Decorating A Winter Mantel

We've been busy decorating for Christmas! I decided to scale back on the decorations this year, I think I've reached the "less is better" stage of my life! I always put my tree up first, then move on to the rest of the decorations. So my tree is done and I decided to start decorating the mantel. Before I started, I knew that I wanted to use 3 trees, partly because I love the 3 trees story and I like the number 3.So I started there. After several texts, phone calls, and pictures sent to my sister, we finally put it together. I found 3 sequence trees on sale, used a tree I already had and placed it on my infamous cake plate. I added a white feather tree, placed on a crystal dessert dish. I folded a page of sheet music and placed it in a clear vase with some glittery pom poms, and an angel tree topper off to the side. For a finishing touched, I wrapped Christmas tree pearl strands around the items on the mantel and 2 cream colored scarves. I hope you are having fun decorating and would love to hear your ideas!

Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Cinnamon Butter

I was recently having a conversation with my oldest granddaughter about butter. (I know...haha!!). She was telling me about the yummy butter served at one of her favorite restaurants. Since my husband and I rarely eat out except for a few locally owned establishments, I asked her to describe the butter for me and that's where I started for this recipe. I served it at Thanksgiving with our Simply Sweet Homemade Buns and she loved it! Actually, everyone loved it, even me because it was easy to make, it was sweet, and my time was becoming very limited!
Directions:
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup powdered sugar
Mix all ingredients together and beat on low speed with mixer until everything is combined and smooth. Serve immediately on warm buns or refrigerate until needed. If you serve the buns warm, the butter will melt a little right into the buns. Yummy-licious!

 Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi

Simply DIY Winter Scene In A Jar

It seems like whenever our mom comes to visit me, we "shop til we drop" literally-then we start projects! I saw these cute little figures and trees on sale when we were out shopping, (after all the hustle and bustle was pretty much over, Black Friday afternoon).  The glass jar was a thrift store find for $1, then I added fake snowflakes from Target, for $2. I used poster tack to stick the trees and people to the bottom of the jar so later I can take them out and use my jar for other things. The whole project cost about $8.  This would also be a fun project to do with the kids.
  We also canned Spiced Cranberry Sauce and made a "No Sew Valance" from a bed skirt we found on clearance..more on those in a future post!
  We hope you enjoyed time with your friends and family, and also had some quiet moments to just relax...or maybe work on some fun projects! Let us know what you are working on, we love hearing new ideas!


~Simply Angie

Organize Your Kitchen- Food Storage Lids

I put the finishing touches on my kitchen organization project this week. I previously used a basket to store my bowl lids which worked well for me but I realized that when my family helps out in the kitchen, they needed something that they could see the lids rather than digging through a basket. So instead I used a dish draining rack to organize them. I tested my new system on Thanksgiving and it worked great! I started with the larger lids on the right and worked to the left with the smaller lids. It was much easier to choose the correct lid because we didn't have to take the basket out to look through all of them. A simple tip to help you get organized on a budget! Another tip to help organize your lids if you don't have a dish draining rack, is to use a file folder holder, Simply A Kitchen Use For File Folder Holder . They both work great!

Organizing lids with dish draining rack

 Love and peace,
~ Simply Tammi