12 Days of Christmas..Day 5

Hello Friday Friends. Welcome to Day 5 of of Melissa's and Mishie's 12 Days of Christmas. Melissa and I are so happy that you're enjoying our holiday blogging event. We'll be taking a break over the weekend but we'll be back Monday for Day 6.
Today's them is so fun...doilies. Doilies are such pretty little things. I always love to pick through the real doilies at the thrift store and think about the teeny tiny little handiwork that some wonderful woman did. To me doilies make me think of Victorian settings...tables covered with a doilies and lavish silver tea groupings. Fancy little things. Today, doilies are making a come back in the sewing and paper crafting world. They're fun to add to purses and handmade items to give a vintage and feminine feel. For paper crafting, the paper doilies are nifty little embellishments.

Today, I'm showing you some gift tags I made using Medium Parcel Tags, holiday patterned paper and a Dainty Doily. Cut patterned paper to fit onto the tag fronts. Cut a Dainty Doily into fourths.

Adhere patterned paper and doily pieces to tags using just a small strip of adhesive. Using your sewing machine, stitch around the patterned paper rectangle. Sewing with the Dainty Doilies always lends a home spun feel to projects.
Using red baker's twine, adhere some felt snowflakes to the tags. I layered Papertrey snowflake dies, punched circles of paper and a wood button. These tags coordinate very well with the wrapping paper I chose for this year. You can see that in yesterday's post.
Now for some gift wrapping. I have loved to gift wrap since I was a kid. And now so does Jordan. Many times I have a larger gift to wrap and I often give away cards or some smaller gift along with the bigger wrapped packages. How about creating some matching paper sacks to match your gift wrap?!! I know. Get out, right!? Using my Brown Paper Sacks (which will be back in stock next week), I stitched on a piece of my snowflake wrapping paper. Love. To finish up the pretty wrapping, I folded a Dainty Doily over the top of the folded sack. I wrapped several layers of brown string around the sack, tying a bow. To that I tied one of my completed tags and a Tad Bit Bigger Tag so that I can write the recipient's name. Oh how I love this! I can see doing this with other wrapping papers like baby papers, guy themed papers, birthday papers, etc. And wait til you see what I do with some fabric that I just purchased. Note: If you take care to stitch close to the edges of the sack, regular A2 cards will still fit into the Brown Paper Sacks.
Next up, I wrapped up some Christmas presents with my matching snowflake paper. I added a Dainty Doily to each package simply by wrapping my brown string around the package several times then securing a bow. Gold foil bows finish off the packages. Eek, so cute.
And look at the little matchy-matchy gift ensemble. How cute will these be under the tree? Heck, they're so cute I might just leave them on the kitchen table as a centerpiece! I hope you try this out, it gives gift wrapping a whole new meaning.
And speaking of kitchen table centerpieces, how about a little peek into some of my holiday decor this year?

A story: I was recently at my favorite antique shop and made my way around the entire shop while the store owner worked diligently at a table. By the time I got all the way around to where she was working, she said *All done*. This two tiered , vintage letter tray was sitting in the middle of a beautifully decorated table setting, completely filled with silver and fancy glasses. I gasped at how beautiful it was and said *I'll take the letter tray*. She smirked and said *I just finished this display*. I replied *And you did a wonderful job*......and then thought *Now wrap me up that letter tray Sista*. And to my house it came to live happily ever after. The End.

At Thanksgiving I used it to hold soup bowls and small plates for a family soup night. Eric thought it was rather cool. I think the dark wood is kinda manly like. For the holidays, I've added some of my favorite holiday dishes and mugs that I have collected. My mom and I would shop Dillard's after the holidays and seek out any of these holly pieces I could find. Very special memories.
To create a darling but very useful hot cocoa tray, I lined the top tray with three doilies that I purchased at the thrift shop or auctions. I nestled in a few mugs along with some old silver spoons and candy canes for stirring. Giant marshmallows are nestled in vintage jello molds. A tea light candle sits nicely in a zinc jar lid while vintage ornaments sit all pretty like. Oh how fun this will be to have hot cocoa on a cold winter's night....sitting by the crackling fire....watching the pretty tree lights......as the girls shake and rattle their presents. A thought: This would make a fun soup bowl tray too. Life is so good for us here in the country. We are blessed. I hope you have a blessed holiday season too.
And these sweet little morslets might just end up in my hot cocoa tray too. So simple...but sweet and crunchy and marshmallow-y. One of my favorite holiday snacks.

Crunchy Peanut Bark

2 pounds white chocolate coating (also called almond bark)

1 cup peanut butter

3 cups Rice Krispies

2 cups dry roasted peanuts

2 cups miniature marshmallows

Melt chocolate. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper or divide between two greased 9" square pans. Makes 10 dozen.

Now don't forget to visit Melissa's blog for her sweet doily post. I'm on the edge of my seat just waiting!! Happy Weekend Friends!