Heavenly Strawberry French Toast...

If you are looking for something to make for Christmas morning that will impress anyone, this is your lucky day.  My mother-in-law makes this for us every time we come visit.  I can't even tell you how good it is, you'll just have to try it.  First start with a loaf of Hawaiian bread or the cinnamon swirl bread.  The cinnamon is my favorite.  Then slice strawberries about 1/2 inch thick.

Next you need to make the cream cheese filling:

Mix 8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 C. powdered sugar

1 TBLS vanilla

1/2 TSP Cinnamon

Spread on two pieces of bread and layer with spread and sliced strawberries.

Then you can make a traditional french toast egg/milk mixture.  My mother-in-law only uses egg whites.  So probably about 7 eggs and a quarter cup of milk.

Then carefully dip both sides into egg mixture and slap it on the grill.

For the delicious strawberry syrup in a blender blend:

1 1/2 cup of strawberries

Pour into a saucepan and add 2 TBLS concentrate Orange Juice and 1/2 C. of maple syrup

Once heated through drizzle on top of your french toast and sprinkle powdered sugar.

I promise this will become one of your favorites!



Christmas Decor...

Shutterfly Christmas Cards...

It's seems like such a stressful thing every year to get family pictures taken, but I'm always happy with the outcome and love to pick out the Christmas cards.  My favorite place to use is Shutterfly.  I've used other places online in the past but they usually only have like 5 good ones to choose from that are really cute, and the rest are really cheesy looking.  Shutterfly has the most unique Christmas Cards and Holiday Cards and I've shopped around.  My favorites so far are...

Candy Boxes Christmas Card

Cool Blue Holly Christmas Card

 Modern Damask Red Christmas Card

Snowflake Sprinkles Christmas Card

                                                                               and

Peppermint Pink Christmas Card

They have over 800 styles to choose from.  It's going to be really hard for me to choose my most favorite one.  I like the ones with multiple pictures so you can use more than one family picture, but I also like the look of a big single picture. Another great idea for a gift is to make a shutterfly calendar for 2011 using family pictures.

To learn how you can get 50 free Holiday Cards go HERE.



Christmas Wreath Idea...

I made this wreath by using garland I wasn't using.  I wound it around twice and tied it in some places to keep it's shape.

Ok, so Walmart has super fun sparkly sprigs and ornaments in a rainbow of colors.  It took me forever to decide which ones to use.

For the sprigs I chose red, white, and green and wrapped them into little bunches and hot glued them into the wreath here and there.  But first I took my dollar store ribbon and looped it in and out around the wreath using hot glue.

Then I contined with the sprigs.

I loved this sparkly blue sign that they had in 6 different colors. 

Then I took my dollar store ornament and hot glued them here and there around the wreath.  Then I took white ribbon and tied it to the bottom of the wreath and attached the ornaments to it.

Some of you might notice that I painted my hideous security door blue.  It was an aweful off white and so I sprayed it brown and then dry brushed blue on top.  I was so sick of putting cute wreaths and decor on top of such an ugly door.

I found the most perfect garland that matched my wreath for around the door at Home Goods.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

 My tree is kind of candy cane themed.  I'd say about 85 % of my tree is from the dollar store.  Everytime I go there I always grab more ornaments.  We upgrade to a taller tree last year so I had to add alot more to fill it in.

I love how a Christmas tree can make a home feel so cozy :).

Using old picture frames and free christmas printables...

First of all you need to go over to Craftily Ever After to see all the cute free printables that are available.  She has really cute Christmas ones right now.  I grabbed two old black picture frames that were hiding in the corner of my garage and wanted to use them to make cute Christmas displays.  So I used two of the  free Christmas printables from Craftily Ever After and taped them to the middle of some Christmas paper that I had.  Then I just taped them both on top of the old picture I already had.  I still like the mats. 

Then I hot glued ribbon around the edges and added buttons to one of them.  So EASY.

And whala!