Happy December and the What to Weekends party #254

Good evening friends! Welcome back to Shoestring Elegance and this week's What to do Weekends party! I hope you all had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving, I enjoyed this year with some wonderful friends and, of course, great food. If you want to see more about what was on my menu, check it out on Shoestring Elegance's Instagram page.  If you linked up the week before Thanksgiving, check and see if you were one of my Features Here. 

Can you all believe tomorrow is December already?!  Have you got your Christmas shopping and baking done?!! I'm still just scratching the surface of what I need to get done.  I hope you are more ready than I! From the looks of this weeks party, you are already in full Christmas swing! Here's hoping I catch up soon. :)  You Ladies are all SO talented!! I love this party!  If you are new to the party, thank you for joining us and please check out the party board, it's on the sidebar. 

Please follow Linda and me in some way.

You can find Linda Blogging here Crafts a la Mode

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter
You can connect with me right here @ Shoestring Elegance

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest 
Thanks!
Here are just a few of my favorites this week.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year has begun! 
Mason Jar Snowman from The Bombshell Bling 

Angie from the Country Cottage Cottage shared her adorable tutorial DIY Candy Cane Wreath from Burlap

Features from the What to do Weekends Party #252 Thanksgiving Week

Hi friends, a little late is better than not at all, right?! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I wanted to be sure and post some of your incredible creations from the What to do Weekends party #252! Thank you all so much for linking up! I'm still pinning all your talented Features and taking notes. (wink) No fuzzy intro today just your awesome Features! 

Vintage Ornament Christmas Wreath

MINI Sweet Potato Casseroles With Brown Sugar Pecan Topping

Happy Thanksgiving and What to do Weekends #253

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. We are enjoying the day with our friends and Family and pray that you are doing the same. Please feel free to link up and look around.

What to do Weekends #252

Welcome to Shoestring Elegance and this week's What to do Weekend party! I'm so very glad you are here. Such an incredible amount of talented people out there. Thank you for taking the time to link up to our party and share your awesomeness! Please follow the Party Board! (it's on the sidebar)
Onto this week's Features! Fall is here, and you all are providing plenty of Inspiration for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Carol at the Red Painted Cottage shared her Simply gorgeous Chic Rustic Thanksgiving Table I just love these colors.

If you haven't already followed Linda and me you can use these links! 

You can find Linda Blogging here Crafts a la Mode

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

You can connect with me right here @ Shoestring Elegance

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest 

Thanks!

Cozy Blanket Ladder Upcycle for under $10

I am a child of God, walking with Jesus, daughter to my wonderful parents, sister to four, 3 sisters and one brother, I hope a good friend to several and an Auntie and Great Auntie to many. I cherish all of those titles, but being an Auntie has brought me so much joy that I can't adequately express. 

As a general belief system, I believe my home should be welcoming and make any and every person that enters comfortable. It is a reflection of who I am, how I was raised, an extension of my Faith and how I want others to feel. Comfortable welcomed and loved. Which leads me to this project that I'm sharing with you today.   

Full disclosure for me, one of my "Guilty pleasures" are throw blankets! Throw blankets or blankets of every kind, size, material, or color. I just LOVE them!  This love started many years ago when I only had a couple. But, whenever the grandkids, my niece's and nephews, would come over, I would make a point of having a "slumber party" of sorts, where we would all snuggle up and watch a good old movie, play and eat something fresh that I had just baked.

Inevitably, every single one of them would want my blanket throw, or would definitely have a favorite of my other two or three. I loved this! For many years we had, what I called, the "Blankie Box" and the kids, and a few of the adults, all knew exactly where it was, which one they wanted and that they could help themselves. Which tickled me pink with so much joy.

Cranberry Apple Chutney Recipe ~ New Holiday Favorite

Do you ever have a combination of flavors in your mind that you just know would be good together?  I do. When this happens to me, I can't really rest until I try it.  Maybe it's just me, but ever since the subject of Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations came up this year, the when, where, who's home, the what we'll have conversations started circulating, I have had a flavor in mind that I wanted to try.
I always make my own Cranberry Sauce. I never have enjoyed the 'canned' versions, and so as an adult, preparing my own feasts for the holidays, I have made my own.  Nothing complicated, just fresh 1 -12oz bag of cranberries, the zest of 2 fresh oranges and their juice, some of the chopped up peel popped in while cooking with some sugar and spices. I love it! I love the smell of Christmas it spreads throughout the house. Nothing else quite has that smell. It excites me for the upcoming time with family and friends.

That being said, that was not what was on my mind this year. I kept thinking I wanted something a little more. A little more substance, a lot more dimension, more flavors and a bit sturdier, for lack of a better word. I wanted to incorporate more flavors so that it would work for the Thanksgiving and upcoming Christmas feeds but also be wonderful on its own, or for a wonderful appetizer. 

What to do Weekends #251

Hi friends and Welcome to What to do Weekends!  So excited to finally to be enjoying some RAIN and more Fall-like weather, here in Northern California!  No surprise to most of you that this truly is My favorite time of the year. I'm so grateful that you have come to join in the fun at this party! So much talent is a little intimidating. I'm so grateful that you have come to join in the fun at this party! That said here are some of the Features for this week! 

Bombshell Bling share this yummy recipe for her Pumpkin Chiffon Pie Recipe! I can't wait to try her recipe! 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Angie from The Country Chic Cottage's Fall Candles: Make These for Fall Scents Can't you just smell all the yumminess?!! I can't wait to try this! Thank you Angie! 

Please follow myself and Linda while you are linking up! 

You can find Linda Blogging here Crafts a la Mode

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

You can connect with me right here @ Shoestring Elegance

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest 

Thanks!

What to do Weekends #250 ~ Happy November!

Hi friends and Welcome to What to do Weekends! Hello November! So excited to finally get some Fall like weather here in Northern California. There's even a chance of rain, that has a lot of us extremely excited, present company included. :) This is my favorite time of the year. I'm so grateful that you have come to join in the fun at this party!

I got back to blogging myself this week and shared my locally famous recipe for Almond Orange Biscotti Recipe that is seriously far better than any I have ever tasted in any cafe. If you have a chance click on over and have a look.

Here's a little teaser.

Now, time to get on with the party! Please follow myself and Linda while you are linking up! 

You can find Linda Blogging here Crafts a la Mode

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

You can connect with me right here @ Shoestring Elegance

Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | Pinterest 

Thanks!

Once again, you guys did not disappoint! So much to see, so little time! I'm always amazed at the amount of talent that is shared at this party. 

Just look at my first Feature tonight! Jenn from Clean and Scentsible showed us how to make your own Pumpkin Soap! Love this idea! 

Better Than the Cafe Almond-Orange Biscotti & It's Easy

It often seems a bit trivial or insignificant to share a recipe or a craft, when there are so many much more serious things, problems, devastation going on around us. These last few weeks have been horrendous for my County and State. I live in a beautiful little town, smack dab in the middle of Northern California, that you have undoubtedly heard about on the news, we have had the worst firestorms in our state's history in the past few weeks. So much devastation is heartbreaking. However, I am safe... My Family is safe and sound... I'm abundantly grateful to be able to profess to that fact and yet I worked at our church's evacuation center, with hundreds of others, volunteering, trying to do something...anything.. to help our community that was so irreversibly changed forever. Historical landmarks, that we grew up with, gone forever.

Thousands of families don't have a home to go home to. And so we do our best... we provide all we can, physically, for their needs and we pray. We comfort them as best we can, knowing we can't fully imagine the loss that they feel. We pray that somehow God will turn their tragedy into an unseen blessing. Because what else can we do? I continue to pray for them and to give thanks for my family's own safety.  We continue a donation center for their ongoing needs. The one thing that IS certain, the community I live in is so incredibly awesome! The generosity of time, money, prayers, whatever the need they are all over it above and beyond. We express an evacuee's need and it is filled tenfold within a couple hours. Amazing! This has become quite a popular image in our county over the past month

and..I couldn't be more #SonomaProud.

  I think it is in times like this that we truly must bake, decorate, do whatever it is that we can do to "feather our own nest" so to speak, to find some sense of normalcy. After all, it truly isn't the four walls around us that make our house a home. It's the love, care, people, memories and traditions that make us who we are, complete and define us.  

With that in mind, I am sharing with you, today, my recipe for my Almond-Orange Biscotti. This is a newer favorite of mine. I've been making these for the past three or four years and they have been a huge success with my family and friends.  So much so, that last year for Christmas a double batch was my gift to my Sister and her husband. :) So whether you are starting your holiday baking or just really want to add a yummy new recipe to your repertoire, these are delicious.