Christmas House/Tree Tour

I guess this is a little "off the cookie subject"......but I wanted to invite you to my house for a little Christmas gathering.......at least an online version. 

Not only am I cookie CRAZIE......I'm also Christmas tree CRAZIE. lol I have nine of them this year. I added two new ones. Oh my! My daughter thinks I'm totally nuts and drags me out of the Christmas tree section of Hobby Lobby every time we go together. =)

I grew up with a dad that loved to buy live Christmas trees (I can still smell them in my memories....). And since we had a nice A frame tall ceiling in the middle of our living room.....he always made sure the tree nearly went to the ceiling. Great memories. We had lots of funky, eclectic ornaments to add to the tree each year.

And when I got married at 18......I naturally started collecting ornaments and making my tree as special as the ones when we grew up.  As my five children started coming.......I would buy them each at least one ornament each year.....building a collection for them to take with them when they go out on their own. 

About ten years ago.....I bought a second tree.....gasp! I put it in our small entry. And since I'm super crazie about snowmen (!!!!!), I made it my snowman tree. Wellllllll..........................it snowballed from there. lol Then I bought a set of three small woodland trees..............candy cane tree, purple tree, and kitchen tree. And then when we moved into our new house three years ago.....with our very own tall ceiling......we just had to get a 12 foot tree to fill up that big wall. :)

Last year......I bought a tree specifically to hang cookies on to share with our guests when they came to visit around Christmas tree.

And this year.......I now have a nativity/Bethlehem tree.......and not only a kitchen tree, but a tree dedicated to baking and cookies.

So there you have it......my Christmas tree obsession history line. :)

So come join me at my house. Enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds.............stay for a cup of coffee or tea. And take home a cookie from the cookie tree when you leave.
I'd love to meet every last one of you. :))))))))

(And please excuse the photos......I am getting better about photographing my cookies.....but not so much anything else!)

Welcome to our home......

Beloved cookie tree ready to greet my visitors. :)

Turn to the left to see my Bethlehem/Nativity tree.....along with a ton of snowmen down in the stairway. :)

And yes.....it includes a peek at my cookie cutter collection. ;)

Purple (my fave color) tree in the front room.....with my desk....where I sit even right now, writing to you. =)

Back towards the entry......my snowman tree.... I LOVE snowmen and snow. :)

Towards the kitchen and great room......

The twelve foot tree holds all our family ornaments. God has RICHLY blessed us. :)

You can barely see my tiny kitchen tree to the right of the stove.....

 Try to ignore the piles of cookies on the dining room table that I need to decorate right now.......hmmmm. lol

Candy Cane tree...........never could get a decent photo of it. : /

Gingerbread tree.....also hard to get a good photo. The windows bring in too much light. : /

Stepping back toward the front door......the baking/cookie tree is to the right.

 Be sure to stop at the cookie tree on your way out and take one home.
(Boy.....I'd have to do a LOT more decorating if you all really came!)

Thanks for coming on this virtual tour/visit of my house. I love having visitors this time of year.....and I would love to see you all and enjoy the season together. :)

I guess it is time for me to get crackin' on all those cookies waiting for me on the table..................sigh

Simple Christmas Cookie Ornaments (Tutorial)

I finally completed a bunch of Christmas cookies yesterday. Sigh......I've been anxious to get some done for a couple of weeks now....and even this week....there were so many distractions. But I was determined.  lol

I knew it was time for a blog tutorial......so I stitched up some country ornaments for you. :)

These cookies are  easy to decorate and would make a wonderful gift.

I hung them directly on my cookie tree for the photo.....but normally I wrap my cookies before I hang them on the tree. This was purely done for this blog post. (Talk about staging....hee hee.)

OK......so here's how to make these fun cookie ornaments. It's a piece of cake.....uhhhh....I mean cookie. ;)

Since you're not going to put any details on these cookies other than the stitches, I'd recommend picking very recognizable Christmas shapes. When you cut them out, be sure to cut a hole at the top of them. I used the end of a drinking straw.

The best part of this design.....you cover the entire cookie with white icing....and then just let them dry. That's it! Once color, one icing bag.....awesome!

(I outlined these with a #2 round tip and then flooded with a #4 round tip.)

I let them dry overnight.

Next is the fun part. Take a red food coloring marker (I use Food Doodler....but there are several brands you could choose from.) Actually....you could use any color you'd like to make the "stitches".

Outline the cookie in a red solid line and then make small stitch marks all around the edges. Simple.....but it looks so cute! And no need to be super precise.....hand stitching often looks a little wonky....but that's what makes it so sweet.

I used some adorable red & white striped twine from The Twinery and tied a loop around each hole. 

And wah lah....here they all are.

More cookie tree pics.....

An extra special bonus.....you can see four of my Christmas trees in one photo. :)

I hope you'll try this fun project. It's nice and simple....and produces cute results. :)

Happy Christmas baking!!!!

And if you haven't entered my 3000 Facebook Fan Celebration Blog Give-Away.....be sure to do it before midnight CST Monday night (Dec 5).

Ice Skating Anyone?

I had hoped to bring you a guest post this weekend.....but there hasn't been enough time to put it together. Maybe tomorrow.

For now.....I'll just show you the ice skates I did last week. I'd not been happy with the ice skate cutter I got last year......so I did my own hand cut version.

And I also wanted to show you that my cookie tree is alive and well....and full of cookies again after the Christmas holiday. :) I've decided to keep it up year round and make seasonal cookies for my guests and also put up the extra cookies that I have from various batches. My family's lovin' it. lol

This week, I'm going to have a guest post from my sweet friend, Haniela. You are going to love her beautiful treats. Her photography always stuns me.......love it! And you couldn't find a sweeter blogger. She featured CookieCrazie on her blog yesterday, if you'd like to see it here.

We are getting snow tomorrow night and Tuesday. For those of you in the northern states/countries that get lots of snow, please forgive me......but in Missouri we get very little snow. And I love it! So I'm happy about the forecast!!!! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. :)

Cookie Tree!

I baked and decorated up a storm the last few days......and finally have my cookie tree filled with cookies. So now I just need some guests.......hmmmm.....where could I find visitors who would like to have a cookie????

Here's my fun little tree. I think it is a little stressed right now because it has over 30 cookies on it. hee hee

And now I get to show you some of my Christmas cookie designs. Yippee!!!!

I made a yummy chocolate cookie with peppermint icing. Since I was using the dark background of the chocolate cookie......I decided to try something I've not done very much.....white on white, and white with very pale pastels. I like the results. :)

It has a really different look than the traditional colors (which is what I usually do), but oh, how fun to add all kinds of disco dust and sanding sugar and make them sparkle. I wish the photos showed you all the decoration.I'm so happy I tried these colors.

Lots more to come in the next several days.......