Category: Christmas

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Peppermint Bark

Ok, this is a simple one. Please don’t be frustrated by the lack of exact amounts. Peppermint bark is a relative thing…

Peppermint Bark

Ingredients

Green or Pink melting chocolate–you can buy this in small amounts or 10lb bags.

Candy canes (crushed)

Melt your chocolate on low. Resist the urge to turn up the heat. Just let it melt slowly. You have plenty to do anyway.

Unwrap and crush the candy canes. Here is the best tip on how to do this that you’ll get all year…

For centuries, we have been dreading the “crushing of the candy canes” part of this adventure. We’ve used ziploc bags and rolling pins, bowls and heavy mugs and I believe there was even a year that the back porch and a hammer were involved. I know…yikes.

So, this year we found the perfect thing and our candy cane crushing woes turned to joy and singing. Well, at least the whining stopped. We discovered the food chopper from Pampered Chef. We just unwrapped the candy canes, snapped them in half and dropped them in the chopper. Oh, let me tell you–everyone wanted a turn to pound the daylights out of those things. It was great. No rolling pins, no punctured ziplocs and best of all no hammers.

You’ll want to crush the candy canes and still have some recognizable pieces left. That makes the bark pretty. When your chocolate is melted, pour in the candy canes and stir it up. You can add as much or little as you’d like. Seriously, you can’t do this wrong.

Now pour the chocolate onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and spread it around—not too thick, not too thin. It will set in about an hour–but you can speed it up by putting it in the fridge for a while. Once it is set, remove the wax paper and break it into pieces. Gobble it up.

And there you have it. The long winded approach to a very simple thing.

Peppermint Bark
 
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Ingredients
  • Green or Pink melting chocolate--you can buy this in small amounts or 10lb bags.
  • Candy canes (crushed)
Instructions
  1. Melt your chocolate on low.
  2. Unwrap and crush the candy canes.
  3. When your chocolate is melted, pour in the candy canes and stir it up.
  4. Now pour the chocolate onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and spread it around---not too thick, not too thin.
  5. It will set in about an hour--but you can speed it up by putting it in the fridge for a while.
  6. Once it is set, remove the wax paper and break it into pieces.

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Rice Pillow

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At our house the rice pillow is the cozy remedy for sore joints, headaches, tummy trouble, or cold feet. Luckily, they are so easy to make. I made these two out of a couple of T-shirts that I was finished with.

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Cut two strips of fabric–the striped one is about 15″x 4.” The flower one is about 15″x 5.” The size depends on what you’ll be doing with it. A nice square is great for keeping your feet warm and a longer strip makes a good back of the neck wrap. The exact measurements aren’t that big of a deal.

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Double zigzag the edges leaving one short side open.

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Fill with rice, or wheat. We chose wheat because this is Utah…and we are all about wheat.  :]

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You can sew the end shut or tie it into a huge knot–that works well with cotton knit.

It is a good idea to sew a pillow case for your rice pillow that you can remove and throw in the washer every week or so.

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Milk Chocolate Fudge

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Warning…If you are a dark chocolate lover, or even a semi-sweet fiend, then I must tell you…keep moving on. This is not the recipe for you. However–if you love milk chocolate, soft, smooth delicate fudge…you have arrived. Clap if you’d like.

Now you may think to yourself, “Heyyy…this recipe looks a lot like Fantasy Fudge.” And you would be a little bit right. But you would also be a whole lot wrong. Many of the ingredients are the same, but a couple of things are different…vitally different. And for the milk chocolate lovers out there it makes all the difference. You must trust me on this…

Note: Don’t substitute any of the ingredients for something…not as good, unless of course, you want something…not as good.

In that case, any fudge recipe will do.

Milk Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter (NOT margarine)

2/3 cup evaporated milk

13 oz. Symphony bar milk chocolate

7 oz Kraft Marshmallow creme

1 Tbsp vanilla

Combine sugar and milk in a 2-1/2 quart non-stick saucepan. Add butter and heat to a rolling boil. Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling for exactly 5 minutes.

While the mixture is boiling, combine marshmallow cream and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Mix on low for 30 seconds.

Remove sugar mixture from heat and add broken chocolate pieces one or two at a time–stirring until completely melted. Add to marshmallow and mix on medium for 2 minutes scraping the side and bottom as needed.

Pour into lightly buttered 9 x 13 pan. Keep tightly covered with foil.

Milk Chocolate Fudge
 
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Ingredients
  • 3 cups sugar
  • ¾ cup butter (NOT margarine)
  • ⅔ cup evaporated milk
  • 13 oz. Symphony bar milk chocolate
  • 7 oz Kraft Marshmallow creme
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla
Instructions
  1. Combine sugar and milk in a 2-1/2 quart non-stick saucepan.
  2. Add butter and heat to a rolling boil.
  3. Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling for exactly 5 minutes.
  4. While the mixture is boiling, combine marshmallow cream and vanilla in a mixing bowl.
  5. Mix on low for 30 seconds.
  6. Remove sugar mixture from heat and add broken chocolate pieces one or two at a time--stirring until completely melted.
  7. Add to marshmallow and mix on medium for 2 minutes scraping the side and bottom as needed.
  8. Pour into lightly buttered 9 x 13 pan.
  9. Keep tightly covered with foil.

If fudge starts to get dry around the edges in a few days–gather it into a large ziploc bag. It will moisten back up. It is also nice to store in the refrigerator. Tastes like a whole new treat when it’s cold.

 

 

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Steiner Baby

I first saw these little dollies on a site called Sooz. They are tiny and simple to stitch together from felt scraps, T-shirt fabric and some cotton thread. They just looked sweet to me and it was easy to imagine them sneaking into a six-year-old’s pocket as she’s on her way to church. I’ll show you my adventure with this fun thing.

I folded a piece of paper and sketched a basic pattern. It wasn’t anything complicated. I’ll post a pattern here by day’s end–but really it’s quite simple. Cut two from felt–wool felt is wonderful, but I had a piece of earthy brown regular felt and I couldn’t resist using it.

This will give you a good idea of the size. Just right for your Goldilocks. Use a blanket stitch to sew the front and back together.

I didn’t have a flesh colored piece of interlock for the head and none of my kids had a T-shirt the right color either or it would have been in great danger. I finally bought a 4″ strip at the fabric store. Fold a 4″x 4″ piece and sew a 2″ wide casing. Gather the top into a bunch. Turn it right side out.

Stuff the head and body with cotton or wool batting.

Sew it onto the body.

I made a brown braid from cotton thread, and cut out a bandana from red sparkle felt.

After tacking on the bandana, sew two simple stitch sleepy eyes.

The End

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Baby Flower Headbands & Clips

If there are babies or young girls on your gift list this year, these go together quick and easy–and are cute and trendy to boot!

Here’s what you need to get going:

  • Some double pronged salon clips. I bought mine at a local hair supply store, a box of 80 for about $6.

  • Glue Gun and glue sticks
  • 3/8″ ribbon. I used grosgrain because I like it. Twill tape works well too. Satin is a little hard to work with, and with organza, you’ll likely get burned with the glue coming through. If you’re like me you might get burned anyway.

  • Fake flowers. There are several ways to acquire these. Scrapbook stores sell them as embellishments, but make sure you’re getting fabric/felt ones, not paper. You can also buy stems of flowers at a craft store and take them apart. Finally, you can buy felt squares (they were 25 cents a piece at my local JoAnn’s) and cut out your own flowers.

  • Flower middles. These can be anything from buttons, to little rhinestones, to scrapbooking brads. Use your imagination. I like using brads to hold all the layers together, and then gluing buttons or rhinestones on top.

Here’s how to do it:

  • First, cover the alligator clip with ribbon. Using the glue gun, start on the underside of the clip (that’s the straight side, without any angles). Glue the edge of the ribbon down then fold it over to continue covering the clip. This gives a nice folded edge look, that won’t fray. Glue the ribbon all the way around the clip, stopping on the underside of the top set of prongs. The bottom set will remain exposed so that we can clip it to things later.
  • Assemble your flowers. Combine different sizes, colors, and shapes for visual interest. Also, keep in mind what colors are popular or favorites for children’s clothing. I had fun with mine and made some seasonal, even. Try to incorporate 3 or 4 layers so that the flower has some depth.

  • Put the layers together with a brad, or glue them together with your hot glue gun (careful, or your fingers will look like mine).

  • Add some flair by putting glitter, rhinestones, buttons, fuzzy yarn, or brads. I used some glitter glue on a few of the petals and it turned out really cute.

  • Glue the flower to the alligator clip you covered earlier. Try to align the clip over any brad prongs so that they don’t catch hair.

You’re done with the flowers, now on to the headbands. I use crocheted baby headbands that I bought online. I’ve also seen them in boutiques and even a grocery store or two.  They are cute, and stretchy and feminine, and the alligator clips can clip right into the fabric.

Alternately, you can make headbands out of knee-high nylons. Just take the nylon, cut off the toe and the ribbing at the top. Now, take the long middle part of the nylon and glue the two cut ends together, making a loop out of the remaining sock.  Then, you can make a loop (with the ribbing) to wrap around the area you just glued together. Leave part of it not glued down so that you can slip the alligator clip in, and voila! A cute, interchangeable headband!

P.S. If you’d like to scrap the headband idea and just make some cute flowers to clip in hair (these work better for older girls, not babies), you can always assemble the flowers as above, but instead of using alligator clips, use the spring loaded clips. Again, purchaseable at a well stocked craft store.

Happy headbanding!

~April~