I am not a coffee drinker, but ooooh how I love hot chocolate! For several years now, I've been wanting to create a hot chocolate station in our kitchen, and this year, I finally did it! We now have, at our finger tips, everything we need to make lots of different variations of hot chocolate any time our little hearts desire. I had a lot of fun putting this together, and I hope you love it as much as I do!
We have owned a Keurig for a couple of years, and we keep it out on our kitchen counter on top of a shallow metal drawer for storing all of our K-cups, which, this time of year, include both milk chocolate and white chocolate. I love the convenience of the drawer, but it's not the most stylish part of our kitchen. So I decided to dress it up for the holidays with a piece of red plaid wrapping paper. As the season goes on, if the paper gets wet or beat up, it will be quick and easy to replace!
Next to the Keurig sit a small red tray and a pretty, two-tier silver tray - both from Target's line of holiday servingware - to organize all of our hot chocolate powders, mix-ins, and mugs.
I also made a super cute little sign that I placed in a silver frame and hung on the tile using Command velcro strips.
I also printed coordinating labels on to sticker paper and stuck them on the top of the bottles of powder and mix-ins to make it easy for everyone to find just what they need to create their favorite flavor of hot chocolate.
The glass jars for the powder, and the milk bottles for the mix-ins are all from the dollar section of Target {sold in packs of 2 for $3}. There are endless options for what you could mix-in to your hot chocolate, but our favorites include peppermint crunch, butterscotch chips, cherry filled chocolate chips, and marshmallow bits.
The narrow necks of the glass milk bottles make it really easy to pour these ingredients right in to your mug. I prefer to add my mix-ins {other than the marshmallows} in to my mug before adding in my hot water or milk.
Especially when we entertain during the holiday season, we also enjoy spiking our hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, whipped cream flavored vodka, and our new favorite that we discovered while traveling in South Africa this fall - a cream liqueur called Amarula.
If you are planning to create your own hot chocolate station for a holiday party or for your family to enjoy throughout the cold winter, you can download free printable versions of my "Baby it's Cold Outside" sign and my labels. The sign is sized to fit an 8x10 frame, and the printable set of labels includes 6 of the most common varieties of hot chocolate powder and 8 different popular mix-ins. If you don't want to create sticker labels, like I did, you could instead punch a whole in the top of each round label and tie in around your containers with cute baker's twine.
I'm off to have another cup of hot chocolate while I finish taking photos for my Christmas home tour.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to see our house fully decked out for the holiday! In the meantime, here are some of my other favorite Christmas projects that you might like...
Linked up at Thrifty Decor ChicLabels: Christmas, decor, entertaining, holidays, kitchen, organization, seasonal
