‘Tis the season for gift giving, friends!  Homemade, heartfelt gifts are my favorite this time of year…especially if they are the type of gift that keeps on giving.

I don’t know about you, but when my little family gathers together for dinner, it is usually my most favorite time of the day.  It’s a time for us to relax, laugh, tell stories and catch up on the day’s ups and downs, not to mention that it is good for our spirit, brain and health.  I’m blessed because I have great memories of my family gathered around the dinner table growing up, so my hope is to give my children the same warm feeling.  Sure, there are some days when eating together just isn’t possible, but we try really hard to make this a big priority in our home.

I created the ‘dinner table question cards’ jar as a fun way to kick off family conversations. This is a PERFECT gift to give this holiday season.  Not only is it something sweet and homemade, but like I mentioned, it truly is the gift that keeps on giving.  I’m making six this year!

Materials:

One large mason jar with lid (I bought a six pack of the green “vintage” type which are superrrr cute and can be found at any craft store or super store)

Swatch of fabric

String (I used bakers twine)

2 playing cards (or any other type of gift tag)

Scissors

Glue gun (and a glue stick or Elmer’s bottled glue)

FREE PRINTABLE (click here ->) dinnertablequestioncards containing 3 sheets of questions cards and 2 tags (I should add that the question cards that I typed up are appropriate for young children and or middle school aged children).

Instructions:

First cut your fabric swatch so it’s a little bit bigger than the lid of your mason jar.

Next, hot glue the fabric to the top of the lid.  Do this by applying a ring of glue by following along the little ring indent on the lid.

Stick the fabric to the lid- make sure you stick it to the BACK side of the fabric.

Next, glue the ring to the lid/fabric.  Do this by applying a ring of glue by following along the little ring indent.

Push the lid/fabric onto the ring and hold until it is secure.  You may have to cut away any extra fabric.

It should now look like this.  (I decided to spray paint my ring before gluing all of this together- if I were to go it again though I wouldn’t have because it’s already starting to chip)

Next, cut out your ‘question cards’

After they’re all cutout, fold them in half and put them into the jar.

Now cut out the tags found on page 3.  There is a ‘front tag’ with the description, “dinner table questions cards” and a ‘back tag’ which are the directions to the jar.  After you have them cut out, glue the tags to each playing card.

Next, glue the playing cards together to create one tag to tie onto the jar with your string, like this.

Annnnnd you’re done!

I hope this jar being lots of smiles to each and every one of you.

Merry Christmas!

XO!

LynMarie’s Holiday Mocha Punch
Serves: 12

INGREDIENTS:
4 cups LynMarie’s Holiday Blend (Your choice! I prefer the Winter Fantasy)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder (I used dark cocoa powder.)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
1½ quart vanilla ice cream
1 cup (or more!) whipped cream for topping
additional cocoa powder and/or cinnamon for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS:
Make coffee base by whisking together hot coffee, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and cinnamon until combined. (If making ahead, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.)
Combine coffee base, milk and ice cream in a large punch bowl or pitcher. Stir gently until ice cream melts.
Serve topped with a dollop of whipped cream, sprinkled with cinnamon and/or cocoa powder.

I hope you enjoy this yummy LM inspired drink as much as my family and I do! Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season!

One room I always try to decorate during this time of year is my kitchen.  It sounds kinds funny, but I truly spend most of my time here, so to sprinkle it with holiday cheer is always kind of nice.

Pretty much, I purchase a few poinsettias, stick some red Christmas tree bulbs here and there, and hang a couple banners.  My favorite banner is hanging over our sink, and it’s made up of our family Christmas cards throughout the years.

Since the banner above the sink is my favorite, “Christmas touch” to the kitchen, I’ll explain this first.  I’ve shared this idea with a few friends and everyone seems to really appreciate and love this simple idea!  All I do is save one of our Christmas cards that we mail out to friends and family each year, and clip them to a piece of bunting (or string) with clothes pins.  I usually decorate the clothes pins to give them an extra little holiday touch.  The kids especially love looking at all of the pictures throughout the years :)

Another little thing I do is add red Christmas tree bulbs and berry twigs to flower arrangements that I already have out.  This takes about 2 minutes and can cost nothing if you’re like me and save random pieces of old flower arrangements.  If not, you can find things like this practically anywhere:)

Of course I have a coffee station in my home and all I do here is add red and green paper straws to my jar.  I also always purchase a calendar from Rifle Paper Co. each year to hang in my kitchen, which always has gorgeous floral illustrations each month.  You can see part of the December page above and it truly is like a little piece of seasonal artwork.

Next to the stove I always keep my cookbooks and recipe box handy.  Obviously I don’t really want to mess around too much with this area, as I use these things a lot and I’m use to them being here, so all I did was add a few Christmas decorations like the red and white striped tree, the white poinsettia and the red bulbs.

Again, I didn’t go out and buy another floral arrangement here; all I did was add some red berries to the one that was currently already there (ps- don’t you love my Momma’s old recipe box? Its one of my favorite things in the kitchen).

Instead of keeping the poinsettia in the bright green foil, I took it out and placed it into one of my white mugs.  To me this gives it a little classier touch.

Behind the stove I have a few frames, and I added a green wreath where again I incorporated red berries to make it a little more “Christmas-y” as well as a little “joy to the world” banner that I made a few years ago.

For the banner, I used green card stock, some red playing cards, and letters that I printed out from my computer that I punched out with shop’s large flower circle puncher.  After you print and punch out the letters (I can’t remember the specific size of the letters, but the puncher is at the shop if you ever want to borrow it while you’re there!) simply glue them to the red playing cards and then again to the green cardstock.  Make two punches at the top and string through your jute string.  Bada bing, bada boom.

So there’s my little take on Christmas in the kitchen.  Sorry the pictures are a bit grainy; it’s been so gloomy here today and the iPhone camera can only do so swell:)

I’d love to know what you all do to add a little Christmas spirit to your kitchen!

xo!

Hi friends!  Gah!  Sorry it has taken me soooo long to get this post up.  I made these flowers for LM’s store front windows over a month ago and I’m SO happy that so many of you enjoy their beauty.  Steph and I adore dreaming up little projects and ideas, and creating things for our shop- it’s the little things in life that we truly believe can brighten someone’s day!

Okay so this is what I did to create these beauts.  I ended up creating my own pattern and technique because I couldn’t find anything elsewhere that worked. The pattern/technique in this tutorial is for a MEDUIM tissue paper flower.  If you want to make larger or smaller flowers you are going to do the exact same thing but obviously on a larger or smaller scale.  In the shop we have small, medium and large sizes hanging in the windows.

MATERIALS:

Glue gun

pencil, ruler, scissors

tissue paper for PETALS (one package of 8 sheets will make 2 MEDUIM flowers)

tissue paper for CENTER (yellow is the best color for this)

brown grass (you can find this at any craft store)

*As I mentioned above, one package (of 8 sheets) tissue paper will make 2 MEDUIM sized flowers.

DIRECTIONS:

First, unfold all 8 sheets of tissue paper and lay flat.  Fold the stack in half and cut the sheets in half all at once.  Now you have two even stacks of 8 sheets of tissue paper.  Each of these stacks will make one MEDIUM flower. You only need one of these two stacks for this tutorial (so set the other one aside- you wont need it until you’re ready to repeat this whole tutorial and make another flower)

MAKING THE PETALS:

Take the stack of tissue paper you are going to use for your flower and cut in half again like this.  We will use these two stacks of tissue paper to make large, medium, small, and tiny size flower petals.

Next we will draw the largest size petal on the top sheet of one of the two stacks.  You don’t need a template for this, I promise!  Just use your best judgment and use as much of the space on the tissue paper as possible.  You can do it!!  I started by drawing the widest portion of the flower petal first at the top.  Then, I simply narrowed the lines down to complete the petal. (Again, you’re drawing this on the top sheet of the stack so that way when you cut them out all at once you will have 8 total)

Take your other stack of tissue paper and cut in half again.  Draw your medium sized petals on one of the stacks, and then both the small size petals and tiny petals on the other stack (again, you don’t need a template to draw these petals, they don’t have to be perfect)!

After you cut out all of the petals, staple each stack together (each stack should contain 8 petals) at the narrow end.  Now we have our large, medium, small and tiny flower petals to make our flower.

ASSEMBLING THE FLOWER:

First, take the large flower petal stack and open it up- make sure you do this evenly so that there are 4 petals on each side.

Next we are going to fan and separate the petals.  Start by taking the first petal on the right side and fold up.  Do the same for the second and third petals, and leave the bottom petal where it is.

Turn your flower over and do the same for the other side.  Fan out the petals by starting with the top petal and folding up.  Do the same for the second and third petals, again leaving the bottom petal where it is.

Your flower should now look like this:

Next we are going to repeat the above steps for the medium, small, and tiny flower petals.

After you have the large, medium, small and tiny flower petals separated and fanned out, we will hot glue them all together.  We will use the large petals as our “base” and start by hot gluing the medium petals to the large petal base. After than glue the small petals to the medium, and finally the tiny to the small.

Your flower should now look like this:

You may need to go back through and hot glue the edges so that when your flower is hung, it doesn’t droop in areas.  Pardon my hot glue gun…she has seen better days :)

THE CENTER

We’re almost finished!  To me, the center of this flower is what makes it look natural.  For this we are going to start by unfolding 4 sheets of our yellow tissue paper, and drawing a 3′ diameter circle, and a 2′ diameter circle on the top layer.  Again, this does not have to be perfect.  Drawing it yourself will work perfectly fine:)

Cut out the circles (you should have 4 of each) and crinkle them up.

Then, layer and glue the 3′ circles to the center of the flower.  After that, do the same with the 2′ circles.

The center of your flower should now look like this:

Finally, glue some of your brown grass to the center of the yellow.

Annnnnd you’re finished!  The first flower you make will take a little time.  After you figure things out though, they will be very quick and easy for you to make.  Another tip:  Once I was completely finished with my flower, I curled the edges of the petal layers to avoid it looking so flat.  You can use your fingers to or a pencil to do this.

Hope you find this tutorial helpful!  If you have any questions please comment below!  Also, you can totally pin this into your Pinterest account for future reference, which we think is super cool.

xo, and happy crafting!

1:  a cute little gift card made especially for Mom worth one free 16oz. drink…..$3.75

2: a bag of our freshly roasted Mother’s Day blend flavored coffee, named “Moms morning blend” – a delightful Mother’s Day blend of cinnamon and buttery coffee cake crumbles perfectly suitable to grace Mama’s morning mug.

1/4 lb. is $4.00 and 1/2lb. is $8.00

3:  an adorrrable homemade pot holder/ oven mitt with a 1/4lb. bag of “Mom’s morning blend” flavored coffee tucked into the pocket …..$10.50

4:  homemade cuffed gardening gloves (because who isn’t stylish in the garden) complete with a seed packet and a Mother’s Day free drink card …..$10.25

Hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s day filled with lot’s joy and love.  We sure are grateful for all of you coffee-loving Mama’s out there.  (PS- we totally do not judge those of you who have/ are thinking about/ are going to buy any of these sweet little Mother’s day gifts for yourself). xo!!