Woodland Place-setting Box

 
I want to thank all of you for putting up with all my woodland posts. I had a lot of fun with this theme, but this is my last idea to share. I will say there was still soooooo many ideas I did not get to, such as making felt pillows that looked like a slice of wood, pinecone and pom-pom garland, wood tags and ornaments, 4 foot frosted branches stuck in my Christmas tree and so much more. I think I needed Martha's team to help me or AA for Christmas decorating !!! 

 

This last idea is a woodland box that is both a place-setting card and a gift. I always love to have a little gift for everyone at Christmas dinner. In past years I have had figgy pudding box, pastel paper stockings and last year, little fabric trees. What I love about these is every year it reminds us of a past years. I always put a popper and chocolate with them.  I am sooo over-the-moon with these boxes. Just to let you know I got the deer and tree from Sweet Treat Supplies and I made the mushrooms from fimo clay.

 

After a month of posting just about every day (I had a lot to share didn't I) I am going to take a week off, enjoy Christmas, recoup, refresh, plan next years theme  ;-) I wish each of you dear readers (because you are all dear friends to me) a blessed Christmas. I know this is a hard time for some of you, a bittersweet time. I hope there will be more sweetness then bitter for you this Christmas. 

Merry Christmas each and every one of you. I wish we could all celebrate together (because you all know how I want to feed all of you). Eat something yummy and think of me xooxoxox

Glimpes Of My Home

 

 

Woodland Menu

This is our Christmas dinner, Christmas eve we will have cheese fondue and lots of cookies. Christmas morning is gingerbread overnight orange baked french toast, scrambled eggs with whatever goodies you want in your eggs and bacon. So what are you making ??? xoxox

Chicken breast with cranberries and pears in a cream sauce is from Susan Branch Christmas book

Wild rice hazelnut pilaf

Bock Choi with Sherry and Prosciutto

Individual Bouche De Noel

Orange cream brulee

Individual Bouche De Noel

 

Well I had all you facebook readers grossed out, when I said I was creating something with chocolate, whipped cream and mushrooms. That does sound like an oh-so-interesting combination. But what would a woodland themed Christmas be without a yule log cake, Bouche De Noel ? I decided liked the idea of making individual Bouche De Noel. I also wanted to figure out how I could make it, but do most of the work ahead of time. I always try to pick recipes for the holidays were I can do a lot of the cooking ahead. It keeps me from doing too much last minute and therefor I am a happy hostess.

1. I decided instead of making a rolled, filled cake, I would just made a chocolate mayo cake and cut it into small individual cakes with a biscuit cutter. I made these a week ahead and froze them. I will pull them out on Christmas morning. I also made chocolate curls the same day and am keeping them in the fridge.

2. On Christmas morning, besides pulling out the cakes, I will set up all the dessert plate with pieces of wax paper to catch all the extra whipped cream and coco powder. I also will make the whipped cream. Homemade whipped cream made with heavy cream will hold all day in the fridge.

3. After dinner, I will get a few people to help and we will set up a assembly line.

4. Take your cake and set it in the center of the wax paper pieces.  Start spreading the whipped cream on the side but NOT the top * then take coco powder and a sieve and dust the whipped cream. Run a fork up the side of the cream to make lines.

* one thing I learned doing this cake is the coco powder that gets on the top of the cake, makes it hard to spread the whipped cream on top. So I suggest cutting a circle from wax paper and set it on the top while you do the coco powder part.

5. Now spread whipped cream over the top. I put a few chocolate chips in a sandwich baggie and zapped it in the microwave 40 second to melt it. I cut off the tip of the baggie and pipe circles of chocolate on the top.

6. CAREFULLY pull out the wax paper pieces, one at a time and throw away. Add chocolate curls and mushrooms. About the mushrooms, I am lucky to have a grocery store with a large Asian section that has chocolate mushrooms and that is what I used.

I know this sounds complicated, but really with some ahead prep time and a couple of friends it is very easy. As you can see I did not try to make it perfect, I did not stress about frosting and if some of these steps seem like too much just skip it. Make is fun for you, work with what is comfortable for you. That is a big part of cooking and entertaining. I hope you are not burned out on woodland ideas, I only have two more to share xoxoxo 

Faux-Bois Wrapping Paper Tutorial

So you know I had to come up with some wrapping to go with my woodland theme. I though faux-bois paper would be perfect. I looked around and all I could find was a bit more then I wanted to do. Plus I did not want to spend the money on one of those wood grain tools ;-)  I thought, there has to be a simpler way to do this. So here is what I did. I bet you could come up with an even more beautiful then I did.

I simple took a silver sharpie pen and drew with irregular, long circles, with a smaller circle inside. The add a bunch of wavy lines. Perfect ?  no !!! But it gives the feel and was sooo very doable. 

In the fall I had took a bunch of pine cones, drilled a hole in the top and added eye screws. I simply ran some beautiful ribbon through the screw and made a lovely topper for the package. Beauty does not have to be complicated, just thoughtful xoxox

Woodland Wreath

Thank you for all the prayers and kind thoughts. The appointment went well. Some good news, some bad news. But over all it was good and she will have two women cardiologist, so that is cool. Now I will just look forward to focusing on these last days of Christmas. This has been a stressful time. I have tried to focus on the blessing, but now it will be much easier.

One good thing about my woodland theme, is my property is full of wood, pine cones, holly, moss and more moss. I wish I could say this wreath was my idea but it is not. I saw this wreath and loved it. This is another elf from David's childhood and a huge mushroom from the Christmas House. I did not worry about fully covering the straw wreath. You know moss grows and covers things in an irregular pattern, so this seemed more realistic to me. I am sooo thrilled with this wreath.

I hope you have a blessed day, I am hoping to start wrapping gifts today xoxoxo

Woodland Cakeplate

 

Thank you sooo much loving my snow tree, I had fun making it. This is another project that David's injury sort of wreaked. I had plans on making a wood cake plate (here is another one), but the top involved using the chain saw (I wanted a big cake plate and I am not allowed to go near sharp things ;-) So again I improvised. David and I were able to cut the bottom with a ban saw. I wanted a large flat surface. The problem with plates is they are not totally flat. I ended up using the top of a large tin. Which I used upside down so I could keep the moss damp and not have water running off the plate.

I added some fun trees, a little house, deers, holly berries, fake snow. I am very happy with it. BUT I tell you when David can use a chain saw again, I am sooo making a cake plate.

Please be praying for Auberne`, she is going to a new cardiologist today. It is always nerve wracking to go to a new cardiologist, but we are hoping she will be a better fit for Auberne`. Thank you xoxoxox

 

Snow Tree

Good morning. Well I hope you are warmer then we are. We woke up this morning with the heater out and it will not be repaired till tomorrow. Luckily we have a wood stove, we will just hang out in front of it, crafting. A few of you sweetie, asked about the smoked salt caramels, I just used the recipe linked above and used smoked salt instead. I used the amount of salt called for in the recipe, but I sprinkled a few more gains on each piece as we wrapped them up. They are amazing, thank you Angie for your caramel craze. You are forever my foodie friend and partner in crime  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snow Tree Tutorial

This is my last tree to share. I do not even remember where I saw it, but I saw this tiny peek of part of a tree in a magazine and it inspired this snow tree. It is very easy to do. I cut out a bunch of wool felt leaves and pined them on a foam tree. If you click on the photo below and you can see the detail better. I cut leaves about 1 1/2 " wide and 1 1/2" deep with pinking shears. I just overlap the top corners and pinned then down. Use white pins (I used color so you could see what I did). I set the point of the leaf to cover the pin below and did this about two thirds up the tree. Then I switched to longer, narrower pieces, about 2" long and 3/4" wide. I pined those as what looked good. Cut a small round piece for the top. Glue it down and then glued the tree to a cut piece of wood. I was going to frost the tips, but decided I liked it better plain. But I could change my mind any minute ;-P

Have a warm day and I will be back soon with a LOT more to share xoxo 

Felt Tree

Good morning, hubby went back to work last night and survived. I finally got a good night sleep, ahhh. I LOVE Thompson Family-life's look. Her style is sooo much fun and I had to make one of her trees. I think I want to make a second one with more wild colors next. Oh the possibilities.

I am still hoping to make these felt trees and these too !!!

Today is a stay at home cooking day. We are hoping to get made layered peppermint bark, smoked salt caramels and espresso cookies. What are you up to today ??? xox

 

Paper Tree

 

Do you get a thrill like me for taking junk and turning it into something ? That is why I like theses folded paper trees, they are a good reuse of catalogs or magazines and are sooooo easy to do. You could bling them up if you wanted to or paint them. Anything really. Also check out Fabric, Paper, Thread paper trees. Beautiful idea Lorrie.

 

Wool Tree

So what is a woodland theme without trees ?? My goal was to do a different tree each month of this past year, I did not make that goal. But over the next few days I do have some trees to share. This is a wool tree. I was gifted with some wool sweaters that were felted. I got a very large nail and started cutting circles from the sweaters. I cut a small slit in the center, for the nail.

I just keep making smaller and smaller circles and stacking them. I found the more irregular the circles the better the tree looks (well in my opinion). This would be a fun craft for kids. I thought I would need to glue the nail on some base, but I found the tree stand just fine on their own. I glue a seed pod to the top, easy !!!! Here is another fun stacking felt tree, have fun playing.

I hope you are having a lovely week. We are not Jewish but my father's family is. I have never meet my fathers parents, they died when he was a teen. But I was named after my grandmother Claire. My grandfather Isadore was a baker and I always felt a connection to them. So every year we have a Hanukkah dinner to remember them and family lost in the Holocaust. Tonight we will have what we always have, matzo ball soup and latkes. I am going to make a roasted vanilla pear sauce to go over the latkes with sour cream. Heaven xoxox

Woodland Tea

Hello, we did have a magical woodland tea on Saint Nickolas day. You have asked what I got at Christmas house, well two things I got was this mushroom house and tree. I thought they went well with my theme.

The elf is one of several we have from when David was a boy. I made the toadstools from fimo. I love this deer and got several from The Thin Veil.

Now I had big ideas for this woodland themed Christmas, THEN my hubby had to go and have his accident and not be able to use his arm. Well that threw huge monkey wrench into all my plans. So I simplified.

The wooden candler holders are much more simple then I had evisioned, but they still work.  I just found a great log from our wood pile that my red candles would sit on. David and Auberne` helped me cut them into pieces.
 

Another plan I had was to get fabric that looked like brown bark and make a runner with red rick-rack on the edge. Sighhhh, I let that go to. So instead took a pretty Christmas tablecloth and fold it into thirds to use as a runner.

 

Add my cottages (holding ginger cookies and sugar bowl, thank you Becky), a gnome plate from my mother and it was quite a woodland tea. My mother made her delish St. Nicholas chicken salad which we served on gluten free biscuits (I am working on a recipe), chocolates, pate and cheese. It was very festive. I encourage all of you to try to take a little time each day to enjoy the season. Even if your home is not coming together (like mine) enjoy what you have, where you are at, enjoy the moment. Because this is a magical time, even without a perfect home. Now I am off to have a cup of tea and enjoy my half decorated kitchen ;-)  xoxoxo

 

PS Check out Home for the Holidays at Southern Hospitality