Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Holiday Season Kick Off: Craft and Pie Review


I love November 1st. For me it marks the start of the holiday season. Our family celebrated the day crafting with Elmer's and X -Acto products while baking Wholly Wholesome Pies. The house smells wonderful and the decorations are perfect! Its hard to decide if Thanksgiving or Christmas is my favorite holiday but Christmas is more fun to decorate for.
This year I was given the opportunity to review a copy of A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday by Tina Barseghian. Available now from Harlequin Nonfiction;  $14.95 US/$17.95 CAN. Right now you can find it online at Barnes and Noble here.
The book is full of fun and frugal ways to decorate for the holidays with an emphasis on recycling and being green. The first project from the book I attempted to do was the Recycle Cards from Christmases Past. I had so much fun sorting all my old cards and deciding which cards to use. I never throw out Christmas cards I am sent so this was a perfect project for me.



After selecting my project and gathering the cards, ribbon and my Elmer's and X-Acto products I preheated the oven for my pies. To me the smell of the holidays comes from Pumpkin and Apple pie! I was given the chance to review Wholly Wholesome products so I selected Pumpkin and Apple Pie just for my November 1st Craft day! I knew the pies would be perfect for this day.



For me the best pie was the pumpkin and my hubby loved the apple. Not surprising though since those are both are favorite flavor of pie. The great thing about Wholly Wholesome is the ingredients they use, you can definitely taste the quality in their products. Their products contain no Artificial Flavors, Colors, Preservatives or Additives, Hydrogenated Fats, Oils or Trans Fatty Acids. They also make pie shells, pie crusts, cookies, breads and cakes. I was very tempted by their cheesecakes bites, but opted for pie for my craft day. The cheesecake will definitely be on my list of must haves for holiday treats, I cannot wait to try them. You can find Wholly Wholesome products at most Whole Foods markets and be sure to look in the freezer or baked goods section of your store to see all their products. You can find more about Wholly Wholesome by visiting their Twitter or Facebook pages.

After eating the amazing pie I was full of energy to complete my craft project. First I cut out some fun borders on a few of the cards using the X-Acto scissors. I felt this gave a nice touch to the cards and made each of them unique.  Then I placed the cards on the ribbon to see how I wanted the finished project to look. I have to admit when I was measuring my ribbon I was not paying full attention to what I was doing ( my little guy was in his feeding chair throwing Gerber puffs across the room ) and I cut the ribbon in the wrong spot! I wanted to use only the stuff I already had from last year so instead of going out to by more ribbon I improvised and the garland changed to a hanging ribbon of cards! I used my Elmer's Glue to adhere the ribbon to the back of my cards and pieces of old felt paper to hold it onto the cards more securely. I felt great reusing old Christmas stuff to make new Christmas stuff. There are a few more projects like the homemade snow globes I would love to try this year.


The finish project turned out great! I had a blast on my November 1st Craft day! Pies, crafting and the holidays all fit so well together. I would have to say it was the best kick off for the holidays I could have asked for! 

If you would like more info about Elmer's Crafting supplies you can follow them on Twitter and Facebook. They also have on their Crafting Community site a sweepstakes to win 2 $500 Walmart cards and a gift pack from  Elmer's and X-Acto. You can enter here.

** For this post I received two free product coupons from Wholly Wholesome, one free copy of A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday to review and as a Bzz Agent I received a Elmer's and X-Acto sample pack to review. These are my own opinions and not influenced in any way by the products I received.
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