Review of "Homespun Holidays" by The Old Schoolhouse

With the holidays fast approaching, I had the pleasure of doing a review of Homespun Holidays by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. This 89 page printable e-book is chock full of all things that represent this time of year. Although The Old Schoolhouse is offering this e-book for free right now, it is definitely worth paying for! Hurry over and get your copy here, so you too can stop stressing over the holidays.

This was my first Old Schoolhouse product, and I am thankful to have the chance to review it for the Schoolhouse review crew. Let me tell you, upon receiving this e-book I was immediately impressed with the beautiful cover. It completely represents this time of year for me. From the sweet one room schoolhouse to the fall/winter pictures that surround it, it gets me in the spirit for my favorite time of year! After opening Homespun Holidays you will find a treasure of beautiful and colorful pictures, fun poetry, fall and winter inspired recipes, and tons of crafts to keep the kids busy all season long.

One of my favorite things about this e-book is all of the fall and winter inspired recipes that are included in it! I would purchase this book just for that. They are all lined out on beautiful and colorful recipe cards that you could print out on card stock to keep. They also have them in a regular page format if you would rather print it that way. I wanted to try every single recipe in here. They aren't recipes full of ingredients that you have to go out and search for which is always a plus for me. I like what I call "real people" recipes and this is exactly what you get here. I am looking forward to trying so many of them this season.

I'm going to be honest, I am not good at decorating for the holidays. I can take an idea and run with it, but coming up with them myself is hard for me. There are some easy but very cute ideas throughout this book for both seasons, fall and winter. Anything from making your own scarecrows and pumpkin carving, to making your own door hangers and wreaths. They are all family friendly and great for all ages.

Gavin decorating his bag

It has been kind of a crazy week here with Edyn recovering from an awful case of food poisoning, so we haven't got to try as many crafts as I would have liked to. 

There are so many great ideas it was hard to choose between them! I did want to try one for the fall and one for the winter. We decided that we wanted to make the thankful bags. We are going to be making lunch for the guys that work with my husband and we thought that we could use these bags to put their utensils and napkins in, plus they would be kind of like a placeholder at their table.

Edyn painting her hand to make the turkey

We decided to get out our paints, colored pencils and markers to decorate our brown paper bags. I just let the kids create whatever they wanted to do. They both wanted to paint their hands and make turkeys out of them. I really loved this craft because they got to talk about what they were thankful for this year. They are really pleased with how they turned out! 

Finished bags

While scrolling through, my kids knew immediately that they wanted to make the giant paper snowflakes. When I first saw them, I thought they would be kind of complicated. I was wrong. These snowflakes were so much fun to make that the kids are already talking about making more in all different colors and sizes. I suspect our home is going to look like Elsa's ice palace by the time that they're done!

This is how Gavin liked to hold his tape

We got our supplies which only consisted of white construction paper, scotch tape, and a stapler and got to work. The book has very detailed instructions along with some very good pictures to help you along the way. Once you understand where to cut and where to tape, it's so quick and easy from there.

We decided to hang them in the entryway

Overall I give this e-book a big thumbs up. It is just so full of holiday spirit on every page. We had so much fun planning what recipes we were going to try first, and deciding what crafts to do next. Get your free copy of Homespun Holidays, a big mug of hot chocolate and have a great time with your family making new crafts and decor, or simply coming up with new family traditions.