black & white new year’s

I love masquerade parties at New Year’s Eve. A pretty dress + A pretty mask = A happy girl.

These are a few of the ideas I picked up at Pier 1 Imports. The masks drew me in and then the rest just came together. I think my absolute favorite item on this board is the black and white stripe wine/bottle stopper with a close second the chalkboard bottle marker. Both can be used throughout the year and will look fabulous in my kitchen!

As always, I hope you’re inspired! Oh, and no… Pier 1 didn’t ask me to write this. These are just my opinions. {smile}

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merry Christmas, love the Byers

I can’t believe it’s already Christmas Eve 2011. The babes, hubby and I are knee deep this morning in the Christmas spirit decorating gingerbread houses and watching Christmas movies. This afternoon we’re headed to a Christmas service at our church and then back home to open one gift {giddy with excitement}, eat cookies, leave a few for Santa and get to bed early!

I pray that each of you have a wonderful Christmas, remembering the true meaning of this precious holiday. And by the way, if you don’t get what you want in the morning, don’t get grumpy… you can always buy it next week. {wink}

Much love and Merry Christmas from the Byers Family!

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easy last minute Christmas crafts

With only a few days to Christmas and the boys out of school, we plan to host a cookie decorating party with a few close friends, make fun crafts, color in our coloring books, eat sweet things until our teeth hurt, etc. etc. {wink}

And these are a few of the fun ideas that we might try:

Reindeer ornament craft from Little Bit Funky; Winter wonderland snow globe ornament from Family Fun; Wishing spool from Family Fun; Construction paper wreath from Our Small-Town Idaho Life; Cork reindeer craft from Make The Best of Things; Print and build a printable nativity set via How About Orange; Straw Christmas tree craft from Reading Confetti

For more ideas, visit my Christmas ideas board on pinterest. As always, I hope you’re inspired to craft, bake and create!

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simple Rudolph cookies

I love to bake with my boys, especially at the holidays. After seeing these fun and super simple Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cookies on pinterest via Meet The Dubiens, I knew the boys would love being able to make cute cookies without a ton of icing work. See, they love the flour, the rolling, the cutting and eating the icing… but not necessarily piping the icing. {wink}

We prepped our area (I typically just flour our granite countertop) and pulled out a ton of cookie cutters.

Then my little one remembered to grab his apron… or maybe I reminded him as his cute stripe pjs from Target were getting slightly floured. I have pics of flour all over his cheeks too. He was trying to get low enough to see the thickness of his dough (so his cookies would bake evenly) and he put his face on his rolling pin!

Next we cut out all the shapes.

Then I reminded the boys that we had to chill the dough or our pretty shapes would come out of the oven as blobs. They understood and waited patiently… okay… they tried. Let’s face it, it’s not easy with the smell of gingerbread in the air.{grin} 

For the reindeer cookies we used chocolate (melted in 8 second intervals in a resealable bag and the tip snipped off) and Red Hots. A few lines and a few dots and we had adorable Christmas cookies!

As always, I hope you’re inspired to craft, bake and create!

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coffee filter cookie sleeve

For my most recent Kellogg’s Snackpicks.com article I created a DIY coffee filter cookie sleeve. Here’s how:

Just simple folds, insert your Keebler Chips Deluxe cookies and close with a band of patterned paper. Done! Hop over to Snackpicks.com to see more ideas on hosting a Santa inspired milk and cookies bar for your Christmas party. And visit the shoppe for all of our printable Santa party decor.

As always, I hope you’re inspired to craft, bake and create! 

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