have blue plastic trashcans out - that would

NOT have gone well with the theme!!!

So that's it for the reception decoration, BUT... I have to show you pictures of 

Charlie and Patsy because they are just adorable... here they are being

recognized during the Sunday morning service.  Aren't they so precious?!?

Charlie loves Southern Gospel music, so he, one of his

daughters, and his two granddaughters sang on Sunday morning.

In honor of Charlie, I decided to wear my cowboy boots (you can sort of

see them in this picture-teal dress in the choir loft), and Charlie loved them!! 

On Sunday evening prior to the reception, we had a Southern Gospel

music night. Charlie got up and sang a couple songs with some of the

band members from church. It was so much fun, and something different!



I was so glad to be able to help decorate for this reception... and

I was pretty plumb proud of myself for borrowing, repurposing,

and reusing things instead of buying new stuff =) 

Thanks Charlie and Patsy for your dedicated service to our church,

and to Christ.  Our appreciation is nothing compared to your riches

in Heaven! Have a wonderful day... and God bless!