Getting organized for a Pintastic Christmas

Here in Alberta, Thanksgiving is over and the first snowfall of the year is resting on pine boughs all around town making it feel a lot like Christmas.  My teenage daughter was humming Christmas carols and asked if we could make some Christmas cookies.  I thought it was a great idea and I knew just the recipe I was anxious to try.  SnickerSnaps or GingerDoodles.  I vote SnickerSnaps, I just love the way it sounds, fun and silly!

I only followed the instructions for mixing them together and baking.  I used the snickerdoodle recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book  , (which isn't really new because I got it 16 years ago) and I have my own Gingersnap recipe that I love and have adjusted to my liking.
       I found it kind of hard to mash the two together without the sugar coating disappearing, it takes a gentle touch and a little patience and time.  They turned out alright, but I wasn't crazy about the flavour combination.  They look kind of interesting, but they didn't make the list for this years Christmas baking.

The other thing I got started on was using a Christmas Organizer.  I was a little behind because this one starts in the beginning of October.  I thought it would still work out, so I just highlighted the things that I wanted to do, grabbed an empty notebook and got to work.  I love it, I can't believe I have never done this before, what a concept to think about everything you want to include in a family tradition Christmas and budget and plan for it!  It took less than 10 minutes to print and cut out the organizer using a papertrimmer and corner rounder punch.

I got to work and made my gift and card lists, looked for ideas on Pinterest on what homemade goodies, crafts and gifts I would like to put together this year, froze some cookie dough with baking instructions on the bag so I wouldn't have to look it up later and made some cards.  You better go get started, it feels great to be thinking about Christmas again.

I have been spending so much time gathering and organizing pins on Pinterest that I decided it was time to start incorporating some of these fantastic ideas.  You can follow me I decided to pick one or two pins to do each week.  Sometimes it might be a new recipe or scrapbook layout others will be crafting projects or organization ideas.  I am having so much fun doing these I wanted a way to share my success with others so I created this blog.

Both projects I did this week are pins from my Halloween board.  The first is a quick, simple yet sweet, ruffle pumpkin from cleanandscentsible.blogspot.ca .  You will find a great photo and instructions there.  I changed only the size and added tendrils  because my teenage daughter pointed out that pumpkins had vines and mine were missing so it looked more like an apple and who doesn't love little curlies!  I used a 5" ball and 3.5" circles.  If you do the bigger size you will need 10-11 sheets of felt.

For the second project I took my inspiration from something I had seen before on the internet and in magazines.  You can find an example here.  I made mine a plaque rather than blocks only because that is what I had lying around.  I just chose the colours I wanted, or had on hand, cut my letters using my Cricut then inked the edges.  You can add as many or little embellishments as suits your style.  Once each panel was how I wanted it I covered the whole thing with Mod Podge, first the board then over top the whole project.