Christmas Craftiness and a yummy recipe

I don't feel like I've finished up Christmas yet!  I still have lots of Christmas pics and fun things we did to blog about, but alas, I feel the need to wrap it up and move on to the new year.  *sigh*  I wish Christmas lasted longer!  I did want to share a few crafty things we did over the holidays.  First of all, let me just say I am LOVING Pinterest.  If you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically and online bulletin board of amazing ideas, crafts, pics, recipes and more.  Such a great resource!  So I got this bleach pen shirt idea from Pinterest.  I wanted to do something fun for the cousins this year, but due to schedule issues and our kids being sick, I just had to go ahead and experiment on my own.  I did the green one with a flower stencil for Sophie and the navy rocket one for Isaac.  It's interesting that different shirt colors sort of produce different bleach colors.  Basically what I did was put a paper grocery sack inside the shirt, drew out the design using the bleach pen, let it sit for about 15-20 min, and rinsed quickly in the sink.  The bleach comes out from the pen kind of gel-like but after it sits a while it's more pasty, so it doesn't run all over the shirt and ruin the design.  I think doing a design that has bolder lines (the rocket) and not lines that are close together works better.  The stencil I used worked pretty good, but I noticed that the bleach ran together a little and got under the plastic of the stencil some, so the picture is not as defined.  I thought it still looked cute, though.  After rinsing off the bleach, I hand washed the shirts in the sink with some detergent and then threw them in the dryer.  I got the shirts at the Dollar Tree, so it was fun and inexpensive!  Bigger kids could probably do this with assistance.  I noticed on another blog that she let her kids draw out the design with chalk first (on the shirt).  I thought that was a good idea.  I did these for my kids because 1) the were a little young...well, Sophie might've been able to do it..and 2) they weren't really interested in doing it that particular day.  I had fun, though : ).

Our last day of school we made "gingerbread" nativities (I used graham crackers).  Another idea I got off of Pinterest.  I was so excited about doing this because I had never made a gingerbread house before, and to turn the focus onto Christ was exactly what I wanted for the kids.  I glanced at the tutorial for it, but really thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal to just wing it.  I also didn't really want to use a lot of gumdrops and licorice (a personal ugh in the taste department), so I bought other candies I found on sale and decided to improvise.  Well...without going into all the details...we did manage to put the nativity together but it was not easy!  It was messy.  Our stables barely stayed upright.  But it was fun, the girls had a good time, and we got to eat some candy.  I say it was a win : ).

And last, but not least, I had to share this wonderfully delicious recipe that a girl in our Sunday School class from church made for our class Christmas party.  It's easy and so good!!  This gal sells Celebrating Home stuff, so she cooked hers in her "bean pot" for 7 min. and it was done.  I don't have a bean pot, so I threw all of my ingredients into a crockpot and turned it on for about an hour or so and..mmmm..yummy goodness.  Serve with tortilla chips.

Chicken Enchilada Dip

2 cans cooked chicken, drained
8 oz of sour cream; 8 oz. of cream cheese (softened)
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup milk
2 small cans diced chiles
2 cups shredded cheese
1/2 tsp garlic powder; 1/2 tsp onion powder
salt and pepper

*I used 1 larger can of the chiles and it worked fine.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!