Since I pretty much wasted today, I was anxious to show you my one accomplishment which is the chalkboard picture that is in my kitchen. I updated it for Christmas.
This was done during commericals on Lifetime. I’m loving the Christmas movies.
Really planned to WOW you with this chalkboard Christmas tree.
And I promise that it’s really red and green, but in my picture, it’s looking like a very patriotic Christmas!
I’ll retake tomorrow in better light.
ll
Until just a few years ago, I purchased all of my Christmas wreaths or I used artificial ones. I didn’t realize that it is easy to make a fresh wreath. It doesn’t take a great deal of greenery and friends are more than willing to share boxwood clippings, magnolia leaves, pine branches, and so forth. Cedar is another good option if you live in a rural environment. It’s plentiful and except for being a little prickly, it’s easy to work with (sort of like me!)
Step 1 – You’ll need a wreath frame… pictured in the lower left hand corner of the picture below. Some folks use coat hangers but I like the frames made specifically for wreaths. They may be purchased at Walmart, Michael’s or Hob Lob…any of those types of stores. They are about $3.00 so you’ll want to look for a 40% coupon. They sell out early in the season.
You’ll also want some florist wire and any ribbons and embellishments you want to add to your wreath. We had a whole table of this stuff since everyone shared.
Wreathmaking supplies
Step 2 – Gather your greenery — in this small bunch there is holly and pine clippings. If you live in the suburbs, my True Love (Lowe’s) will sometimes give away their tree trimmings. Here in the country, we’ve got lots to choose from. While not shown on this post, we had sheets lying on the grown outside the shop with clipped greenery.
Step 3 – Start your wreath with one small “bunch” of greenery. Wire your bundle of greenery tightly together and then wire it securely to the wreath.
Step 4 – Gather the next bundle, pinch tightly together and wire to the first bundle. Continue doing this all the way around the wreath. Soon you’ll have this…
Or this one pictured below…which is less symmetrical but still very pretty…
Notice all the variety in Mary’s wreath (below)…
And were you wondering what my wreath looked like?
I love using what I have, and my sweet friend Gayle mentioned that she had a spare tire. I know she appreciates carrying that with her…never know when you’re going to have a flat! Varroom! Nothing keeps her down.
Isn’t life great that we become automotive pieces as we get older and we can “use what we have?”
For example, we have handlebars (arms). Instead of dice hanging, well, I’ll let you imagine that one. Got some good looking mirrors going on…or are those reading glasses?
It’s all better than the alternative! Whatever…
Did you see this? It’s the very cute apron that I’m giving away to someone Tuesday, December 11…pictured just below all this stuff I”m writing.
Just give me “like”:on the RiverCliff Cottage Facebook page or leave a comment on this blog and I’ll enter your name. Be sure and enter each day!
Maybe you can tell me if you are turning into an automotive piece, too? I really wanted to be a Porsche, but I think I might weigh to much and there is no cupholder, and I like driving with a Pal’s Big Tea.
I’ve sort of middle of the road, American made..I’m sure I’m a Chevrolet. I’m just glad I’m not a truck. Ya know? A truck drives around with it’s rear exposed. I’m hiding the junk in my trunk!
Here’s the apron. I really enjoy doing this blog. Hope you enjoy reading it.
There are so many things wrongs with me…
Need to lose 20 pounds….ok…maybe more.
And I just looked at my nails. I bite my nails…chipped polish. Yuck.
And I could use bra for my butt 🙂 You get the picture!
So when I come up with a good idea…I’m just so proud of myself! The head swells. The nail biting stops. I diet. I become more focused…briefly. I think my butt even perks up a little.
Because of that, we must return to painting my fall items with lovely gold metallic spray paint. I do love that stuff. I’ve now included pumpkins in the mix.
As an example…here is a pumpkin which I call “Turk’s Turban” because it looks like…well a Turk’s Turban. I’ll be saving and sharing seeds from this guy. He’s been a beauty all season.
He’s now entering his “golden age.”
Here it is recycled (turned upside down in the bowl) and reused as part of the 2012 Christmas decorations at the real RiverCliff Cottage. (That RiverCliff Cottage is dirtier than I show in the pictures.)
So many things to spray…so little time.
I’m off today cleaning house and getting rested for our big December 7 sales event at About Face on Friday. Friday evening it’s the community dinner. Saturday it’s wreath making.
Yikes…so much to do!
Hi there…I’ve been blog surfing prior to “posting” my own blogpost. Sometimes I wonder why I’m not more successful, and then I realized…everyone is talking about Christmas and, well, I’m posting about meat loaf! Oh well…I’ll think on that later. In the interim…it’s meat loaf!!
While I’m semi-retired, I work three days per week. Loving it!…But it still means I must manage my time. And money.
I’m always looking for ways to ensure it is as easy to eat at home as it is to eat out. When I used to make meat loaf, I made two small loaves and froze one. However, because portion control gets really important as you get older (I’m speaking for Michael..not me. Ha!), this cupcake size meat loaf recipe works even better. Aren’t they cute?
I know…red meat is bad — but grass fed red meat is not so bad 🙂
Here’s the ingredients…
1 cup ketchup
4 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground mustard
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
3 cups Italian breadcrumbs
3 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 pounds lean ground beef (90% lean)
Combine the ketchup, brown sugar and mustard. Set 1/2 of this aside to “ice” your cupcakes.
With the remaining ketchup, brown sugar and mustard mixture, add eggs, Worcestershire sauce, breadcrumbs, onion and garlic powders, and pepper. Stir this up very well and add the ground beef. Mix and mix and mix.
Preheat oven 375 degrees and fill muffin pans about 1/2 full. Bake 18-20 minutes and then drizzle the reserved ketchup mixture and cook another 10 minutes. Cool and freeze.
I am transitioning to using glass freezer/oven safe bowls vs. plasticware. Here’s the entree portion for a dinner for two ready to pop in the freezer. I have about four of these in the freezer right now.
To thaw and use:
Traditional: Completely thaw in the refrigerator. Place loaves in a lightly greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees or until heated through.
Microwave: Completely thaw in the regrigerator and cover and microwave for one minute.
Ho Ho Ho! This is a Christmas post after all!!
Do you like my mantle?
I am loving it! Except for Laura Canter’s “Days of Christmas” ModgePodge blocks (which I sort of hijacked and copied in my last post), it’s just stuff I had. There are a few old Hobby Lobby red berry branches in the vase along with other branches I brought in from outside. There’s Uncle Johnny’s old Bible VDOT gave me, Laura’s Christmas blocks which I already mentioned, a plant from Lowe’s (my True Love), and my window pane frame that I sprayed with chalk paint spray and blatantly copied Pottery Barn. There’s some leftover garland from the outside…and oh…just by chance….did you notice those gold things?
Guess what they are?? They are the same gourds that you saw in the late summer and fall. Those gourds just keep showing up on this blog here and here and here and numerous other posts!! Yikes..if you click on those links you’ll see I was learning how to insert a picture…they were sort of L..O..N..G as in elgonated in those posts!!
Thursday I started throwing my gourds away. It was hard. They are volunteers. They come every year. Hundreds of them. So willing to be picked and shared.
Anyway, I was carrying them outside and tossing them into the field thinking about how glad I didn’t have to pitch for a living. Just before I went to gather the final ten or so gourds and do a lame softball roundup pitch, I had a brilliant idea! I would NOT throw the rest of my gourds away. I’d spray paint them! Gold! For Christmas!
Cute little green gourd. It doesn’t know it has such a “bright” (as in golden) future in this picture!
I took my little pal outside and sprayed painted him! He’s the one just to the right of the larger orange gourd. Lookin’ good!
Let me tell you, I was so happy as I spray painted these gourds. I started humming and jumping around spraying everything! It was so easy! I was almost hyperventilating at this point. It’s so seldom that something works out this well for me. Well, it didn’t work out all that well as had I had this thought a bit earlier, I’d not have thrown away the other 30 or 40 gourds. I would have had an amazing pile of gold gourds! For a moment, I thought about going and hunting them in the meadow. I just had that thought for a moment.
Instead, I focused on my little group.
They remind me of a little choir group if there was such a thing for gourds. The big tall one is the senior choir leader. The little round one, but larger than the others, is second in command.
“Tra la la…we are gourds..
Behold…we are painted gold!!”
?
“Ring…Ring!” Is that Nashville calling about my songwriting skills? I thought not!
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Today is the first Advent Sunday in this season. I saw a banner on my neighbor’s house…it read “Immanuel..God With Us.” I love living in rural America.
If you know me or have read this blog for a while, you know that Mike and I live about 17 miles from a grocery store. It’s fine with me, as it means that I’ve become a good planner. I like the security of always having “extras” whether it’s people food, dog food, lightbulbs, gifts, etc. I’m not a hoarder. I don’t like clutter, but I like an organized approach to having things on hand when I need them.
By thinking ahead and picking up items as they are on sale, I had enough on hand to put together this baby shower gift without making a special trip to town. It’s not glamourous…it has only useful things. There is a little boy’s outfit, diapers, lotion, wipes and then a smaller portable package of wipes. The new mom will use them all.
I have to keep these gifts at about $25 because we receive at least 10-15 wedding and baby shower invitations each year when I factor in my neighbors, family and work relationships.
I had the basket on hand and I had some basket wrap. I noticed that the Dollar Tree now had this basket wreap, and I want to try it but I’d purchased this wrap at Walmart a couple of years ago so I used what I had.
Here’s all the items I included in the basket. A cute little boy’s outfit. Quack!
Here’s some odds and ends. All have been purchased in the past month or so.
So…I had some gift wrap and ribbon. I store most of my gift wrap in the attic, but this tissue and ribbon box is in the bedroom where I can get to it easily for jobs like this.
I put everything in my basket…see how the plastic sticks out on the lower left hand side? I can fix that.
When I blow dry the plastic, it shrinks around the basket and looks more professional.
Here it is all done.
I am out of little boys’ outfits. I have plenty of girl stuff, but I’ll be watching the sales and using my coupons etc. to build back my baby shower supply for little boys. I have the box labeled for shower gifts — similar to the labeled box pictured above I use for wrapping tissue. If something is labeled, I always remember where it is and what should go in it.
This is just one way to save gas, time and save a bit of money–and have a gift that you know will be used and appreciated.
I’m cleaning house today and making a few meals ahead of time for the freezer. This is a great day to do this, as I can listen to the radio and follow the John Battle High School Trojans vs. the Essex Trojans in the Virginia State High School League semifinals. Keeping my fingers crossed for the boys in green as our JSB Trojan Train heads to the other side of the state!
I have a craft! I’m so proud! If there is a craft that is easy enough for me to do, anyone can do it! I’m not very crafty, but I’m very optimistic so I just keep trying! Eventually I track down something I can do!
I wanted to make a Christmas message using wood blocks. Since my husband has a hobby woodshop, there is usually wood I can get my hands on.
So Mike cut a board up for me in four squares.
Needed a little paint, so I went to my stash of paint test pots that I picked up for FREE this summer at Lowe’s and Home Depot. These are the samples that people buy…apparently lots of folks immediately know that they do not want the paint. They pay for the paint but leave it behind. This is where I enter the picture. I ask for it. In my mind’s eye…I’d like to do a crafty project using ALL of my free paint. I have over 24 paint pots…different colors…lots of colors of white and cream. Yuck. Maybe I won’t start that project after all!
I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, so I bought some ModgePodge last month when I was at Michael’s in Kingsport. This bottle was about $9.
So I painted the blocks and then put a coat of ModgePodge on the blocks. I’d taken scrapbook paper and cut it the same size of each block.
It’s kind of like wallpapering blocks! I liked it. It even smelled like wallpaper.
This isn’t a great picture, but behind the ModgePodge bottle, you can see where I had the scrapbook paper lying on each block. I didn’t want to buy anything (other than the ModgePodge) for this project so I used scrapbook paper that I had on hand. I had some “Christmas” scrapbook paper and some with a snow theme. I decided to make the word “Noel” with my four blocks and then make the word “Snow” on the reverse side.
After I ModgePodged the scrapbook paper on each block, I put a second coat on top of the scrapbook paper. The ModgePodge goes on kind of white but dries nice and clear! I then used a Cricut and made letters for each block but you could easily cut letters with scissors and put them on.
Here’s my Noel again. Now that I know how easy this is, I’ll be making a few more and sanding them…making them a bit nicer. I’m just so excited that this is easy and cute, and it worked!! Yeah!!
Here’s my Snow…
Mike started messing with the blocks and had the nerve to pinch me on the rear! So…I swapped the blocks around and said this!
