"A Few of my Favorite Things" Giveaway!!!

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things…”

Once upon a time I promised to give away a few of my favorite  things

and THESE are few of MY favorite things!

To celebrate & to say “thank you” to all who’ve supported me throughout my kitchen, & Mommy, & now blogging, adventures, I’m giving away a bunch of stuff I love:

The movie “Elf” because nothing gets me through a long night of decorating like Christmas movies and this is one of my faves!

A super cute magnetic notepad with tree-shaped sticky notes and a festive little pen. J Because we must always have something to jot our thoughts onto.

Sprinkles & super cute cupcake liners w/matching picks. Because sprinkles are a food group, it’s true, look it up. I’ll wait…. See?!! Told ya!

Adorable tags. I have a slight addiction to Christmas tags. Doesn’t matter how many I already have, every year I HAVE to buy more. So I’m sharing my addiction with you, aren’t you lucky!

Cutesy Christmas napkins!  Because they're napkins. What’s not to love?

A set of 4 Handmade Christmas Crafting books! Because I LOVE CRAFTS!

I probably own just about every available craft book in the land.

The 1^st one is “Handmade Christmas Crafts”, tons of great ideas!

The 2^nd book is “Handmade Christmas Ornaments”. You can see just on the cover several terrific crafts!

The 3^rd book is “Stocking Stuffer” crafts. So many, many cute things!

And the 4^th book is “Snowman Crafts”. An entire book dedicated to the man made out of snow! (and women, too. And snowkids? Sure!)

I also have for you 2 sets of Christmas cookie cutters. Because it wouldn’t be Christmas without roll-out cookies. Well, at least not in my house it wouldn’t. There are 6 cutters all together, and just in time for you to get busy!

Finally I have also a Gingerbread Boy-shaped cake pan. Because there are so many ways to decorate a Gingerbread person, why try to fit it all onto little cookies when you can go all out on a whole cake! (um, forgot to take a pic of the pan by itself, but it’s in the photo with everything else – oopsy!)

So, there you have it! So many of my personal favorite things, and all you have to do is just a simple thing (or two, or three…).

• Thing 1: Leave a comment here, on my blog, telling me your favorite thing about Christmas.
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• Thing 2: Share this Giveaway on your page, then come back here and leave a comment letting me know you did. (and thank you, in advance)
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• Thing 3: Follow my blog, leave a comment to let me know if you did that, too J
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• Thing 4: “Like” my page on Facebook, then leave a comment, here, letting me know you did. If you already do, please leave a comment telling me you already do.

You only need to do one thing (the comment about your favorite thing) but each additional thing will give you extra chances (plus they’re all nice things to do, and you want to be nice, right?)

Now for the formalities:

~This giveaway is entirely because I feel like sharing. I am not, in any way, being compensated from any of the companies or brands included in the giveaway.

~Giveaway is limited to the continental United States due to postal restrictions and other matters that I have no control over – and I DO like to have control of my favorite things.

~So go, now! Be festive! Share! And rejoice~

Oh, and do it before midnight on December 1st to be eligible to win!

Thank you!!!

Making Cakes & Fighting the HalloThanksMas urge!

Every year I battle the “HalloThanksMas” urge. You know, that overwhelming need to decorate for Christmas before you’ve even finished putting away the Halloween stuff.

Last year I gave in, I caved, my tree was up on November 1^st.  But since I was getting so much: “Shame on you! Every holiday deserves its own time!” & “DON’T RUSH ME!!!” feedback, my little one & I TP’d the tree so it would feel more like leftover Halloween tricks rather than hurrying Santa. Of course the moment Thanksgiving was over we stripped that TP off and went full-on Christmas glory.

I should mention, in my defense, that I get very busy this time of year and want to have ample time to decorate and enjoy the sparkle of Christmas without “trying to fit it into my schedule”. Also, I adore Christmas and all that goes with it – the crazed shoppers, the decorations, the crafts, the gift wrapping, the cookie exchanges, the whole feeling of LOVE and FAMILY that the Holidays seem to bring. Not to mention the “Elf on the Shelf” and the wonderous, magical powers he holds over all small children with the ever-threatening “Hmmm, what do you think Elfy will have to report to Santa tonight?” Yeahhhhh, that’s what it’s all about.

This year I’m fighting the urge. It’s already November 7^th, the Halloween decorations are packed up, leaving only a few random pumpkins, leaves, pinecones, turkey crafts, and cornucopia’s to represent Thanksgiving. My plan is to leave those fall decorations alone until the 25^th then engage in an all-out fury of decorating. A veritable Christmas tornado, if you will, to get it all pretty before the madness of cookie season sets in. I’m not gonna lie, I may not make it. But at least I have a plan… and chocolate, plenty of chocolate.

I’ve done most of my shopping to keep myself super busy, ya know, so I wouldn’t be tempted to decorate “just a little”, but I don’t know how long I can last. I mean, I only have so many hiding places before I need to start wrapping gifts, and if everything is wrapped then surely I’ll need a tree (or two) to put the gifts under, right? Ok, ok, stop now! Before I go hunting for the trees.

I've also kept myself busy with caking. Have I ever told you how much I love it when someone orders a cake, gives me the theme and maybe an invitation to work from, and then says "Go!" and I get to do my thing?!?!?! Well, I love it! Here are a few examples of me doing my thing from the last couple weeks...

It's like a little gift when I get to do it however I please (for the most part, anyway). 

Oh! Speaking of gifts, I will be posting a “Few of My Favorite Things” giveaway later this week – and it’s ALL CHRISTMAS stuff! (I gotta get my merry on somehow!) So keep your eyes open for that – I cannot wait! I love gift-giving, I love wrapping and ribboning and shopping for those special things that I just know will make someone happy J

I know I’m not the only one who jumps the gun on decorating (my SIL already has trees up), when do YOU do it?



Zombies - vs - Hello Kitty

Ok, so I’ve made it to my second Blog Post. Yay, me!

What I’d like to do today is tell you about something I posted recently on my Facebook page. Last week, while grocery shopping with my 5yr old, we came across something kinda cool. My son said to me: “Mommy, you need this cookie cutter!” and just as I was about to ask him to put it back (because Lord knows Mommy already has a bazillion cutters), I looked down and noticed he was handing me an upside-down skull cutter, but I saw something very different, so I bought it. Then I posted this photo on my page ~

It was so much fun watching everyone try to guess what I saw! So many people saw something completely different. Yes, some very unique & colorful ideas, indeed J

This is what my brain saw (brain saw? Ha, being a Zombie lover, that makes me giggle.) Anyway…

Nobody guessed it would be Hello Kitty in a pumpkin! It’s exactly what I’d imagined in that moment at the grocery store. Whatcha think? I LOVE repurposing cookie cutters, it’s like a fun little challenge for myself. I do it with those shaped cake pans as well. I cannot tell you how many ways I’ve used my old Dora pan! Wait.. whaaat? To make a cake!!! How many ways I’ve used it to make a cake! Get your minds out of the gutter already! Sheesh.

I made these little dancing Skelly Guys, too. Looks like they're scaring the bezeezes out of ol' Kitty!

Oh, I nearly forgot to wish everyone a Happy Sweetest Day! (yesterday)

Here is what I gave to my Sweetie ~

Yes, we share our Zombie Love <3



My very first blog post - yipes!

Ok! So here I am. BLOGGING!!! No way I ever thought I’d be a blogger. Ever. But I was seduced by all the fabulous blogs I currently follow and I just HAD to have my own.

So, what’s next? I guess I’d like to get my feet wet by sharing some photos of a few of my favorite creations… if I can figure out how to do that! Cross your fingers….

I made this fun pumpkin cookie a few weeks ago. It’s now one of my favorites J

I did it! Ok, enough freaking out. I can do this.  Every year I feel like I need to try something different for each holiday or celebration. Who wants to make the same old designs over and over? Not me. So I thought I’d give edible image cookies a try…

And here’s what I came up with. Now I’m addicted to using edible images on cookies.

Also, I’m addicted to GLITTER!!!

I made a few new Halloween cookie collections this year. But I’m not through yet, I mean, we still have a couple more weeks, right?

See what I mean about the glitter? I am now glitterizing everything.

Is that even a word? Glitterizing? Oh well, it is now.

Alright, I think that’s enough photos for today. It’s time to see if this thing actually flies!

Drop me a comment, if you’d like, and let me know how I did! (Be kind, or I may never blog again. And that would be sad.)