Happy Holidays You Lovelies!

Hello you lovely people,

I'm already in the midst of getting ready for my sister's Christmas party tonight, but I couldn't have celebrated Christmas without leaving a small note for you guys! I wish you all the loveliest holidays together with your families and friends! May all your Christmas wishes come true tonight (or tomorrow, depending on in which country you celebrate)! :)

Thanks so much for reading this little blog!

Have a great day!

Yours,
Steffi

Happy Holidays Garland

Hello everybody,

on Saturday Silke's and mine annual Christmas tea party took place at my apartment and as always it was lovely. We served scones, cake and chilli, tea and hot punch and of course we also decorated the apartment. Apart from other things (like a Christmas tree for example ;) ) I made a lovely and easy-to-make "Happy Holidays"-garland, for which I used simple green colour paper and an old newspaper. If you don't have a Christmas decoration yet, this garland might be perfect.

Christmassy Cake Pops

Hello everyboy,

just a quick note from me today.
On Monday I shared a really tasty recipy (in German and English) for Christmassy cake pops on Diandra's advent calender over at Baking Avenue. They taste like fluffy chocolate gingerbread and are definitely worth a try! :)

Seven Sustainable Christmas Present Ideas

Hello you lovely people,

how are you? Do you already have all of your Christmas presents? In case you don't, listen up! :)
As you all know I started to study Environmental and Sustainability Management this fall. Reason enough for me to search for sustainable Christmas present ideas, which make the presentees and the planet happy at the same time. Here come seven ideas, I came up with.

The Blue Winter Dress

Hello everybody,

Punch and cookies, where are you? I am ready for you! :)
May I introduce you to my favourite new blue winter dress? It's by cos and I immediately fell in love with the color when I saw it hanging in the store. Combined with my beloved "Christmas fascinator" and sparkly socks I think it makes for a perfect Advent outfit... :)

O(rigami) Christmas Tree!

Hello folks,

do you remember the newspaper Christmas tree balls I made last year? Well, as a huge paper lover I  decided to go with paper ornaments again this year. However, instead of cutting and stapling I chose folding this time. Yes, you guess right, we are talking origami ornaments for this Christmas. Among other things I folded classic Christmas tree ornaments and Santa boots and sticked to the classic Christmas colors red, white and green.

Christmas Chocolate Crunchies in a Bottle

Hello everybody,

Are you already looking forward to Christmas? I totally am! I already started to decorate my apartment and I listen to my Christmas playlist all day long, which turns David a bit nuts already, as he is sort of a little Grinch. :D

Do you already have all of your Christmas presents? I don't, but I already came up with some ideas for small presents, which could also serve perfectly as host(ess) gifts for eventual Christmas parties. Among other things I decided to make "cookies in a jar" this year. Those can currently be bought everywhere in Vienna (even in interior decoration shops), but I thought it would be much nicer to make them oneself, also because then you can be sure which ingredients have been used. Here comes the instruction. :)

Branch advent calendar

Hey folks,

it's me - Lily! Long time no see! ;) Today I will show you in a little guest posting my this year's branch advent calendar which was super easy to make.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Hello everybody,

Christmas is finally here!! All Christmas presents have been packed, the tree has been decorated, Christmas movies have been watched and mulled wine has been drunk - preparation time is officially over... ;)

For the upcoming festivities we wish you all the best! Have a wonderful time with your families and friends, enjoy tons of delicious food and sing Christmas songs that loud that your whole neighbourhood can hear it!
For all of you who may not celebrate Christmas: Happy, happy holidays! You too have a wonderful time with your families and friends, enjoy tons of delicious food and simply exchange the Christmas songs with the music of your choice! 

As Christmas is also the time for saying thank you: Thank you for reading this blog! We really appreciate it and value everyone of you (a lot!)! We hope we'll meet again after the holidays! :)

Be merry!

XOXO,
Tulip & Lily

New years morning brunch

Hey,

I can't believe it is allready day 22 of our blog christmas calendar!
Today I want to share some ideas for a nice new years morning brunch with you. I have just moved into a new flat and I'm going to invite my family on 1st on January. I found all images on Pinterest and you can find the original sources plus the recipes here.

I really love this simple table decor idea: just use some packing paper as a table runner (you could also paint some golden dots on it) and spread some confetti over it. For new years eve and morning everything should be sparkling.

          

I think I will serve my family some nice rostbeef sandwiches, freshly pressed orange juice and a warm lentil soup. 2014, bring it on! :)

                   

Last Minute Christmas Decoration

Hello everybody,

if you haven't had time time until now to decorate your apartment Christmas style I've got a very simple and fast DIY-idea for you that will rock your walls. ;)

What you'll need

• cardboard
• pencil or white crayon
• scissors
• glue pads

How it works

Write "Merry Christmas" or another Christmassy saying in big letters on your cardboard. 

Cut out the letters.

Put glue pads onto the backside of your letters and put the letters on your wall.

All images by Stefanie Reichl

Delicious Christmas Dishes (Vegetarian Style)

Hi folks,

I already mentioned that this year my boyfriend and I will host our first Christmas dinner for my mum and his family at Christmas Eve. What I didn't mention is that everybody in David's family is vegetarian. As in my family it's rather tradition to eat goose or turkey or fish or other meaty stuff at Christmas I scoured the internet yesterday to get some inspiration for vegetarian alternatives. Here are my favourite 5 recipes I came up with.

Portobello mushroom and chestnut baked custards recipe

Savory Pumpkin Galette

Citrus and pomegranate brussels sprouts

Christmas Honeycomb Cannelloni

 

Fresh Savoy, red onion & egg pie

All these recipes and more can also be found on my "Festive Dishes" Pinterest board.
Enjoy your meal! :)

Hot Punch: Warms you from inside

Hi folks,

what could you make feel warm in winter faster than a cup of tasty hot punch? Therefore my boyfriend and I cooked a pot for our friends yesterday and here comes the recipe.

What you'll need

• 750ml water
• 1 organic orange
• 1 organic lemon
• fresh ginger
• rum
• sugar

How it works

Boil up the water.
 


Cut the oranges and lemons into small pieces and the ginger into thin slices.

Put the fruit into the boiling water and let simmer for about 15 minutes. 

Squash the fruit with a cooking spoon or similar and sieve the fruit into a bowl or jug.

Continue squashing and put the fruit pulp (without the fruit skins) back into the pot.

Add glühwein spices (we used two teabags) and sugar as you like. If you don't get the spices ready-made you can mix the spice blend yourself out of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.

Finally add rum as you prefer and enjoy! :)

All images by Stefanie Reichl

Favourite Christmas Movie Outfits

Hey folks,

we allready showed you our favourite christmas movies in this post. Today I want to share my favourite christmas movie outfits with you :) Allthough fashion of the 80ies is not so much my thing, I really love the crazy christmas sweaters they were wearing in the movies at that time.

When I saw "Bridget Jones" for the first time I instantly felt in love with that cute reindeer-sweater from Marc. Here's a nice collage I found to bring it back into your mind.

And here is my Bridget Jones movie outfit inspiration for you. You can find all details on my Polyvore profile.

Newspaper Christmas Tree Balls

Hi there,

Number 17 of this Advent calender will show you a DIY-idea for your Christmas tree: Christmas Tree Balls out of old newspapers.

What you'll need:

• old newspaper
• pencil
• scissors
• glasses/cups in different sizes
• stapler

How it works

Put 8 to 10 newspaper pages over each other.

Use your glasses/cups as stencils and draw different sized circles onto the newspaper paper.

Cut out the circles and staple them them together in the middle of the circles.

Fan out the different layers of the circle until it looks like a Christmas ball. Afterwards you can put little hooks into your Christmas tree balls and hang them on your tree.

If you want a little variation you can also cut out small Christmas trees. This I did last year and it also worked out really well.

All images by Stefanie Reichl

PS: I also shared this project on Kyla's link party at House of Hipsters. 

Christmas Tea With Scones And Sandwiches

Hello everybody,

yesterday my friend Silke and I hosted our traditional annual Christmas tea for our friends with scones with jam and whipped cream, sandwiches, hot punch and (of course) tea. Today I wanna share our scones recipe as well as some other tea preparation impressions with you. :)

What you'll need (for about 15 scones)

• 450g flour
• 16g baking powder
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 50g butter
• 250ml milk
• 1 egg

How it works

Mix the flour with the baking powder and the sugar.

Cut the butter into small pieces and put it to the other ingredients in your bowl. Levigate the butter with your fingertips with the flour mixture until it gets crumbly.

Put the milk into the bowl and knead the mixture into a (rather sticky) dough. 

Roll the pastry about 2cm thick and cut out the scones with a round biscuit cutter (about 5cm diameter) or a glass/cup.

Whisk the egg and and coat the scones with it. Afterwards bake them at 210°C for about 15 to 20 minutes.

I addition to the scones we made a variation of sandwiches. Beside ham and egg sandwiches, mozzarella and tomatoe sandwiches, brie and apple sandwiches and butter-cucumber sandwiches we also made tuna salad sandwiches:

As little farewell gifts for our guests we also made Christmas crackers filled with sweets.

All images by Stefanie Reichl