New Year's Eve Menu

There are two things I always have on New Year's Eve - pigs in a blanket and champagne. I also always like to have something sweet, so I am making the winner of my '09 Baking Challenge - Black and White Cheesecake Brownies from April.

As it turns out, I have no cocoa powder, so I am substituting block chocolate. I also only have 1/2 a block of cream cheese, so I am halfing the recipe. I'm using an 8x8 pan instead of a 9x13 - this will be plenty for hubby and me.  I had to adjust the butter and sugar content because of the chocolate and I would recommend not doing this.  I have had much better results with cocoa powder. Also, the recipe calls for dutch process but I can never find this in the grocery store. Hershey's Special Dark tastes much better than their regular.  And do you like my new CIA digital scale?  I got it on Rue La La and it is going to make measuring so much easier!

I made my lil piggies with cocktail weiners and puff pastry.  I had wanted to put poppy seeds on top but I forgot them at the store, oh well.  I also made myself an inspired Champagne Cocktail.  My aunt and I had Mango Martinis at Olive Garden and they were so good that I picked up Rose's Mango Twist Mix.  I added about an ounce to my flute and topped it off with champagne, YUM!

This is also my first post using my new camera and picasa - what do you think?

It's Official...

Today was my last day of work - woohoo.

I leave to visit my mom on Monday for two weeks, and then I just have loads of free time on my hands and a potentially huge announcement to make {but it's too early to share}.

Happy New Year!!  I feel that 2010 is going to be the year of big changes.

A 2009 Re-cap

Between holiday vacations and other life chaos at the moment, I have no projects done or planned to show you.

So please, please, PLEASE go read Beth's 2009 Home Decor Re-cap at Stories of A to Z.  She is so spot on and the commentary will have you clutching your sides in laughter.

Now, on your way, go on, enjoy!

2009 Baking Challenge - December

Well, the year kind of went out with a flop. My final baking project of the year was this Chocolate-Chestnut Mousse Cake.

Here is the lovely magazine photo:

Martha Stewart

And here is how mine turned out:

I don't know what caused mine to turn into a puddle, but here are some theories:

1)  I could not find chestnuts anywhere!  so I just made all chocolate mousse - maybe the nuts added stability

2)  I was not in my kitchen, therefore who knows?

3) It was in a spot in the fridge that just wasn't cold enough

Even though it looked a mess, it tasted really good.

I'll keep on going with making the Save Room For.. article in every issue of MSL {unless it is unappealing to me and my family}

And guess what my Santa-Hubby got me for christmas - a new camera!

Yeay!! no more camera-phone pictures {I can't use it until I get a memory stick because the camera can only hold 3 photos}

Gingerbread Village @ Turning Stone

Here are the pictures of the life-size gingerbread village I promised earlier this week.

This village took 16,000 pieces of gingerbread, 1,050 lbs dough, 350 lbs icing, and over 1,000 hours.

left to right:  aunt, MIL, Hubby, Me

I also saw this bottle of maple syrup in the gift shop and I thought the label was too cute!!

Craftaholics Anonymous Christmas Swap

Linda @ Craftaholics Anonymous hosted a wonderful Gift Exchange for Christmas. Everyone got paired with both a sender and receiver.

I sent out one of my reindeer ornaments to Angela @ Comfie Country Crafts - you can see what she got on this post.

 

Ashley @ Ashley's Crafts and BOWutiful Bows sent me two of the cutest headbands I've ever seen.  One is a very demure green and white - perfect for the holidays and the other is a super girly purple and lavender with flowers!

I debuted the green and white for our road trip yesterday to Turning Stone Casino and Resort in New York.  Omigosh, they have the most incredible gingerbread house display in the lobby.  I'lll be taking pictures after I finish this post so stay tuned.

Here is the purple headband.  My sister-in-law is 12 and I know she will love this!!  {that's right she is 12 - my brother-in-law is 7!!}

Ashley, thank you so much!! The headbands are gorgeous - you do incredible designs!!

Bloggie Friends Are The Best!!!

I started this blog a few months ago for a few reasons - I was starting to craft and bake with more frequency and I wanted a place to share and document, I really wanted to participate in all those fun linky parties, but mostly I wanted to join this community of amazing women!!

So when Beth at The Stories of A to Z left a super sweet comment on my blue planner post, I wanted to send her a planner so I could practice my skills and make some new friends. Here is a sneak peak of the planner I made her, and if you go to her blog, you can see all the great pictures she took on her super sweet and complimentary post.

I also would like to say thank you and welcome to all of Beth's readers who have come to pay me a visit. I appreciate all your kind words and interest in my blog.

Here is another planner that I made for a co-worker.

I really enjoy making these and everyone has given me such a positive reaction, so.....

After the holidays I'll be selling them on etsy. All of the planner's will be semi-custom. I'll pick out the papers and embellishments and you get to choose what you want your four pockets to be labeled and let me know what monogram should go on the cover.

Could you all give me some advice? What would you be willing to pay for one? I want to make sure that I price these appropriately. Stay tuned, I'll keep you informed on when I start making planners for sale and when they will arrive in my store.

Door Decor

I've always loved the decadence of ornament wreaths and when I finally caught on to the super easy "Eddie Ross" method this year, I was super excited to give it a try.

I haven't bought any new Christmas decorations this year - I just enjoyed unpacking all my goodies from last year. As I was setting up my mini tree, I realized I had too many ornaments on it and it kept falling over! So I thought I would try to make a mini wreath with my mini bulbs.

Well, I didn't have enough to make a wreath, but I did make a ball. I started with a wire hanger, but there was too much left uncovered, so I took a length of floral wire from a Martha Stewart crepe paper flower kit that was a bust.

Isn't it cute?

Then it took me forever to find some ribbon to hang it with {I didn't make any trips to a Christmas or craft store, but I thought for sure the grocery store or CVS would have it - they did not}

but... Hooray for office freebies! My dept. received one of those wine country gift baskets and it was wrapped in the perfect red wired ribbon. I also grabbed a pine cone pick, a little green platter and a cheese spreader.

And here it finally is on my front door.

Reindeer Ornaments

After making Reindeer Plaques for my family, I started to make Reindeer Ornaments for my friends. It was a very similar process, so let's get started.

I found these garden stakes at the Target Dollar Spot when it was the Quarter spot. 6 pieces for a quarter? That means they were four cents each, score!

After snapping off the stakes {pretty easy}, I knew that I needed to remove the letters and paint, but I soon realized I didn't know how. Sanding didn't work, my dremel dug in to deep, and then I thought of nail polish remover. It seemed to be working, albeit pretty slowly. So I had the great idea to soak them in the remover. Didn't work so great and it made a huge mess!!

So then, I took a scraper thing {i don't know what to call it} to scrape the paint off. It worked for the most part, but I couldn't remove all the paint. However,  I did get all kinds of paint stuck under my nails for days.

Finally, all the hard work was over! They all got the same metallic pearl paint as the plaques on the front, and the same red and green on the sides and backs.  I spilled some of the green paint on the carpet, so painting night turned into a fun few hours of paint, clean brushes, blot up the resolve, reapply soaking towel, repeat.  Happy to report that the stain came out fairly well, but if you stare you can see a faint green circle.

I cut the same reindeer from my cricut, just a lot smaller. The hooves were so tiny, I couldn't glue the little yellow pieces on, so I colored them in with a sharpie.  Mod-podge, blah, blah, blah...

Here are all nine reindeer, with a special Rudolph the Red-Nosed ReinPig, for the pig loving boss.

I had some really cute wired ribbon from Michael's with a candy cane stripe that I used to turn the squares into ornaments.

And the final touch, a stamp of "Christmas 2009" on the back.

I used a similar technique to wrap the ornaments. I found smaller cellophane bags in the candy making aisle that have an hourglass like shape. I stuffed them with tinsel, added the ornaments, and tied with curling ribbon. I also made name tags like the ones for the christmas plaques, just smaller. Here are the bags prepped for wrapping.

And all ready to go.

These came in at a whopping $1.12 a peice!!

I'll be joining these parties: DIY Day @ Kimba's, Ornament Party @ CentsationalGirl, BCD Show and Tell and more to come!

Monday Snacktime

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting - Yum!

have one,

or two!

the recipe is published in both the MS Cupcake Cookbook and the Holiday Sweets special edition that is on newstands now! I can't find the recipe on her site, so I will post it later tonight.

Did you know?  After I finished baking these I decided to run the self-clean on my oven, and I found out that you can't use the range while the oven is cleaning.  I also learned that you shouldn't leave your butter dish out during this process - I lifted the cover and had a lovely pool of butter.  But I do have a nice clean oven :)

Merry Christmas