Several years ago I found a creative way to make ornaments using LifeSaver candies.  I saw this idea in the Kraft Food and Family Holiday 2004 issue and we have made these ornaments for a few years now.  Yesterday we had some neighborhood children playing in our house and everyone started fussing with one another so I ripped open the LifeSaver bag (they don't call them "LifeSavers" for nothing! LOL!)


 I put aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and Preheated the oven to 325 degrees.  The kids unwrapped their candies and made their designs.  



After we built the designs, I found it easiest to put in a metal ornament hook in one of the holes of the candy before putting it in the oven so the candy melts around the hook.
I made the wreath below with green ones then I crushed some red ones and put them in the holes before placing them in the oven.   Here are just a few of our designs.

Put the designs in the preheated oven for 3 to  6 minutes until melted.  Once they are melted, pull them out of the oven and let them cool before carefully pulling the aluminum foil from the back of the ornaments.

From the picture below you can see the hooks that I had put in the holes prior to baking.  The candy melted around the hooks.  These ornaments do break very easily and can be sticky (especially if your children lick them like mine did once they were cooled off!), so be careful with them.  A lot of our ornaments did break :(



When the ornaments cooled, I tied a red ribbon around the hook and hung them to our light wires in our kitchen with another hook like this:

At the beginning of December, my family and some friends went to a local garden where they had a self-guided night tour and the gardens were decorated with CHRISTmas lights.  It was a beautiful, crisp winter night and the scenery got us into the Advent and CHRISTmas spirit.  Here are some sights that we saw:

Last year a friend of mine gave me the idea to make this cute stocking to hold silverware.  She got the idea here at Family Fun. So since this easy, but somewhat time-consuming craft does NOT require sewing, (I can sew buttons and scout patches, and that's it!) I was busy last year buying red felt and patterned fabric and lots of fabric glue.
I made 3 sets of 12 stockings.  I made one set for myself, my mom, and a dear friend.  I was busy cutting and gluing, but it was well worth the effort because we all love our silverware stockings!  This year my family is hosting a luncheon at our house on CHRISTmas Day for family and friends, so these stockings will look great on the tables.