DIY Cooking at Home

Hi there! Today I'm going to show you how easy it is to make a wreath from a placemat. I found two round cork placemats at a junk shop, and got them for free! The owner wanted/needed to clean things out, and I guess she thought a set of only two placemats would be hard to sell. (They probably are.) So I snagged them up before she could change her mind, and knew just what I wanted to do with one of them. I hot glued some picture hangers to the back like so: Then I tied on a pretty red ribbon and voila! A "wreath" that cost $1.29 (for the picture hangers) and took all of 5 minutes. Now this is the kind of craft I have time for lately. So what's hanging on your door this Christmas? Find more Christmas decorations for your front door, check this out: Front Door Decor for the Holidays

I'm almost done with my shopping so now I've got to get about the huge task of wrapping it all up. I fondly remember the first Christmas I spent completely on my own as an adult in my own apartment. I turned on a holiday movie and spent hours making each package look pretty. Fast-forward 20 years...now most of the wrapping is done after the kids are asleep and my husband and I are already dead-dog tired. So while neatness still counts, I'm satisfied if it ends there. But we do enjoy some adult beverages and watching It's A Wonderful Life while we get the job done. I do love the idea of a pretty package, though, even if I probably won't be able to make ours look that way until after the kids have graduated. But I realize they don't have to be complicated, so I've gathered up a handful of simple ideas for you. Our Suburban Farm Real Simple Good Housekeeping The Haystack Needle How About Orange And if you liked this post, try this one: More Gift Wrappin...

Hi there! It seems hot chocolate stations are all the rage this year for the holidays, so I jumped on the bandwagon and created a mini version on a tray for our kitchen. We do, indeed, have a lot of hot chocolate this time of year, and I like my own (it tastes so much better than the packet variety!) so having all of the essentials close by does make it easier. I lined a wooden tray with some burlap, put some snowman mugs I bought at the dollar store on it, and added a ceramic Christmas tree dish (also from the dollar store) to hold some candy canes. Then,  I added some vinyl chalkboard labels to some mason jars I had, and since my wide-mouthed jars didn't have lids, I glued tin foil to some cute fabric, cut out two circles slightly larger than the mouth of the jars, and molded them to the jars' openings to use as makeshift lids. Here's the cocoa mix I made (it's based on my recipe for Hot Chocolate for One ): 2 c. unsweetened cocoa 1 c. sugar 1/2 tsp. salt To mak...

Hi guys! Welcome to Home Made Modern! I'm so excited to be participating in the Home for Christmas blog hop hosted by Hometalk.com and CountryLiving.com! Today, I'm sharing my simple chalkboard advent calendar with you. A lot of you probably have a chalkboard and/or a chalkboard wall in your homes...they've been trending for quite awhile now. If so, you can create this simple look in your home in just minutes! We converted our pantry door into a chalkboard , and it gets a lot of use! I love the look of boxwood on the dusty, black background of a chalkboard, so as I was decorating for Christmas, I decided to hang our little boxwood wreath from West Elm in the kitchen. Then, I simply used a ruler and some sharpened chalk to draw a calendar underneath. I had this tiny green Christmas tree leftover from something, so since our chalkboard isn't magnetic, I just stuck some poster putty on the back of it to use as a marker. Voila! The kids love moving the tree each ...

Welcome back! If you visited me yesterday, then you saw our living room all decked out in red, blue and green Christmas decorations . Today, I'm showing you our family room, which has a different look this year. I wanted to create kind of a winter woodland look, so I used lots of earthy blues and greens and threw in metallics for some glamour. I hope you like it! I feel like this year, our family room has a modern but vintage look. For instance, I thrifted the oil painting from Goodwill, but hung a metallic letter garland on it for some sparkle. What do you think of all of these elements together? Let me know in the comments!  Merry Christmas! Here are some related posts you might like: Christmas Tree Jars Gilded Christmas Village Wood Slice Chalkboard

Hi there! What's your favorite color scheme for Christmas? Right now, I really love lime green, blue, and red. If you read this blog, you know I'm a blue person. Our whole house is mostly gray and blue, with some green thrown in. But try as I might, these colors just didn't move come Christmastime. But then I embraced red for the season, and I love how festive it feels! Here are the ways I decorated with blue, green and red in our living room and kitchen this Christmas. I used a couple of tricks to create this look on the cheap. For instance, I replaced the prints that are normally on the shelf above our couch with printable art from Live, Laugh, Rowe ; Craftberry Bush ; and Today's Creative Life . I used bulbs that wouldn't fit on our tree to fill glass hurricanes I bought on clearance from Marshall's. And I like to use vintage elements here and there, such as the hand-sewn vintage tree skirt made by my Grandma, and the "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa C...