~Christmas Table~

A quick peek of our table ready for Christmas! Well Almost ready,...I will hopefully be adding to it so stay tuned:)

~Great Room Christmas Tree~

Here are pictures of our Christmas tree in our great room. I love having a tree in here because we spend more time in here than any other room in our house. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the kitchen is a part of this room. We Fowdens do love to eat!

My Christmas dishes in my china cabinet:

Have a great weekend!

~Kitchen Greetings~

Merry Christmas from my kitchen to yours! Soon this kitchen will be filled with lots of yummy treats and yummy smells! I will try and find time during this busy holiday season to share some of our favorite recipes. Hope you are enjoying this special season as much as we are! See you soon! ~Hugs~ Denise

~ Before & After~

Hi Everyone, I just stopped by to post a quick before & after photo for you. (I think we all love seeing before & afters) Hope you like it. I'm off to buy ingredients for some hor dourves I am making for a party for tomorrow. See you soon. Before:

After:

Reminder;....You can click on any picture to see it larger!

~So Cute~

How Cute Is She?!? Isn't this the cutest doll? My sweet, sweet Mother gave her to me the other day and I just love her. I think she looks darling on her little scooter in front of our Christmas tree! I'm still a little girl at heart:) Have a great weekend everyone! Thanks for stopping by ~Hugs~

~A peek of our downstairs tree~

Hi Everyone,
 The decorating is continuing on here at Our Little Acorn Cottage!
Today I thought I would share some pictures of our Christmas Tree in our basement.
 I guess you could call the theme in our downstairs family room "Rustic."
We do have a bit of a wildlife theme going on which suits my family quite well.

 I used burlap fabric again this year but I tried something new, I ran strips of burlap around the tree and puffed it out in places like you would if you were using mesh. (Oh, by the way, you can buy mesh that looks like burlap now and I think it would look great and be easier to work with then the fabric.)

My husband and our 5 boys all LOVE the outdoors. They all LOVE to hunt and my Hubby Kent has a side job as a Hunting Guide. So here are a few pictures of our family room tree. Hope you like them.

I also made our family Christmas stockings with wildlife animals appliqued on them.

Even though our older sons, Dustin, Garrett and Chase have all moved out of our home, we hang their stockings along with one for Garretts sweet wife Kaylee at our house and Jolly Old Santa fills them every year:)

Well I hope you have enjoyed this peek at our family room tree and stockings!
 Santa usually delivers our families gifts under this tree and we love sitting down here next to a warm fire burning in our wood burning stove drinking hot apple cider and opening gifts!
(Also, for me, it's nice to have the mess downstairs and that way the upstairs rooms stay somewhat intact.)

 Thanks for stopping by and I will post pictures of my other trees soon.

~Hugs~
Denise

~Decorating in Progress~

Hi Everyone,
 Well the holiday decorating is going on here in full force!
I now have three trees up and decorated. YAY!
 There is still a lot to do but everything seems to be coming together.

I took a break from decorating today to put together some "Teacher Appreciation Treats" for our teachers in Primary and our Scout Leaders. I will be giving them to them tomorrow at Church.

They are containers full of Swedish Fish, (who doesn't love Swedish Fish?...yummy.)
 The card stock fish on the top reads;  You are o"fish"ally the best!
I think our teachers will like them.

 Not everything is turning out the way I had hoped, I have one problem that I am not sure how to fix.
After decorating our Christmas tree in our formal living room I stood back and looked at it and I was very satisfied,   (this is the first year that I added in brown and left off the white ornaments that I normally use)

Like I was saying, I WAS satisfied until,...I took a picture of it that night with the lights on.
 I didn't notice until I looked at the picture that one section of lights toward the top of the tree were OUT!
This is a pre-lit tree and I have no idea how to change out that small section of lights.
 I thought I may be able to sneek in a small stran of lights and plug them in and nobody would know but this is a rotating tree and therefor the cord would get tangled and pull out of the wall.

If any of you have a solution to my problem I would love to hear it!
 The other thing I haven't yet decided on is how to decorate the top of the tree.
Still a work in progress.

Oh, One more thing, do you remember these?

 Well they now look like this:

I love taking things I already have and changing them for each holiday.
 It's not only fun but an inexpensive way to decorate.

 I have more to show you so check back and have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week!
~Hugs~
Denise

Hi everyone,
 Well I hope you all had a great Halloween!

  This year was one of our best Halloween's, we did things a little different, we built a campfire in the back yard and roasted marshmellows and hot dogs and had home-made chili and hot apple cider, "yum"

I have really been enjoying my fall decorations this year but now that Halloween is over I am looking forward to taking them all down and start putting up Christmas!!!

 I am so excited to start my Christmas decorating and I am planning on making some changes this year so you will have to stay tuned and see how things come together.

 I will be posting pictures soon and hopefully keep updating as things progress.

 I thought I would show a couple of pictures of our trees from previous years just to get us started.

 This is our Country Tree that I did one year in our basement family room.
I decorated it with burlap bows and a burlap tree skirt. I wrapped some of the gifts in browm paper with red bows.
 I tried to keep everything mostly in the red and tan or brown colors.

And here is a picture of our Gold and White Tree in our formal that same year.

I have a few new ideas that I want to try this year I hope I can make them all work.

 I can't wait to see how you all decorate and get ready for the holidays.

The thing I love almost as much as decorating our home is cooking and holiday baking!!! (It's probably because I like eating so well:) I hope to find time for more blogging so I can share some of my favorite recipes!

 With so much to do I had better get started!

So I am going to put on my favorite Christmas CD and start putting away the fall decor so I can pull out  Christmas.

 Check back soon.....
~Hugs~
Denise

 

Hello Sweet Friends,

 I have been enjoying fall and fall decorating.

 As you all know I like to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving.
I have always said, "The best place to eat your Thanksgiving pie is right next to your beautifully decorated Christmas tree."
For me Christmas and Thanksgiving go hand-in-hand. I love them both!

 With the stores all getting their Christmas items out, now is a great time to buy fall items for your next years fall decorating.

 I bought this fall candle holder and the candle in it at Rite Aid for 1/2 price!

I wish you could see it better. The fall leaves on the glass are all glittery. (Is glittery a word?)

Any-who, I am really enjoying fall and hope you are too. With  cooler temperatures outside, the warm fall colors and spicey scented candles makes our home feel warm and cozy inside!

I look forward to seeing all of your holiday decorating ideas for this years Thanksgiving and Christmas season. You always inspire me!
 Have fun decorating and I will see you soon.
~Hugs~
Denise

~Before & After ~ Bookcase

 

Here are a few more pictures of the fall decor.
We had a little miss-hap with one of our dining chairs that is why one chair is different.
I have been watching for another matching chair but haven't found one yet. Of course I would love a new and different dining set but I'm sure it will be a while before we get one and when we do I will want to sell or give this set away so I really want to find another chair so that this will be a complete set.
 The wreath on the china hutch is leaf garland wrapped around a grapevine berry wreath. When fall is over I will remove the leaf garland and use the berry wreath for Christmas.

The wreath on the mirror I found on our shopping trip at Tai Pan.

More Fall ;)

Hi everyone, Here are just a few of my fall decorations. This is just a start. Tomorrow my Mom and my Sister and I are going shopping and out to lunch so I am hoping to find some more cute things to add to my fall decor. As I said before, I Love Fall! But, Halloween?!...I am NOT a fan. I do really enjoy fall though. I am hoping to get a new camra soon. The pictures I have been taking with my little camra are not turning out very good at all, sorry.

Along with decorating I LOVE to cook and bake! I have been getting some yummy recipes off of Pintrest and so far we have been happy with every new recipe that I have made. This is a Snickers Cake that I made recently for my daughter-in-law Kaylee for her birthday. We all loved it!

If you are interested in the recipe here it is:
                                                         SNICKERS CAKE
1 German Chocolate Cake Mix- Mix ingredients as directed on the cake mix box.
1 14oz bag of Kraft Caramels
1/4 Cup milk
1/3 Cup butter
1-2 Cups chocolate chips
1 Cup pecans
Directions: Mix together cake mix as directed on the box.
 Pour half of the batter into a greased 9x13 baking dich and bake 350 degrees for 19 minutes.
While it bakes, unwrap all of the caramels. (I actually cheated and bought caramel chips. It saved me so much time because they are small and not wrapped and they melt down really fast. Unlike the Kraft caramels.)
Put the caramels, milk, and butter in a sauce pan and melt over low heat stirring constantly until caramel is melted and smooth.
Pour the caramel on the cake as soon as it is done baking.
 Sprinkle the chocolate chips and pecans on top of caramel.
 Spread the remaining half of prepared cake mix batter on top.
 Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
When cake is cool, put some chopped up Snickers bars on top and then drizzle caramel ice cream topping and chocolate ice cream topping over the Snickers bars. ENJOY!

~HAPPY FALL~

Hi Everyone, I have been away from blogging for far too long but even when I'm not taking time to update my blog, I still take a few minutes here and there to look at your blogs and check out all of the amazing things you are up to. You all still inspire me every time. Like some of you, I have caught the "Fall Bug." I am just begining to decorate a little for fall. I love fall, the colors, the cooler tempatures, the spicy smells, ect. There is just real cozy feeling in the fall that I love and I want my family and friends to feel that when they come in my home. Looking at some of your blogs recently I was inspired to do a little something different with three of my glass jars.

This is what I started with.

Then I just took One bag of black beans, one bag of red beans, peas and popcorn.

First I put in the black beans.

Next I added popcorn.

Then I added the peas.

And then the red beans.

I put the candles back in and...

Voila! I think they look so much better don't you?!? So this is just a little start to my fall decorating. Thank you to Liz and her cute daughter Kaylee for this great idea! If you want to get inspired to start your fall decorating, I suggest you check out Savvy Seasons By Liz. Thanks everyone and HAPPY FALL!