christmas at our house

Interestingly enough we never actually spend Christmas at our own house!  We're always rotating between my parent's winter wonderland up north and my always welcoming in-laws place.  This year we'll be up north with our boys, my parents and my brother (since we only see him at Christmas, YAY!). 
Even though we don't actually spend Christmas here and we likely won't have any company over the holidays (so sad! LOL) I still decorate (of course) and enjoy my time spent crafting new Christmasy goodies for the house. 
Here are a few highlights of some of the Noel nifties around our house this year :). 

Here's the wreath on our front door.  I bought it at Home Sense four years ago and it's still going strong!  I glued on the mini ornaments (from the dollar store) and I added the bow (the ribbon is from Michael's this year.  $16.99 for the roll but I had a 60% off coupon!):

 

Here's our garland, also faux and used every year!  Real greenery is pretty but so much work!  The garland is from Michael's and the stars are from Canadian Tire from a few years ago:

 

And here it is at night.  It's hard to tell but there's a flood light pointed up at the front door...a very unimpressive photo!  Much prettier in person :):



 

And the inside decor...I made this wreath earlier this year and it was so hard to wait until Christmas to put it up!  The plain grapevine wreath was $4.99 at Michael's.  I added the felt (from Fabricland) rosettes (trace and cut out a felt circle about the size of a CD then cut the circle into a spiral and roll the fabric into a rosette and stick a straight pin through the centre and hot glue into place):

 

I made these festive baubles from styrofoam balls of varying sizes and wrapped and hot glued strips of fabric and burlap around them:

 

This cute garland was made by my crafty Mom last year of little trinkets from around the house (some of which she randomly had around for years, I'm sure, including one of my Girl Guide badges...cute!):

 

This is the garland on our tree!  I made it last year from an old book and simply scotch-taped strips of paper into a pretty paper chain:

 

This lovely snow globe was a gift from our good friend Grace a few years back and has become a staple in our home at Christmas:

 

These are doily snowflakes that I made this year!  I got the inspiration from www.marthastewart.com ...although I didn't use her stiffening method.  I got the doilies second hand at Talize for .99 cents each and I stiffened them using one part white glue and one part water.  Just dip them in the paste and let them dry flat on wax paper for 24 hours and voila!:

 

This is a wrought iron snowflake candle holder and it's from the One of a Kind Show about 5 years ago.  I have three of them and they are randomly place throughout the house this year:

 

We have three of these hanging about the place this year.  I picked these up at Bouclair last year!  I have since realized that they would be very simple to make, but alas, I don't have all day to be crafting!:

 

So there you have it!  That's the general feel of the decor around our house at Christmas time.  A lot of home made, re purposed and reused (year after year) decorations that we love! 

If anyone wants more in depth instructions on how to make any of the items then e mail me at twillandtwine@gmail.com and I'd be happy to fill you in on the details! 

Merry Christmas to all!



 



 



 



 





 



 



 





the dollar store, you say...

It's true!  Everything I used for this project is from the dollar store!  You'd be shocked at the amazing stuff you can get for a dollar or two at Dollarama. 
I got the inspiration for this craft from Pinterest (where a lot of my inspiration comes from lately...and I know I'm not the only one!).

These are the supplies you'll need for this simple Christmas craft (craft paint, paint brush, wax paper, popcicle sticks):

You'll also need a hot glue gun and glue sticks (I even got those at the dollar store a couple years ago).  A quick word of advice...you're going to be painting the popcicle sticks so try to get just bare wood ones or else you'll have to pile on the paint.  Mine took a few coats of paint because they were coloured (the store didn't have non-coloured). 

The first step is painting the popcicle sticks.  I chose to paint mine a barn red/maroon.  You need to paint 35 of them (only one side).  This is what mine looked like, painted:

 

And here's the next step...the first part of the snowflake (I used a hot glue gun to assemble them):

 

And the next step (I put them together in this order so I could start off with something relatively symetrical):

And the next step:

And the last step:

 

And here it is hung on our basement door!  I just glued some ribbon to the back and thumb-tacked it to the top of the door.  Voila!

 

So there you have it!  Simple and cheap!  This cost me about $5 and took me about 2 hours to make.  Not too bad for something that I can hang again next year and the year after that! 

And now...the moment you've all been waiting for!  Ok, not all of you...only three of you because that's how many people entered the knitted dish cloth giveaway!  Three people!?  Come on now!  I know it's hard to comment on this blog...I'll try to make the next giveaway easier to enter :). 
Anyhow, drum roll please!  The winner is STEPHANIE H.! 

 

Send your mailing address to twillandtwine@gmail.com and I'll ship it out to you :).  Make sure you wash and dry it before you use it!  Enjoy!



lucky strike...

Every year, around Christmas time, I usually plant and grow an Amaryllis or some Paperwhites (which are actually a type of daffodil) in hopes that they bloom in time for Christmas day. 
This year I planted a Lucky Strike Amaryllis (which is bright orange-red but they come in many colours, ie. pink, white, stripey, fading). 
I got mine at Food Basics for about $5 but I usually get them at Lakeside Garden Gallery on Heartlake Road in Brampton, ON (http://gardengallery.ca/lakeside/). 
This is how it came:

 

This is what came in it:

 

All you have to do is plant the bulb so that it's 2/3 covered in the soil, place in a warm spot (23 degrees) and water once per week until the bud makes it's first appearance and then water twice per week until it's finished blooming.
Here's mine, planted (you knew I couldn't just plant it in the pot that came in the box!!  I used this vintage pot that I found at a great antique barn in Glen Williams, ON http://www.antiquesincanada.com/shop.php?myID=1983):

 

So now we wait!  It should start growing within a week (or less) and hopefully bloom by Christmas!  I'm a bit late planting this year so...maybe by new years eve?  We'll see!  I'll post a pic once it has bloomed :).  





it only took 6 days...

My mom taught me to knit when I was just a wee one (probably five or six).  I've never really had a flare for it or been particularly good at it (there always seemed to be a problem with my stitch tension) and I often don't finish my projects because I'm SO unbelievably slow (hence the title of this blog...it really did take me 6 days of knitting sporadically to finish this but note: it only takes my Mom an hour or two)! 

The only things I've ever really been able to complete (aside from a couple of basic scarves that took me months to make) are dishcloths.  My Mom made them a lot when I was a kid (it was all we used come dish-doing time) and taught me how to make them a number of times since I always forgot how.

Last week I felt like making one since it had probably been a few years since I last made one and I needed to be taught again!  WOW I'm good.

Here is what she taught me:
Start out with 100% cotton yarn.  I've always used Bernat Hanicrafter http://www.bernat.com/product.php?LGC=handicraftercotton  (this yarn is usually only about $1.89 at Wal-Mart and comes in so many colours and patterns. This one was free since my Mom gave it to me!) and size 10 knitting needles. 

This time I used metal needles but I usually prefer plastic since they're not as slippy-slidey and you're less likely to lose a stitch off the end. 



 

Start by casting five stitches onto your needle. 

Knit one row.

Knit two, add a stitch, knit to the end of the row.  Continue to knit two, add a stitch and knit to the end of the row and you'll start to see the corner of the cloth take shape, like this:

Just keep knitting two, adding a stitch, and knitting to the end of the row until you end up with 45 stitches on your needle (obviously I needed longer needles) like this:

 

Then you start decreasing stitches.  All you have to do is this:
Knit two, knit two together, knit to the end of the row.  Do that for each row until you're left with 5 stitches on your needle and cast off the last five stitches...AND YOU'RE DONE!  Here's my finished cloth:

 

You always have the option of crocheting a coordinating colour around the edge (which is what Mom always does) but I have no idea how to do that!  I'm sure she's shown me a few times but crocheting is lost on me so this is how my cloth will stay! 

NOW.  If you've made it to the end of the blog you have a chance to win this cloth!  All you have to do is either comment below or e mail me at twillandtwine@gmail.com and tell me why you want it! 
I'll randomly draw a winner that will be announced on my next blog post!  A note to whomever wins: make sure you wash and dry it before using it! 

Good luck!

 





let him eat cake!

So...yesterday was my wonderful Father's 59th Birthday.  Happy Birthday Dad!  Calvin and Henry and I came to Mom and Dad's (Nanny and Poppy's) house to visit because we knew that would really make Dad/Poppy's day :).

The day went by and was pretty uneventful aside from a few presents (a case of beer from Lake of Bays Brewing Company (http://lakeofbaysbrewing.ca/) from Me, Adam and the kids and a jacket and a pair of slippers from Mom, neither of which were suitable lol).

Mom and I thought his Birthday was passable but Dad had higher expections...a cake!
Mom purely had good intentions.  Since Dad had a heart attack over a year ago and has cholesterol concerns she thought it would be better not to make a cake since he likely wouldn't eat it anyhow! 

After Dad mentioned the lack of Birthday cake about seven times today (and a guilt trip...something about never going without a birthday cake in their 37 years of wedded bliss) we thought we'd better make a cake. 
We didn't have what we needed for a scratch cake so we had to throw some things together last minute before supper.  This is what we came up with:

 

Yes, it's Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake from a mix.  Not something either my Mom or I usually make (we're from scratch types) but it's what we had so we went with it. 
Now, since Dad has cholesterol concerns we decided to make a few concessions.  It called for three eggs and we put one whole egg and two whites.  It called for 1/2 cup of oil and we put 2 tablespoons of oil and a small jar of baby food prunes.  Yep!  Baby food prunes!  We weren't sure the cake would rise properly...but look!!

They looked normal!  And smelled SO good, of course.  But we weren't going to judge until we tasted them. 
The real issue was frosting.  We didn't have any icing sugar...so that wasn't helpful.  But, being the great host she is, Mom had some traditional lemon curd and devon cream in the fridge leftover from tarts she made for her sewing group earlier in the week!  We only had enough for one cake so the other one went into the freezer.  We cut one cake in half and put the lemon curd in the middle:

Terrible picture, but you get the idea.  YUM.  Made from seven fresh lemons!  Mom makes the best treats :).  Then it was time for the devon cream!  If this wasn't good enough for Dad then nothing was! 

Tadaaa!!  It's not fancy but WOW I couldn't wait to have some!  I won't say it was low calorie but it was definitely low fat!  And that's what was best for Dad :). 

Happy Birthday Dad/Poppy!!  We hope we have made up for yesterday's mistakes!
And, as if you even had to ask, it was SO yummy!  A success!  High five Mom! 

getting started

Ok.  I'm doing it.  I'm starting a blog. 
I have to admit I'm really not a tech savvy lady and I'm not the greatest writer...but I need a venue to share my ideas and daily...happenings, we'll say. 

It's going to be difficult to find the time to post but I'll try my best! 

I'll be posting about recipes I make, decor ideas, crafts, children's activities, gardening, DIY projects (including before and afters), random things I'm into/things I like, and anything else I feel like posting about (which will likely include the odd post about my children). 
So if you're into it show me some love!  Follow my blog, join my facebook page, leave comments and share with people you think might be interested! 

My first official post will likely be coming tonight about something {yummy} so stay tuned!