Category: Decorations

Holiday Cover Up

Let’s be honest. I panicked when I looked at the calendar and saw that I’m hosting a family get together on Christmas Eve.

I panicked a lot.

My house is tiny and very much lived in by three small children. And the state of this door says it all.

That hole in the paint, that’s where my oldest scrubbed the door until the paint came off. It was a stubborn pen stain. And who knew you could scrub the door so much the paint would come off???

We’ve lived in our house for over a decade. And I know it’s past time to repaint everything. In fact I have the vision for how I want to update our house interior. But I seriously can’t pull the trigger until we’re out of the color on the wall phase. All three do it. The oldest knows better but does it to push buttons when he’s angry at us. And evidently scrubbing his retaliation isn’t enough to break these outbursts.

Let’s just say that with all three back to back, I tell people it’s kind of nice because when you hit a phase you absolutely hate you only have to go through it once. Well the “wall art” phase is the first one that I hate. I just have to make it past this phase and I won’t have to go through it again!

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The inspiration for this “hide my ugly doors” Holiday Cover Up was inspired by this YouTube video from Life of Style Blog, Dollar Tree Christmas DIYS 2022. I can’t improve her walk through for making a Paper Bag Snowflake, so I’m going to direct you to the 4:50 minute mark in the video. However I will give you some tips on how to make the snowflakes without making some easy to avoid mistakes.

Paper Bag Snowflake Tips

The paper bags that I used were not brown paper lunch bags. I happened to have white paper 2 lb bags that measure 4″ x 2.5″ and 7.5″ tall. Yes, my bags are smaller in proportion than the ones used in the video. But the shape of the bag is going to behave the same way no matter the size of the bag. I do want to mention that this 2 lb bag created about a 16″ snowflake. So if you do go with a lunch bag size paper bag, you are going to end up with a beautiful large snowflake!

  1. Leave large spaces between your cuts. I tried making delicate lines. And as you can see (picture 1 above) the spokes snapped when I glued the snowflake together.
  2. If you glue to the bag’s open end corners, 7 bags is only going to give you a half circle. Picture 2 shows you how stressed the paper becomes when you take it to the bag corners. You end up taking away the flexibility of the paper because you limit yourself to the length of the small side of your bag base. In my case, I limited the distance between spokes down to 2.5″.
  3. If you glue to the edge of the bag’s open end, 7 bags may not be enough. (Picture 3) I started off with 7 bags, but when I went to fold the two ends together, the 3D snowflake structure started to collapse and flatten. I cut more of the pattern and added in 2 bags first, but found that wasn’t enough. At that point I just made another 3 to bring the number to 12 bags and that was enough to take the stress out of the paper. It no longer looked like it was going to collapse and flatten.
  4. If you glue to the middle of the bag, the snowflake will be loose enough to not be stressed looking. I was most happy with everything about picture 4 (below). The paper was not stressed at all. There was flexibility. And it was the least frustrating in closing the snowflake. (If you are craft challenged, I think this tip will be the option that you will find most forgiving and less stressful for you.)

If you want additional ideas on who to close the snowflake AND make it reusable, check out the comments under the video. The velcro comment is ingenious and I will be making reusable snowflakes for the rest of the ones that I make for the season.

And let me just say this, I will not make a snowflake the old way again! Until a new idea comes around, this is my go to for making snowflakes. Depending on how intricate your cut design, I estimate that it took me about 7 minutes to make the snowflake (below) with three triangles down each side.

Please don’t limit this craft to just snowflakes. You can easily purchase bright fun color gift bags and make bunting for baby showers, birthdays, bridal showers, anniversaries, and anything else that you are celebrating. If you opt for the bunting, non-snowflake option, I highly recommend Tip 3 (above). It gives a full circle that reminds me of Latino bunting. And the airiness fits perfectly with Boho style.

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Rigging Snowflakes

As I mentioned earlier, I have a small house. Most decorations I use are the ones that I can hang somewhere. So I made these snowflakes with a hanging line installed in the hot glue between two bags.

The easiest way of doing this is to make a loop on the end that you will be putting in the hot glue between the bags. Experience, through the years, has shown me that just gluing in the string with no further feature for the glue to hold on to, the string is just going to pull right out. So I’ve always used a loop, like you see here.

The loop allows glue to connect and hold on to three points of the string. Think of it acting like a Y. There is a natural pooling space between the arms of the Y and in the arm pits. And with paper also glued on either side, the string is anchored in pace.

In fact, my youngest swung at a snowflake hanging from my ceiling, with a roll of wrapping paper, like a piñata and the paper broke but the string held its place.

Hide the Ugly Door

At the Dollar Store I found rolls of candy striped wrapping paper. 1 roll of 40 square feet is enough to cover one door (front and back with a little left over for patch work).

I decided to wrap my doors instead of scrubbing and/or painting them because I have zero time to move this task to the top of my to-do list. I don’t have time to paint on top of the normal craziness that December brings every year. Not to mention that the only space I have to paint doors is outside and currently we have off and on snow. Wrapping the door did take me somewhere between an hour and two as it was. I couldn’t keep an active count because I did this while chasing and feeding kids. So I count this a success.

This door, I wrapped while it was still on its hinges. I’m pretty sure that this was the time suck because of how much time I had to spend in sliding the paper under the door and through the hinge space.

With the exception of working around the door handles, wrapping a door would most certainly be easier to do when it’s removed from the doorway.

That being said, I’m going to show you how I did this while keeping the door in place.

Do the front of the door first.

With some prepped pieces of painter’s tape, I draped the top of the paper over the top of the door and held it in place with a piece of tape. This freed me to go to the back side of the door and position the paper before anchoring it down.

TIP: Painter’s tape is amazing for this first part because it’s strong enough to keep the paper in place but release the paper and door without ripping the paper.

Now that the wrapping paper is going to stay in place, I went back to the front side and dealt with the door knob.

Take an exacto knife. With your free hand, run the paper down smoothly from the top of the door down to the top of the door knob. With the paper held in place, cut around the edge of the door knob with the exacto knife.

If you find it difficult to cut smoothly without ripping your paper (I did because the Dollar Store paper is cheap and very thin–it rips when you look at it funny) than cut an X or + over the door knob. This allows the knob to come through the paper and becomes easier to work around.

TIP: If your cuts are too big, it’s not a problem. Grab your clear tape that you use for wrapping presents. No one is really going to notice if the tape is glossy. They have to look for it to see it. But if you want to be thorough, use a matte finish tape. It will become invisible and no one is ever going to find it.

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TIP: If the cut lines are jagged and uneven, don’t worry. When you’re all finished you can hide this by tying a thick ribbon around the door knob, hang a door decoration or even a stocking from the knob. When in doubt, place an accent decoration piece over the rough edge.

Once the door knob has a clean cut circle around it, this is now another anchor point to help you wrap the paper around the edges of the door.

For the hinges and the latch for the door, use the exacto knife and cut from the edge of the paper to the edge of the door. The flap that you want to remove you can either cut it off or fold it and slide it behind the paper on the face of the door.

TIP: The most difficult areas for me to work around were the top and bottom corners on the hinge side of the door. If you need to, cut the diagonal so that you’re only wrapping around one side at a time rather than two at the same time.

When you come to the bottom of the door, cut the paper from the roll a little longer than you think. I thought I gave myself about two or three inches to come up the back side of the door, I just barely had enough to come up onto the back face of the door. So don’t be afraid to give yourself more paper than you think you need.

Once the front face is all taped down, pick up the remnant of paper and hold it up to the back of the door. Find out where you need to cut to cover the exposed door, width wise. Lengthwise you will see that there’s not enough. And that’s okay. The excess width that you cut off will be enough to cover that bottom section and some pieces to patch around the other side of the door knob and anything you want to clean up (like painter’s tape that you used to tape down the front face).

With the pieces cut and ready to go, start taping those up. I started with the bottom so I could hold those pieces up with painter’s tape (which would then be covered by the larger back face paper). With these edges being seen (much like a present that you wrap in a piece meal fashion because of an oversized box or using paper scraps because you ran out of paper on Christmas Eve), use the clear tape and be as liberal as you would like to.

TIP: With the right printed pattern, it is possible to make everything line up perfectly and not have that piecemeal look. I had hoped that this candy cane print would have done that, but I got caught a few times where the stripes just wouldn’t line up.

Decorating the Door

There are so many options that you can go from here.

For example, one of the fads right for the last couple years is wrapping mirrors or paintings on the wall as presents. The door can be decorated the same way with ribbons and bows.

Don’t have enough wide ribbon. I found colored metallic duct tape in the auto aisle of my local dollar store. They weren’t on my shopping list, but I did take note. And if you hate ribbons slipping (like they will on a door), the metallic duct tape would be a perfect alternative because those “ribbons” will definitely stay in place once you lay them down.

Another idea is to take a poster board and make a “Do Not Open Til Christmas” sticker. (I probably won’t do it this year, but it’s on my list for future ideas.) Or an over sized gift label.

The Paper Bag Snowflake Video that I shared with you above was one video that my kiddos watched with me and they wanted to make those. So the snowflakes are my go to this year for decorating. It’s an easy enough craft that they can do with me. And now that I know how to optimize our production, even my young preschooler can practice his cutting skills and be able to make something for Christmas.

Please share with me your snowflake or door decorations.

How did these crafts go for you? What accent pieces did you use to complete your projects?

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2 responses to “Holiday Cover Up”

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    Pacific Northwest Event Design

    When I add the comment block, I hit the + (add block icon) and type “comments” in the search bar. The comment plug in is then automatically added into the post. (It’s a feature that is already available and no additional download was needed.)

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    iis iin fact a nice article, keep iit up.

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Desk Tree

This year is an interesting year to go into for Christmas. For some families, they are facing a tight budget and want to still have some wow while still meeting other necessities. Other families have taken the last few years to simplify their homes with a minimalistic look. And yet there are other people you will gift this year who are limited by space, be it home or office.

The first gift I want to present to you this year is the Desk Tree.

The beauty of the Desk Tree is that it is minimalistic in design and fits into small spaces at the same time. Not only that, but it is a blank canvas for other ideas that you already have in place for someone on your list. But I’ll come back to all these possibilities in a few moments. As well as the announcement of a special treat!

Let’s Make a Desk Tree

The fundamental components are the base, tree, and present. Everything else is completely customizable and based off of what you can find in your local shops or what you already have in your craft room. This time the only thing I purchased recently was the tree.

Other supplies I had on hand:

  • acrylic paint
  • paintbrushes
  • wood glue
  • Mod Podge
  • hot glue gun
  • clamps
  • craft paper
  • glitter
  • gold embroidery floss
  • styrofoam balls (different sizes)

Prep All Wood Pieces

I didn’t choose to sand the wood, because I wanted to keep rough surfaces for the wood glue to adhere to well. In fact, where I glued two pieces of wood together I roughed it up by scratching into the wood with a wood carving blade.

Option: you can paint the base before or after you glue on your tree. For the example in this set of photos, I glued the tree on first and worked around it. For the other copies I made, I painted the base first and glued on the tree afterward. The disadvantage of adding the tree first is that you have to have a steady hand as you paint around the tree. The disadvantage of adding the tree after the base is completely finished is that you run the risk of scratching the “floor finish” if you rough up the spot where you will add the tree.

Paint the Base

I could have painted the tree base before gluing it on. But let’s be honest, I didn’t think about it until later. So just know that it is easier to paint the tree base before you glue it, but entirely possible to paint it while on the base. Just remember to paint the tree base before you paint the floor. Because I chose to go with gold accent to my teal tree, the gold tree base paint doesn’t ruin or effect the floor at all since it blends in with brown. This is another good reason to paint the tree base first. If your paint brush slips, it’s not going to throw off your paint job. And as you can see here, in the first picture, I cleaned the gold off my brush by just painting it on the “floor” going with the grain of the wood.

When you paint the “floor”, paint in the direction of the wood. This allows you to use thin coats of paint (making it a faster dry time) and if the wood grains show through, it adds to your paint job instead of competing with it.

Picture 2 I took to show you that you have the option of leaving any decorative edges of your wood different if your creativity is taking you in a different direction.

Picture 3 shows you the direction that I went, changing the color of the pine to more of a mahogany wood color.

Option: Perhaps you don’t want to paint the base to another wood color finish, but have a wood stain in your garage. Go ahead and use the stain!

Stylize Your Tree Set

Sometimes you have to pause and put things together to see what direction you want to go with. Originally I had planned on painting my “present” and then add dots of glitter to make my own “wrapping paper”. Let’s just say that my polka dots looked like my preschooler made them. It wasn’t the vibe I was going for so I present to you my second option, glitter “wrapping paper”. For a different project, I might choose this option, but it wasn’t working for me either.

While I was staring at the teal tree with the “ornaments” that I put on it I asked myself what it was that attracted me to this tree. And the answer was the playful was that geometry was used. And then it hit me! I had geometric crafting paper.

As you can see here, the geometric triangles brought symmetry to a very asymmetric and quirky tree. And the crafting paper just made my job of wrapping this “present” so much easier.

Wrap the Present

This is simpler than actually wrapping your Christmas presents because you get to use glue!

Once I trimmed my paper (leaving the bottom exposed, with enough left over to wrap the top), I created the folds in my paper before gluing it down. The one thing I hate about gluing down craft paper is that if you have to lift it to reposition it, the paper doesn’t look as nice. So to avoid this pit fall, I made sure to make all my creases first. This allowed me to put the edge of the wood block in the crease and line up before laying down the Mod Podge.

Plus there is the added bonus of knowing where your finishing end will land. In this case, I started my first crease by thinking of this blind end finish and placing the paper edge on the corner of a short end. By the end of my creasing job, the tail end had the paper over lapping around halfway on that same small end.

Start by gluing the paper down with this small end tail.

Work one end at a time and smooth out the paper as you lay it down. This will prevent the paper from slipping, having bubbles, or making creases as you go around your wood block.

When you come to the end, your last flap will be the section that lines up with the short end of the wood block. Apply glue to both the wood block and on top of the paper that you already glued down. The “present” how has a hidden seam where you don’t have to worry about hiding a back side of the present.

Put this seam side of the “present” table side down and place a weight on top of the block. This frees your hands up to do another step of the project while the glue dries, keeps the paper from lifting or wrinkling.

Once this seam side is dry, you are able to know wrap the top of the wood block. For this step, pre-creasing will also make this step easier.

Fold the seam side of the paper down first. Then fold the other short side of the block down next. Finally fold the long sides down.

Reopen the paper and apply Mod Podge down on the full top of the wood block. Fold down the seam side. Apply Mod Podge to the paper of the other short side and fold it down. Then put Mod Podge on the paper of the long side flaps and press them down in the order that you folded them.

When you “present” top is wrapped, you will want to add a weight to the top until the glue dries. (This once again frees your hands up to work on something else of the project.)

You will probably find that you need to put the “present” in between two items to keep it from falling over. You will see that I put it between a craft bin and one of my bottles of paint

Finishing Touches

In order to tie in the glitter from the teal tree and the pain finish of the craft paper, I decided to add some gold glitter trim to the bottom of the “present”.

TIP: To keep the glitter from shedding, consider applying a top coat of something. It’s whatever you have on hand. If you have some glitter glue, that seals in the glitter you just applied without adding a dull layer over the sparkle.

Once the glitter dried, I opted to add an embroidery floss ribbon. All my ribbons were disproportionate to the present. And I didn’t have any tiny premade bows to stick on top. So if your craft room also is limited in tiny items, consider things like embroider floss, thin hemp twine, baker’s twine, or even sewing thread wrapped around a few times.

Depending on what you use to finish off your present will determine how you attach your present to the wood base. Ideally, you would want to add the present with wood glue. In this instance, wood glue would have created more of a mess to clean up than hot glue. I placed hot glue on either side of the floss so that the glue would balance out the thickness of the floss and make the present secure.

Gifting Options

Desk Tree is perfect as is for gift exchanges and teacher’s gifts. But it’s even better when paired up with the little something extra that just wasn’t enough on its own.

Here are two examples of adding a little something extra to a gift that can still be brought out year after year for holiday decor. Match this up with that perfect scented candle that you found. Or maybe that person you gifting only wanted a gift card. This is a festive way of dressing up a gift card!

No matter how you decide to gift this Desk Tree, you will not go wrong with this project!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Starting with Desk Tree, I’m going to make Limited Editions available of crafts that you see in my blog.

There are many people who would rather “I can make that!” But there are others who are not so crafty inclined. I don’t want you to feel left out on ideas that you love.

For right now, shipping is only going to be made available for the United States. And all purchases are only through my website, Order Here. I will keep you updated on any changes as they become available.

If you have any questions about Limited Editions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at info@pacificnorthwesteventdesign.com or here:

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Items used in the making of this project

These links are affiliate links to products used in this project. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links, but at no extra cost to you.

These are generic Jenga blocks that are great for crafting on a budget when your local dollar store is out of stock.

Last Christmas, my husband put these Dewalt clamps in my stocking for crafting. And they are definitely one of my favorite project tools.

At the time of this posting, this Mod Podge is on sale. There are many varieties and finishes, but I wanted to send you to the sale link.

I originally bought these Marble Tiles for working with HTV. But I’ve found that they have had other uses in my craft room, such as a weight for holding certain projects down.

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A Cup for Me and You

Being crafty, I love it when I have the opportunity to bring a craft to any of my kiddo’s class. This week I got to dress up and have fun in a 3’s Preschool Class for their Harvest Party.

Whether you’re a parent, teacher of a class, or helper in a co-op class, you find out real quick how quickly the sticker price adds up on crafts. Needless to say, a dollar store is very handy when gathering items for a craft, especially when you can find blanks that are in a bundle.

I found these cocoa cups and thought they were perfect for a craft. (The co-op preschool class that my kiddo is in is a wonderful blend where not everyone believes in celebrating all the holidays on the calendar. And I love these classes because there’s an opportunity to bring a little different.) So for this craft, I focused on embracing this comfort drink for the cooling weather.

For the mock up that I made for the teacher, I painted the mug with a single coat of sage colored acrylic paint. The one thing I love about balsa wood crafts is that it absorbs the paint and dries rather quickly with great coverage.

The next step was to add the whipped cream. For this I used hot glue and a cotton ball. For playing around purposes, to build up a 3d effect, I started with putting down a line of glue at the top of balsa wood swoop. I pressed the cotton down and pulled it up to keep a wispy and light effect. Then I added one more line and applied the cotton (continuing to pull it upward) and worked my way down to the lip of the mug. There were about 4 rows that I put in, with additional spots added, to fill in any bald spots.

On the flip side I glued on two sprigs of lavender before laying down the cotton on the back side. If lavender is not your thing, the mini coffee stirring straws would be perfect substitutes because they’re thin enough for the cotton to overlap without any bulges and gives the illusion of something coming out of your cocoa.

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To decorate the mugs with a fall theme, I also grabbed these rub-on transfers from the dollar store as well. Each packet of transfers was enough to decorate the packet of 8 mugs.

In order to prevent fussing with all the elements with preschoolers, I put a mug and 3 transfers (a large, medium and small) in an envelope. Mainly I did this to keep things fair so the first group of kiddos wouldn’t take all the large pumpkins and leave the smallest leaves behind for the last group.

Here’s the thing with these transfers, they take some work. My original expectations were that these would be true to their name and take a little bit more rubbing than traditional stickers. In fact, the directions on the back of the package inferred such an expectation. But that’s not what I experienced. They don’t rub on at all. You have to scrape these babies onto your surface. I used a plastic crafting scraper and that tool failed to apply the rub on. I didn’t try using a coin like a scratcher ticket, but that idea is still in the back of my mind. The thing that worked for me was scraping the rub on with my finger nail.

Even with a thorough scraping of my nail, the transfer didn’t apply fully on the larger pumpkin groupings. And this was my biggest disappointment. BUT the transfers are forgiving. You can line these failed transfer sections back up and apply with relative success.

My biggest tip with these transfers is to take your time and gently lift up the clear transfer sheet. If the transfer doesn’t release, put the transfer back down and scrape it some more.

The original plan was to have the right above picture the completed project. The fact that I could see the hot clue peak through on the cotton prompted me to pull out my can of spray glue and glitter. Just by adding this little additional detail was enough to transform matted rough looking cotton back into something frothy and light looking.

That and I like glitter!

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I kept this mock up to be pretty basic in design because I wanted it to be re-creatable for the preschoolers. Now if I were making this mock up for older kids or even a MOPS (or other ladies’) group then I would have dressed up the mug and made it more ornate with either some hand designs with acrylic paint pens, glitter pens, metallic embellishments, or so many other crafting items. In fact, I really wanted to take a small cluster of crafting fall leaves and make a little thin ribbon embellishment on the top of the mug handle.

There are other options for the whipped cream portion as well. I used cotton and my hot glue gun because I wanted the kids to be able to take their mugs home that day. But if you have more time with your class, you can use other materials and glues. I thought it could be fun using more glitter, or the tiny foam balls. Chunky white yarn could be amazing, especially for incorporating more whipped cream swirls. And I know kids would have amazing fun gluing marshmallows on top of the mug. (But I’ve seen kids pull off and eat food items off of crafts way too often. So I tend to opt out of that option. But… if I were to throw caution to the wind and let the kiddos play with marshmallows, then I would skip the glue entirely. Instead of glue I would use a royal icing. It dries like glue but is much more child friendly for those who eat crafts!

How did the craft turn out?

Oh my goodness! That day was just as chaotic as you think it’s going to be when you sign up to help in the class on a party day.

First, the schedule got blown out of the water and my party craft was slotted for right before the end of class, and parent pick up. I think it pretty much averaged where the kiddos made these mugs in about 3-5 minutes each.

Fortunately, this craft is easy to punt with and save time. First, skip the painting! Balsa is a wonderfully creamy color. And with the “rub-on” transfers, the focus goes to the transfers. To be honest, one of the girls really did beg to paint her mug the “pretty green”. She loved it and wanted it too. Fortunately the glitter saved me from a meltdown.

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Kids love glitter!!!

I probably should have sprayed not just the cotton, but the whole mug to let them glitterfy the whole mug in lieu of the painting portion.

For the cotton portion, I just stretched the cotton ball out and handed it to the kiddo. I applied a liberal amount of hot glue and let the kids put the cotton down. (There was no incident with the glue. This 3’s class did an amazing job!)

The last step was to spray the cotton with spray glue and send the kids back to the table to finger sprinkle glitter onto their whipped cream over a paper plate. (If you spray from the mug toward the top of the whipped cream, you keep the spray entirely on the cotton.)

All of the mugs turned out differently. Some added more transfers than others. These kids lost interest in the transfers because they were not able to scrape hard enough to get them to apply. So if you’re doing this for young children, find a tool that lets you (preferably the kids) to apply with ease.

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I wish I would have had time to take pictures of the ones that got made. This one was the one my kiddo made. Of course the one that followed me home was one of the less decorative one. So please don’t assume that this craft was too much for young kids. Time was the failure for this craft. My 6, 5, and 3 year olds were all excited for this craft and I stashed the extra mugs so that they could make them this weekend. I’ll update this post with how the mugs turn out when kids have time to do this project at their pace with the materials they want to use.

Now that November is around the corner, and winter on its’ heels, there is still plenty of time for a craft like this! Change up the colors and decoration add ons for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and even Winter Theme for January and February. Cocoa is something that kids love year round. (In fact, mine begged me for cocoa regularly during the summer!) So feel free to incorporate this easy craft into your curriculum or busy box for when you need something for kids to do. Or even do this yourself for those moments when you want to let loose on some creative steam but need to have it finished in a 10 minute crafting window!

Let me know how your crafts turn out!!!

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Comfort In a Jar

Hello Fall. Hello Soup Season.

I won’t even say what else comes with this season. Let’s just say that as a mom of three young children, I’m fully aware of what the change of season means. And this past week, that came and knocked the energy out of me. Shoot I didn’t know I had any more energy to be knocked out! I thought my kiddos drained it from me to fuel their never ending supply of energy.

And yet, I was so grateful to have this soup already canned up and ready to go in my pantry. The chicken stock I make, I add antiviral herbs to it. Let me just say that Lemon Balm is my new favorite antiviral herb to cook with! (In a few weeks I’ll share more with you everything I put into my Chicken Stock. You’re going to love it!)

I want to share with you this recipe for Chicken Soup that is perfect for those days where you need healing chicken soup but don’t have the time or energy to make it from scratch. You will absolutely love this because it takes only 5 minutes to warm up–the same amount of time it takes to make condensed soup from the grocery store. BUT it has less ingredients and more immune boosting goodness. And even if your sick days are few and far between, this soup is quicker to heat up than going through a fast food drive through. Plus as the added bonus of being that IT item to use up some leftovers you have sitting in your fridge on the day you crack open this jar of soup.

Yields: 7 Quarts of canned soup

  1. Clean your jars and lids.
  2. Prep your ingredients.
  3. Cold pack your chicken, split evenly between all 7 jars.
  4. For each of your ingredients, split evenly between all 7 jars. Start with the larger cut ingredients and end with the smaller peas and lentils.

(It’s easier to shake the smaller ingredients down into the cracks of larger ingredients than to shove the larger ones in on the smaller.)

  • Fill each of the Quart size jars with about 2 cups of chicken stock.
  • If you have Kosher or Sea Salt, you can season your soup now. Otherwise, do not put in your table salt or iodized salt. You will season your soup when you open you jar before serving.
  • Clean the rims of your jars with vinegar and then place lids and rings, finger tight.
  • Prepare your pressure canner.

Follow your canner’s directions for the correct process of canning with your canner.

For example, I am Sea Level – 1,000 foot elevation so I can the Chicken Soup with 10 lbs of pressure for 90 minutes in my weighted canner.

  • Once time is complete, turn off the heat and let your canner naturally release pressure.
  • When you can remove your lid, let the cans sit for an additional 10 minutes before removing them from the canner.
  • Allow your jars to sit 12-24 hours to seal. Then remove the rings and clean your jars before storing.

With new lids preserving your canned goods for up to 18 months, you have plenty of shelf life for this soup.

There are many options you have for this Chicken Soup.

  • You can season it and eat as is.
  • If you have left over rice or noodles in your fridge you can add those ingredients and still have rice and chicken or chicken noodle soup that is ready to eat with a 5 minute warm up on your stove.
  • With adding a thickening agent (slurry or corn starch) you can turn this into chicken and dumplings or a pot pie filling.
  • Maybe you have other small amounts of leftover meat, like Italian Sausage. You can use this meat to bulk up the soup, add some kale and parmesan and have a Tuscan style soup.
  • Or maybe you’re looking for something Latin in flavor. Grab some tortilla strips, grated jack cheese and add in Latin American seasonings and you can have Tortilla soup.

These ideas are a far cry from being authentic cultural cuisines. However I want to give you a few ideas on how you can turn one of your canned soups into a blank slate for some variety.

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I know a lot of us really do not have time to prep meals for our families. In fact “meal prep” might have a double four letter word effect in your ears. And that’s okay. For roughly the same time it would take me to cook a soup from scratch for my family, I can make 7 meals that I can crack open and serve dinner in less time than it is for me to go through a drive through. And it’s healthier for us.

To heat up this dinner in 5 minutes, this is all I do:

  1. Grab my jar from the pantry.
  2. Grab my soup pot. And turn my burner on high.
  3. Open the jar and pour the soup into the pot.
  4. Fill the jar with Water and pour into the pot.
  5. Put the jar in the dishwasher and set the table.
  6. Taste the soup to make sure it’s seasoned the way I want it. (Add salt, because I usually only have table salt readily available, so it got canned without salt.)
  7. And it’s dinner time.

If you have a college student who’s coming up on Mid Terms or Finals, this is perfect for them! Often times they’re up late and find themselves hungry after the cafeteria is already closed. This is something they can cook from their dorm room with a microwave or hot plate and have the brain food that they need. Or maybe they’ve caught a cold and need a little mama’s love in the form of soup. This is super convenient and perfect for a care package.

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Looking for a gift idea for this Holiday Season?

This is soup is perfect for the new mother getting use to having baby at home, an elderly family member who retired their pots and pans, someone who is an avid camper or loves cooking by camp fire, or anyone else who can benefit from a quick home cooked meal without all the fuss.

Maybe you’re the type of person who loves gifting food to a neighbor, friend, or family when they become ill. Here is a quick way of gifting all that healthy goodness without your schedule batting an eye.

I highly recommend this recipe for everyone!

Do you need another gift idea?

This one is personal and doesn’t require you to have a master’s degree in art to make!

Here are some supplies that you will need:

  • Canvas
  • Paint
  • Paintbrush
  • Clear Acrylic Spray
  • Chalk pen/crayon, Paint pen, Pastel, or like craft item you can write with
  • (Optional) Sponge, Paper towel, Napkin, or Tissue
  • (Optional) Embellishments such as pre-cut vinyl design

Paint a design on your canvas. You can do whatever design you would like. Here are some examples of canvases that I already have on hand. There are the canvases that my boys made 3 years ago.

And these are the ones that I have in the prepped stage for various projects that I have in the works. You can use coordinating colors, monochromatic colors, are shades for an abstract scene.

Let your canvas dry.

Spray your canvas with Clear Acrylic Spray and let dry. This step is important, because accidents happen and sometimes you want to “erase” a mistake. I’m a phonetic speller and sometimes I just get a word wrong. No worries. By having the acrylic spray dried before you start writing with your crafting pen of choice, you have the option of wiping away the mistake with a wet cloth. The only writing medium that gets to be a bit tricky is acrylic pens. That one you may not find having an “erasing” quality. Chalk pens and most pastels will generally work for excessive editing.

With your writing medium of choice write your message, series of quotes, words of encouragement, or whatever you’re inspired to say. When I made these gifts for nieces and nephews, it took about 7 quotes that I pulled from online to fill the 8×10 canvas with medium small print from top to bottom. You can write as large or small as you would like. Just be aware that the writing medium you choose to use will help you decide how small you are able to write. I used a chalk crayon that had a relatively large nib, so I wrote as small as I could and the words were as tall as the width of my pinky.

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Decide if you would like to leave your writing clear and readable or if you would like to smudge the words to make an added texture on top of the painted design that you made. This choice is perfect for the people who believe that their handwriting isn’t pretty. By smudging your writing, you remove the uneven, shaky, or other characteristics of your handwriting that you may be self conscious of. If you choose to smudge, I recommend printing out a copy of your message that you can give with your gift, so the recipient has the opportunity to read the love that you wrote for them. For direction of smudging, that is completely up to your eye. I personally like smudging my work from left to right because I love using horizontal strokes when I paint. I do have some pieces that the strokes are vertical and so my esthetic is to smudge vertical with those, so the “text” doesn’t compete with the flow. But you could choose to smudge diagonally, circular, zigzag… each direction you go will give a different feel to your piece.

Once you are done writing and/or smudging spray your canvas with the Clear Acrylic Spray again. This is going to be a critical step for you. If you chose to smudge your “text”, the spray will prevent further smudging. If you want to add vinyl or HTV on top of your art, this spray is going to anchor your vinyl down. I’ve tried applying vinyl and HTV straight on a painted canvas and both have peeled off, taking paint with it. But every time that I’ve used the Acrylic Spray, vinyl and HTV both stay on the canvas perfectly.

Embellish your gift. Your options are endless at this point. You can choose to make something and personal with just adding your recipient’s name. You can add scrapbooking embellishments with hot glue to add some glam or character. You could pray a frame with a metallic paint and make a modern framed art. Or perhaps you want to do four panels and keep them frameless. And then there’s always the option making a 3D piece using other crafting techniques, such as this.

If you find that you are on a budget this Holiday season, this is a perfect gift option for you. We are in a time in history where people need to hear how much they are loved and valued. So when you can poor into another person and share with them a hope of a future with them, it can hold profound meaning in their life right now. I have never before seen so many people facing suicide and thoughts of hopelessness like I’ve seen in the last few years. Sharing with someone how much they mean to you is something that you will never regret. And you never know that it might be the one thing that offers them hope in a time where it seems like everything is so wrong.

What is inspiring you right now? Do you have ideas sparking in your mind?

Right now I’m inspired with many of the changes that come with fall. This is the season that always has inspired me. In fact, my boys found a whole acorn that I so want to use as a piece of 3D art. I’m hoping I can find some more and have more than a single nut to work with!

Please comment below with what you want to make and even send me some pictures. I would love to see what creativity jumps to life in you!

Files used today

Spring Triple Panel comes with all you see here. Or you can select individual elements.

Jelly Fish element from my Jelly Fish Collection

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Holy Jam Batman!

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One of the first things you’ll hear when you start in the world of making your own jams and jellies is that you MUST stick strictly to the recipe or your jam won’t set.

And the first thing anyone will set out and do is try to take a single batch recipe and double it or triple it, like you’re making chocolate chip cookies. After all, if your family goes through PB&J like nobody’s business you really don’t want to make 6 pints of jam at a time. That would take forever!

Plus, if you have kids underfoot there is absolutely no chance you’ll get four pots of jam on your stove top. Because the odds are that you’ll have a four ring circus around your ankles and all your pots start a rolling boil at the same time. At least that’s how things would play out in my house IF I had to make jam one batch at a time.

Fortunately for us, my husband and house a lady who was selling off her jam inventory and gave us her large batch recipe. Unfortunately I can’t share that recipe with you because of a verbal agreement that we made with her. And that’s one thing about my husband and I, we keep our word.

BUT, it got us on the path to know that you don’t have to make single batch jams and jellies if what you are really looking for is to make one large batch and set your family up for a year’s worth of jam in one day!

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I’m sure that there are other large batch recipes out there if you took the time to search, but there’s not going to be many. One, too many people have a small business making jam for bazaars and other venues. And if you’re in the business, you’re not going to put your recipe online because that’s just not a good business model. Ball has an extensive jams and jelly section, but all of them are single batch. I haven’t had time to scour the pages of extension offices to see if they have large batch recipes. But I did find one rather quickly with the company that I buy my pectin in bulk.

Yes! You can buy pectin in bulk and at a far greater savings than buying the box of 2 packets of gel pectin at your local grocery store.

For the last several years I have been buying Hoosier Hill Farm Powder Pectin. They have an amazing product and I’ve preferred this over the gel/liquid pectin that I grew up using. It’s less mess. And like I mentioned above, it’s at a far better price than buying the same quantity in the gel/liquid form.

If you don’t have the time to search out your own large batch of Jam and Jelly recipe, you can use this one from Hoosier Hill Farm. You can go directly to the site through the link, but for your convenience I have it here:

Cooked Jam Directions and Recipes

  1. Locate and mark off fruit recipe on chart below. Check 8 OZ jars for defects. Because containers are not filled to the rim, one more container than the specified cup yield may be needed.

If jams will not be placed in boiling water bath, wash, scald and drain jars, or use automatic dishwasher with very hot rinse water. Keep hot.
If jams will not be placed in boiling water bath, wash jars and sterilize in boiling water for 10 minutes. Keep hot.
Wash lids and place in a small container. Cover with cooling water shortly before placing on filler jars. Always use new lids.

  1. Prepare fruit as directed in recipe.
  2. Measure amount of prepared fruit specified in recipe ingredients listing, pack solidly in cup. If measure is slightly short, add water.
    Place measured fruit in 6 or 8 quart sauce pot. Add lemon juice if listed.
  3. Measure sugar and set aside. DO NOT REDUCE SUGAR.
  4. Stir fruit pectin into prepared fruit. (Sauce pot must be no more than 1/2 full to allow for full rolling boil.)
  5. Bring to a full boil over high heat stirring constantly. At once stir in sugar. Stir and bring to a full rolling boil. (a boil cannot be stirred down). Then boil hard one minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
  6. Skim off foam with large metal spoon. Immediately ladle into jars leaving 1/4 inch space on top. With a damp cloth, wipe jars and threads clean.
  7. Immediately cover jars with hot lids. Screw bands on firmly.
  8. Place in boiling water bath carefully setting jars on rack in canner or large sauce pot of boiling water. Water should cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Cover canner, and return the water to a boil, then boil 5 minutes. (At high altitudes, increas boiling time by 1 minute for each 1000 feet above sea level). Remove jars from canner.
  9. Let jam stand to cool. Check seals. Jar lids should be slightly concave or remain so when pressed. Remove bands from jars. Store jam in a cool dry place. (small amounts of unsealed jam may be covered and stored in the refrigerator).

I added the pint yield for anyone who might not yet have the conversion memorized.

Tip: The above jam recipe is a little on the loose side for my taste. So by cooking it a couple minutes longer on the rolling boil will firm it right up. The next time I run this recipe I’ll rolling boil for 3 minutes instead of 1.

What I want to point out is that this recipe does set jam every time. AND if you take a look at all the measurements you will see that they are exactly doubled or tripled the original measurements.

Can I use grandma’s recipe in a large batch?

I have yet to find any real information that says you cannot.

The rumor is that you can’t double a recipe because it won’t set. But here’s the deal, jams and jellies set because the sugar to pectin ratio is kept!

If companies dealing in high volume jams and jellies sales can make recipes in high quantity, you can too. You just have to understand the science and process behind making jams and jellies.

Pectin has to have a high sugar concentration to set. Low or No Sugar Pectin doesn’t have to have that sugar content because it has dextrose (a simple sugar extracted from corn and other vegetables). Because a sugar was already added into the Low or No Sugar Pectin, less is required when you you make your jam or jelly.

So if you are meticulous in your math for creating a larger batch of grandma’s jam then there is no reason why you can’t have success in doubling, tripling, or quadrupling grandma’s recipe!

Tip: Switch from measuring out your ingredients from cups to a unit of measurement, lbs. or grams. By switching to weight measurement you eliminate the dead space of your berries and the precise measurement of your dry ingredients. The reason why the set can be different in using the same recipe over and over again is because the weight of the measurements is different even if the look of your cup measurement seems to be consistent.

If you’re nervous about increasing your batch amount, you can take a trick from candy making to test your jam. Keep a bowl or glass of ice cold water handy. When your cook time is done, drop some of the jam into the water. If it’s not going to set, but remain a syrup, the jam/jelly will dissipate in water. If it is going to set, then it will gel up in the water.

I’ve known too many canners who process their jam and then wait until they crack open a jar to find that their jam/jelly didn’t set. The simple water test, or even setting a small quantity of jam in a bowl and putting it a freezer to cool down, will give you a rather quick indication if your jam/jelly will set or not.

If the jam/jelly doesn’t set or is too loose, then there was something wrong with the ratio of sugar to pectin. (This is all the more reason to find a successful recipe and translate it into weight measurements. Then you can recreate the recipe and have perfection each and every time.) Unfortunately I can’t advise you in adding more sugar or adding more pectin to your recipe because I can’t tell you where your recipe went wrong.

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So in this moment of uncertainty, what I would do is head this off in a scientific approach– set aside two samples. In one sample sprinkle in a little more sugar. In the other sprinkle in a little more pectin. What happens? Which one thickens the jam/jelly? Which one makes it looser or no change at all? Also remember that if you’re using powder pectin, it will take a little bit for the pectin to do its thing. It has to hydrate and react with your jam/jelly.

The same goes with if your jam/jelly is too thick. The reason for it being too thick is either because there’s too much pectin or the jam/jelly got reduced too much (you cooked off the water content). There are some fruits that have more natural pectin in it. That’s the reason why apples don’t need pectin to make an apple jelly. So if you’re working with a jam that has a mixture of apple in it, then this is one thing to keep in the back of your mind, the effect that pectin has on your recipe.

But as I mentioned above in the recipe Tip, sometimes the only change you need to make is how long you run your rolling boil for. The longer your rolling boil goes, the more your water content will burn off. Just be careful not to burn your jam on the bottom of your pan. That flavor will permeate through your entire batch.

Making a Memorable Gift

We’re living in a moment of time where family budgets are taking an extreme hit. And with the holidays quickly approaching us I want to share with you one quick idea on how to make a budget friendly gift that will leave a lasting memory. So whether you’re looking to give a hostess, thank you, teacher appreciation, Christmas, or white elephant gift you can take this skill of jam/jelly making and make a gift that will be appreciated!

Once you’ve processed your jam and the jar has cooled, take a selection of material that fits the person or gifting moment. You can choose to cut the fabric in a square or a circle. Depending on if you’re using a wide mouth or standard jar lid will determine what size of square or circle you will make. Another determining factor will be if you want the overlying fabric to hang low or high.

Tip: Set your jar upside down on the back side of our fabric. With a marker or chalk, mark out 2″ from either side of the lid of your jar. Draw out your circle or square. (The Christmas Truck print was a 2″ square. The Red Plaid was a square cut 3″ off both sides of the lid.)

Once your fabric is cut place it on top of your lid and secure it with the jar ring, string, ribbon, or even elastic. Decorate as elaborate of simple as your taste leans.

And now you’re ready for the holidays with simple gifts that don’t suck the joy right out of your festivities!

These cute Jar Labels can be found here in a bundle.

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