A fun little project: transforming purchased ornaments

 

 So I was in Walmart to purchase a few components for a gift I put together for a gift exchange.  I had a lovely Advent devotional and some holiday teas but wanted to make it into more of a gift basket.  I wish I had gotten a photo, but I failed to.  I got some Christmasy napkins, added in some nice mugs found in Walmart, a bag of  the recipient's favorite Christmas cookies and I can't even recall what else.  To use as a container for the gift, I found in the regular housewares section a bright red bowl with a white colander (both plastic) nestled inside it.  It looked pretty and festive and yet was highly practical and could be used in the kitchen later.  I lined it with a Christmasy dish towel (also Walmart) and made a set of four coasters sort of like this one 

 to go with it.  

On a whim, I also ventured into the mini ornament area to find something small and simple for a package tie-on.  I chose these because they had a fun country look with those wood beads.

And I ended up using one of the "Merry Christmas" ones.  I might have used the "Holly Jolly" one too, but ... 

Can you guess why I didn't?  Look close now!  Or maybe you won't have to look that closely.

Yes, they say "Holy Jolly".  What a stupid mistake!  

Still, I felt they were salvageable, so when the grandkids were over for their crafting spree, I asked Josiah to have a go at transforming them.  I felt that all it would really take was to cut a small, suitable size scene from a Christmas card and glue it over the top of what was there.  

And he did that for two ornaments, the one at the top of the post and the one just below:

 

But then he really outdid himself and made one more! You see it at lower left below:

See what he did here?  He cut a piece of green foil gift wrap to cover the saying.  Then he took a piece of gold metallic cord, curved it into a Christmas tree and added a star sequin at the top.  Next he glued a mini grapevine wreath ato it and added a bit of greenery and berries.  Stunning!

I love watching the creativity of kids and teens!  Josiah and all three of his siblings have creativity in abundance.  I'm almost glad the out-of-country craftsman messed up "Holly Jolly".  Now I have a one-of-a-kind handcrafted ornament to add to my tree.

What a fun handmade coaster idea!

 

Amazing project and photo from Ashley at SimplyDesigning.net

 This is an idea I've had saved for Christmas in July for some time.   It's a fun drink coaster made from a cork coaster with slices of colored pencil glued to it.  Ashley shared the project -- Colored Pencil Drink Coaster -- in 2015, so you can see that I've had it awhile.  

It looks as if the most time-consuming and difficult part of this project is sawing the colored pencils into slices.  If I make these, I will assign that part of the production to my wonderful and handy hubby.

And I really want to make two of these.  My teenage granddaughters are really into writing, and these would be perfect gifts for them, perhaps with a special mug each.

You can sort of glimpse Emily's "I Am a Writer" T-shirt in the photo above, and Julia loves writing as much as she loves books.  In fact, at the time this was taken last summer, they were both participating in a writing challenge to write 100 words a day for 100 days.  And they talked me into joining them!  Maybe I should make a coaster for myself, as well.

The actual Christmas candy list

 

 Yes, I mentioned some candy in my post about kitchen gifts, but not all that we made.  So, here goes with a list of candy we actually prepared for Christmas 2022.

Heavenly Delight is always at the top of our candy list.  Originally known as Double Decker Fudge , this is a layered chocolate-peanut butter fudge that is a huge favorite in our family.  It is in the center of the tray below.

Another big favorite with certain people  (and so it must go on our candy list every year) is Special Holiday Fudge, which is chocolate filled with nuts and raisins.  It tastes somewhat like an old-fashioned Chunky bar.   

 

Arlene's Easy Fudge is another favorite of ours.  I don't think I have a photo of it, but it's just a good, incredibly easy fudge that you make by just melting together a few ingredients.  It's possible that's what Sam is preparing in the photo below.

The  Chocolate-Dipped Orange Slices

have become a must for our family and friends.  I like to add them to a cookie tray for interest and color, but also because they are so delicious and festive tasting.

Of course we also did some candy making with four local grandkids.  You see my blog post and my note (miraculously located!) from 2021.

The Easy Salted Caramel Fudge from Something Swanky is just one step beyond Arlene's fudge, as it's the same simple type of recipe with baking chips and sweetened condensed milk.

The peppermint-drizzled oreos were simply purchased oreo-type cookies drizzled with white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed peppermints.

We didn't get to the other varieties of candy on my tentative list, but hope springs eternal for next year.  I used to make peanut butter balls nearly every Christmas.

And that was our Christmas candy making for this year ... although Mr. T continues to produce batches of Heavenly Delight as we proceed through the winter months!

A festive breakfast

  Prior to our candy making and craft adventures,   these four of our grands -- three teens and an 8-year-old -- came to our house for breakfast.  (The photo is from the fall.)  Astute readers will notice a resemblance (but not an exact one) to last year's menu.

I kept breakfast simple but hearty with breakfast sliders and a Hash Brown Casserole.  The hash brown casserole is always a big favorite with this crowd.  The little one wasn't sure ... but she tried a serving and came back for more!

The sliders were from Jamie at My Baking Addiction.  I had made these for our friends Syd and Cyndy back in November and we all loved them, including some of these very same teens who snacked on the leftovers.  I made homemade sausage patties instead of using purchased sausage.  I used sliced cheddar for the cheese component.

Photo by Jamie at My Baking Addiction

I imagine some readers might like to have the homemade sausage recipe.  I have posted it here before, but it's been a few years.  So here it is:

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE PATTIES

1/4 cup water
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rubbed sage
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 lb. ground pork

In a bowl, stir together water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well. Shape meat mixture into eight 4” patties (or a larger amount of smaller ones). In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This is such a yummy recipe for homemade sausage! I often cut the amounts in half to make a smaller batch. This sausage is very lean and not at all greasy.  For these sliders, I used about 1 1/4 pounds of ground pork, which is what I had, and used half the amount of seasonings specified here.

 Along with the sliders and hash brown casserole, I also served some Cinnamon Fried Apples.  This is a recipe which my Nevada daughter sent me.  It tastes similar to, maybe better than, the Cracker Barrel fried apples.

As before,  every scrap was eaten.  I just made a couple of changes to the recipe as written: rather than cut the apples in bite size pieces, I sliced them; and I used only 2/3 the amount of cinnamon called for.  I used three Ginger Gold apples and 2 Cortlands, all a little on the soft side.  I didn't peel them.  A good use for apples that are on their way out.

That was our breakfast!  It fueled us up for a fun and busy day.

The traditional ice cream sundaes

 Once again this year we took four of our local grands for ice cream sundaes.  This is a tradition of some years' standing.  (Photo at top is an older one.)  For a number of years we did a meal out, Christmas shopping for their parents, and the ice cream smorgasbord at Kellerhaus, with 3 of the kids.  Their little sister joined in for December 2019.  In 2020 we tweaked the tradition, serving both breakfast and ice cream sundaes at home.

In 2021 we changed it up again, skipping the shopping trip and having breakfast, craft and candy making, all at home before heading off for ice cream sundaes.  We followed that same general format this year.  Maybe tomorrow I can post our breakfast recipes.

Josiah with spoon poised for a first taste!

Sam, Josiah, Grampa and I were at this table.

Julia and Ari had their own table.  The tables are fairly small.

I was a little disappointed in Kellerhaus' Christmas decor this year.  It wasn't as festive as of old, and the player piano still isn't working.  But the homemade ice cream is better than ever, and there are many more flavors to choose from.  Most still prefer vanilla, though, as there are so many toppings.

And that was this year's ice cream extravaganza!

Making candy and crafts with the grands

 

 This year our special activity with four of our local grandchildren took place the Tuesday of Christmas week.  It was the day that worked out for everyone.  As they get older there are things that could potentially conflict, and their responsibilities of work, orchestra, and other activities have to be worked around.  

Some readers may recall that last year we tweaked the tradition and did some candy making and crafting with them, and skipped the shopping part of the expedition.  We did, however, continue our ice cream sundae tradition at Kellerhaus.  In today's post I'll only describe our candy making and crafting.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I was thankful to be able to find the candy making plan I had made last year.  I thought it was permanently lost and that I might have to start over with a new plan.  So very thankful that was not the case!

So those are the candies I planned for us to make.  You can find the recipes here if you search, but I'll link to most of them:

Chocolate Dipped Orange Candy Slices are such a fun and easy homemade candy.  We make them most every year!  

Arlene’s Easy Fudge is another favorite of mine -- so incredibly easy!

  Drizzled Peppermint Cookies is another super easy recipe, starting with purchased oreo-type cookies.

And Easy Salted Caramel Fudge is just one step beyond Arlene's fudge, as it's the same simple type of recipe with baking chips and sweetened condensed milk.

We shared a nice breakfast before beginning, but I'll share the particulars on that another day.  

Last year I found that it was good to have some crafting opportunities available during the candy making, in case there was any down time while waiting for different steps in a recipe.  So I brought out a lot of craft supplies and Christmasy embellishments right at the start.  Of course that meant that some wanted to jump immediately into crafting!

Sam prepared both kids of fudge.

Josiah was in his crafting element!

Julia and Ari worked on the drizzled peppermint cookies.  They also made the chocolate dipped orange slices.

Ari made the ornament above with a little gluing and lettering help from Julia.

Josiah is a detail guy for sure.  He may be working on a snowman here, I'm not sure.

All in all, it was a sweet time together!

This year's Christmas mini-miracle

 

 It seems like every Christmas season there is at least one mini-miracle that occurs.  I'm sure there are actually many more that we just don't recognize.  But here is one from this season.

Last year we tried tweaking our annual Christmas tradition with four of our local grands.  Above you see a photo from that event.  Of the candy recipes we tried, we were disappointed with a couple of them.  In the linked post above, I declared:

Did you catch that last sentence: "I've already made a plan!"?  But just what was that plan, and where had I written it down?  A very good question.  

I searched both blogs.  I searched my Christmas notebook.  Nothing.  No scrap of paper, no plan of any sort.  I certainly hoped I had not entrusted the plan to my aging brain alone.  But the time for the event was drawing closer, and my plan was not surfacing.  I had pretty much decided I would start over and make a new plan.

Until.  I went to pull out a much smaller Christmas notebook which contains our Christmas card list.

It has a plastic spiral binding and that binding had gotten tangled up with the handle of a reusable shopping bag stored on the same shelf.  So I had to work to free the two.  Once I was able to pull out the notebook, two other items came with it.  This was one of them:

Thank You, Lord!  I immediately recognized this as a Christmas mini-miracle.

(I stuck that sticker on it after discovering the plan, to make the paper more easily findable next year.  And of course now it is here on my blog, as well.)

The plan worked well, and here is the proof:

A sweet mini-miracle for sure!

Some of our candy making with the grands

 

Back when Christmas was still weeks away, we set a day, as previously mentioned on both blogs, to make some candy, do a bit of crafting, and go out for ice cream sundaes.  It turned into trimming the Christmas tree as well, which was fun, and singing lots of Christmas carols in the car.

I promised to share some of the candy recipes we used, so I will mention two here and two over on my regular blog.  We made Creamsicle Fudge, Chocolate Dipped Orange Slices, Rocky Road Fudge, and Candy Cane Fudge.

Creamsicle Fudge is, as you might guess, a fudge with the orange and vanilla flavors of a creamsicle.  

It is a little too sweet for many people,  although I must say that a younger friend of mine for many years in high school and college had a little holiday fudge business, and found that the Creamsicle was one of her top sellers.  But Mr. T had wanted to make it this Christmas anyway, so it seemed natural to have the grands help with it.  Josiah took on that project, and may have wished he hadn't when, near the end of the process, we discovered we had no red food coloring (only yellow) to tint the orange part of the fudge.  The best we could do was to use green and pretend the flavor was lime, not orange.  It does look pretty and  slightly Christmasy, I will say that for it.

The other candy recipe I will mention here is Rocky Road Fudge.   

Julia and Ari made this fudge together.  Below is Ari stirring the peanuts and marshmallows into the chocolate fudge mixture.  This is one of those easy fudge recipes that just use chocolate chips, a bit of butter, and a can of sweetened condensed milk.

Julia prepares to spread the Rocky Road while Ari licks the chocolate pan!

You can check my kitchen table blog sometime this week for the other 2 candy recipes.  Enjoy these if you try them!

Strictly ornamental

 

Over at my regular blog, I shared how, unbelievably, Mr. T and I were able to spend the night at our little camp on Thursday night.  Staying in a mostly uninsulated building in mid-December is just not something we'd thought of as being possible.  But it worked out, due to mild temperatures overnight.  

I was thankful that a week or so before,  we had done a little Christmas decorating there.  It made it seem much more cozy.  In this post I'm just going to share some of the ornaments we put up.  There are more, but Mr. T didn't get a photo of each one.

The windows at the camp all have a system of hooks and eyes to hold the hinged windows open during the summer.  Granddaughter Julia had the great idea of hanging an ornament from each hook!

Made from a foam ball and fabric scraps

This felt skater has paper clip skates.

Got this from an Etsy shop, Treasures with a Twist, a couple years ago and love it!

I embroidered this one in the 1980s -- it's an Erica Wilson design featuring Beatrix Potter's art

This snowflake ornament is hanging from one of the kitchen cabinets.  It's perfect there!

Hope you've enjoyed this little peek at our Christmasy camp!  Check out my Kitchen Table blog to see more.