The large floral will be used for curtains.

My DEAR friend Laurie came over Sunday evening and volunteered to make the curtains for me. I almost cried. :’-) Happy tears. {{{{{{{{Laurie}}}}}}}} She is coming by today to help figure yardage and I’ll order the fabric online to take advantage of a big savings. I’ll also be able to get it more quickly than I can from the fabric store, as the online store has it in stock and can ship it immediately.

~~Rhonda

The ceiling is 12′ high, so the snowflakes hang on mirrored garlands of different lengths, the longest being about 4′.

Command Strip hooks are the perfect tool for hanging the snowflakes. These hold well and come off easily. Just remember to pull SLOWLY when removing. We use these around the house in a lot of ways at Christmastime.

~~Rhonda

Genny and I decided the deer needed something and she brought in some magnolia leaves. Perfect. We will use those for the open house and for the house tour, as well.

~~Rhonda

We switched the office rug and the living room. The office rug looks great with the sofa. And the living room rug looks great in the office! Worked out well!

~~Rhonda

To prepare the round table for the tree, we hang lights below the table, put lights on top the table and then place a large round piece of table glass on top.

Command Strips hold the light strings under the table. Easy to remove when needed, we use a lot of these at Christmas time.

On top the table are blocks of wood to support the glass. We use three pieces of 2×4 lumber to support the center of the glass which bears the most weight from the tree. I cut rounds of no-slip rubber (I think it was shelf lining) and we place one under the wood and one on top to keep everything from sliding.

The glass top is placed over the lights and wood blocks.

I place a sheet over the glass. This year we used LED lights under the table and they show up better than the old lights because they are brighter.

The tree is progressing well. After it is on the table I place batting on top the glass around the base of the tree and cover that with a round piece of batting that I scalloped. It has a slit in it so it fits around the base of the tree. I place it over the first layer of batting. The scallops fall just over the edge of the table.

Many of the light bulbs are decorated with light covers.

I bought these about ten years ago and have not seen them lately, though I did find these online. Much more expensive than mine were! If I recall correctly, mine came in bags of 24 for $3.

They add a lot of dimension to the white lights.

We will finish the snow tree with a garland of silver tinsel and then “snow” it this evening. DD loves to help with that. I’ll post more pictures later. I want to get this posted so you can see some of the progress we’re making.

~~Rhonda

The Three Kings’ Tree, also in the library, in the corner by the book shelves is done and looks great. It’s hard to spot the three king figurines in this picture, but I liked the way the lights reflected off the wall.

The living room is done, except for a couple of minor details. These are my oldest daughter’s baby shoes on the family tree.

The dining room is a different story!

We are just getting started in there today. I am in the process of putting new lights on the snow tree. When that is done, we’ll put the garland on, and the snowball ornaments. Then we’ll snow the tree. More about that soon!

The snow tree will sit on an old round oak table. The small tree on the left will go on top the corner cupboard. The eight boxes are all decorations for the dining room.

I wanted to check in. We’ve been so busy that I haven’t taken time to update here. My sister is staying through tomorrow to help decorate and we plan to accomplish a lot more.

We bought a sofa for the living room and it may be delivered tomorrow. Because of that, we switched two rugs, but the result is worth it. They look great and the one we moved to the living room looks just right with the sofa pillow I brought home for a color check in the room.

I’ll post more tomorrow. ~~Rhonda

I waited until the chocolate of the peanut butter cup was totally melted…about ten minutes…then gently pressed a Kiss on top.

You can see in this picture that part of the chocolate is shiny and part is still dull. Wait until the entire top is shiny before pressing the Kiss into the top.

If you don’t push the candy in too deeply, you retain the chocolate crimping around the peanut butter cup which looks pretty.

Once the chocolate totally hardens, the cookies are ready for the freezer. Another recipe I can check off my open house list.

~~Rhonda

Use any peanut butter cookie recipe. Spoon small amounts (probably about 2 teaspoonfuls) into small 1 3/4″ muffin tins that have been sprayed with Pam. Don’t over fill. If the dough bakes over the top of the tin, the cookie will be difficult to remove from the muffin tin.

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350. Nine minutes is just right in my oven. As soon as they are removed from the oven, press a small peanut butter cup into the center. I usually use the Wal-Mart brand that comes in a little bag. There are about 36-37 cups in a bag. This year, there were none when we shopped for them, so we bought the Reese’s brand (which are better tasting, anyway).

You can use store bought refrigerator cookie dough for this recipe, which is what I do. To get it out of the tube easily, cut the wrapping with a knife and, on each end, go all the way down to the opposite side. That makes it easy to slide the dough out of the wrapper without leaving dough stuck to the ends. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but there is no need to slice into the dough. Just cut through the wrapper.

Slice the dough into 12 slices and divide each slice into four pieces. If using more than one roll of dough, store the addition rolls in the refridgerator until needed. If left on the counter at room temperature, the dough gets soft quickly which makes it harder to work with.

You don’t have to roll the dough into balls or smoosh it down or anything else. Just drop it into well greased muffin tins.

After adding the peanut butter cups, leave the cookies in the tins to cool. The dough is soft and fragile while warm. If they are removed immediately, the cookies fall apart.

When cool, I gently slide a small frosting spatula along the edge of the cups to loosen them.

At this point, I freeze the cookies until time to serve. Before the open house, I will thaw them and drizzle them with melted almond bark (vanilla) and decorate with chocolate sprinkles. You could use red and/or green candy melts to drizzle over the tops and decorate with candy sprinkles. Or drizzle with melted chocolate and sprinkle with chopped peanuts…lots of ways to decorate them. Or leave them plain!

Wal-Mart sells mint cups that are similar to the peanut butter cups and I like to use them with sugar cookie dough.

Delicious and very easy to make! ~~Rhonda

DD thinks this is fun because she gets to climb on the kitchen counter to hang snowflakes and icicles.

I spend a lot of time in our kitchen so I have opportunity to enjoy the snowflake collection more than other ornament collections I have. This year, we put blue and white LED lights on the garlands. The new LED white lights are really white, not gold or yellow or ivory colored. Makes a big difference in the way the room looks. Love my snowflake curtains, too. Thanks, Laurie!

~~Rhonda

The tiles are installed in the downstairs bath, but not yet grouted.

Upstairs, they have just started putting down the tile.

They will be back tomorrow to work on the third bathroom. I’ll be glad when the hammering and sawing are done!

~~Rhonda