Wishing you and your family.....

A very Safe and Happy New Year! See all of you in 2010!

The Junk Mammas

Christmas 2009 has come and gone

Ok, so we fell off of the blogger wagon. Sickness in December totally put a damper on my Christmas spirit. I did manage to send out a few cards and the tree finally did get put up and then I broke the top off of it. It was just one of those years. But the kids enjoyed the season, that's all that matters in my book.

Now I am just relaxing with the kids watching cartoons and playing games in front of the tree. I typically wait till the New Year to take down my tree and decorations, but it is just cluttering my house and the broken top is just bugging me. But I am just to lazy to remove myself from the couch to clean anything up yet. I must be in a food coma.

I did decorate my dining room and porch before the sickness over took my house. So I will share my pictures. Enjoy the rest of the holiday season.

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The Junk Mammas

Stocking re-vamp

I bought these plain stockings a few years ago and always thought they looked like they were missing something. I saw in a magazine were they had button initials on the stockings and loved that idea. So last night I started on mine.

I hot glued the buttons in place, sewing would probably have been a better option, especially if you want to change them later on. But, I was looking for instant results. As it was, it still took me some time to do one and I have 3 more to go.

I love the way that it added a personalized touch, and I think it would on any stocking you have. I will post a picture once I get the others finished.

We are adding this to Kimbas DIY party, stop by and check out all the other great ideas.

The Junk Mammas

Christmas decorating take 2

Here are some random projects I have been working on in my house. Love that burlap webbing stuff from Walmart. I used it outside as well, on my door wreath and basket on my screen door.

Below, is a little tree I put in my living room. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of room for our big tree in there, that always goes in the dinning room. This year I wanted one is the living room as well.




I used homemade stuff on this tree, birds cut out of music, old spindles and some clock faces I found somewhere online. Love my old bucket I got at an estate sale this summer, I was looking for a way to use it in the house!


Off to work on the big tree, we finally got it today.


The Junk Mammmas

Christmas decorating

All over blog land everyone seems to have put up their Christmas decorations already, do some of you sleep. Yeeek, I better get going. We got about an inch of snow last night, so I am glad I got up my outside decorations earlier this week when it was 50 degrees out. I'll share some pics so I too look like I am doing something instead sitting on my butt.










Oh yes, my 3 year old son also has taken to helping decorate.






The Junk Mammas

Wishing you all...

A very happy and safeThanksgiving.

The Junk Mammas

Pumpkin gingerbread trifle

Looking for something new to try for Thanksgiving. Check out Paula Dean's recipe @ the Food Network. The recipe looks super easy to make and delicious, plus it received hundreds of wonderful reviews.

At a recent show we did, the booth next to us had fresh cranberries she was dipping in warm Carmel, which were to die for. We thought that would make a fun snack for holiday entertaining.


The Junk Mammas

Favorite things party!

We are joining the party @ 320 Sycamore- Favorite things. Here goes with the Junk Mamma's favorite things.

Rimmel 60 second dry nail polish, it's a great polish and inexpensive. Nice colors and it works well for wiggly little toes and fingers that want to be painted also.

Yankee Candles, love the smell of candles in the house. A few of our favorite scents are Home for the Holidays, Midsummers night, Clean Linen.....


Things with a polka dot pattern. Red, black and white, brown. Dishes, fabric, rain boots, dish towels.... We love polka dots.



Flannel jammie bottoms, I even take my kids to school in them.




Mini Babybel light cheese rounds. Yummy to snack on.


Can't wait to see what everyone else has on their list!


The Junk Mammas

Upstairs hallway project

Today, I started to tackle one of my projects. This has been an ongoing thing for literally years. I have been collecting frames to make a wall collage of the kids, dogs and our whole family if we have room.

I first started by mapping out the area I selected for my frames. I cut out pieces of paper the same size as the frames and taped them on the wall. This way you can get a feel of how they will work and move things around before the hole making starts. I really hate this step, but I knew if I wanted my husband to help me it had to be done.




Below, they started to go up one by one.

Here is the finished project for now. Not quite finished, but better then the frames stacked in my hallway. I need to pick out more pictures to fill the frames, and if I would have taken his picture a little higher you would see I have some space yet to go for it to be complete.

Check out Kimba's site for other DIY projects.

The Junk Mammas

W.S Love

Every time I get a new William Sonoma catalog I seem to have to blog about it. The stuff in there is so darn cute. Love these snowflake cookie cutters.

Wish we had a store close to us, I would love to try the pops.

My favorite is the wreath. They have made one for a few holidays now using the same concept of vintage images or cards. I need to make one. Christmas might just be the time.

The Junk Mammas

Halloween 2009 take 2

Costumes at our house this year seemed to be a little challenging. My daughter has wanted to be Hannah Montana since last year, so I finally gave in on that one and my son was undecided until around a week ago.

Maddie's costume just sort of happened. She had a lot of the stuff already and I purchased a wild shirt in juniors @ Walmart. The shirt turned out to be a Mylie Cyrus shirt, which I didn't even realize until I cut the tags off of it. The wig was a $3.00 bargain and thank goodness that is all I paid for it. I finally got it to stay better by putting in a ponytail with her real hair. But I still heard all night how itchy it was, so needless to say it didn't get worn much and will not be worn again.

Sam was my labor intensive costume. I ripped strips upon strips of fabric, then dyed it with Rid color tan. Next, I took some long underwear I purchased and began hot gluing strips on one by one. With a few nasty burns and a little cutting and stretching we had a mummy.

Tip for anyone using hot glue on something like this, stretch it while you are making it. There is not a lot of give once it has been glued. For the head piece I ended up using ribbon with strips glued on. I originally bought a ski mask and glued, etc. and found out it didn't fit his head once I was done.

The Junk Mammas

Halloween 2009

After dealing with the H1N1 for the past three weeks, I did manage to make a peacock costume for my daughter. She has wanted to be a peacock for about 6 months, there was no talking her out of it. Excuse the poor pictures, kids and pictures on Halloween don't mix.

In process

So as a crafty Mom I broke out my hot glue gun and started to glue feathers to a cheap pair of fairy wings that I covered with black felt. Of course I glued my poor fingers a few times, man that hurts. I made a easy tutu for the skirt. And she was a happy peacock. My kids told me that is was the best Halloween ever a few times as we were trick or treating. That made gluing my fingers worth it.

This was after trick or treating, so we are a little disheveled .

And I can't leave out my little champ.

The Junk Mammas

Lack of blogging

Sorry for the lack of posts this month. Sickness has taken over our homes in one form or another. Hope to be back this week!!!

The Junk Mammas

Easy and yummy snack

My mom made Pumpkin Pie Crunch for my son's birthday party this past weekend. It was delicious, I ate it for breakfast the next morning. If I wasn't home with a sick child I'd be running to the store the for the ingredients today. Give it a try I am sure you will love it.


Pumpkin Pie Crunch

Ingredients:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups Cinnamon Chex cereal
2 cups Wheat Chex cereal
2 cups Honey Nut Chex cereal
8 oz pecans


Preparation Steps:
In small bowl, mix brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice; set aside. In small microwave-safe dish, microwave butter on High about 30 seconds or until melted. Stir in vanilla. In large microwavable bowl, mix all cereals and pecans. Pour butter mixture over cereal mixture, stirring until evenly distributed. Add sugar and spice mixture and stir until coated.
Microwave uncovered on High 5 minutes or until mixture begins to brown, stirring every minute. Spread on wax paper or a cookie sheet to cool. Store in airtight container.

We are adding this to Kimba's DIY party, head over there for some other yummy recipes and projects.

The Junk Mammas

W.S. Halloween

William Sonoma Halloween.... check it out! They have the most wonderful stuff. I love the wreath with the vintage Halloween images, such a simple idea that is so cute.

The Junk Mammas

They say it's your birthday!

Help me to wish Junk Mamma Jenny a Happy Birthday.

Cranberry Fest

September is fading away fast. We knew it would. But it is also the month of festivals in our area. Applefest, Cranberry Festival, Oktoberfest and so on.

Our annual excursion to CranFest was a little different this year. It has a flea market, farmer's market, and craft booths for miles. It was fun, but just not the same good "junk". You just never know unless you attend, but the food is always good. Like frozen cheesecake dipped in chocolate on a stick.

We of course did manage to find a few treasures along the way. And I even remembered to take a few picture this time.

These crates were very reasonably priced too, but they didn't go home with us.

I am not sure what this guy's story was but his car was quite the interesting.


Look, it's a lantern tree.




We both purchased junk girl charms, which we hunted down after seeing some woman wearing a similar one, and managed to find a few other treasures.

The Junk Mammas

4th Annual Barnyard Sale

We headed out this morning to an annual barnyard sale. We had heard about it in the past, but this was the 1st time we have been able to go. There was a lot of stuff, and really great stuff at good prices.

They had vintage items, antiques, shabby chic, GOOD JUNK, pumpkins.... The list goes on and on.

Next year, we would love to be a vendor here.

If you happen to be in our neck of the woods, the sale still has 2 more weekends left. Saturday September 26th and October 3rd open from 9-5. Follow the signs from Coon Valley, they are located on Oakdale Road in Cashton, WI.

The Junk Mammas