This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support I don't know if you are like me, but after I get all of the trappings of Christmas taken down and put away, I still have a pile of Christmas cards to deal with. Many of them are so beautiful, I hate to throw them away, and in the spirit of living a little greener, I like to try to recycle them. So, today, we will share some of our favorite ways! If you have any ideas to add, please let us know, we are always looking for new ideas! Friday Faves #87-Favorite Ways to Recycle Christmas Cards! 1. For years, one of my favorite things to do with the Christmas Cards we receive is to make gift tags for next year. It is fun to cut out the cute motifs and the handmade cards are especially cute to use on packages. Just remember to put them in a place where you will find them next Christmas! 2. Of course, if we receive photo cards of family and loved ones, I like to put them in a photo album. It is fun to see how the families have grown year after year. 3. One year, on Everyday Reading, I found this really cute banner idea. Janssen used the photo cards she received to make a Valentine Banner. It was so cute. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to cut the photo cards, but there were a lot of really cute cards that I used instead. I used a thicker version of baker's twine to make the banner. I used two different sizes of heart cookie cutters to cut out the shapes. 4. A really awesome gift for young kids next Christmas, or a way to add to the Spirit of Christmas around the house, would be a book using the pictures from the cards. One year I made a Christmas ABC Book using Christmas Cards. It can be tricky coming up with a picture for every letter, but my friend had a poem that she shared with me to help me out. Unfortunately for this post, I gave that book away. But I got to thinking that it would be really cool to use the song "C is for the Christ Child" by Jim Reeves as the text for the book. If you have enough Christmas cards, you can make more than one! I put together a free printable of ideas for making this book. Here is the PDF file to make printing easier: So, hopefully you can find a way to recycle those Christmas cards and get the last vestiges of Christmas put away. And, won't it be great knowing that you have a gift for the little ones, gift tags to use when wrapping and something to decorate with for Valentine's Day! Now that is thinking ahead!
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Our family was so blessed this Christmas to have all of us together for a little over a week. Lindsey and her family and my son Tyler and his family hosted everyone. It was chaotic, but wonderful.
One of the things we love to do as a family when we get together is play games! Every year, there are new games given as gifts and then we have a ton of fun trying them all out. Here is a list of our favorites this year:
*Azul: This was a gift from Alicia and her husband, who are really good at choosing good games, to my husband and I. Azul is a beautiful game with pieces based on Portuguese tiles. It requires strategy to win and seems a little complicated at first, but once you catch on, you will love it!
*Blokus: Blokus is another addictive strategy game that even the youngest players can catch on to. My 4 year old granddaughter did great at it. (Of course, she is unusually intelligent, if I do say so myself!) Young ones may need a little guidance towards the end of the round when the board becomes more crowded. Unlike Azul, this game seems at first to be quite simple, but you soon find out that you must be strategic about placing those blocks on the board!
*Blockbuster: At first glance, this game looks kind of lame with its plastic VHS case and old Blockbuster Video Store logo. But, we hade more fun with this game as we tested how many movies we could name in certain genres or categories, such as "Movies With Snakes." There are opportunities to give clues to your team using just one word, a catch phrase from the movie or to act it out. Blockbuster is a great party game for a large group of all ages. This game was a gift to Alicia's family from some friends and I am going to miss it until I see them again! Maybe I will have to get my own!
*Chameleon: Another great group game! It is no wonder that this is an award winning game because it is really a lot of fun! In this game, one person is the chameleon who has to pretend to know the secret word in order not to be found out by the rest of the players. If he can really guess the secret word in the end, he can save himself. The trick to being successful in this game is to give good clues that are just vague enough to keep the Chameleon from figuring out the word but not so vague that you sound suspicious. And, if you are the Chameleon, you have to be able to fake out your opponents by blending in.
If you have a party coming up or any kind of gathering where games are in order, these games are for you!
If you have missed any of our other game suggestion posts, click on these links for more ideas for family/friends fun!
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Since Thanksgiving, I've had a glass baking dish at my house that belongs to my daughter from another mother. She was coming by last night and since I wasn't sure if I would be seeing her again before Christmas, I wanted to give her a gift. I came up with an idea that would turn her baking dish into the vessel for her gift.
Her baking dish is really cute, with a silicone edged lid, clear in the middle, similar to this one that you can pick up at Walmart for about $10.
I decided to use Christmas cardstock to make divisions in the dish to hold home baked goods and treats neatly in the dish, surrounding her wrapped gift. It came out looking like this:
I put in macarons, Hot Cocoa Bombs, gluten free brownies, chocolate chip cookies with peppermint M&Ms, and her wrapped gift. I filled in with Hershey Kisses and M&Ms. It looks so cute in person, better that the picture for sure, and when you seal it up with the lid, it is a perfect gift.
I made the sections by folding the cardstock in half and then folding it back on itself so that the crease is raised up, making a wall. For the smaller wall, I simply folded some cardstock cut to the right length in half and folded feet at the bottom and taped them in place. The wrapped gift itself makes the divider between the 2 smaller slots, of course.
I was so pleased with the result and so was the recipient. I got to thinking that a 9x13 baking dish makes a wonderful shower gift and you could fill it in a similar way, except not Christmasy! Then I started brain storming other ways this idea could work. Here are a couple of ideas:
Even when simply returning a borrowed dish, this method of filling it can be a great way to say thank you. Dividing the pan into sections keeps everything neat and lets the receiver know that you put some thought and effort into the gift. If you have some last minute gifts that you need to give or if you need something for an office party, this idea could also come in handy, even if you only use a foil pan, just to keep everything contained!
Let me know if you can think of other uses for this technique! Happy Gifting! You may also love these ideas:
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I recently have seen ads for Cracker Barrel restaurant advertising their Cinnamon Roll Pie. That sounded intriguing to me, so I got on line and checked out just what this thing is. Surprisingly, it turns out that their pie is actually cinnamon rolls baked in a pie crust. Interesting and probably good but it sounds very starchy to me. The idea got my wheels turning though and I thought, "What if the Cinnamon Rolls were the crust of the pie?"
Well, obviously, I didn't want to go to all of the trouble of baking a batch of cinnamon rolls just to mash them into a pie crust. I went to the store and bought some canned cinnamon rolls and smooshed them into the bottom of my pie dish. It took 2 tubes of them to cover the bottom and the sides. Sometimes you have to cut the cinnamon rolls in half to fit them around the sides of the dish.
I prebaked my cinnamon roll crust by placing another pie dish in the center and adding weight. You a can get pie weights, or use beans or something. I didn't want my cinnamon rolls to rise up and get puffy. They did puff a bit, but that was okay, they still had the crust shape with room to add a filling. I baked it at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
When the crust was out of the oven, I filled it with some of my home canned pie filling, just one jar.
Then, I topped the pie filling with a cinnamon streusel topping!
Next, I popped the pie back into the 400 degree oven for another 15 minutes until the streusel was brown and toasty.
But, there was one thing missing! You can't have cinnamon rolls without the ooey, gooey frosting! So, I used the frosting from the cinnamon roll tubes to drizzle on top of the pie!
Finally, we ate it for dessert after a great chicken dinner with roasted vegetables! This seems like such an All American Meal to me and the pie was the perfect ending. Everyone pronounced the pie a success! I think it will be a terrific breakfast pie as well! It is kind of like a breakfast apple streusel or coffee cake. it would be perfect on Christmas morning.
Let me know if you give this pie a try! I hope you love it!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
June 2024
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