Merry Christmas!!

"And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." Luke 2:18-19 ESV 

Treasure up the wonder of all things Christmas today friends.... 

Merry Christmas!!

{Recipe} Pretzel Spoon Snowmen

I love baking, especially Christmas baking! I have for several years made Christmas goodies for neighbors, the mail carrier, garbage collectors, etc.etc.... Even made a tray a few times for my husband to take to work which I really miss doing.  I have a few tried and true treats that I always make...sugar cookies and an oatmeal cookie...either with raisins or cranberries. Then I make a candy type treat.  This year I wanted to use some supplies I had in the cabinet and make a circle pretzel snowman face.  All I needed was the pretzel.  I looked and looked and there was none to be had! What was available was a pretzel spoon!

Looked like the perfect snowman shape to me!!

All I did was dip in white chocolate, added an upside down pumpkin sprinkle for the nose and then used an edible ink pen to make eyes, mouth, and buttons.  Totally cute and easy!! 

Pretzel Spoon Snowmen

Pretzel Spoons

white chocolate

orange sprinkle of some kind

edible ink pen (found at Hobby Lobby)

Follow instructions on package to melt chocolate.  Using a fork drop pretzel in chocolate. Tap to remove excess chocolate and then lay on wax paper. While still wet add orange sprinkle.  Let harden.  Once harden drawn on eyes, mouth, and buttons.

Makes a lot!!

Lil' Hunkie and I had fun making these! And some fun Christmas memories too!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Cell phone snap of my 2015 Thanksgiving Mantle. ☺

"You need to know, friends, that thanking God over and over for you is not only a pleasure, it's a must.  We have to do it. Your faith is growing phenomenally; your love for each other is developing wonderfully.  Why, it's only right that we give thanks."

2 Thessalonians 1:2 The Message

Thanking God for you today lovelies!

Happy Thanksgiving!

{Freebie} Thanksgiving Facebook Cover Photos

Yay for more freebies!! I've gotten some 'Pinterest action' on the Thanksgiving Facebook cover photos from last year and thought I'd make some for this year! I used some freebie graphics from We Lived Happily Ever After again....they're just so great, don't ya think?

Count Your Blessings Name Them One By One

(love that phrase!)

Full Of Thanks

There's Always Something To Be Thankful For

(love that phrase too!)

*Cover photos for personal use only please.*

Just right click and save and upload to Facebook!

Easy, peasy!

Happy Thankful Month lovelies!!

{Freebie} Thanksgiving Lockscreens



It's been a while since I've shared a freebie so I thought some Thanksgiving lockscreens would hit the spot!!

I used antlers and flowers from We Lived Happily Ever After, she awesome freebies on her blog!

I also used a gold foil technique learned from Mackenzie Kendall.  The parts I gold foiled are not showing up well in my collage above or below but I have the antler screen on my phone and it is fine so don't fret!!

"there is always something to be thankful for"

"give thanks"

"thankfuls"

Just pull this post up on your phone and long press on lockscreen, save, then set as wallpaper!

Easy peasy!

*These are for personal use only please.*

Have a Happy Thursday lovelies!



{Sharing} Open Your Bible

I've got something exciting to share!

The She Reads Truth gals are actual published authors!!

Way exciting right?!

Raechel Myers and Amanda Bible Williams have partnered with LifeWay Women to publish Open Your Bible, a 7 session study on The Word.

Here's some more info:..........

"Open Your Bible is the first Bible study partnership with She Reads Truth and LifeWay Women. This means that we are taking the best of both worlds and melding them into a study that we think women will love.
The study is seven sessions long (meaning, if you do this in a group, you will meet seven times). It has six weeks of personal study (or "homework," but who likes that term?). Each week of the study will have you diving deep into Scripture to discover truths about God's Word from God's Word. This is a print-only study. It will not be on the She Reads Truth website."

I love that you can do this as a group or by yourself.  I don't know about you but reading The Word consistently makes such a difference for me.  This new study sounds like a Word Enricher (ha! spell check doesn't like that word!) and we can all use some of that! 

And there's more exciting news....

....a Free Gift and Free Shipping!

All orders made by November 30 will receive a companion notebook and free shipping.

(That's a free notebook for every book ordered.)

Such a sweet deal!

Are you thinking Christmas gift yet? Cause my Secret Sister might be getting this!

I do believe this would make a great 'starting point resource' too!

Open Your Bible launches Monday November 2!  You can preorder now and still partake in the free goodies!

http://lifeway.com/OpenYourBible

Have a happy day!!

2015 Scary Free Halloween Mantel

Well Halloween is almost here!! This year we ordered Lil' Hunkie's costume in plenty of time....last year he wanted to be Mickey Mouse and we waited too long to buy in a store and he had to settle being a shark....the cutest one I've ever seen! So this time I wanted to make sure he got what he wanted and just ordered it online! He's going as Paw Patrol's Marshall which in turn has had him request a Paw Patrol birthday pawty! ;) Gonna be fun!

Here's this year's scary free mantel...simple black and gold glitter! Cost:$0!! Yep I had all these things here and there....I had a canvas that I just swiped on 2 different glitter paints on....the chevron tray was one I had found on clearance at Hobby Lobby a while back that I've never done anything with...framed a piece of glitter scrapbook paper.....and the mirrors I bought on sale at Home Depot that I intend to add to my gallery wall someday. Never could decide on a banner so since the mantel will change briefly to a Happy Birthday one and then right to Thanksgiving I decided not to worry with it!

I'm loving gold and glitter and black and white right now!

We have Trunk or Treat at church and Fall Party at school next week....can't wait for the fun!

Happy Saturday lovelies!

40th My Favorite Things Party

Happy Friday!! Been meaning to share my birthday party so here I am!

This year was a milestone for me...the big 40! And I'm still having a hard time believing that's my age!  I wanted to celebrate how I wanted to and gave myself a party.  Since I'm a big girl now that is most definitely allowed!! I'd been wanting to have a My Favorite Things party and this was the perfect time for the maiden voyage! And let me just tell ya....it was so much fun!

Decorations

I went gold!!

I made an invitation that I just texted out, some signs, and a tag and coordinated them all.  I then found a Printable Gold Banner by Somewhat Simple and printed out the letters to spell FORTY for my mantle. I found the "40 can kiss it" with Hershey's kisses idea on Pinterest.

Invite

8x10 Sign

4x6 Sign

Gift Tag

The sequin graphic I found on Canva. And then I used PicMonkey to add text, etc. 

Feel free to use the signs and tag but for personal use only please. 

Food

I made all of my favorite party foods! Even the cake!

Savory

Fav Veggie Dip & veggies

Herbed Tomato & Mozzarella with Crackers

Bacon Wrapped Dates

Red Onion Chutney with Goat Cheese Crostini

Sweet

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Carrot Cake

Drink

Cranberry and Ginger Ale Punch

I found some gold chipboard letters at Hobby Lobby to use as a cake topper. My friend frosted the cake and added gold icing dots for me! Used only gold and white dishes and sprinkled the table with gold and silver big confetti. Oh and fresh hydrangeas! 

My Favorite Things

I took inspiration from a few parties....one by Java Cupcake and one by Shannon Finds Joy.

After eating we played a 'my favorite.....' game (printable here).

I guess it's like Scattergories ( I've never played!), you have everyone answer what their fav food, fav vacation spot, fav websites, etc and then go over answers and the person with the most unique answers is the winner.  I prepared 2 prizes and had 2 winners!  Then it was time to exchange our favorite things! I had everyone bring 5 of one item no more than $5 of value.  I had everyone write their name 5 times and put them in a bowl. Then each lady chose 5 different names, making sure not to get their own name or duplicate any name. We had a total of 9 ladies so at the end of drawing names we had to do some rearranging of names to get it just right.  Next, one by one we told why our item was our favorite and then gave them to the ladies who we had drawn names. Prior to the party I asked everyone to give my their favorite nickname.  I then made everyone a tote with that name in glitter so they'd have something to tote their goodies home in!

I gave a $3 gold striped plastic tumbler perfect for iced coffee! 

The items above are what I got...makeup brush, lip gloss, frame & seashell, makeup wipes, and a visor scent clip.  Others items were post it notes, chap stick, & orange slices.

Everyone loved their bags and what they got! And it was so much fun hearing why the item was a favorite!

I attached the tag that said 'you are my favorite' to every bag....I wanted my friends to know they were my favorites too!

I really think this is the way to celebrate a birthday!! I mean yes, you can totally do this any time but for someone who talks the love language of giving, I loved seeing my friends receive! That was the best gift ever!!

So if you've been thinking about having a My Favorite Things party then just

doooo it!!!

Have a Happy Day!

{Sharing} Free Printable & Lockscreen

Hey Lovelies!!

 

I stumbled across an Erwin McManus quote yesterday that I absolutely love and thought it needed to be a printable!! And an Instagram and a lockscreen!

 

I'm loving all things gold right now and wanted the words to be gold and I knew I couldn't really achieve that with any of the apps I use so I googled and found a great tutorial on how to make fonts gold and low and behold it involved PicMonkey!! Ha! My favorite you know!

 

(How To Make Gold Font by Mackenzie Kendall)

 



 

I know it's hard to see in the picture, it did print out better than I expected!!

 

 

Right click and save and print!

(For personal use only please.)

 

And using the Blending App, my graphic and a free Rhonna Designs background I made a lockscreen for my phone this morning!

 

(Pull up this post on your phone, long press the lockscreen image and save to phone. Go into settings and set as wallpaper.)



 

Fun stuff!! Hope this goodness uplifts you today!!

Happy Thursday!!



Never Forget....

So many memories today.

Praying for those who lost loved ones....may your happy memories comfort you today.

{Sharing} Adult Coloring

Did you know that 'adult coloring' was a thing?

I saw a blogger post about it on Facebook but I didn't read the story.  But then I saw someone on Instagram post about Beauty in the Bible....a scripture filled adult coloring book! Which, of course, is right up my alley! Once payday hit I promptly purchased it and some fun triangular coloring pencils that I really didn't want to share but did anyway.  Ah, motherhood!

I love to color any way so adding this to my devo time has been awesome!
My first page...

I quickly did a search on good ole' Pinterest and found a couple of sites that had free pages, cool huh?
So if you didn't want to be out any money you could start there!

Think I'll go color now....
Happy Thursday lovelies!!

2015 Patriotic Mantle

Kept things simple with this year's Patriotic mantle.  

We are in prep mode for vacation so simple was the way to go!

My church's ladies group had a paint night in June and we painted a patriotic version of Starry, Starry Night and the instructor added our new sanctuary!  She was very kind and gave me one of hers (she painted an example and then painted one with us) so I have one for my new office!

 So excited about that! 

Wishing you and yours a safe and fun 4th!!

{Recipe} Spicy Candied Turkey Bacon

I love making food gifts.  

When I'm stumped on what gift to get, making a treat is fail proof for me.  

This past week I had such a scenario! I've wanted to try making spicy candied bacon for a while now  and this scenario was the perfect reason to!  I'm sharing because I did read a few recipes and none of them were for turkey bacon, which is what I chose to experiment with and it turned out soooo yummy! And I also used my toaster oven!

Spicy Candied Turkey Bacon

1 regular package of turkey bacon

brown sugar

ground cheyenne pepper

I heated the toaster over to broil.  My toaster oven has a pan with a rack.  I put foil on the pan and sprayed the rack with Crisco (Pam would work to).  Next, I laid out  5-6 pieces of bacon on the rack.  Then, I covered each piece with brown sugar and sprinkled on the cheyenne pepper, this is to your taste.  The person I made this for loves spicy! I didn't go too crazy but some pieces were hotter than others.  Put the pan in the toaster oven and baked for 8-10 minutes. (I started out at 10 minutes with the first 2 batches but then had to adjust the time down for the last 2 batches.)

Let cool.  Store in an air tight container. 

Makes about 22 pieces.

I did managed to package up a dozen for the gift I needed but just about ate the rest before my husband could taste!  He accused me of eating one, saving one, eating one, saving one...... ☺

I did change the foil on the pan after the first 2 batches as the left over brown sugar was getting burned and smoking a little. Other than baking the bacon in batches, this was so easy and very yummy.  You could even do a non spicy version!

There may be more of this yumminess in the near future as Father's Day gifts! 

And the distant future as a new treat in my Christmas goodie boxes!

Did I read there's only 20 Fridays till Christmas somewhere?

I think I did.

Well shoot.

☺

Happy Thursday lovelies!!