Getting ready for Christmas with cleaning, baking and giveaways

Today I’ve got my apron and rubber gloves on and I’m doing my pre-Christmas clean up in readiness for decorating the house for Christmas.

Each year I like to do a thorough clean before I move furniture around and add big unmovable decorating elements like large Christmas trees and garlands.

You can read more about pre-Christmas clean ups, de-cluttering and preparing your decorations in this post from Simply Christmas in 2010.

There’s even very helpful step-by-step instructions for cleaning artificial Christmas trees, garlands and wreaths, so pop on over and check it out.

 

As well as doing my own housekeeping I’m also doing a little blog housekeeping today too.

Last week I posted about the Cookie Exchange we held here last weekend. . . which was intended as a post about hosting a swap. . . but I’ve been inundated with requests for the recipes shown, so today I’m sharing two of them with you.

Kylie’s Lemon, Cranberry and Pistachio wreath cookies were a variation on a Martha Stewart recipe found HERE.

Kylie gave it a festive look by adding a 170 gram packet of dried cranberries (finely chopped ) with the pistachios on the iced wreath.

 

Jane’s Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies

• 1 stick softened butter (125 grams)
• 6 Tablespoons sugar
• 6 Tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ¼ cup flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 11 broken pieces Oreo Cookies
• 1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add egg and vanilla until mixed well.

2. Place flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl, stir to combine. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients then stir in Oreos and chocolate chips until just combined.

3. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop onto baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until cooked, but still soft. Let cool on baking sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

And I ask you. . . who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie!

 

Giveaways and special offers

Couldn’t you use $100 spending money at this time of year?

I’m surprised that with thousands of visitors a day to Shabby Art Boutique only 105 people have entered the draw for the $100 VISA gift card giveaway.

There’s no strings attached. . . nothing special to do . . . open to everyone – world wide!!

If you are one of the 1330 people that follow this blog, then please leave a comment HERE to be in the running.

This is my gift to YOU. . . my followers. The $100 came out of my cash tin and I want to give it as a THANK YOU to one of my loyal followers this Christmas.

It will be drawn on Friday 23^rd November, so please don’t miss out.

The House of Lucien is also sponsoring a very generous $50 Gift Voucher Giveaway on my blog HERE this week.

If you love vintage wares then you really must check out Melissa’s shop.

If you read the post HERE you’ll also find out how to get a discount offer at House of Lucien for the rest of the month.

 

Apart from that. . . thank you to everyone who has linked up at our Shabbilicious Friday party.

There are heaps of inspiring pages and beautiful blogs to visit so click HERE to see the party. . .

And if you’d like some more Christmas inspiration . . .

I have several Christmas boards on Pinterest.

There’s the new Handmade Christmas board with 200 + handmade ideas and how-to’s. . . this is a community board,

a Simply Christmas board. . .

as well as White Christmas . . .

and  Shabby Vintage Christmas boards.

Tons of Christmas inspiration for everyone!

 

Okay, housekeeping done. I’m putting the rubber gloves back on and getting back to the pre-Christmas clean up.

See you tomorrow for a fun tutorial.

Hugs ~ Kerryanne