The Creative Salad – Page 47 – Crafty fun and homeschool adventures in Sonoma County, California.

The Dollhouse Gift on Christmas Morning

We’re restoring a family heirloom, the dollhouse made for my husband’s grandmother when she was a little girl. Click here to see all the posts about our Dollhouse Redux Project.

After a frantic painting marathon late last week, we placed the dollhouse under the tree…

It’s furnishings were opened with glee…

and our new (multicultural!) dollhouse family has moved in!

(Yes, all before sunrise.)

It was a hit.

After seeing her play with the dollhouse for hours today, I’m entertaining fantasies of her waking up tomorrow morning and going to play with the dollhouse on her own, giving us a few additional hours of sleep. Wow, does that sound good. If only…

Pinterest: Tasty (Gluten-Free!) Dessert Recipes

With holiday baking soon-to-be-underway and Christmas just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to share some almost healthy and, well, not-so-healthy (okay, incredibly decadent!) dessert recipes that I’ve found recently on Pinterest.

As we don’t eat gluten in our house either, these are all gluten-free to boot.

Bon Appétit!

Almost Healthful Desserts:

1. Raw Cashew Dreamcake with Raspberry Topping (pin)
2. Black Bean Chocolate Chili Cherry Cookies (pin)
3. Frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites (pin)
4. Hot Fudge Brownie Larabars (pin)
5. Healthy Peanut Butter Freezer Cookies (pin)
6. Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries (pin)

Incredibly Decadent Gluten-Free Treats:

1. Almond Macaroon Torte with Chocolate Frosting (pin)
2. Hot Chocolate Spoons (pin)
3. Easy Chocolate Truffles (pin)
4. Cinnamon Sugar Cake Doughnuts (pin)
5. White Chocolate, Cranberry and Strawberry Rocky Road (pin)

View these and many more delicious recipes on my Sweet Treats Recipes and Almost Healthy Sweets Pinterest boards.
(images obtained via Pinterest)

Enough distractions! I have a dollhouse to finish painting and gifts to wrap…

Decorated Recycled Tea Box Gift Tags

We love creating new things out of items that would typically get thrown in the recycling bin. In this case we made some sparkly, colorful gift tags from a empty tea box.

First we cut out the sides of the box:

This tea box was a Yogi Tea that decorates the inside of their boxes with detailed patterns. (Have a plain tea box? You could always draw your own designs! Don’t have a tea box? Use a piece of cardboard or card-stock instead!)

We colored one side of the squares with watercolor pencils and glitter glue:

Then we glued the cardboard to sparkly origami paper so that the back side would be pretty too:

After the glue dried, we cut out around the tags:

We then wrote recipient names (people from our immediate family) and placed each tag on a present under the tree:

We may end up mod podging the tags to preserve them so we can use them next year too. I love the idea of a recycled project that we will be able to reuse for years to come!

Hanukkah and Christmas Projects from Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts Book

I’ve written before about my love of Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts: 225 Inspired Projects for Year-Round Celebrations, featuring the best holiday craft projects from past issues of Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

Now it’s time for a roundup of my favorite Hanukkah and Christmas crafts from the book, with links to the instructions for each of the crafts on the Martha Stewart Living website.

Here are the Hanukkah and Christmas projects that I’m most excited to try from the book:

Glittered Dreidels – transform plain wooden dreidels into glittery Hanukkah decorations. Use them to adorn presents, garlands, or create dramatic centerpieces by filling a glass jar or hurricane with a variety in a number of different sizes. (link)

Kids’ Glittered Menorah – a fun menorah making project involving a piece of wood, metal nuts, glitter and glue. (We’re in the process of making a similar one using wooden spools instead of the metal nuts.) (link)

Paper Evergreens made from graduated paper circles, gently folded, and adhered to wooden skewers with hot glue. (link)

Embellished Tags use natural materials to dress up ordinary paper solid-colored tags — LOVE LOVE LOVE! (link)

Enjoy these crafts ideas? Peruse the craft section of Martha Stewart website for more ideas or pick up your own copy of Martha Stewart’s Handmade Holiday Crafts today!

Hanukkah Crafts and Activities

We’ve been getting ready for Hanukkah that begins tonight at sundown. Earlier in the month we shared some Hanukkah themed crafts we found on Pinterest. Here are some other fun crafts and activities we’ve been enjoying at our house.