Ornament

Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments

Posted on December 5, 2014

Hey Everybody! For the past couple of Christmases, I’ve always shared my traditional Czech gingerbread cookies with you, and today I’m here to share this year’s! Gingerbread cookies are one of my favorite Christmas traditions, but I don’t actually like to eat them… I make them purely for decorating purposes! I usually arrange them in a big shallow basket lined with greenery that I put on our dining table, but this year, I decided to make ornaments out of them, and decorate one of my little trees with them. To make the cookies into ornaments, you could either make holes at the top before baking (which I find never works well for me and they always seem to close up as the cookies expand when they bake) or you could very carefully make the holes using a needle once the cookies have completely cooled and you’ve decorated them (this is the way that I do it, it’s best to make the holes a day or two after baking and decorating so they’ve had time to sit out – I don’t store them in an airtight container since they are for decoration only). And I’ll let you in on a little secret… I used to make the cookies from scratch, but since we never eat them, I just use a store-bought cookie mix for them now. They smell just as delicious, and you save yourself a little bit of time! If you’re interested in saving yourself some more time and still want that person touch, my friend recommended Personalized Ornaments. They look so fantastic and still have that personal touch.

Lots of these gingerbread cookies are sold at the Christmas markets back at home in Prague. They are usually intricately decorated (my decorating skills have a looooong way to go!) and iced with different colors. I always miss the Christmas markets whenever we don’t go home for Christmas, because they are so fun to wander through; there are lots of stalls selling beautiful handmade Christmas ornaments and traditional gifts, lots of cookies and treats and holiday foods (which are the best part), all under the glow of a big Christmas tree! There are Christmas carols playing, people shopping and eating, and it always feels like a magical Christmas Wonderland! I can just smell it all now…. the spicy scent of all the cookies, the holiday drinks, the ham, sausages and slowly roasted pig… smells like Christmas!

And if you want to see some more gingerbread goodies, HERE are my cookies from a couple of years ago (left) and HERE are my (non-edible!) felt gingerbread man ornaments & gift tags (right)!

Happy Baking and Decorating, Everyone!

Felt Gingerbread Man Ornaments & Gift Tags

Posted on December 4, 2014

Hey Everyone! I hope you’ve been having a wonderful December so far, and have enjoyed the beginnings of the Christmas season! For the first time ever, I am actually almost done with my Christmas shopping; there are still a couple little things I need to pick up, but all the major things are done and bought. I’m a terribly indecisive person which means my Christmas shopping usually takes me a really long time, so this is pretty much a Christmas miracle! Today I wanted to stop by and share a really easy little felt Christmas craft with you. I love felt because you can pretty much make anything out of it and it’s so easy to work with. You could use these little gingerbread men as gift tags like I did here, as Christmas ornaments or even make a garland out of them that would look so cute hanging on a kitchen window!

YOU WILL NEED

Felt

White thread & Needle

Small buttons

Thin ribbon

Hot glue gun

Pen/pencil & Scissors

Polyfill for stuffing

Gingerbread Man Cookie Cutter or Stencil

DIRECTIONS

For each gingerbread man, you will need a top and bottom piece out of felt. I used a gingerbread man shaped cookie cutter and traced around it on my piece of felt. Cut each piece out, then decorate the top piece only. You can decorate it however you like and add as many different embellishments as you want, I just stitched around the edges of the gingerbread man with white thread and added a little red bow and two buttons with hot glue. To put the gingerbread man together, I used outlined the head part of the bottom piece with hot glue (insert a ribbon loop at the top at this point so you can hang it up/attach it to gifts later!) and let it dry, then stuffed it with polyfill. Then I outlined the arms with hot glue and stuffed them, and so on, until the whole little gingerbread man was done. At the end, I went around and trimmed any excess glue and felt fuzz with my scissors.

Happy Crafting, Everyone!

Glittered Monogram Ornament

Posted on December 6, 2012

Hello, dear friends! I have a cute Christmas craft to share with you today! My glittered monogram Christmas ornaments! Christmas ornaments are one of my favorite things about Christmas, I love unwrapping them every year, carefully taking them out of the tissue paper they had been hiding in all year, and hanging them on our tree. There is really no theme to our Christmas tree, I love decorating it with ornaments that hold special memories, and that bring a warm feeling to my heart every time I look at them! I have some vintage ornaments that belonged to my grandmother, some that my mom and mother-in-law have given me over the years and some that I have collected, and I love them all! You could hang these glittered monogram ornaments on your tree, make them as gifts, or embellish wrapped presents with them!

GLITTERED MONOGRAM ORNAMENTS

Supplies

Printed/drawn monogram

Cardboard

Modpodge (and paintbrush) or glue

Glitter

Ribbon (thick for bow, medium for hanging ornament, and thin for attaching little ornaments)

Two small ornaments

Hot glue

Directions

1. First, trace your monogram onto a piece of thick cardboard, then cut it out. Cover it with an even layer of modpodge or glue and sprinkle it with glitter so the whole thing is covered in it. Shake the excess glitter off, then let it dry completely.

2. While it is drying, make a bow out of the thick ribbon. Once the monogram is dry, attach the bow to the top of it using hot glue. Then, using the medium ribbon, make a loop for the hanging part of the ornament and glue it to the back.

3. Attach the two little ornaments by threading some thin ribbon through them, then sticking them right under the bow using hot glue. Let all the glue dry completely, then hang on your tree!

Happy Christmas Crafting, Everyone!

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Posted on February 9, 2015

Hello Friends! I don’t know if there’s a dessert that screams Valentine’s Day more than chocolate covered strawberries do! They couldn’t be easier to make or more delicious to eat, and would make the perfect little edible gift this Valentine’s Day, since it’s less than a week away now!

YOU WILL NEED

Strawberries

Melted chocolate (I used milk chocolate)

Chopped walnuts (or other goodies to coat the strawberries!)

DIRECTIONS

First, line a baking sheet with wax paper or parchment paper (you will need this later to lay the strawberries on). Next, melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a pot of simmering water (you can also do this in the microwave, of course, I just always seem to burn the chocolate when I use my microwave! I think it might be a good idea for me to look at something like this Best Microwave Australia 2021 guide to look for a new microwave, because at this point I’m not sure if it’s me or the microwave that’s causing me to burn the chocolate. If you want to go the extra mile, you could even use a chocolate melter!), pour it into a small bowl, and let it cool for a minute or two. Wash and dry your strawberries (I like to leave the leaves on, I just think it looks prettier) and chop the walnuts (you could also use almonds, hazelnuts, sprinkles, melted white chocolate, or anything else you can think of!) then dip them into the melted chocolate, letting the excess chocolate drip off, then dipping them into the chopped walnuts. Lay them on the prepared wax or parchment paper and let them set completely. To package them, place each strawberry into a mini paper muffin liner and place them all into a small box. Wrap with a big bow and you have the perfect little edible Valentine’s gift! (…. or you could always eat them yourself if it’s too tempting!)

For more fun Valentine’s Day ideas, check these out!

Left: Heart Shaped Puff Pastry Pockets (recipe) Right: Strawberry Layer Cake (recipe)

Left: Valentine’s Day Paper Garlands (tutorial) Right: Felt Heart Ornaments (tutorial)

Have a great week, Everyone!

I will be linking to these awesome blogs!

Craft

Posted on January 4, 2015

GIFT PACKAGING & STATIONERY IDEAS

HOLIDAY CRAFTS

FLOWER ARRANGEMENTS

WREATHS

SEWING & FABRIC CRAFTS

TUTORIALS

“Happiness is homemade.”

About Me

Posted on January 4, 2015

Hi Everyone! Welcome to A Homemade Living, I’m so glad you stopped by today! Welcome to my home and my kitchen! Or at least my online home and kitchen. I wish we could chat over a big cup of tea and a plate of cookies, but since that’s not possible, let me tell you a little bit about myself here. My name is Maria, and I grew up in Prague, Czech Republic, a beautiful historic city in the heart of Europe. I spent the majority of my life living there, before moving to another beautiful city, London, to pursue my love of the arts, and to major in Art History. After graduating from college, I married my high school sweetheart, and a couple years and moves later, we now find ourselves living in northern New Jersey, right outside of New York City.

Some of my favorite childhood memories took place in our kitchen at home, and in the kitchens of my grandmothers. Every Christmas, my mom and I would bake Christmas cookies with my grandparents. It was a grand affair and a sweet tradition that I used to look forward to, and one that’s a cherished memory today. We made hundreds of cookies for the whole family, my favorite of which were always the traditional gingerbread cookies. We always decorated them with white icing and hung them on our Christmas tree (you can see some of my recent gingerbread cookie ornaments here).

Gingerbread Ornaments 7 The big kitchen table was covered in cookie cutters, icing sugar and various cookie doughs, as we filled baking tray upon baking tray with delicious sweet treats. It was always my grandpa’s job to watch the oven and make sure none of the cookies burned, then take them out and place them on these big, long rustic wooden boards to cool, as we hurried to fill the oven with yet another batch. He’d take all the finished cookies to another room to cool and I followed right behind, just so I could sneak in and taste one of those Christmas goodies!

This is one of the reasons that I love to bake; because every time I make one of my favorite recipes, my kitchen is filled with those warm, familiar aromas, and it is as though time and distance disappear and my kitchen transports me right back into those precious memories! There is something quite magical about what a cup of flour, some sugar and a pinch of cinnamon can do! I am by no means an expert or a professional, but I’ve loved sharing some of my favorite family recipes with you and discovering lots of new ones along the way.

So that being said, welcome to my home and my kitchen! I hope you find lots of things to inspire you and make you smile. Feel free to leave me any questions or comments that you may have, I always love to hear from you! Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful day!

-Maria

2014 Favorites

Posted on December 27, 2014

Hi Everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas! Today I wanted to share some of my favorite things from this past year with you. One of my favorite things about writing this blog, is that it’s sort of like a journal that I keep and share with you all. Setting up my own website is definitely one of the best decisions that I have ever made. As much as the design of my website has changed over the past year or so, I have learned so much about web design and running a blog that I never would have accomplished otherwise. So, if I have inspired you in any way to start a website of your own, then please feel free to read more about web design and the importance of using a virtual private server to host your website on makeawebsitehub.com. Ultimately, I’ve loved looking over all the posts from last year, because each one brings back a memory and reminds of something from this past year. As most years, 2014 was filled with some glorious highs and some pretty low lows, but looking back over the year, I’m so grateful for all the wonderful things I got to do, see and experience! I’ve loved sharing my ideas and recipes with you all this year, thank you so much for stopping by my blog and reading along! It’s so hard to pick just a couple favorites from the whole year, but here are a few…

Let’s start with the sweet tooth department. Because that’s always the best place to start!

It’s hard to narrow this down to just a couple sweet favorites, but THESE Three Ingredient Pecan Turtles are definitely near the top! The best thing about them, as the name suggests, is that you only need three ingredients! No need to make homemade caramel (something that seriously intimidates me. But I will conquer it in 2015. Maybe.) since these use soft caramel candies. They are so simple and easy to make and really, what could be better than chocolate, caramel and pecans all in one bite! Another favorite this year have been THESE Cinnamon Monkey Bread Muffins! There is just something about a “mini” anything, and these are no exception. Soft balls of dough rolled in melted butter and coated with cinnamon sugar – a winner in my book!

As for cookies, let’s talk about THESE Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling first. If you don’t like oatmeal cookies, these little sandwiches may just change your mind. Trust me. And as if a good old chocolate chip cookie isn’t enough, try THESE Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies!

And as for healthy fruit desserts (just kidding about the “healthy” part…), I made THIS Strawberry Layer Cake for Valentine’s Day. For two people. And it was gone in two days (I hate to admit that, but it’s true!) It’s such an easy cake to whip up and looks like it took a lot more work than it really did! Another great berry dessert are THESE Cherry and Mixed Berry Sweet Rolls. I love making sweet rolls, and have made so many different variations of them; and these are one of my favorites!

There was also lots of bread baking this year…

After I tried THIS famous NY Times No-Knead Bread recipe, I literally couldn’t stop making this bread. I tried so many different flavor combinations and shared some of my favorites with you over the past year. I still love the original (left), but also love THIS Pesto No-Knead Bread version that I came up with – perfect alongside a salad, soup or pasta!

And here are two recipes I created using the no-knead bread recipe I mentioned above. THIS Chicken & Pesto Croque Monsieur and THESE No-Knead Bread Bowls.

There was also some cooking that happened.

THIS Venison Stew is one of my favorite things to cook (when there is venison in the freezer!) and this recipe remains one of my most popular recipes I’ve shared! I’ve found that no stew I make ever turns out the same, so it’s almost sort of hard to write down a precise stew recipe. Sometimes I add a little more of this and a little less of that… but that’s the good thing about stews, you can tailor it to your taste! I’ve also been on a serious salad kick this year, particularly this fall. I love big, hearty salads, and THIS Kale Salad with Quinoa, Pomegranate Seeds and Roasted Butternut Squash is one I’ve made over and over!

As for crafty things…

I love fresh cut flowers, and I shared some of my favorite little arrangements with you this year. I love using ordinary grocery store flowers and turn them into flower arrangements to brighten up the house, like I did in THIS post. It’s also fun to re-purpose old tea tins or other containers to keep flowers in, like I did HERE.

There were also several lace projects. I love lace, I just think it’s one of the prettiest materials! I used it to make THESE Lace Gift Wrap Bows, and to embellish THIS Summer Boxwood Wreath.

I love paper crafts too, and these two were some of my favorites this year. I made a couple different Valentine’s Day Garlands that you can check out HERE (since Valentine’s Day is around the corner again, and most stores are already selling Valentine’s candy… crazy!) I also love making personalized gift tags, and THESE Glittered Monogram Gift Tags were one of my favorites this year.

And the year ended with lots of Christmas fun…

This Christmas season has flown by so quickly yet again, perhaps even faster than other years… but I did manage to share some of my favorite Christmas projects with you! If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will know how much I love gingerbread at Christmastime, so here are two of my favorite gingerbread creations this year. My Colonial Williamsburg inspired 2014 Gingerbread House that you can find HERE, and my Gingerbread Cookie Christmas Ornaments that you can find a tutorial for HERE!

I love love love wrapping Christmas presents, and I made THESE little Felt Gingerbread Man Gift Tags & Ornaments to embellish gifts this year. They are so easy to make, and add a cute little touch to a wrapped present. And for my last Christmas favorite… THESE Linzer Cookie Stars. My all-time favorite cookie to bake!Each of these posts brings back lots of memories, and I’ve loved sharing them all with you! Thank you so much for following along, for leaving comments and connecting with me! I appreciate each and every one of you! I hope that 2014 has been a good year for you, and that the coming year will be even better; filled with lots of new memories and experiences, fun times and happy days!

Enjoy the rest of your holidays, Everyone!

Bake

Posted on December 27, 2014

COOKIES & BARS

BAKING WITH YEAST

QUICK BREADS & MUFFINS

BAKING WITH FRUIT

SAVORY BAKING

OTHER SWEET TREATS

SWEET BEVERAGES

“A party without cake is just a meeting.” – Julia Child

The Simple Joys of Christmas…

Posted on December 21, 2014

I don’t know about you, but I feel like this Christmas season has been flying by so much faster than usual. At the beginning of December, I decided to keep all the decorating pretty simple this year, and instead of taking out and using every single decoration we own (and there are several big boxes of them), I only unpacked the tree ornaments and a couple other things to decorate the house with. But I realized that every day I kept thinking, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. So late last night, only four days before Christmas, I opened up all those big Christmas boxes and added lots of extra twinkle lights and other decorations around the house, and voila… it feels a lot more like Christmas! One of my friends recommended that I look into Neon Lights for Christmas this year. She said that some neon lights can be personalised with Christmas messages on, then they can be used as decorations on the walls. They do look nice and they would add some more bright colours to our living room. Maybe we’ll look into ordering those.

It’s funny what a little thing like a string of Christmas lights will do! There is something so peaceful about bright little twinkly lights glowing throughout the house in the darkness of a cold night. That quiet stillness is one of my favorite things about Christmas time. I recently visited a site like saltle.com/electrician-texas-service-areas/austin-tx-electrician/ to get an electrician to install more Christmas lights on the outside of our house. Looking out of the window now, I’m glad that I did because it just looks so magical out there. It might not be snowing, but the air itself is glowing with that special atmosphere that you only get at this time of year. When life seems to get so busy, the malls are crowded with people frantically trying to find that one last gift and everyone’s to-do list keeps getting longer and longer, I love those quiet moments by the twinkling tree that seem to make time stand still. It’s so easy to let the busyness of this time of year take over, so I hope you get a moment or two to just sit still. Whether it’s a quiet morning sitting by the tree, a big cup of hot chocolate at the end of a long day or watching your favorite Christmas movie, I hope you enjoy the simple little joys of the Christmas season this year.

Linzer Cookie Stars

Posted on December 1, 2014

Hi Everyone! Happy December 1st! Now the countdown till Christmas is really on! Our tree is up, all the decorations are out, the traditional gingerbread ornaments have been baked and iced and the Christmas shopping has started! I’m so excited that the Christmas season is finally here; dark early mornings and late evenings are so much cozier by the twinkling tree! Last year, I shared my favorite Linzer Heart Cookie recipe with you, and last week I used the same recipe to make these star cookies (I will definitely be making these again for Christmas!) so I thought I would share them with you, and I also added lots of detailed notes and tips for baking Linzer cookies that I’ve learned just by making lots and lots of them, so I hope that’s helpful for you too!

LINZER COOKIE STARS

YOU WILL NEED

1 Recipe Linzer Cookies (find it HERE)

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Jam for filling cookies (I used a tart cherry jam for these)

DIRECTIONS

You can find the full ingredients list and directions for how to make these cookies HERE, I just used a different shape cookie cutter here. A couple notes on the recipe… FILLING: a tart jam works well for these, as it cuts through the sweet, buttery flavor of the cookies. PREPARE AHEAD: Also, these are best baked at least a day ahead before eating, they get better and they soften as they sit (in an air tight container). I always make the dough the night before I make the cookies, it gives it time to rest in the fridge, and you have less work with the cookies the following day! ROLLING OUT: When you take the dough out of the fridge to roll it out, make sure you give it time to soften again, otherwise you will have a very hard time rolling it out (it will literally feel like a brick). Roll it out on a floured surface slowly, and if it looks like the edges are starting to tear off a little bit, just gather the sides and press them in gently, and continue rolling. BAKING: I like baking the bottom pieces on one tray, and the top pieces on a different tray, because the tops usually take a little less time to bake since they have a cutout in the center. So to prevent the tops from burning, bake them on a different baking sheet than the bottoms! DUSTING WITH SUGAR: Lots of people have asked me how I dust the cookies with confectioners’ sugar without getting the jam covered in sugar too. And here’s how: Once the baked cookies have cooled, lay all the top cookies with the cutouts in the center on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and dust them with confectioners’ sugar. Spread an even layer of jam on the bottom cookies (leaving a little edge around the edges) then top them with the sugar dusted tops, picking them up and pressing them down by the sides, to avoid messing up the sugar on top!

Happy Baking, Everyone!

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