The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap - Nutella Hot Cocoa Roll Out Recipe

Y'all this was SO fun!!!  If you are unaware of what the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap is, or if you want to get info so you can join in next year, head on over to their site.

Basically, you make 3 dozen cookies and mail them to three randomly generated people to surprise them :)  In return, you get 3 dozen of your own cookies.  It was like Christmas every single time I opened one of those packages :D

I got some lovely cookies from some lovely people.

Unfortunately, they all fell victim to my husband and children before I could take pictures O_o.  This is my first year to do this, so please show me some grace...

Anyhoo, here's what I sent out to my three lovely people - nutella hot cocoa roll outs.  And of course, they had to be decorated like little hot cocoa mugs, complete with fondant "marshmallows" :D

The recipe is a variation of the chocolate roll outs by LilaLoa

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened
1/4 cup nutella
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup hot cocoa mix (about 4 packets)
3-4 cups flour (just add till it feels like the right consistency)

Bake at 375 for 3 1/2 minutes, then flip and cook for another 2 1/2-3 1/2 minutes.  Let cool on the pan for about 3 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

These are SO tasty, y'all!  Especially straight from the oven.  Don't believe me?  You'll just have to go make some yourselves, won't you? ;P

Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Cookies

Well, we've been busy around here getting ready for the holidays, and cookies are no exception to the rule.  Lots of cookies coming out of the kitchen these days!  Here are a few of the designs we've got going right now.

These ones are my favorites :D  Images are vintage and were found at the Graphics Fairy.

My Craft Space

Lately, I've been trying to get my house organized.  This is not an easy task when you have a husband that travels a lot, 4 kids, and own your own business.  But I'm chipping away at it, slowly but surely :D

I was inspired by WeWork to join in an online discussion about creative workspaces. WeWork is a coworking company that offers creative and collaborative shared office space all over the world, and offers unique benefits to its members! To join in, I'm sharing my workspace and what I love (and don't love) about it.

First up, my main storage area.  Some of these bins are full of fabric, some of vinyl, some of patterns that I have drafted, etc.  I got the cube storage unit at Target for I think $60 or so.  The fabric bins are from Five Below and were 2/$5.  They're a little cheap, but they work for now.

My closet contains all the large pieces of fabric on hangers, and my bins full of junk that I have to go through and purge because I honestly NEVER get into it anymore.  The drawers were my original storage solution and the only one I had when I started really seriously crafting a few years back.  It sat in my bedroom closet ;)

I found this file cabinet at a Goodwill-type shop, and I'm pretty sure it was less than $5.  It didn't have the file frames, so I had to buy those at Walmart and the file folders, but I keep all my business records in here. 

Ribbon storage - the bane of my existence.  I have tried seriously every solution for storing ribbon, and as ugly as this is, it is actually the easiest and most accessible of all my attempts.  I just took some scrap wood from the garage, stained it, and nailed some dollar store bins into it.  

My storage board - this is also really ugly, but it works.  I used some leftover shelving from our laundry room and attached it to the top of the pegboard with zip ties.  Not super sturdy, but good enough.

This is just a piece of sheet metal that I bought at Home Depot and painted, then some little bins from Container store/Dollar Tree/etc. that I Superglued magnets to the back of.

This is my thread organizer that my father-in-law gave me (he used to use it for his fishing line), which I spray painted white.  The metal shelf was my grandmothers and was in pretty bad shape, so I cleaned it and spray painted it red.  Both of these sit over my sewing desk - which is a disaster.  Therefore, no pics of that ;P

What I LOVE about my craft room:

• That I actually have a craft room!!  I've never had a place to keep all my junk supplies before, and it is delightful!
• Everything is fairly easy to find, which is nice considering I have a DUMB amount of craft supplies...I might be a hoarder when it comes to that.

What I DON'T LOVE about my craft room:

• Obviously, the lighting.  It's very dim and hard to see.
• That it is not a cohesive design.  Everything has been bought second hand, very cheaply, or gifted to me.  None of it really matches and that kind of bugs me.  But really, that's not what's important. 

How do y'all store and organize your craft supplies?  Any suggestions on how I could do this better?  Let me know!

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap - SQUEE!!!

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

So, I've been keeping this one a little close because I wanted to make sure that I qualified before announcing it.  But, I just got my matches and am officially approved, so I can tell you - I'm going to be part of the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!

This is super exciting for me, and it's something I've never done before.  Not only do I get to experiment and make some fun cookies, I get 3 dozen fun cookies from other bakers and a chance to get to know some really cool people :D

But now I need your help - what kind of cookies should I make for them?  Decorated roll outs?  Some sort of holiday favorite?  Thoughts??

Let me know!!

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 31: HALLOWEEN!!!!

YAY FOR HALLOWEEN!!!!

We had a WHOLE bunch of kiddos in the house tonight, and a fun dance party outside again this year.  We played some games, ate a lot of food and even more sweets.  The costume contest was super fun, and a good time was had by all :D

Here's a photo dump of the night.  I was super busy, so I didn't get a ton taken, but hopefully I can add more as my friends share them with me.

Mad Scientist Potion Splats, Eyeballs, and Spiderwebs - just cuz ;)

The hottest Frankenstein evah!! 

MUAH AH AH!!  Why yes, I did create that monster!  ;P

The kiddos did NOT want to go with our theme, so they picked super heroes - we've got 2 Catwomen, Batman, and a mini Spiderman - complete with fake muscles!  ;P

And our party would not have been complete without our awesome Lifegroup friends throwing a dance party in our driveway - you can't see very well, but there's a full on Chewbacca costume dancing in there ;)

Good times, y'all.  Good times.  Now onto Thanksgiving!!!

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 30: DIY Frankenstein Bolts

My hubby was such a trooper this year and agreed to go as the Frankenstein to my Mad Scientist.  But what is a Frankenstein monster without neck bolts??  NOTHING I TELL YOU!!

Muah ah ah!

Mu-ha.

Ahem.

Okay, so I went rummaging through my boys' tool bench and found a couple of plastic toy screws that they never ever played with except to maybe chew on.  They're way too old to be doing that, so I repurposed them ;)  If you don't have little boys with toys you can steal repurpose, then you can check out this shop on Amazon

First things first, you have to trim them to the right length.

I went rummaging through my husband's tools (do you see a pattern here?) and found this trimmer thingy.  Yes, all very technical.  Actually, I have no idea what this thing is called, so here's a picture.

This is what they will look like trimmed:

 I spray painted them satin nickel metal, mainly because that's what I already had in my garage.

Why yes, that is a bead stuck in the middle of the screw.  Thank you, son.

After the silver was dry, I lightly sprayed some black on there in places to make it look aged.

At this point, you can attach them with spirit gum and call it a day if you would like.  But if you don't feel like dealing with that, you can make a felt choker to put it on your neck.  I just cut a strip of felt (2 actually, and sewed a seam because it wasn't long enough for my husband's neck).  I put it on him and figured out where the bolts needed to go and cut holes in the strip.  Then I stuck the bolts through to the first ring and hot glued another piece of felt on top to keep it in place.  

For the stitch look, I cut out little square shapes all the way around on both sides.  You could sew velcro onto it if you wanted, but we just used a safety pin.  Added to the appeal ;P

I love that man :D

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 29: Monster Warts Candy Buttons

I know.  I'm totally lame.  I managed to pretty much never do these posts on time this year.  Grrr....

Anyway, I have a cookie business and I usually have a royal icing left over after orders.  Something that I like to do with it is also coincidentally something that my kids love, too.

I first saw this idea over at Sweet Sugarbelle (I love her!!).

Basically, you just pipe dots of royal icing onto parchment paper.  You can either leave it on the parchment paper so it resembles candy buttons, or once they're dry you can pop them off and put them in a bowl.

For Halloween, I had a bunch of grey, black, white, and lime green.  I also had a bunch of fun little nonpareils sprinkles, so I dashed some of those on there.  My first thought was, "Man, those look like some sort of gnarly monster wart."  And hence you have the name of this post.  I got an abysmal amount of photos (one, folks.  One.)  But if you want to know how to make them with a more in depth tutorial, head on over to The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.

Thanks for stopping by!!

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 28: Costume Contest Prize Pics

I'll be printing these on my new edible printer and putting it on some cookies for our awards ;)  Just go ahead and right click and save the pics to use it for yourselves :D

 

 

 

 

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 27: Trick or Treat Bags

I know, I remake these every year.  I just can't seem to come up with something that I LOVE.  But this year, I think I might have.  This pattern is so great!  My inspiration was this cute little bat bag.  I also saw some that were collapsible, and knew I wanted that aspect to be part of the bag.

I don't have time to get all the pictures up or the pattern, but when I do, I will get it added on here.  

Thanks!!

31 Days of Halloween 2015 - Day 26: Recycled Parts Shirt

My husband is going as Frankenstein for Halloween this year, but we wanted to do a non-traditional version of him.  So we have the makeup, and I'm working on the bolts, but the clothes still needed to be done.  I found this shirt online, and knew I wanted something like it.

I searched Pinterest, as per the usual, and found the recycling symbol and a silhouette of Frankenstein.  I just traced them in my Silhouette software and cut them out of regular green HTV and lime green HTV.

 However, I totally forgot to flip the image for the recycling symbol and Frankenstein's face, but I figure, it's just for a costume ;P