Party Prep: Almond Cherry Chews

 Technically Cherry Almond Bars. This recipe is extremely simple.  I was startled by the 2 cups of brown sugar but went ahead with it.  It is probably possible to cut back on that.  I didn't have any almond flavoring.  Orange, wintergreen, maple, cinnamon, watermelon, lemon, rootbeer... but no almond.  So I used vanilla.  It would probably be better with the almond but they are quite tasty the way they are.  I ended up using quick oats instead of rolled oats.  Again, it worked well but would probably be better with the rolled oats.  The dough wasn't very crumbly.  It was easy to press into the pan but didn't crumble nicely across the top.  I probably should have added some extra oats to it before that step.  I did sprinkle some extra almonds on top before baking.  When looking for the cherry preserves, I had the choice between an smaller bottle of all fruit or slightly larger bottle of preserves.  I think I would go with the slightly larger bottle next time.  These have enough jam but would benefit from more.  All in all a pretty tasty recipe. 

Party Prep: The Dread Chocolate Ravioli

Spud one always requests these, mostly because of how much I 'mutter' while making them.  These are the dread Chocolate Ravioli.  I don't actually think they are worth the effort.  They taste just fine but the dough is impossible to work with.  It crumbles, breaks and tears if you look at it.  I finally (after heaven knows how many years) figured out that I could patch the covering however I need and then flip them smooth side up on the baking sheet.  They turn out pretty well that way. 

Party Prep: Tea cakes and Peanut Butter Blossoms

Baking is starting in earnest now.  Standard Hershey's peanut butter blossoms.

A batch of tea cakes.  I forgot to take the picture until they were already packed up for storage. 

Sneak Peek

on the work table today. 

Two Gift Ideas. One Post.

 The ladies Bible Study Group made ornaments to be given to the children after the Christmas Program.  This has been done by the seniors or some group within the church for many years now.  This year we were pressed for time and resources so we made pine cone ornaments.  I love the look and decided to make some for our tree this year rather than pull out all of the other ornament boxes.  

Even better this would be stash busting.  I had the leftover paint I bought for the kids ornaments and I knew I had a huge peach basket full of pine cones in the garage.  They used to sit on the fireplace in the winter time.  Amazingly enough, I did have a basket of them.  And even more amazingly, I FOUND the basket right where I looked the first time!.  AND it was full of pine cones.  A couple on top had been painted gold but the rest were all a beautiful dark pine cone brown.  

I got out my paint and glitter and started in.  Strangely enough the first cone I grabbed had something that looked like hot glue all over the bottom.  I painted it anyway.  It seemed to work OK except for that 'glue'.  I grabbed another.  'Glue' again.  I started to sort through them all.  And then it hit me. 

 These were firestarters!  Pine cones dipped in parafin and left to harden on wax paper.  (Gift 1.  Simple to make.  Looks beautiful.  Useful too.

So I scrambled and looked for the pine cones I'd used in other spots around the house.  I came up with quite a few.  All of those were painted with white craft paint, sprinkled with glitter and left to dry on wax paper. 

To hang them, cut a piece of 1/8 inch ribbon about a foot long.  Fold it in half.  Tie a knot about half way down.

This creates a loop on one side and leaves two long tails on the other.  Work the long tails around the top few petals of the cone.  Tie them tightly in a square knot.  Add a bow if you like. 

And there you have it.  Gift 2.  Beautiful, snowy, sparkly pine cones to hang on a tree.  By the way, the kids loved them and the seniors who were our guests snapped up all of the leftovers! 

Trimming

The holly and the ivy got out of hand this past year.  They needed to be trimmed.  Trim them we did.

I love having a double door.  However that means a double wreath.  But with plenty of holly and ivy I made them myself.  How very cheap Martha of me!  And I had a good case of poison ivy to go with it.  (There must have been something extra in one of the trimming spots because I am very careful around the poison ivy and I didn't see any anywhere.)

There were even a few wee wreaths to be made.  Hope your holiday trimming is going well.   In case you want to be Martha too, you can follow my wee sketch tutorial over on craftster.