Christmas Card Holder

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My Pic:

I've decided that I love this board so much, and the location is convenient enough that I'm going to keep it up long after the Christmas cards come down. A simple straight pin holds the cards to the board.

I used a piece of styro-foam purchased at JoAnn Fabrics and covered it with a cotton fabric using spray adhesive. I then tacked the jute twine down with a couple of straight pins. No sew, no glue gun. Took me all of maybe 10 minutes to complete.

The original post used hot glue and foam poster board. I like my version better!

Felt Tree

I have a 3 year old. A very curious, busy 3 year old. And the Christmas tree is just HEAVEN for him. I can hear his inner dialogue, "Look at all those sparkly, shiny fun things I can destroy!" So I came across something that I hope will help with that.

A Felt Christmas Tree

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My Pic:

The best part? It only cost me about $3 and a few minutes of my time. We'll continue to make and add more ornaments and spruce up (no pun intended...get it...spruce...hehe) the ones that are there.  I need to purchase a brown piece of felt to make a trunk, it looks as if it's floating right now.

S'mores Cups

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My Pic:

Turns out this was a Pampered Chef recipe; who knew! These were VERY time consuming. Lots of in and out of the oven over and over. I will not make these again. So much easier to just make the real thing. If you decide you want to make them, keep in mind they don't keep well. They should be eaten within a day or two (usually not a problem!).

Rolo Pretzel Bites

I'm making up for lost time and adding some goodies I made for Christmas this year.

I really don't do a lot of Christmas 'baking'...I do a lot of Christmas 'making'. I love simple and boy were these ever!

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I decided to use a big tub of Utz Christmas-Shaped pretzels. My boys decided these looked more like turtles and I think that's kind of cute.

Here's my pic (pardon the muted iPhone camera quality):

Rice Krispie Treat Bar Pops

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I used this pin as an inspiration for a Super Bowl Party treat. I wanted to make sure I had the team colors incorporated in the dessert, so we used sprinkles and colored sugar. As I started inserting the sticks in to the bars, they just weren't holding in. So I decided to freeze the bars afterwards. That worked wonderfully until after I dipped them in chocolate. The chocolate made them entirely too top heavy. If you held the stick in your hand it would start to break in half. So we nixed the sticks.

My pic:

Chocolate Topped Peanut Butter Bacon Bars

OK, I know what you're thinking. Bacon? But come on, doesn't bacon make everything better?

Or so the saying goes. These were very simple to make and came out beautifully.

First, the Pinterest pic:

Now for my pics:

I followed the pin recipe almost identically. I didn't have any extra peanuts on hand to add to the cookie mix, but I don't think they were missed. I love sweet & salty and these definitely fit the bill. I think it's the perfect game day dessert.

Sesame Street Cupcakes

Here we have a couple versions of Cookie Monster Cupcakes. What I liked about the top one was the spherical eyeballs. I felt the frosting looked like it was just going to ooze off the cupcake, however and I didn't really like the texture.

Pinterest Pic

So I continued my search and came across this neat and tidy CM. Didn't have the spherical eyes, but I felt it didn't take away from the cuteness. So I used this one as my model for both Elmo and Cookie Monster.

Pinterest Pic

And now for my creations:

After frostening the cupcake, I dipped it in colored coconut (which gave me the texture I wanted). For the eyes I used white chocolate melting disks and semi-sweet chocolate chips for the pupils. I held the chocolate chip on a hot skillet for a few seconds until it melted a tad and then adhered it to the white disk. Cookie Monster's eyes are important because his pupils are all wonky; they need to have the appearance of movement. I then sliced a slit for the cookie. I started out using an entire half of a Chips Ahoy cookie, but it was too much cookie for his mouth. So I quartered the cookie instead.

My pic

For Elmo, I frostened the cupcake and then dipped it in a bowl of red sugar. Then used colored frosting for the nose and mouth. Same scenario for the eyes, but pupils are centered.

My pic

Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away...

Head over heels

Like many of you, I fell in love with Pinterest immediately. It quickly became a part of my daily routine. I've tried several things that I've pinned and some have worked, some have not. Some have become staples in my household, some will forever be banished. (...and never spoken of again...)

It occured to me that maybe some of you would like to see the results of the pins that I tackle. A lot of people pin, but not everyone actually tries to create what they pin. Well, I'm going to blog what I create, and I'm sharing my journey with you!