Monthly Archives: December 2010

Dec30

I’m baaaaaaaaaaaack!

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I have taken quite the hiatus from this blog, as I’m sure any regular visitors will have noticed.  The reason is rather simple: this Christmas has been hectic!  Despite my best efforts, I was caught wholly unprepared for gift exchanges, traveling, and all the other requirements that accompany the yuletide season. To keep things simple for my first day back to a regular schedule, let’s just enjoy a pictorial recap of the last week or so shall we?

The last batch of cookies I plan to bake for a while (shortbread)

It snowed 6 inches on Christmas Day!

After a full morning of sledding on Sunday, it was off to Myrtle Beach to visit family and then on to Charleston, South Carolina for some one-on-one time between Aaron and I.  While I certainly missed Little Man, it was oh so nice to enjoy some adult time with my honey.  Here are a few photos from Charleston, where it was a lovely 50 degrees!

The recently renovated Bandstand at White Point Gardens (The Battery).

A close-up of handmade “Charleston” brick (made using local soil and clay).

I hope everyone a wonderful and glorious Christmas season.  I’ll be back tomorrow with a how-to post for a very easy and super chic project!

Dec22

Toffee, Toffee! Read all about it!

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In my quest to make this yet another (mostly) handmade Christmas, I decided I needed to toss a little sweetness into the gift baskets we’re making for our family. As I was perusing the internet for ideas, I remembered Martha Stewart and all the wonderful seasonal ideas her website offers. After a quick search on her site, I found exactly was I looking for! A recipe for Fleur de Sel Toffee. It was quick, easy, and required only a few ingredients.

When I finally managed to eke out some free time I decided to make a test batch of the toffee to ensure it was both delicious and as easy as I presumed. When I read the recipe I was admittedly a bit confused. It calls for sugar. Did that mean white or brown? And if it was calling for brown, light or dark? Instead of getting frustrated, I just used what I had on hand ending up with a half and half mix of white and brown. Apparently, that must have been the right thing to do, because my first batch came out amazing!

Here’s how you to do it (ingredients first):

  • Vegetable oil cooking spray
  • 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 2 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1/4 cup light corn syrup
  • Sea salt for sprinkling (I used gray sea salt)

The first step is to spray a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Then bring your butter, sugar, water, and corn syrup to a boil in a large saucepan, whisking frequently until sugar dissolves and butter melts.

Martha recommends letting the mixture cook, undisturbed until a candy thermometer registers 300 degrees. Seeing as how I do not own a candy thermometer nor need to, I took her other advice and let my mix cook for 12 minutes. After the 12 minutes transpired, I took a whisk to the mixture and gave it a few good spins to make sure everything was smooth and blended (and of course take an opportunity to “test” the recipe).

You have to whisk quickly though, before the mix starts to set. Pour it immediately onto your greased cookie sheet, letting it spread over the entire pan. Let stand for 30 seconds, then sprinkle with fleur de sel. Let cool for roughly 30 minutes.

Then the last step: breaking the toffee into pieces! I found this pretty fun for the first minute and then my hands got sore. It’s a great tension tamer though. Anyhoo, the toffee tasted amazing and my first batch virtually disappeared within three days.

Seeing as how this recipe makes a ton of toffee, that must mean it was good. As for the packaging, I’ll detail that after Christmas.  I don’t want to ruin the suprise for those recieving this as part of their gift completely.  Cheers!

Dec15

Cookie Monster

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It being the holidays, it was high time that I got down to business and starting whipping up some cookies with Little Man.  He is a a cookie fanatic and, despite being allergic to chocolate (no joke), he loves the stuff (don’t worry though; his allergies manifest as eczema that is easily alleviated with special creams we have tons of). 

The thing that is awesome about making cookies is that everything you need is 99% of the time already hanging out in your cupboards or pantry.  All the effort I really needed to put forth was finding a recipe that would allow my son enough opportunity to dump, stir, and taste deliciousness.  I found just what I needed in an old church recipe book: Selma’s Best Oatmeal Cookies.

With a little modification such as adding chocolate chips to the batch, we were good to go!  While I measured and stir occasionally, Little Man diligently dumped flour, sugar, cinnamon, oatmeal, chocolate chips, walnuts and all the other ingredients when prompted.

He was quite proud of himself to say the least!

With the dough complete, we rolled little balls (with clean hands I assure you) and tossed them on the cookie sheet.  After ten minutes in a 350 degree oven, our goodies came out fresh and hot.

Once all the cookies were cooked and cooled they were set in the place of honor in the center of our dinner table.

After several days of Little Man, Aaron, and I inadvertently noshing on these tasty morsels, I made the executive decision that they had to vacate the premises.  On Tuesday morning, the majority of what was left was packed in a gallon freezer bag and sent to school with Little Man so he could give his teachers the cookies he made.  Sweet and kind!  This coming weekend, we’ll attempt our first ever gingerbread house!  Stay tuned and wish me luck.

Dec13

Happy “Holly”-days!

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Top of the morning to ‘ya!  It’s a crisp 27 degrees here in High Point and less than two weeks until Christmas.  I spent this past weekend tending to some Christmas tasks like gift making, wrapping, and cooking.  Not to say it wasn’t a leisurely weekend, because it was.  I actually had the time to finish reading a novel  and time like that, my dears, is a rarity. 

Anyhoo, let’s get back to talking about holiday decorating, shall we?  Today I’m going to show you photos of the Christmas trees we chose and cut ourselves at a farm near Boone.  Here’s our stylish little tree, sporting citrus hues to compliment the color scheme in the living room. 

There was strung popcorn on this tree at one point in time, before our dog Hutson ate it off while we were away from home for a bit.  Who knew Springer Spaniels liked popcorn?

Although our “real tree” is in the cozier basement, I still wanted folks to see our tree from the street as they passed by.  There is something heartwarming about viewing someone’s tree this way; spying other people’s trees as I pass by always provides me a boost of holiday spirit! 

All those Halloween/Thanksgiving/Harvest pumpkins I had thrown in the trough a few weeks ago needed some holiday spirt as well.  I decided to tuck in some leftover Douglas Fir branches where I could and, wahlah!, instant holiday update. 

Then of course there are our stockings.  I’ll be honest, I did very little this year to prepare our mantle.  I just threw some random pictures of each of us in frames and put them by our respective stocking.  It’s almost too simple, though, so I’m sure there will be some type of natural display added prior to Christmas Day.

 Last but not least, the tree where we’ll be opening presents come the morning of the 25th!

 

This is our sentimental tree, full of ornaments Aaron received every year of his life from mostly his grandmother and mother. 

To carry on this tradition, Aaron’ mother has given Little Man an ornament every year since his birth that someday he will have to decorate his own tree.

 

Then there are other sentimental ornaments such as our “Oyster and Pearl”; Aaron and I (with the help of his family) made these and gave them away as wedding favors.  The back story is that we dressed up as an Oyster and Pearl (seriously) for Halloween 2006, the day before Aaron proposed to me. 

 

So those are our trees and the majority of the decorating we’ve done.  Simple, quick, yet enough to  rev up the holiday spirit and yuletide joy!

Dec7

D’splay! D’splay!

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Howdy folks!  Who can believe its less than two weeks until Christmas!  Is anyone as shocked as I am about how quickly this year as flown by?!  Unbelievable.  Anyhoo, let’s talk Christmas display why don’t we?  I mentioned a week ago that I was working on creating a display on the console in the front entryway.  Lo and behold, I finally finished it.

For the fall/Thanksgiving season, the console looked like this.

I moved the pumpkins to the horse trough (more on that later) and decided to reuse a garland I had made last year using pinecones and magnolia seed pods.

But let’s get to the special part, shall we?  It revolves around these plain jane glass votives.

I knew what I wanted to do to these little things: make them look like mercury glass.  I actually managed to achieve this goal with my favorite little re-do tool: spray paint.  After a quick trip to Home Depot, I had a can of gold and a can of silver spray paint.  I laid out my votives on a paper bag outside and did a light coat of each color.

Next step was to let them dry and bring them inside for a quick sanding to scruff up the paint job and get the mottled effect of mercury glass.  The end result?  Behold for yourself!

I tucked these freshly updated votives on a silver tray I had and added sprigs of fir.  Here are the votives all lit up.

So are you ready to see the display in it’s entirety? I’ll take your silence as a “yes”.

I’ll show pics of the other displays I created this weekend soon. In the meantime, happy shopping!

Dec5

Tree of Life

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What a busy and fun weekend!  These last few days have been pretty much dedicated to getting in the holiday spirit.  We went to the Festival of Lights in Downtown Greensboro on Friday night.  There was a good sized crowd and it was a wonderful experience to count down the tree lighting in the company of so many smiling folks.

On Saturday morning we woke up bright and early so we could pick up Aaron’s parents and head on up to Boone to cut down our Christmas trees.  We were all excited to say the least to go choose and cut our very own evergreen.   By the time we arrived, the first snow fall of the day had just started.

Aaron’s parents selected a real beauty for their house, while we chose a sweet 4 footer for our living room and very full 6 footer for the basement.  By the time we finished walking the grounds, choosing, cutting, and paying, the snow was starting to come down something fierce.

The snow lasted the whole way home, giving us beautiful landscapes to enjoy but no icy roads to face since it wasn’t that cold yet.  When we made it home, we were all exhausted although I’m sure we can agree it was a great experience.  The trees smell absolutely amazing and, as my MIL pointed out, will probably stay green until February.  We’re still in the process of stringing popcorn and hanging ornaments so I’ll post pictures later this week of them all trimmed and decorated.  Until then, I’ll leave you with a photo of our backyard dusted in its first snow of the season.