Cinnamon Clay Ornaments

We made cinnamon clay ornaments the other day. The kids really enjoyed making this craft. The smell in the house was heavenly! These are very easy to make and really you can use any cookie cutters to make shapes. We of course used our Christmas cookie cutters. My thought is to tie ribbons on the tops and use them as gift toppers. They would also look great on a garland.

Here is the recipe I used in case you are interested in making these with your family. These are NOT edible.

You will need:

water

cinnamon

flour

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in 1 cup of cinnamon. Add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of flour, 1/2 a cup at a time, stirring constantly. Knead the last 1/2 cup of flour. The mixture should be warm, not sticky, and have the consistency of Play-Doh.

Roll out the dough and use cookie cutters to make shapes. I used a straw to make the hole on the top for the ribbon to go through. You could also use this dough to make beads. Pierce each one with a toothpick so they can be strung on to a necklace later.

Let the shapes air dry (this may take a day or two). These can also be painted after dry.

Handmade Bows

My Mother-in-law saves all the bows, ribbons and bags from gifts to recycle them on future presents. A great idea to save money on gift wrap. Then I saw this tutorial over at At Heart for Home. Handmade Bows from recycled magazines! How fun is that??

New Pirate Wall Art

My newest painting I have been working on. This is on wood and not canvas like I have done before. I am planning on personalizing this with a little boys name is red or if someone does not want personalization maybe “Ahoy Matey” something like that. What do you think?

Can you see his gold tooth?? :)

Family Rules Canvas

After seeing quite a few of these family rules on painted canvas around other blogs I decided to try one myself. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.  The background is brown with white dots. The “rules” are on different scrapbook paper. I used ModPodge.  I love this stuff!

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

I LOVE the holidays. I love to decorate for the holidays. My favorite part is sitting in the living room with only the Christmas lights on. It is so peaceful to me.

Here are some of our holiday decorations this year. I have not taken any outside photos yet but I will get to those. My wonderful husband put the outside lights up for me. 

This is our mantel without the flash on. In the middle is the word “believe” in black. You really cannot see it very well in the photo.

This is a close up of our tree….see the black in there? See the black furry tail sticking out between the branches??? That is our cat Oreo. She loves the tree.

Here she is again, mad that I disturbed her sleep in there! :)

My Christmas dishes. I change out the dishes every year and put all my Christmas ones in to use. Even the kids use the pretty holiday dishes. They love it!

Hope you enjoyed the little peek into our holidays!

Gingerbread House

Today we decorated our annual Gingerbread House. Last year we decorated a train not a house but you get the idea. Every year I buy one of the premade kits and the kids decorate it. I have always picked up extra candy because really the candy that comes in the kits is…not very appealing. What fun is decorating a Gingerbread House is you can’t sample the frosting and the candy, right?

The kids are getting pretty good at the decorating! :)

Manage Your Time Wisely

Are you a stay at home mom? Do you work from home? How do you manage your time?

I am a stay at home mom. I also home school our children. I also run my own business from home. Do you see the pattern here? Everything needs to be managed from home, in my house, with everything else going on.

There are always distractions when you are at home. You may be home with your children all day or you may be working from a home office. There are always distractions. How you handle them is key.

I am working on this. My phone rings constantly some days. All day long. Friends, family, telemarketers it really does not matter. What matters is how to handle it. During our home schooling time I do not answer the phone. I use to. I have realized that not only does it distract all of us from our work  BUT it was sending a message to my children that the phone was more important than their schooling. Not the message I wanted to send to my children.

I also do not answer the phone if we are curled up on the couch reading, watching a show together or playing a game. I want them to know that the time I spend with them is valued.

Some people do not respect that decision. Some people get upset and mad that I did not answer the phone. Ridiculous. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard, “I called you this morning. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”.  I HOME SCHOOL. I try to run my own business from home. I have 2 children who NEED me. I know these years are going to fly by and I am trying to savor every moment. Some people just do not understand that. They get MAD. Seriously!

What do you do to handle your time?