Last Minute Gift Ideas and a Favorite Hot Apple Cider Recipe

Hello!

I am sorry I wasn't able to post yesterday....

I am a little short on time, so I will have to post about the one room in the house I decorated after Christmas.....

I thought I would do a quick post, and share some last minute gift ideas with you....

These were our favorite gifts to make and give out this year....

1. An antique european grain sack wine and or beverage bag along with a bottle of wine and or sparkling cider.....

2, Homemade marshmallows and hot cocoa mix....

You can read more about making homemade marshmallows here....

(an image of cookies the kids and I made last year)

3. Sugar Cookies...

We used our favorite recipe,

a Martha Stewart Sugar Cookie Recipe and

for the frosting we used a Penzey Spice Recipe....

Martha Stewart's Sugar Cookie Recipe

Penzey Spices Vanilla Frosting Recipe...

I also wanted to share a family favorite hot apple cider recipe with you....

We make this every year during the holidays....

Not only does it taste good, it will also make your entire house smell good : )

Hot Apple Cider

6 cups apple cider 

(our favorite is the 365 Organic Apple Juice)

6 cups of pear juice

a pinch of ginger

3 whole cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp. of nutmeg

10 cloves

1 TBLSP of fennel seeds

Bring all the above ingredients to a boil and let simmer for 25 minutes....

Then enjoy!

Before I go I want to remind you that Jeanne Oliver's camera bag giveaway is still open on my blog....

If you would like to enter you can do so by clicking here.....

The giveaway ends December 28th.

Thank you Jeanne!

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop in and read my blog.

Merry Christmas to you and your families!

Take Care,

Maria

Dreamy Whites Shop

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Decorating for Christmas.... and a Jeanne Oliver Camera Bag Giveaway

Hello!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend.

I finally got one area of the house partially decorated for Christmas over the weekend and have a couple pictures to share with you today....

We finally got our tree up as well...

It just isn't decorated yet...

I have a lot more pictures to share with you....

I will be back soon with a few more images and details about the room and our Christmas tree : )

On another note...

I wanted to share with you Jeanne Oliver's beautiful new clothing line, The Coming Home Collection, Jeanne recently released.

I hope you enjoy a preview of Jeanne's new line, I love it.

Jeanne is also giving away the Natalie Camera Bag to one lucky reader today.....

So be sure and read the giveaway information at the bottom of the post.

THANK YOU JEANNE!

Natalie Camera Bag

Gracie Little Messenger Bag

Anne Ruffle Messenger Bag

Elaine Knit dress

Audrey French Tunic

Lila Peasant Dress

Louise Dress

Open publication - Free publishing - More camera bag

Jeanne also published the above lookbook.  Be sure and check it out.

Don't you just love Jeanne's work.

Jeanne is truly an inspiration to me....

Last spring I interviewed Jeanne, if you missed the interview, I hope you get a chance to read it.

You can read it by clicking here.....

I also posted about Jeanne's Ruffle Messenger bag she so kindly sent my daughter Bethany here....

Bethany LOVES her bag and uses it everyday to pack her art supplies around....

THANKS JEANNE!

Now onto the giveaway information!

One lucky person will receive one Natalie Camera Bag!

The giveaway ends December 28th at midnight.

1. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is leave me a comment on this post.

If you would like additional entries you can do the following.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.....

2. Post about the giveaway on any of your social networking sites, such as twitter, facebook, blogger, and or pinterest.

I hope you get a chance to visit Jeanne's shop and blog.

Jeanne Oliver Designs

Jeanne Oliver's Blog

THANK YOU JEANNE!!!!

I will be back with more holiday decorating.
Take Care,
Maria


Dreamy Whites Shop
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Homemade Marshmallows, Gift Ideas, and Serving Hot Cocoa during the Holidays

Hello!

I first want to thank all of you who left such kind comments about my daughter's 

peppermint wreath....

Nicole appreciates every comment.

Today I wanted to share a fun recipe and a quick gift giving idea.....

I come from a large family and all of us girls learned how to bake....

A lot of times for Christmas my favorite gift to give is baked goods or homemade candies.

The fun part is finding something fun to put the baked goods in....

I thought I would share a gift idea I have done in the past....

Homemade Marshmallows and Hot Cocoa Mix

They are both so simple to make.

Nicole made the marshmallows and Bethany made the hot chocolate....

I made the grain sack stocking ornament : )

Just a warning on the the marshmallows...

They have to set up for a couple of hours, however it is hard to not eat all the marshmallow cream while it is in the process of setting.

The nice part about making these marshmallows, there is hardly any stirring involved.

Throw in a few peppermint sticks to make your gift more festive....

These are the best peppermint sticks, you can find them at Sur la Table

I thought it would be fun to put a bag of hot chocolate and a bag of marshmallows in an antique french

cafe au lait bowl....

You can also find new cafe au lait bowls at Anthropologie....

And or a french enamelware canister....

For the hot chocolate my favorite type of chocolate to use is Penzey's Dutch Cocoa.

I found these cute red and white checked food bags at Sur La Table......

That way your food is safe if you are using vintage canisters to put your baked goods in....

(I will be listing these french canisters in my shop today....)

I also wanted to share a fun way to serve hot cocoa during the holidays using a french cheese board.....

I have a bit of an obsession with these antique French cheese boards....

I think they would work great for entertaining purposes.

I put the cookies on a french ironstone platter....

I love to use my antique ironstone on a daily basis, if you would like to read more about caring for your ironstone dishes you can do so by clicking here.....

(cookies came from Andrae's Bakery)

 I used a red striped grain sack runner on the table....

I tried to make the table seem more festive by adding the peppermint sticks and the red and white ribbon......

I hope you get a chance to try the homemade marshmallows.....

You can find the recipe for the marshmallows here....

You can find the recipe for the homemade cocoa here....

If you don't want to use vintage tins for your homemade gifts,

my other favorite option is to use Martha Stewart's boxes from Michaels...

They also have a great selection of ribbon to choose from.

What is your favorite thing to put your baked goods in when giving them as gifts?

Take Care,

Maria

Dreamy Whites Shop

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A Finished Peppermint Wreath

 

Hello!

I wanted to share a few images of Nicole's peppermint wreath she finished.

The above image is a picture of the wreath from yesterday.

Nicole just glued another layer of peppermint candies to cover the styrofoam wreath form.

Nicole chose to use a grain sack tie for the ribbon.

Nicole decided she didn't want to use an actual ribbon.

I posted how to make these wreaths here....

 Enjoy the rest of your week.

I will be back tomorrow.

Take Care,

Maria
P.S. If you subscribe to my blog by email and wonder why you aren't receiving my posts anymore....
that is because for some reason my posts aren't being sent out anymore via email.....
I am trying to get that fixed, so hopefully you will start receiving my posts again soon.

Dreamy Whites Shop

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An Unfinished Peppermint Candy Wreath and the Felted Mistletoe Wreath

Hello!

I just wanted to post a quick one today....

I wanted to share a picture of our unfinished peppermint candy wreath my daughter, Nicole 

made over the weekend.

It has been about ten years since I have made one of these.

I love these wreaths because they will add a touch of whimsy to your home.

They are super easy to make and are a fun project to do with the kids.....

All you need is....

a styrafoam wreath form

two large bags of peppermint candies

a glue gun

a bag of glue sticks

My daughter started glueing the candies from the inside of the wreath out.  It works best if 

you glue the candies on in rows.  

This one isn't finished because you can still see the styrafoam peaking through the candies.

My daughter added another row of candies to cover those areas....

I will show you an image of the finished product in another post....

I also wanted to let you know where this sweet felted mistletoe wreath came from.

I showed a picture of it in my post on Saturday,

I received a lot of inquiries about it, so I thought I better let you know where they came from....

They came from Maison Reve....

Yasmine has the sweetest Christmas ornaments this year....

I will be photographing a few of the ornaments I got from their shop later this week.

They do not have the ornaments or wreath on their website, I bought them while shopping in their shop in Mill Valley with my mom.

I hope you get a chance to stop by Yasmine's shop.

MAISON REVE

I will be back hopefully this evening.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Take Care,

Maria

p.s. I was able to take a bunch of product pictures yesterday, I will finally have new products in my shop tomorrow.

Dreamy Whites Shop

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A Work Studio and Last Year's Christmas Tree

Hello!

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

I first need to warn you this is a very random post today....

I wanted to share a few sneak pictures of my cabinet I currently use for storing shop items.

Last year I had planned to turn my guest room into a work studio.....

Well that never ended up happening....

This summer I ended up turning one of our living rooms into a work studio.

We live in a manufactured home made by The Karstan Co, it has a

 very open floor plan, and has two large living rooms.

This room used to be the t.v. room, until I decided to use it as a work studio...

The guest room is now the t.v. room and the living room is now a work studio.

This large cabinet works great for housing a lot of my ironstone, transferware, and other items I sell in my shop.

I am hoping to get this room photographed next week after I finish decorating for Christmas.....

On another note....

I had to share a recent picture of our Rambo, he is a dantiff puppy we got from our parents.

My parents recently had a new litter of dantiff puppies....

He is well loved by the kids....

We are hoping to make another road trip to Montana to see both of our families after Christmas...

The kids can hardly wait to make another trip home to see their grandparents and cousins.

My sister, who has nine kids and lives in Louisiana, will be there.

On a final note....

I wanted to share a few pictures of my Christmas tree from last year...

This was about all I got done last year for decorating.

I am still trying to decide what I am going to use as a container for my tree this year.

Last year I put my tree in this antique wine jug basket and lined it with a linen sheet so you can't see the bucket the tree is sitting in....

I used vintage french canning jars for a pop of color....

I also have a number of these vintage french canning jars in a green color as well.

I will be sure and share some pictures of this year's tree as soon as we get one.....

We are headed to the Sacramento airport today.

My mom flies back home today : (

The kids and I are planning to make a trip to Michaels on the way home so we

can get some materials to make some crafts for Christmas....

Do you have a favorite craft you like to do with your kids during the holidays?

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Before I go, I want to introduce you to two bloggers....

Cheryl of Fresh Vanilla for C

Maria of Rusty Hinge

I hope you get a chance to stop by both of of their blogs and say hello.

Take Care,

Maria

DREAMY WHITES SHOP

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