A Woodland Buffalo Plaid Christmas

I am so excited about this year's buffalo plaid woodland/lodge trend in holiday decorations and party supplies.  I have had a woodland themed tree for the last several years, and this year I was able to expand on the theme with new crafts and decorations.  

I am an ambassador for Oriental Trading company, and I love the new buffalo plaid line holiday products they sent me to share with you.  I had so much fun putting together all the crafts, treats and goodies for this post.  

Underneath my tree is a stuffed moose I bought on clearance after last Christmas. His festive scarf and hat match the decor perfectly. I also found a woodland themed popcorn tin at Aldi this year for only $3.99.   The pretty bags are from Oriental Trading. 

One of my favorite pieces in the buffalo plaid line is this three tiered tray perfect for serving multiple treats at your holiday party.  It is easy to put together and take apart for storing after the party. The trays are ceramic, and hold quite a bit  We made several woodland themed Christmas treats to put on the trays. 

Years ago when my daughter had her Woodland Themed Birthday Party, I bought the Ikea woodland cookie cutters. Our hedgehog cutter seems to be temporarily missing, and we added a few new ones (the standing reindeer, the deer heads and the unicorn) to our stash.  We also tried decorating them in homemade Royal Icing instead of frosting from the can this year.  If you have been following me for awhile, you know I really love unicorn.  Technically unicorn are woodland animals, so rainbow sprinkles made it to the dessert tray. 

One of my favorite candies to make is Simple Candy Clusters. These are so addicting made with cherries and cashews.  I served them in buffalo plaid cupcake wrappers from Oriental Trading. 

We also made Reindeer Pops, and Peanut Butter Cracker Cookies.  I did not realize until editing this post that one of the reindeer pops seems to be missing.. Hmmmm. 

On the wooden buffalo plaid serving tray, I placed some of my wooden reindeer I bought some time in the last few years, and gold glitter bottle brush trees.  The decorative pail is holding the small wood slices that can be used in crafts, for ornaments and more.  

I was not sure what to do with the antlers, but my daughter had a great idea.  She place them with some of the wood slices, and turned them into moose. I think we may have to grab the glue gun and make a few new ornaments for the tree. 

Another  craft I made was this reindeer frame. I found the cute paper at the dollar spot.  It looks really cute on the wall behind the tree.  

I was inspired by a much more expensive wreath at Target.  For this super simple berry wreath, I found a wreath and pom poms at the dollar store. I have had the bows in my stash for years. 

Another easy and fun to make woodland craft is the JOY sign I put on the wall near the kitchen  I wrapped cardboard in buffalo paper and wrapped the wreath in greenery. 

There are also a few new additions to our tree this year.  One of my favorite handmade ornaments I ever made, the sweet Snow Owl has a few new friends this year. My daughter has designed a fox, raccoon, cardinal, and squirrel.  watch for them to be posted in the next few days.  

I hope you enjoyed our Woodland Christmas, and all of the fun supplies from Oriental Trading. 

Read More »

Ideas for a Gingerbread House Party

This past weekend, my daughter had a few friends over for a Gingerbread House Decorating Party.  Everyone had a lot of fun decorating  their gingerbread houses, and making gingerbread crafts.  Almost all of our Christmas Party Supplies came from  Oriental Trading. As a Brand Ambassador for the Oriental Trading, I was sent these supplies to use at our party, and share them with you. I truly love their products, and I have been a long time customer before I even started blogging. (check out some of my childrens' parties featured on the blog from years ago).  

*Disclosure this post contains affiliate links 

To save money we used a mini village gingerbread kit instead of buying a large house for each guest.  The smaller houses were a perfect size, and not too overwhelming to make. 

One of the favorite crafts at the party were these gingerbread boxes that come in a kit of 12. Each box came with a page of foam stickers, and as you can see, had more than enough stickers that you can be very creative.  

I found this awesome gingerbread baking pan at my local Salvation Army earlier this year.  I decided to try it out for the first time with a gingerbread dough mix.  You will see how they turned out later in this post.  

Our kitchen table looked like a sweet shop explosion. At each table setting we had a small house, and the gingerbread crafts that we had already  put together. Since the kit only came with one bag of icing, I made a few small batches of Royal Icing and placed them in plastic baggies around the table. 

We had a lot of goodies to use on the houses. Most of the candy came from the Dollar Tree.  The gingerbread marshmallows were found at Meijer.   I placed all of the goodies in cupcake pans to keep them contained, and within arms reach to everyone.  A great place to buy cupcake pans so each child can have their own individual pan is at the Dollar Tree.  

The gingerbread goodies boxes were easy to put together,  and the perfect size for the guests to take home all of their goodies at the end of the night 

Here are just some of the crafts and goodies that the guests made and took home.  We used some of the leftover stickers from the Gingerbread Boxes and used them on foam gingerbread cut outs.  The papier-mache gingerbread houses can be found on the Oriental Trading Site as DIY House Shaped Boxes. (update- they are not currently available, but a wooden gingerbread house kit is) We painted them brown and then decorated. These house shaped boxes can be used for many different crafts, not just gingerbread houses.  The guests were also given a candy cane, and a special gingerbread sucker from Oriental Trading 

Here are how the cookies turned out with the Gingerbread Baking Sheet.  I placed them on the table so they could also be decorated (and eaten!) They turned out perfectly.  I had more dough left over that can be used a later time. 

I think  these plates are so adorable.  There were also on the table to place the individual cookies on while decorating.  

I think this gingerbread cookie looks good enough to eat! 

We have a small dining area, but it was decorated in full theme for the party.  The gingerbread wooden cut out ornaments came unpainted from Oriental Trading.  I had a lot of fun painting them, and bringing them to life.  ( you may see them in another post  later this week) 

Here is a close up of one of the ornaments. 

Another option if you would like thinker gingerbread men are these papier-mache ornaments

I adore this sweet Gingerbread Boy Pinata. We did not have the heart to break him.  I think we will use him as a decoration for awhile.  He is from Oriental Trading. (update- unfortunately he is not currently available) 

I painted the Gingerbread Face using a gold charger from the Dollar Tree.  I have had the stuffed gingerbread man for years.  I think it might have even belonged to one of my kids when they were little. 

The gingerbread garland matched the decor perfectly. 

Here are the finished houses that the guests were able to take home.  To make them more portable, they were on small foiled covered cardboard, or plastic plates. 

These adorable gingerbread rubber duckies were too good to pass up 

In addition to all of the goodies show earlier in the post, each guest also got a gingerbread rubber duckie, and a gingerbread cookie in a cookie take home box.  

It was a great night, and a great party! 

Here are a few more items you might be interested in for your gingerbread party. 

gingerbread village stand ups

gingerbread house door cover

color your own gingerbread playhouse

gingerbread party tablecloth

gingerbread nativity craft kit

Read More »

Elf themed Cookie Party

Recently I had the chance to have a cookie making party with my daughter, and two special girls in my life.   As you know from my Big Birthday Post that I have recently started working with Oriental Trading and trying out their party supplies. The movie Elf is one of my favorite Christmas movies, so when I saw all of their adorable elf themed party supplies, I knew I wanted to have an Elf Themed Cookie Party with the girls.  

In the picture above I filled elf candy buckets with elf themed treats. I could have filled them with candy, but I knew we would have plenty of sugar making the cookies   

Each of the girls got a couple of elf dolls, elf stickers, elf rubber duckies and Elf on the Shelf erasers 

The Plush Long Arm Elves were perfect to hang from their very own themed Elf tree  

The girls also got a plastic elf mug that were the perfect size to dunk their cookies in milk. 

We did not have the chance to use these yet, but were are going to use these cupcake collars and picks to make Elf themed cupcakes very soon.  

I am pretty excited about these Elf Photo Stick Props.  While the pictures I took with the girls that day, they  are too dark and blurry to post (I just do not have enough good light where I live). I am going to take these to a Christmas party I am going to this weekend.  Many of the guests will be the ones who attended my Big Birthday, and it will be at my friends house who does have good lighting. ☺ 

These elf treat boxes were really cute, and the perfect size for a candy treat. 

B was in a silly mood, and kept making faces in all of my pictures. She normally smiles and poses in pictures. At least I got one picture of her working on the cookies without her making a funny face. Here she is concentrating on which cookie cutters to use. That is more than I can say for my own daughter who still makes faces in every single picture I take of her. Hopefully she will outgrow that soon! (maybe I will do a post on it) 

I knew the girls were going to make a big mess, so I tried to organize my supplies. I put all of my Christmas sprinkles and cookie options on a tray to keep them contained and somewhat organized. 

I bought take out containers at the dollar store for the girls to take their cookies home.  I will definitely be doing this again when we bake. 

We ate some of the cookies on Elf themed party supplies,   

T cooperated with a big smile while showing off her elf goodies.  

If you are interested in hosting your own elf party or other Christmas theme, there is still time to get fun themed supplies from the Oriental Trading Christmas Store.  They have a great selection of party supplies, decorations, crafts and stocking stuffers for many different themes. .  

Read More »