We celebrated Steve's birthday last weekend. He loves carrot cake, so I cheated (with his blessing..haha) and picked up these wonderful carrot cake cupcakes for his birthday cake. He loved this idea and we decided to dress them up with some cute snowman candles we received in a gift last year. Steve plucked some garnishments from our outside wreath to add into our holiday themed cupcakes :-) Steve received a lot of new goodies for fishing. He has been really wanting to get back into fishing every since we moved to Bend, so he was really spoiled with some wonderful fishing goodies. Oh, his mama made him the most beautiful handmade quilt that is made of the most gorgeous colors that fits our bed. As I type this I realize I should have taken photos of this lovely present and posted them to show you all, but maybe I'll just save it for my next entry :)
Here is a photo I captured of our Christmas tree fully decorated and presents are wrapped. Yeah!!! I wish I could have captured a photo that was more clear, but what-the-hey this is what I got...........and I think it looks pretty :-) I went with a "star" theme this year for my tree. My colors varied in rich reds and sparkly golds and silver accents. The presents sort-of overwhelmed our little tree this year..hehe. But, it was really good to be able have so much to give to those whome we love!
This is a shot I captured of our mantle. Decorating our mantle just as fun as decorating our tree....in my opinion :-) I love adding a collage of ornaments and garnishes to make this fun little area festive, eye-candy when you are standing near-by getting warm and cozy from the blustery winter weather!
Today, Steve mentioned that he wanted to add something personal to the gift bags he had already prepared for his co-workers. Yesterday, I suggested we buy plain white gift bags at Michaels and use up some of my existing Christmas paper to decorate and personalize gift bags to place the items he found for each co-worker. He had covered many wonderful gift ideas......all but the good stuff-----the sweets :-) And...what is better than sweet combined with salty?!? I felt inspired to create these cholate covered pretzles. I sprinked crushed candy canes on some of the pretzel sticks and dripped melted white-chocolate on some of these goodies! We were out and out about today trying to find something to wrap our treats in when Steve came up with the idea of going into a local favorite candy store and ask if they would be willing to sell some plastic wrapping? Well, Steve with this charming nature was able to score us enough to wrap all of our treats. They look so pretty in the clear wrap tied with red Christmas ribbon. Their tasty too :-)
We celebrated Steve's birthday last weekend. He loves carrot cake, so I cheated (with his blessing..haha) and picked up these wonderful carrot cake cupcakes for his birthday cake. He loved this idea and we decided to dress them up with some cute snowman candles we received in a gift last year. Steve plucked some garnishments from our outside wreath to add into our holiday themed cupcakes :-) Steve received a lot of new goodies for fishing. He has been really wanting to get back into fishing every since we moved to Bend, so he was really spoiled with some wonderful fishing goodies. Oh, his mama made him the most beautiful handmade quilt that is made of the most gorgeous colors that fits our bed. As I type this I realize I should have taken photos of this lovely present and posted them to show you all, but maybe I'll just save it for my next entry :)
Here is a photo I captured of our Christmas tree fully decorated and presents are wrapped. Yeah!!! I wish I could have captured a photo that was more clear, but what-the-hey this is what I got...........and I think it looks pretty :-) I went with a "star" theme this year for my tree. My colors varied in rich reds and sparkly golds and silver accents. The presents sort-of overwhelmed our little tree this year..hehe. But, it was really good to be able have so much to give to those whome we love!
This is a shot I captured of our mantle. Decorating our mantle just as fun as decorating our tree....in my opinion :-) I love adding a collage of ornaments and garnishes to make this fun little area festive, eye-candy when you are standing near-by getting warm and cozy from the blustery winter weather!
Today, Steve mentioned that he wanted to add something personal to the gift bags he had already prepared for his co-workers. Yesterday, I suggested we buy plain white gift bags at Michaels and use up some of my existing Christmas paper to decorate and personalize gift bags to place the items he found for each co-worker. He had covered many wonderful gift ideas......all but the good stuff-----the sweets :-) And...what is better than sweet combined with salty?!? I felt inspired to create these cholate covered pretzles. I sprinked crushed candy canes on some of the pretzel sticks and dripped melted white-chocolate on some of these goodies! We were out and out about today trying to find something to wrap our treats in when Steve came up with the idea of going into a local favorite candy store and ask if they would be willing to sell some plastic wrapping? Well, Steve with this charming nature was able to score us enough to wrap all of our treats. They look so pretty in the clear wrap tied with red Christmas ribbon. Their tasty too :-) 
