Domino Necklaces

I love to craft with my daughter, Alexis. She is growing up so fast, and it amazes me how well she puts things together. I think she is very creative. She chose to make domino necklaces for her friends this year, I think they turned out very cute.

She chose her papers first and traced them to fit on both sides of her dominoes. Then she sweet-talked her dad into drilling holes at the top of each domino.

She used mod podge to attach the paper onto the front and back of the dominoes and then coated each with diamond glaze. We were both very disapointed to see how yellow our "non-yellowing" glaze turned out; but the dominoes are very pretty.

We suspended each domino on a toothpick across a little Dixie cup to dry. They take about 24 hours to dry completely.

Tonight Alexis strung the dominoes into necklaces and tomorrow she will give them all away.

Teacher Gifts Courtesy of Blogland

Tomorrow is the last day of school before Christmas. I am excited to have my children and husband home with me. I have seen some great ideas all over blogland for teacher gifts. This is what I chose to do.
Obviously, the "M" jar holds pencils (this will be given along with a bag of cookies to my older kids' teacher), the "H" jar is filled with cookies (this is for our principal), and the "W" is filled with lifesavers for my husband. Since high-school teachers rarely receive gifts from their students, I figured that I would take care of that.

The jar ideas are courtesy of My Mix of Six (her pictures are MUCH better than mine).

I can't remember where I saw the recipe for these cookies...if you recognize it, let me know. I would love to link to it and give her credit; she has a great tutorial with pictures.

I only have the recipe and a couple of notes, bear with me it is long but not actually difficult:

Perfect Chocolate Mint Cookies

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 T water
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. salt
36 Andes Mints

Melt butter, brown sugar, water over low heat, add chocolate chips and stir. When partially melted, remove pan from heat and continue to stir until the mixture is smooth. Let cool for 10 minutes (15 for a double batch). Pour into a mixing bowl and mix in eggs, and then dry ingredients.

Refrigerate cookie dough for 1 hour (the original poster said that she doesn't refrigerate hers, mine was a little soft to roll into balls; I think that it would work well to refrigerate it for about 20 minutes.) Roll the cookie dough into balls (I used my cookie scoop from Pampered Chef). Place on un-greased cookie sheet (I used my stoneware pan) about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes at 350.

While the cookies are baking, unwrap your mints and cut them in half. (I couldn't find the mints so I tried the Andes mint chips, although they taste great, I wouldn't recommend them. It was a hassle!!) Place one mint on each cookie immediately after removing them from the oven, let sit for 5 minutes and then gently spread the mint/chocolate mixture to form an "icing".

Yum, Yum, Yummy!

Crafting with my sister.

One of my very favorite things to do is, to hang out with my sister, Bekki. She was here visiting just before Thanksgiving and generously helped me out preparing for my craft fair. It was so fun to be creative together. We decided that we would really like to have a whirlwind craft marathon again (this time we want to keep the projects, not sell them).

This Christmas Countdown Calendar was one of our favorite creations that week. They all sold really well at the craft fair, so I made some more.



You can find these in my etsy shop, or have fun making some of your own. I love my set.

Have you wrapped your presents yet?

I have barely started...
How does she.com is offering free download-able gift tags, you can print most of them in color or black & white (maybe you could let your kids color them). Print them on glossy card stock or photo paper for the best results.

I hope you like them as much as I do.

Baby, It's cold outside!

Brrrrr!
We are freezing over here. It always gets cold here in the winter, but the extreme cold usually waits until later in the winter. We have been hitting the negative digits every day. Our water pipes have frozen twice and now we have a big ugly haystack on our pumphouse in an attempt to insulate it so that we will have water, my husband's ignition was frozen so his car wouldn't start, and my kids haven't been able to play outside at recess. They are bouncing off the walls!!!

These blocks seem appropriate right now.

Vintage Window...Of course I want it.

My friend offered this window to me. I love the shape and so, of course, I said "yes". Unfortunately, I have very little wall space in my house, so I really wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. It has been sitting for a couple of weeks. But today I decided that I was just going to hang it up before it gets broken. I figured that I was unlikely to love the placement; but I can always change my mind.

I decided not to paint it yet, I really do like this color anyway; but I am also a little lazy...I knew that I wouldn't want to paint it again. So, I am waiting to decide for sure what I want to do with it after Christmas is over.

The only supplies that I spent money on (and I really should not have) are the wreaths. They are just dollar store specials. The rest of the supplies are from my "stash". I have had the pip berries for a couple of years, I am determined to use them this Christmas before any more explode --why do they do that?

The hardest decision for me was what color of ribbon to use; I really wasn't loving any of these, but I was NOT going to spend any more money. Which do you like? I finally settled on layering the first two ribbons.

Here it is with lights, ribbons, wreaths and berries. I would still like to hide the rest of the lights; but I do like it. I like that this part of my nativity set collection has a backdrop now.

I apologize for the picture quality, I couldn't wait to take pictures...I really wanted to finish it tonight.

Give-Away Winner

Congratulations Robin, the winner of my magnetic recipe holder. The random number generator picked your comment. Please contact me at steffanyw@excite.com with your address so I can get it to you.

Thanks to all who entered.

What do you think, Jamie?

I couldn't resist posting a picture of a fun neighbor gift that my friend, Jamie and I collaborated on the phone about. I am cutting the vinyl for her and she is putting the boards together. I couldn't stand to just put it in the computer without seeing the finished product; and I love it.

1st Ever Give-Away

If you read my blog at all, you know that I am hooked on magnet boards. This is another variation on the same theme. One of my friends and I made a few of these over the Thanksgiving weekend, and I love the way they turned out. I am putting a couple in my etsy shop but I would like to give one away to you!

You have 4 chances to win:

• Leave a comment
• Follow my blog
  
• Blog about this give-away
• Visit my shop and leave me a comment here...what you like, suggestions, a funny story about your day...whatever.

Leave a separate comment for each entry. I will draw for the winner Tuesday evening.

Good Luck!