Yarn ribbon and Washi tape

If you remember a few years ago I wrote a post on how much I love wrapping presents, particularly Christmas presents.  They look so pretty all stacked under the tree!

Well, with 2 kiddos and not much time to wrap, I decided to try something new this year.  Christmas is already past, but feel free to keep it in mind for next year!

At the beginning of this Christmas season, I decided to wrap my kids' advent calendar presents using bright red yarn as my mom had growing up.  I loved the look so much that I decided to carry it over into the the rest of my gift wrapping.

I am in love with washi tape right now (and any excuse to buy some) so I decided to use that for labeling our presents. 

Hot Chocolate on a Stick

Merry Christmas!

I have 2 secrets:

(1) I made these 2 years ago and never posted about them
(2) I'm actually writing this up at the end of May and it is currently 80 degrees outside.  You should be jealous.  Don't worry, I am too.

I wrote down all of the instructions on this blog after I finished making these Hot Chocolate Sticks, assuming I would get to adding pictures soon after.  It never happened.  Then today (May 20th, 2012) I noticed that there was still a draft hanging out on blogger.  So I figured, what the heck.  I love the schedule option on Blogger.

I needed something fast, cheap and easy to make for 2 dozen coworkers (this was back when I still made handmade gifts for them) and I found this great idea online to make Hot Chocolate on a Stick.  Basically, you make a chocolate lollipop and melt it in hot cream or milk, making a yummy cup of hot chocolate.  I thought I'd give it a shot.

Here's what you need:

• a ziploc bag
• lollipop sticks
• an ice cube tray
• 8 oz high quality chocolate (as you can tell, I used Ghiradelli.  Yum.)
• 1/4 c cocoa powder
• 1/2 c confectioner's sugar
• a pinch of salt
• white chocolate baking morsels
• crushed peppermint candy

Melt the chocolate:

Sift the sugar and cocoa into a small bowl and set aside.

Break the chocolate into small pieces.

Heat some water to about 90 degrees (I don't know why this exact temperature is important, but I do know that chocolate can be fickle.) Place a bowl with the chocolate over the water.  (This method works so well that I will never buy a double boiler.)

Stir until 2/3 melted.

I must show you a step-by-step of this happening.  Makes me drool a little.  Especially considering that as I am writing this I am 33 weeks pregnant.

Take bowl off of water and continue stirring until completely melted. Make sure no water gets into the chocolate mixture at all. 

Slowly stir the cocoa/sugar mix and the pinch of salt into the melted chocolate until you get a smooth consistency.  If I remember this was a lot more difficult to do than it sounded.  I had to stir for quite a long time before the consistency was right.  I also used a whisk instead of a sifter which may not have made the cocoa/sugar mix as fine as it needed to be.  Since then I have acquired a sifter.  I would recommend you do the same if you don't have one.  :)

Fill the molds with Hot Chocolate Mix.

Spoon this into a ziploc bag.  

Cut the corner off.  This is such a great way to not only fill chocolate molds, but cupcake liners as well.  EASY TO CLEAN UP!

Fill the ice cube try with the chocolate; this recipe makes about 10 cubes. Shake the tray back and forth or tap it on the counter to make the tops even out.

Let the mix form:

Leave the ice cube tray for a minute or two. Now put one stick into each cube. Hold them for a second or two; they should stay in fairly easily. Leave the tray on the counter and let them harden for a few hours. After set, they should come out easily.

Decorate the hot chocolate sticks:

This part is optional.  I decided to dip these in melted white chocolate and crushed candy cane.  I also added a candy cane and a few Christmas themed marshmallows in the bag.

Make Hot Chocolate from the stick:

Pour 3/4 c of milk or milk with cream into a mug and heat in the microwave for 1 to 1-1/2 minute. You want it warm enough to melt the chocolate.  Don't forget to include instructions for the recipient as well!

I test-tasted one of these before handing them out.  It was a very rich cup of cocoa.  I think the only thing I would have changed is I would have used a sweeter chocolate to begin with.  But I prefer sweeter chocolate over bitter chocolate.

Christmas Advent Calendar

When I say I haven't done anything crafty for the last couple of months, that isn't entirely true.

I started this advent calender over 4 years ago. It has absolutely plagued me! It didn't seem that involved when I started, but attaching sequins isn't exactly the quickest process. I had some other sewing projects that I needed to start (and I don't like having more than one going at a time) so I spent as much free time as I could on it and I FINALLY GOT IT DONE!



While I'm kind of sick of looking at it for the time being, I actually do think it turned out pretty cute. I love the santa.



There is a pocket for each day leading up to Christmas and a little stuffed toy that goes in each pocket.



And then a large pocket at the bottom to keep all of the stuffed toys as they are removed. Pretty clever!



The kit can be found here.

Gift-wrapping

It seriously looks like our tree exploded into a mountain of presents at our house!


I love giving presents at Christmas. I start my planning early in the fall and eagerly anticipate the expressions of the recipients.


I am also a sucker for beautifully wrapped presents. I found a few years ago that buying one or two spools of wire-edged ribbon can turn ordinary into the extraordinary. I roughly measure the amount needed for a gift. Then I start at the top, cross underneath and then come back up, tying into a neat-ish bow. No tape required and super easy. (Sorry, no pictures because as it turns out, some things do require both hands to do!)

Getting sick so close to Christmas almost foiled all of my plans but thankfully I knew I wouldn't really be getting any time off between the first week of December and Christmas so most Christmas-ing was done early in December.

I also planned ahead and made some homemade gift tags. I cut one sheet of scrapbook paper into 12 3x4 squares and just lopped off a corner on each top. Then I punched a hole in the center.


Then I found some clear "To" and "From" stamps and some cute accents with holly and stamped the back of each tag assembly-line-style.


I then took some embroidery thread and tied each tag onto a loop of the ribbon.


So as you can see it doesn't take much to make a present look fantastic. Ribbon cost about $8 for 90 ft. (considering it took care of almost every package, I think that's pretty good), and I had the rest of the supplies on hand, including the wrapping paper which we bought earlier when Hobby Lobby had it on sale 50% off.

Christmas Ribbon Wreath

Hello, and welcome to my first post!

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In our case we needed a big beautiful wreath to grace the door of our new home. When I saw this one over at Better Homes & Garden I fell in love with the concept and decided to adapt it to a Christmas theme.

Here's the final product! I think it turned out swell.



If you are interested in making one yourself you will need:

• two 18-inch-diameter wire floral wreath frames (about $2 each at Jo-ann's)
• 1-1/2-inch-wide bias-cut silk ribbon

*learning moment* I had no idea what bias-cut meant. Luckily my mom was shopping with me at the time and basically it's anything that will stretch. She said that a jersey-type cloth would have worked well too.

• Sewing needle (I used one that was more for tapestry.)
• Heavyweight thread
• 3 yards of sheer wire-edged ribbon (the stuff is EVERYWHERE right now for Christmas.)
• Crafts wire
• Ruler
• 100 yards of 3/4-inch to 1 1/2-inch ribbon or bias-cut fabric strips (YES YOU READ THIS RIGHT! It really does take 100 yards! But like I said, it's everywhere...total cost for 100 yards of ribbon by the way was about $20--everything was on sale 50% off at Jo-ann's and Hobby Lobby.)
• Themed cookie cutter (99 cents at Hobby Lobby.)

Gather all of your supplies.


Take one of the wire wreaths and wrap it with the bias-cut ribbon. This is why it is important to buy something that has a little bit of "give" to it. You will want to sew the two ends together.


Here's the completed form.


Cut the length of ribbon needed to make a large bow out of the 3 yards of wire-edge ribbon and set aside. Cut all the remaining ribbon and/or fabric into 9-inch lengths. If you cut on the diagonal it will give it more dimension. Here is my bag of cut ribbon. It took about 45 minutes to cut all of this.


Attach all of the cut ribbons and/or fabric randomly to the unwrapped wire wreath form using an overhand loop. I had no idea what an overhand loop was but I'm guessing it's something like this:


Here's about 1/3 of the way through:


And here is the finished product, total time about 2 episodes of Glee and 1 episode of the Amazing Race:


Craft projects are a great way to clear up space on your DVR!

When both sides are complete, you sew the two together. You could sew both forms together going on the outside and the inside, but I found sewing the outside only was enough to make it secure.


Take that wire ribbon you saved and make your bow. I'd never done this before either but I guessed that you just gather your ribbon in the middle,

and take a piece of wire around the middle to hold it together and fluff it out a little bit.


Finally, you take your cookie cutter (mine is a star) and attach it and the bow with another piece of wire.


And there you have it! Here's another picture in case you forgot what it looks like completed.


I would say it is one of the easier projects I've completed. The final result is satisfying as well. Be prepared that, if you buy ribbon that is glittered, you will end up with glitter everywhere. I don't mind it but, then again, I'm not the one who usually vacuums!