Holiday Wrap-Up: Gingerbread Houses

Christmas may be over, but 2017 isn't quite yet finished.

  

I didn't want to let the holiday season go by without sharing these adorable 'gingerbread' houses that the kids made a couple of weeks ago (and, well, ya know, I already took the time to edit and upload these photos so..........😏)

Keep reading to share in our fun and discover a graham cracker tip:

Graham Cracker Secrets

I learned this trick when my Baby Girl made gingerbread houses in kindergarten; instead of baking, measuring and cutting actual gingerbread, use graham crackers for the walls and roof.  Not only are the crackers inexpensive and lightweight, but the perforations make them easy to break apart into smaller pieces.  I love easy 😊

One box of graham crackers was enough for two small houses, but I did use two containers of icing.  You won't actually need two containers, but what is the point of making gingerbread houses if the kids can't squeeze icing all over the place, right?!?!

Lots of Candies

I was going to use just gumdrops and gummy bears but my Little Man had other ideas-
hence the M&Ms and the gummy worms.

"I don't want bears. I want worms"

You gotta love a kid with style...
😁😁😁

Icing

You can click here for tips on creating your own icing bag.  I made one for each of my kiddos, using one entire container of icing for each bag.

The Little Man's House

A rainbow of M&Ms makes up the sidewalk leading to this gingerbread house.  

What's that on the roof?  Why a giant worm of course! Happy holidays!  😂😂😂

My Baby Girl's House

I love the careful thought and consideration that my Baby Girl put into her gingerbread house.  Not only did she make sure that each M&M along side the house was the same color, but she had a family of three green gummy bears posing outside of the front door.  My very favorite part is the rose bushes.  She made these by tearing small pieces from a red gumdrop and attaching them to a green gumdrop with tiny bits of icing.

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I've got one more photo post from our holiday baking marathon that I'll be sharing soon.  After that it will be time to race the rails right into a Thomas the Train birthday party 😄

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by and happy new year!
-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Tree Ornaments and a Bonus Photo Tip - 2017

My Kitchen Tree Collection

The ice cream cones and macaroon on the left are available at Wal-Mart for just under $1.  The ice cream cone on the top right I found treasure hunting this year, but can't remember the price.  I want to say that it was .25 but I'm not sure.  The set of silver snowflake measuring spoons were part of my birthday gift from Husby's parents this year.  All of these have been incorporated into my kitchen candy tree.

You can click here to see more of my kitchen tree.

Side Note:  I had no idea that the macaroon was a macaroon until Baby Girl told me so, I just thought it was cute! Let's hear it for super smart kids! 😁

Baby Girl's Ballerinas & Barbie

Each of these were found treasure hunting this past summer for $1.50

  Apparently this was a steal because I just saw similar ones at Kohl's last week for $14.99 each 😁

The Little Man's Doggy & Plane

The blue puppy can be found at Wal-Mart for under $2 and the plane was another $1 treasure hunting find.  My Little Man loves his ornaments so much!  Originally, his ornaments were dispersed evenly around the tree, but I've been noticing that they keep moving.  Now we have an entire section (in the back by the couch) that features all of his personal ornaments along with anything of Daddy's that he also took a liking too 😉

Care Bears

Baby Girl has an entire box of vintage Care Bear toys that she no longer plays with, but the Little Man, however, loves to drag them out and drive them around in their little cloud car.  So when we were treasure hunting and found a set of Care Bear ornaments ($3 I think), he begged to have them.  He generously gave the larger pink one (Cheer Bear) to his sister and kept the tiny one (aptly named Share Bear 😍) for himself.

Husby's Truth

I found this one at Wal-Mart for under $4 and had to grab it because, yeah, he'd probably rather be hunting...or trapping...or fishing...😁😁😁

Aside from the very first photo, all of the remaining ornaments in the post were added to our family tree in the living room.

You can click here to read more about this tree.

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Bonus Photo Tip:  Another treasure hunting find this year was a set of plain 16x20 canvases that I found for $1, still in the original packaging (the wrapping says that they are sold at Hobby Lobby, $7.99 for a set of two).  Any way, I grabbed them thinking that for that price the kids could have fun painting on them, but I've ended up using them as canvas backgrounds for my blog and eBay photos.  Each of the photos in this post was taken by simply laying the ornaments onto an unpainted canvas.  I have also had great luck using them in the same way for my wedding package flowers.  The framed canvas means that you don't have to worry about wrinkles like with fabric, and the light reflects really well without creating any shiny flash spots.  I also like how easy they are to keep clean and ready to go without taking up much storage space - In other words, I don't have to go to the trouble of getting out and setting up my light box and backgrounds, etc.

I'm always looking out for photo tips so if you have anything you'd like to add, hit me in the comments section!

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I hope you've enjoyed this holiday & photo post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

My Life in Pictures - Christmas Decor 2017

Right after Thanksgiving I managed to put up all of the holiday decor - just in time to get hit with the flu and a cold😖

Needless to say, it's taken me awhile to find the energy to take and edit my holiday decor photos.  I'm happy to say that here they are today though, along with a few 2017 decor updates.  Enjoy!

The stockings were hung with reckless abandon...ok... not really.  In fact, I carefully placed each one.
But ever since I heard a guy on tv say that (during my days and days of sick-girl-couch-time), I've been dying to say it myself.  So there you go.  😁

Christmas bulbs and glassware in the dining room.

Dining Room Ornaments

You might remember these from previous posts.  My dining room tree is my decorative tree and features only chocolate and gold ornaments.  Originally, these ornaments were individually hung on ribbon loops, but the white color of the ribbon was bugging me.  I also didn't like the way that having so many ornaments of the same size all over the place made a bit of a cluttered look, so I decided to cluster them into groups of three with pipe cleaners.

Clustered Ornaments

Dining Room Tree - Day

I think that having the ornaments clustered made a big difference (to visually picky people like me, anyway- regular people probably don't mind one way or the other 😁).

You can click here to see last year's tree with the ornaments hanging individually.

Dining Room Tree - Night

Colorful Village Lights

I added a few colored lights to the under tree village this year.  I think I would prefer that they were all rainbow, but for now this will do.

You can click here to see more about this village.

Golden Garland

I found this garland over the summer while treasure hunting and
decided to add it to the living room tree.

Living Room Tree

Here you can see the living room tree with just the new garland, chocolate and gold ornaments and gold snowflakes.  I like to use these decorative ornaments as the base and then layer all of our sentimental ornaments on top.

You can click here to read more about the chocolate and gold ornaments and the golden snowflakes (that used to be birthday party decor 😎)

Living Room Tree - Day

Here is the tree all finished and complete with our sentimental ornaments.  We had quite a few days with weather mild enough to keep the door open, it was divine 😍

Elfie has been hanging out below with the gifts 😊

You can click here to read about some of Elfie's adventures
You can click here to read how to make Elfie's skirt.

Happy Gingies

I tucked my faux gingerbread cookies into the top shelf dishes of my china cabinet.  I got these last year (along with my glasses of fake milk) and decided to keep them up out of harms way.  They are made of a spongy material and I can guarantee that if certain little hands get a hold of them....bye bye gingies!

You can click here to read more about my artificial milk and cookies.
You can click here to read about my china cabinet.

Cupcakes & a Gingy

This friendly face tucked away in a corner makes me smile and I love the soft light from the tree.

Kitchen Tree

Ahhhh, my candy tree - absolutely packed with sugary goodness!
I added a few new tasty ornaments to my kitchen tree this year which I'll share in an upcoming post.

You can click here to read more about this yummy tree.

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I hope you enjoyed this holiday post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

All of The Links You Need - Thanksgiving & Christmas!

I'm taking the weekend off from heavy blogging to enjoy my 37th birthday (yay!), 

but don't worry - I won't leave you hanging 😎 

Scroll down for links to previous posts stuffed with tips and tricks that will help you sail through Thanksgiving.  Once all of the leftovers are put away and the dishes cleaned, click on the remaining links that will assist you in getting your holiday trees looking their absolute best: 

*Thanksgiving*

Click here  to read all about planning and prepping for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Click here for tips on setting your own holiday table.

*Christmas Trees*

Click here to see how easy it is to fill out an artificial tree using evergreen garland.

Click here when you are ready to add lights to your holiday trees.

Click here for ornament hanging tips.

I hope you will find these links useful for the upcoming week.  Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

Baby Girl's Room Part 2: Toys Are Fun :)

I found a few several more photos from my Baby Girl's toddler room and couldn't resist sharing.
I love toys, fun and happy kids rooms and I'm so glad I took all of these photos, just clicking through them I was flooded with happy memories 😁

You can click here in case you missed the original post, otherwise enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this photo post from the past, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017

From the Archives: Baby Girl's Room & Closet Decor (2015)

I love blogging and sharing the creative aspects of my personality, however, I strive to be really careful when it comes to protecting the privacy of my family. 

I took these room decor photos when my Baby Girl was only 2, but didn't feel quite right about sharing them at the time.  Now that 6 years have passed (😌) and she's a completely different person, I think it's ok to go ahead and share a bit of her -used to be- personal space.  Enjoy!

Welcome to Baby Girl's room from 2015:

Rocker by the Window

The rocking chair in the top left photo used to belong to Husby as a child originally featured a dark wood finish.  A fresh coat of white paint updated it nicely and allowed it to blend right in with the existing decor.

A pink black-out shade was a pretty way to stop the light and prevent sunshine from interfering with my Baby Girl's sleep.  I used a twin sized flat white sheet to create a curtain and pulled the fabric to the side with a few smiley fabric flowers from the dollar store.

(You can click here to read more about making curtains from sheet fabric)

Toy Corner

Lots and lots and lots of toys here 😄

 I love the use of toy hammocks for corralling a million stuffed animals into place.  They run about $10 each but I was able to find these while treasure hunting for .50 and $1.

The table was a freebie from a family member and served as a great way to store the dollhouses as well as to provide a play surface.

The cabinet hanging above the table was handmade by Husby's father to match the rest of the bedroom furniture.

A Set of Beds

We always intended on having two children so when it came time to move Baby Girl into a 'big kid bed', we opted for adjustable bunk beds.  For the time being we turned them with the ladder toward the wall to keep Baby Girl off of the top unsupervised and used the top for additional toy storage and she slept on the bottom.  Later, after the Little Man was born and big enough for his own 'big kid bed', we took them apart and had two beds ready to go - no additional purchase necessary 😎

I also opted for plain white sheets and plain comforters.  Kids acquire so many different character items over the years (and go through so many different phases) that I figured basic colors would be easiest to decorate around.  No matter what the current interest is, plain pink (and now plain blue for the Little Man) goes with just about everything.

Character Close-Ups

At this point in time, Disney Princesses, Care Bears and Lalaloopsy were much adored!

Back of the Door Storage

Baby Girl also used to have a large collection of Beanie Babies which we displayed in hanging shoe organizers. 

I love re-purposing shoe organizers in other areas of the house.  Currently, the white organizer now hangs in the kids bathroom to collect all of Baby Girl's hair accessories and the green one ended up in the garage.

Paintings & Wall Art

The water colors were painted by my Grandpa and are actual pictures of Baby Girl. 
The butterfly art is the front of a gift bag that I cut out and framed.

Disney Castle

Husby and I found this vinyl castle sticker on clearance at Wal-Mart right before we moved into the house.  It was a bit of a splurge (for something that would undoubtedly be ripped apart by tiny hands - and yes, it eventually was 😁), but worth if for Baby Girl's very first room.

I used glow in the dark plastic stars to accent the castle (found for .50 while treasure hunting) and the night time effect was adorable.

More Wall Art

Each one of these framed posters is actually the front of a gift bag from Baby Girl's second birthday.

I can't stress enough how easy and economical this project is!  Kids are always changing tastes (and always having birthdays) why not continually update their room decor and recycle at the same time?

In to the Closet

Part storage and part fun, this walk-in closet is large enough that it almost served as another room.

Storage...

I think even storage areas should be neat, bright and welcoming 😊

I opted for open basket storage (instead of drawers) because I am creatively better when I can see all of my options - yes, that also applies to choosing outfits 😁

Having all of your clothing on display however can mean things look messy pretty quickly.  One obvious tip is to keep everything neatly folded, but using the same color throughout the space also helps.  By having most of the storage baskets, bins and drawers in the same shade of crisp white, the storage furniture visually blends away.

...And Fun

Since the closet space is large enough, I set up a little dressing area for Baby Girl as well.  The makeup table was a $5 find and the purple flowered wall pegs were $1 for the set, all treasure hunting finds.

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And that was my Baby Girl's room, back when she was 2! 
I hope you enjoyed the post, thanks for stopping by!

-Jennifer

© Jennifer Adams Flowers 2017