It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Throughout the month, I have been snapping pictures here and there of festive things. I had the intentions of blogging about all the fun and exciting things that we have been doing, but lost focus and motivation. I found myself finally having a down moment. Can you believe it? I am sitting here on the computer enjoying a hot cup of apple cider, snacking on a Hot Cocoa Pop Tart and blogging while watching Ellen! Life cannot get any better than this.

Speaking of Pop Tarts, I started the holiday season making it my goal to find any holiday related food items! I did that in the Fall and really had fun with it. I am still on the hunt for Peppermint and Cinnamon Pringles, Christmas Captain Crunch and Gingerbread Oreos. I am pretty sure that those are impossible to find and would have to be purchased overseas. I did find them on Amazon, but after adding all of those items to the cart and seeing my total reach eighty dollars, I decided I better not place the order. Seriously not joking about the price.

This is what I have found so far. My favorite were the peppermint M&M's!

I normally do not like to toot my own horn, but...TOOT TOOT! We did such an amazing job decorating our house this year. I think that we might have given Hallmark a run for their money.


The inside

Continued

And outside.
Those are the deer that we got for ten dollars, brand new in the Summer! And my cute little blow up Santa was a Black Friday deal for fifteen bucks. I love a good deal!  

We have been spending our weekends doing holiday crafts, wrapping presents, drinking spiked cocoa and getting Christmas cards ready. Don't worry, we addressed the envelopes before drinking. We also fit in a date night and went looking at Christmas lights.

Every year during the holidays, we like to do a good deed for someone in need. A close friend of ours has been having a rough time lately and was in need of a pick-me-up. She was out of town this last weekend, so we went to her house and cleaned and decorated! Everyone needs a touch of Christmas in their life.

I have a lot of baking to do this week and we have a super fun weekend planned! Dare I say that I am happy? I have had a few things happen in the last couple of days that drug me down, but I did my best to brush it off my shoulders. I want to be able to enjoy the holidays with the husband and not let myself be depressed or negative about the small things that I cannot fix. Life is short, (I think we only have a couple more days until the end..) I am realizing that I cannot change people or make them like me. I cannot control the way that others make me feel. What I do know is that I can make they best out of the life that I do have.

Merry Christmas!

Bazaaring

Let me start by apologizing for my blogging absence. Life has kept me pretty busy lately and I find it hard to squeeze in time to post. So let me go back a couple of weeks to catch you up on life's excited ventures.

At the end of November the best friend and I thought it would be a good idea to do our first bazaar. I had helped out before with bazaars and knew that they were a lot of work and sometimes hard to make a profit. Hearing the excitement in the best friends voice about doing one, made it hard to say no. I asked her what we were going to sell and she told me that people would love my cupcakes and record bowls. I thought she was crazy! There was no way that someone would spend actual money on something that I made! One of my biggest faults is in lacking confidence. I get nervous giving my loved ones homemade items, I could not even imagine selling them to a stranger. We spent three weeks crafting our little hearts out. I am pretty sure that I burnt every single finger with the hot glue gun.

After crunching some numbers and realizing that we had spent a little more than intended on supplies, I soon realized that the bazaar was going to be more for our enjoyment than for making a profit. Normally this wouldn't have bothered me, but considering it was smack dab in the middle of the holidays and money was tight to begin with, it was hard to justify taking this project on. Especially since I had been really busy, it was overwhelming at times to try and fit all of this in. I am more than ready to have a free weekend one of these days! I am praying for after the holidays.

The worst part was that the bazaar took place early in the morning. My alarm would go off at 4:45 AM! My alarm would not normally go off for another six more hours because we are on second schedule due to the husbands job. For three days, my life literally felt like it was flipped upside down. I thought this would not bother me, but found it to be a lot harder than I had thought. I spent the day before the bazaar getting meals ready and everything done around the house so that I would not have to worry about it for the next couple of days. I ate dinner way earlier than I normally would and was in bed before the husband got home from work. I did not even see him for three days! I had been struggling for awhile feeling lonely and let me tell you that this did not help at all.

I found myself getting angry because no one else was sacrificing this much to do the bazaar. To do something that was not even benefiting me. I was upset, lonely, tired and broke. I only got about six hours of sleep during that time, which made it hard to be in the selling/friendly mood. Not everything was negative about doing the bazaar though. I loved the compliments that people would give us on our items. They actually liked the things that we made! We had a to-die-for lunch both days (a tuna sandwich on croissant) and made a few friends! I also learned that I could order a debit card reader for my phone (for free!) so that we could have people pay with their debit cards. I think we would have made more sales had we known this before doing the bazaar. I ordered one and now have it ready for the future (if we even do another one!). The debit card reader will also come in handy for those who might own me money. Whats that? You don't have cash? Well...I now accept debit!! Hahaha

Overall, after making our money back for supplies, paying for our lunches and the table fee, we were ten dollars in the hole. So basically we spent $10 to do the bazaar and made no profit. I really was not that surprised and expected a lot worse to be honest. It was a learning experience and really taught me a lot, not only about bazaars but about myself and also my friendship. I think that I would be willing to do another one, but would spend a lot less time and money on it so that we could actually make a profit. I would set up the table a little differently and have more items to sell. I would also try to get more sleep and drink some coffee in the morning! I also think that if we have more time to prepare, it would not be as overwhelming. We will see what the next holiday season brings, who knows? Maybe this is our new calling? Time will tell...



First on the list to make were cinnamon ornaments. The house smelled like cinnamon for days! It was really easy making the dough, although the kitchen was covered in cinnamon at the end of the day.

I added some glitter to a few of them to give them a little sparkle while hung in a tree.  

Cupcakes were next on the list and lots of them! Making two batches of two different kinds were not my idea of a good time and the sink full of dishes were even worse.

Vanilla cake mix with whipped vanilla frosting. Candy corn decoration.

Chocolate cake with mint filling.

And a peppermint kiss on top!

I individually placed each cupcake into a plastic cup (I found a pack of 10 at the dollar store!) and put into a plastic bag, tied with a ribbon. This made it easier to transport the cupcakes and I thought were more appealing to people. I will be doing this again for future cupcakes, I LOVED how they turned out.  

It only took us two hours to make 25 record bowls!

 

 

 

 

The best friend made these recipe jars, they were quite the hit!

 

I loved how the Scrabble ornaments turned out! I had started collecting Scrabble games in the Summer, the thrift store had some from time to time and were around $2. I wanted to make these to give as Christmas gifts this year and when the bazaar was brought to my attention, I thought these would be perfect to sell. Sawing the tile boards was the hardest part, I made the husband do it :)

 

 

Our table! Not too bad for our first time!