Treats for Neighbors - A Holiday Tradition

 For the last few years, the kids and I have been making plates of treats for our neighbors to hand out during the holidays. Some years this would be much more involved, including multiple types of cookies and homemade candies. This year I decided to make it a lot easier on myself and stick to just chocolate chip cookies. Generally we hand out treats later in December, but I thought it would be nice to kill two birds with one stone and drop off Christmas cards for everyone as we make our deliveries.  It seems silly to put cards in the mail for our neighbors anyway!

I have been ordering Christmas cards through Tiny Prints for the last few years. They offered a blog partnership this year and I was of course all in. I would have purchased my cards from them anyway. There is an amazing selection of beautiful card options and it is so easy to customize them for your family. The hardest part is deciding which template to go with because they are all so pretty. It always takes me forever.

Today Pearl and Axel decided they wanted to make the first batch of cookies for our neighbors all by themselves. I did end up cracking the eggs and they let baby Flo dump in the chocolate chips. We had to sweep up some chocolate from the floor, but Flora was delighted to help. Tomorrow we will make our deliveries!

-Kira

DIY Christmas Card Wall Display

Every year I end up doing a few DIY Christmas related projects.  I can't help myself.  This year, I wanted to come up with at least one project the kids could actually help with.  I attended the DIY Fair put on by Imago Dei Community here in Portland to help with ideas.  This wasn't one of the projects, but someone had made snowflakes in a few configurations with craft sticks as decor for the event.  That got my wheels turning and I went out to purchase my supplies.

I don't know about you, but I struggle with how to display all of the Christmas cards we receive from family and friends throughout the Holiday season.  In past years, I have tacked a string to the wall and punched holes in the cards to create a banner with them.  I thought if I made a snowflake large enough, I could use it to display all of our cards.  Plus, it's basically just craft sticks and glue so if one filled up, it wouldn't cost anything extra to make another.

Supplies: 

I sat down with Pearl and Axel to glue the sticks together and make our snowflake.  The kids were over the project after about five minutes, but they loved playing with the craft sticks.  I ended up just letting them play while I finished the snowflake on my own.

I decided to paint the snowflake gold to match our Christmas cards from Tiny Prints.  I love how this liquid gold gilding looks on finished projects.  It's hard to tell from the photos, but it has a very pretty metallic look.  I applied it to the snowflake with a sponge brush in a well ventilated area because that stuff is strong.  Make sure you do the same.

After I put the snowflake on the wall, I started tucking my cards into the corners.  They stayed pretty well, but I decided to use paper clips to secure them as I know I will soon have many more cards to fit.

This was a super easy and cheap project, but it looks great in our living room and is a much more personal way of displaying cards than a banner on the wall.

-Kira