and begin the voting

****** CONGRATS JESSICA!! :) I have a special thing on its way to you!

okay ladies.. here are our three ornament entries

We have Jessica at Living the Swell Lifeher darling birdy mod-podged delight...

We have KT Mac from a little bird told me so and her paper angels, and circle garland...

and last but never least

we have Chelle from Value of Cheerfullness and her super simple felt mitten

please scurry (fun word huh) on over to the sidebar to vote for your favorite! Voting ends on Christmas Eve!

All was merry & bright

*I know some of you prepared ornaments and life got in the way (isn't it fun how it has a way of doing that). Anyways, we are leaving entering open until Monday by putting a link here, and then Monday the voting will begin. It will close on Christmas Eve.

Pass the hot chocolate, and get ready for some inspiration. If there is one thing we do know these ladies that hang around here, are chalk full of CRAFTY goodness... and so they have prepared some ornament making with tutorials for our drooling pleasure...

drum roll please...
so add the link to your post in the comments, and the voting will go up on a sidebar halfway through the party... once everyone is entered!

{change of plans}

My brother had a pretty bad accident on Sunday and severely cut both of his hands! Him being a hairdresser and this being his busiest time of the year, makes a bad situation even worse. Not to mention his partner is in California right now celebrating the holidays with his family....
My brother needed someone to come and help him, but my sister is having surgery tomorrow and my parents could not go, so my Mom bought me a plane ticket and off I went to nurse him back to health. Luckily I am a planner and have everything ready for the Holiday at my house.
So here I sit in Chicago, sipping Starbucks, watching it snow, missing Tucker, and cleaning wounds. I will be here until next Tuesday and then we will meet Jeff at the airport and all three of us will fly home to Cincinnati to celebrate Christmas together, hopefully all in good health!!!

As much as I hate to say it, I think I will have to miss out on Thursday nights festivities - we have a full day planned of several doctors/specialists apts and I have to help him with last minute shopping and wrapping, not to mention helping him prepare to fly home for a week and play nurse!

Can you believe the timing - couldn't be worse, huh! But I have to admit, we have had a blast just him and I. It has been far too long since I have spent good quality alone time with my brother and it makes me realize everything really does happen for a reason even if that means changing our idea of Christmas Cheer!!!

Have a great time girls - think of me, I will be thinking of you - and Merry Christmas to you all....



With love - Lisa

Sweets to the Sweet

How about sharing your favorite Christmas Cookie or Candy recipes with us? Of course we are hoping that you ladies will be in the mood to bake a batch or two of something sweet for our upcoming Christmas Chit Chat. Because of course a Christmas party isn't a Christmas party without the sharing of sprinkles, shortbread and fudgey goodness. Here is what I have made so far and my wish list of treats to try:






Sweets I've Made so far:

Almond Roca

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies


Soft Gingersnaps

{ All of which were yum }

Sweets I Wish to Make:

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread


Homemade Marshmallows

Variations:

Use the base recipe without playing with any of the ingredients.
For the peppermint marshmallows, finely ground about a cup and a half of candy canes and mix it into the fluffy mixture along with about a half teaspoon of peppermint extract and a few drops of red food dye. Afterwards, cut them into squares, and roll them in a mixture of powdered sugar and leftover crushed candy cane.

To make coconut marshmallows. Add a teaspoon of coconut flavoring and about 3/4 cup shredded coconut to the fluffy mixture before pouring it into the pan. I finely chopped more

coconut to mix with the powdered sugar to roll them around in.


So excited to hear all about what sort of tastey Christmastime treats you ladies have been whipping up and discovering some new favorites to add to my must make list.

have a lovely christmas...

Hello sweet creative ladies!!

I hope each of your holidays are off to a great start with planning, crafting, present picking, baking, loving on your littles {oh what a blessing to watch the season through their eyes}, and spending time by the fire with your honey! I am so sad to be missing out on the festivities next week, but want to participate up until then as long as I can...{I am heading to Texas for Christmas next week and hubby will soon follow}.

I can only image how decked out for Christmas each of your cozy homes are & would love to see...with KT's encouragement to share I'll begin the tour... { just think...its like having a progressive party around the world {hello Australia!} of sorts without fighting the airlines, traffic, and SNOW! } So many blessings to you all dear girls & wishing you a lovely Christmas!

What does your Christmas look like?

Hi girls,

As the heartbeat behind this blog is to link us together and let us share our ideas and the seasons together (no matter how many miles we may be apart) we would love for each of you to share your Christmas with us right here at DB.

we would love to see:

Pictures of your Christmas tree, decorations (especially any you have made yourself!) and lights...
Pictures of your house all decked out for the holiday...
Some of your favorite holiday recipes, or links to the recipes you will be trying during this season.
a little blurb about how you spend your holidays and any traditions you and your family have.
and maybe even any links to where you have found inspiration for this holiday.

We know that some of you ladies have already posted something like this on your own blog, if so leave a small post on the DB blog which links back to the post on your own blog.

or if you are not a DB contributor and would like to contribute leave a link to your blog post in the comments section.

Lets share this festive feeling around as we count down the days till our chit chat catchup, and our course the birth of our amazing and personal Saviour :)

So what will your Christmas look like?

trim your tree

So for the upcoming Bloggy Christmas Party...
we need you...

Your Job: Create an Ornament
of any kind, with fabric, paper, beads, yummy treats
anything that tickles your fancy and will leave us in utter
amazement or just a good old fashioned dang thats darling.

Then Enter it in the Ornament Contest.

How do you do that, you say???

Its easy, you take a photo of your ornament, you include a little tutorial of how you made it. Then the night of the party, there will be a post asking to see your ornaments, link to your blog post and wahhhhlahh.

And whats the point... you say?

1. It spreads good cheer.
2. It might inspire us to make all sorts of lovely ornaments
3. We will have a poll up voting for best ornament, the winner will get some goodies from me...

Thats it ... no go forth... and create... I can't wait to see you what you have came up with!

Leave a little note here if you want to play....

RSVP

Morning Ladies,

So we now have a date and time which it seems all of you are happy with (yipee!) and now it's down to all the fun planning and crafting for our upcoming get together!

As there are quite a few of us who will be chatting on the night we have decided to get an msn messenger chatbox happening instead of our blog chatbox (so it will be quicker and we won't have to keep refreshing the page, although we will definetly be keeping the chatbox up on the page. So feel free to join in with the convos and ideas being shared through it) Miss Fairlight will be getting our msn chat up and running with a few testers before the night.. So if you are dropping in at any time during the night would you please rsvp your name, blog address and hotmail address/msn contact name to Domestic.B@hotmail.com so we can get you set up ready for a night full of giggles.

Stay tuned!
Xx

The official DB Christmas Chit Chat Catchup!

(click picture to enlarge invite)
Bring along a hot cup of tea or hot chocolate and some nibbles (does anyone suddenly feel like baking?) and come and join in as we laugh it up together.

As part of sharing this season with one another we would love you on the night to post up a post and share your Christmas with us and leave a link on the DB blog (more details to come). We would love to see pictures of your tree and holiday decorations (especially any you have made yourself), your holiday traditions and your favorite holiday treat recipes whether it be cookies, candy or whatever you will be munching on on the night.

Also we will be having a few games and prizes (Chelle has offered one of her amazing Christmas banners as a prize, so you have to be in on that!) Some of you ladies have thought of some really fun games in out chat box too, which I definitely think we will be running with!

So keep checking back here at Domestic Bliss for more information…

We can’t wait to catch up and have some giggles with you!

Note: You may have noticed that the date has changed, that's right - the new date is Thursday 18th Dec, we had some troubles with availability and thought more of us would be free on Thursday night than a Friday plus it also gives us more time to get the games and prizes etc ready..

Chit Chat Catchup?

Hi Ladies,

It's been awhile since anyway had posted on here so i thought I'd check in, say hello and post up a few ideas... can you actually believe it's the first day of December!! (actually it's the second here, which makes all the more crazy!) It is so sunny and hot over here right now. The days have been beautiful the cicadas and crickets are coming out and night and last night we were able to set up the Christmas tree with the air conditioning full blast and running around barefoot - probably much different to what you all are used to! :P So how is all your Christmas decorating/baking/crafting going, anything exciting to share?

I was also wondering if anyone received any scrappy swap or any Happy Handmade Christmas swap items yet.. we would love to have a peek and the creativity that has been going on around here lately, so please post up :) I promise in turn I will post pics of mine as soon as i receive them (how exciting!)

I was also thinking that we need to get that chatbox up and running on the blog (Dawna!?) and have a 'Christmas chit chat get together' as suggested in Fairlight's previous post, as I know you girls had an absolute ball doing this at Leslie's Baby shower and I totally feel like I missed out big time ;)

so what do you ladies think? Should we set it up and send out some invites for a catch up chat?

Love Kt xox