Doggie Bark

Gift for the canines

4 cups carob chips

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup dry-roasted peanuts or chopped walnuts


Instructions
1. In a bowl, melt the carob chips in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir them with a wooden spoon, then microwave for 30 seconds more.
2. Stir in the peanut butter and microwave for another 15 seconds. Stir the ingredients again to combine.
3. Add the nuts and the cinnamon, then stir the mixture to coat the nuts.
4. Line an edged cookie sheet with aluminum foil and lightly spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the mixture onto the foil and chill it for 15 minutes in the freezer or 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
5. Remove the bark and break it into roughly 1- by 2-inch pieces. Store it in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 70 pieces.

Ornament dough

Salt dough

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cups water

Mix the flour, salt and water together until well combined.

Shape or roll out dough and use cookie cutters for the ornament.

Bake at 300 degrees for 1/2 hour.

Let cool before painting. Can use nail polish also.


Applesauce dough

1 cup Applesauce
1 1/2 cups ground ginger, allspice, cinnamon and clove (mixed as desired)
1 squirt of school glue

Mix your ingredients together. If your dough seems crumbly you can add more applesauce or even just plain water.

As with the Salt dough, you can use this to make 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional ornaments.

Once shaped the dough needs to cook for an hour at 200 degrees F., then cool completely before decorating. You can also leave the ornaments to air dry for several days if you have the time.

Decorate! Decorate as desired with glitter, paint, googly eyes, cotton pom-poms. Whatever you want. You can seal with a few clear final coats of paint (decoupage style).

Cupcakes for co-workers

I am going to make some cupcake ornaments for some of my co-workers. See how we work in the bakery area... but I have seen directions for them basically just gluing the ornament to a cup cake liner and sprinkling some glitter on top.

But I think I am going to make some puffy paint to squeeze on top like we do when we ice the cupcakes....
Puffy paint:
1/4 cup of flour
1/4 cup of salt
1/4 cup water
paint or food coloring

Mix flour, salt and water together then add any colored paint or food coloring.


Use a thick paint brush to paint with it.


You can also pour your mixture into squeeze bottles or re-use old squeeze sauce bottles.


Use the paint as normal, but when it dries it will harden to a puffed up dimensional paint.

will this stay on a ornament? Guess I will find out.. depends on the type I guess...

Hummm also could use the sprinkles and then use my clear sealant. Will post pictures I promise!

           

Time for Cards

Oh this holiday season you can remember our soldiers. There is a outdated message circling the net that says When filling out your Christmas cards this year, take one card and send it to this address: A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20307-5001. If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful, special people, who have sacrificed so much would get.

But the Walter Reed Army Medical Center has closed! So this would just end up in the dead letter office at the post office in Washington DC. If they are still open.  With our  local distribution  center closing it's postal operations here... you never know.  My daughter's father and his wife work there and may loose their jobs.  With worries my daughter.  Her father is talking of moving to West Virginia and that means to see her dad she have to make a 6 1/2 hour drive to see him.

So if you would like to send a card to a soilder you can go to the Red Cross site and found this address:

Holiday Mail For Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Just add one more card to your list!

Gift Jars

I have started my gift making for my hours have been cut again (not sure if I can have a holiday at this rate) but I will try to find a way to come in early or pick up hours somewhere! So this means I have limited amount I can spend on the holidays. Yuck....

So I am going to make gift jars for some of the people on my list.

I have made some spice blends as the picture to the right shows.  That is Chili Seasoning.  I have a co-worker that keep saying "you have teach me to cook."  I teased her I was going to make her some Fajita Seasoning and she is excited to try it.  I guess I might have to make more! But I think it looks so cool when it is layered like that.  So sad you need to mix it together to use...

 I have in the past made drink mixes like Spiced Chai Mix, Friendship Tea Mix and some coffee mixes as gifts.  I have a friend that loves the  Spiced Chai Mix! When I came over and saw I had a friend that well didn't show up and it stayed with her... LOL... and her boyfriend got one too and he doesn't like tea!!!  So I have to make sure she gets the biggest jar of it this year.  She is the biggest fan of Chai.  I need to find different favors chai for her... any one got any good recipes for favored chai?

Not sure how I feel about the cookies in a jar gift but I keep seeing them at the stores.  I think that maybe home made is better for less chemicals in them.   But it doesn't last on the shelf as long as the store brought ones would.  That's ok as long  they know the gift is not going to last a year in their cupboard.. or will it? Shrugs I am not sure I guess the flour and sugar mix will last as long as they do un-mixed.

What home made gifts are you planing on making this year?

Look what I won!

     

        I joined a  green group that meets in a  local church.    With the crazy way at work I need to ask for a day off around 3 weeks early it took me over a month and a half to get to the first meeting.  We had a visitor from the areas recycling plant that offered some thought that made me go hummm  maybe I need to rethink this.  But I won this cause I knew that each week the average person produces 5 pounds of trash.   Cool huh? My first meeting and I go home with a recycle bin....... plus there was someone there I knew so it wasn't too weird.