Pretty papers

I know I've written before about my grandmother's Christmas tree and the wondrous packages piled beneath it.  It wasn't so much wondering what was in the packages, or checking to see which ones were for me.  I just loved seeing how she had wrapped them.  My grandmother  seemed at times to keenly regret her lack of higher education, but she absolutely had the soul of an artist and showed it in so many ways -- in the kitchen and pantry, in her seasonal decorating, and so on.  Christmas was the high point of her artistic talents and of our year.  Her gift-wrapping skills were amazing and I simply loved seeing the papers she had chosen.  I'm drawn to gorgeous gift wrap myself, but I will not pay a lot for it.

Recently I came upon some scraps of Christmas gift wrap I had used in years gone by and had saved for crafting purposes.  I thought I would scan these so others can enjoy them too.

Wish I had more than a scrap of this one!

A pretty skating scene

This incredibly beautiful panoramic scene takes my breath away.  How I wish I could paint a scene like this!

Hope you have enjoyed this look at some vintage wrapping paper from my stash.

Gluten-free Gingersnaps

Below is a favorite little cookbook from my childhood.  Now I have my own copy of it!

Have you started your Christmas baking yet?  This year I am on a hunt for a few good gluten-free Christmas cookie recipes.  Probably lots of other people are involved in that same search.  Yesterday I was thinking about this and remembered my gluten free gingersnap recipe.

Growing up, one of our traditional Christmas cookies was the Betty Crocker recipe for molasses crinkles.  These are basically gingersnaps.  My mother always dipped the balls of dough in red or green sugar at Christmas time.  I always did the same in my own kitchen as my family was growing up.  So for me, gingersnaps qualify as a Christmas cookie.

This past fall when we had a houseful of visiting family, I tried a gluten free gingersnap.  We made these twice -- and the second time, with little kids assisting me, I forgot to add the molasses.  I  can vouch for the fact that they were even good without it, but of course they were softer and more flavorful with the molasses added.  I think I even doubled the recipe the second time.  These are highly recommended!

GLUTEN-FREE  GINGERSNAPS
1/4 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
3 Tblsp. molasses
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour
1 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ginger
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
2 Tblsp. water, if necessary
Sugar, white or colored, for dipping

In a large bowl beat together the butter, molasses, brown sugar, and vanilla until blended.

Sift the flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, salt and spices into the mixture in the bowl.  Stir these dry ingredients into the butter mixture, adding water if necessary to form a dough that can be shaped into a soft ball.  Cover and refrigerate dough for 1 hour.

Heat oven to 325º.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls; dip the top of each in sugar.  Place the cookie balls on the prepared baking sheet.  Flatten each cookie slightly with the bottom of a drinking glass that has been greased or dipped in sugar.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes.  Cool them right on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

The recipe said this makes 16 cookies.  I think I got at least 20-24 cookies from a single batch.

(Recipe adapted slightly from Wheat-Free Recipes & Menus, by Carol Fenster.)

A nice kitchen gift: Hot Chocolate Bark

Photo by Susie QT pies Scraps of Life

I found and saved this recipe last year but never got around to trying it: Hot Chocolate Bark.  Yesterday I needed to think about making a quick dessert to take for today's potluck at church.  I went looking in my "assorted recipes" folder and there it was.  We have pounds of bark on hand which Mr. T bought on a 75% off sale after Christmas last year.  Not sure why they regard this as a Christmas clearance item when they sell it in the baking aisle year round, but who am I to quibble about their reasoning when it gets me 75% off?

I omitted the graham crackers.  I think they would be simply delicious in the bark, but am avoiding wheat so I decided to skip the ingredient.  I used mini marshmallows instead.  The bark received lots of nice compliments from those who tried it.  It would make a very nice gift indeed.  And it's so easy!  Enjoy!

Fun Christmas giveaway at Rudy Day News!

Photo by Rudy Day News

If, like me, you enjoy collecting Christmas books and magazines, you will want to get in on this giveaway over at Rudy Day News!   Mary has sorted through her own collection and found some duplicates she would like to give away.  Here's the link:  Christmas book and magazine giveaway.


Mary  is giving away 2 yummy-looking magazines full of Christmas inspiration to one person, and for the second winner she is giving The Farm Chicks' Christmas, as pictured above.  The giveaway is  only good through today, December 1, so hurry on over to Rudy Day News and enter this fun giveaway!

More Christmas boards on Pinterest!

A page from one of my vintage Christmas carol books

I cheerfully admit I am somewhat addicted to Christmas (and possibly a bit to Pinterest as well).  I seldom get time to actually go to Pinterest, but a lot of interesting things come my way and I like to pin them so I can't lose them.  To that end, I've found myself creating a bunch of new Christmas boards.  Rather than try to link to them separately, I'll list them here.  You can follow me on Pinterest via the red button in the sidebar and then scroll down from there to find the boards.

Newer ones are Crafting for Christmas, Christmas Cards and Sentiments, Advent Calendars and Christmas Countdowns, and Christmas Cookie Exchange.  You might also like to check out my Christmas, Vintage Christmas, Handmade Gift Ideas, Kitchen Gifts, Glittery Little Houses, Winter, and Fabulous Fabric boards.

Happy Pinning!

Rudolph Day Report for November

 I didn't find time to work on any Christmas gifts yesterday, although I did some cross stitching on a project for a late-December birthday.   My other crafting yesterday was trying to finish up a second Thanksgiving-themed candle mat,
 
 just so I can have the set of two completed and can cross it off my list.  It isn't quite finished yet, but should be today.

I did, however, complete a Christmas project, with Mr. T's help.  Last year we had purchased a clearance pre-lighted Christmas tree at Jo-Ann's, which we had not been pleased with.  It was sold to us as being new, but it was clearly used.  The box also contained a number of playing cards from assorted games, plus instructions and spare parts for a lighted Christmas gift sculpture.  Plus, the tree seemed much narrower than the one pictured on the box.  In short, the price was right, but the tree was not.

We looked into taking it back but would only get a store credit, if I remember right.  It was the last tree they had.  So sometime during the year, we had a brainstorm:  Although this was not the tree we wanted to replace our very aged (but high-quality) artificial tree, we could set it up somewhere else, like the upstairs hallway, or our bedroom.

Years ago, I put up a small, real tree in the bedroom dormer every year and decorated it with an assortment of Victorian-style ornaments. 

One of many Victorian style ornaments I have made

But over time our furniture configuration changed and I stopped doing that.  So we both liked the idea of a Christmas tree in that room again. 

Since I was working in zone 4, the bedrooms last week anyway, I did an extra-thorough dusting and also placed Christmas cards under the glass on my crafting desk while Mr. T vacuumed, then he set up the tree.  It looks so nice, with its myriad of colored lights, that I may not even add ornaments!  I draped a small bit of vintage poinsettia fabric over the tree stand.  And the narrow shape of the tree is perfect for the available space.

Just to the left of the tree, you can see my little glass topped crafting desk tucked into the dormer.

So there is my November Rudy Day project!  It is getting us into the Christmas spirit already.  Now I can wrap completed gifts and place them beneath the tree!

The joy of handcrafting for Christmas

A lovely handmade pin made by my friend Ruth

Few things bring me more joy than sitting at my sewing machine or my little crafting desk and creating a gift or decoration for my own home or for someone I love.  At such times I feel perfectly content.  It's even nicer if I have a cup of Candy Cane Lane tea at hand and the snow is falling outside the window!

Some time ago, I read a lovely post on The Legacy of Handmade by Myra at My Blessed Life.  I have been meaning to share the link here ever since, because Myra's post captures much of what I feel about handcrafting gifts.


My handmade gifts are not perfect, but I hope they will be a blessing to the recipients and will become heirlooms of a sort.   I hope too that they will inspire others -- especially my children and grandchildren -- to continue the joyous tradition of handcrafting gifts for others.

A cute gift idea for kids

If you are looking for a nice and fairly easy gift idea for kids this Christmas, you might like to check out this link:  Car Caddy.  It's a little caddy for taking the small Matchbox®-type cars along.  You know how kids love to take them along in the car, or to Grandma's, etc.  My grandkids will often stuff their pockets full of them.  This caddy will hold 8 to 10 cars, depending on how large you make the pockets.  I made 3 of these recently and was quite pleased with how they turned out.

This photo shows the back of one caddy and the front of the other.

This shows the inside of the open caddy.  A "race track" on one side, and pockets for cars on the other.  You can see a few cars peeking out of the pockets.

If you try these, you will want to read the tutorial and study the pictures carefully before proceeding.  One need not use a pizza box for this project.  Any sturdy cardboard will do (I used corrugated because that was all I had of the right size), and what you need is 2 (two)  9-inch squares of it.   Similarly, you need not cut 10 x 20-inch pieces of felt and then cut them in half.  Just cut 4 (four) 10-inch squares of felt.   If you are like me, just reading instructions doesn't quite do it for you (I am the same with commercial sewing patterns); you need to look carefully at the pictures as well.

Also, I should add that I didn't do the stitching around the edges of these as the tutorial shows.  I skipped that part because the cardboard is securely enclosed by machine stitching, and I felt the outer stitching just wasn't necessary.

This weekend I was concentrating on felt projects during a craft-along hosted by Genuine Mudpie.  I didn't really have a lot of free time this weekend, but wanted to join in on this, so I set aside a few hours to craft.  In addition to these car caddies, I also made a bunch (not sure how many) of felt strawberries,

and cut out the pieces for more felt food.  All of these will be Christmas gifts, so I hope the recipients (or their moms) don't look too closely at my Christmas blog!

Tentative cookie and candy list for Christmas 2012

A favorite Christmas card -- artist Kathy Lawrence

I've already posted a short list of food items I plan to prepare for Christmas gifting.  The following list of cookies and candies will include some of the same items, but I always like to make a general list (which I don't always stick to) just to give me an idea of how much baking I have in mind for the season.  I like to start around the time of the first snow -- which I thought would be today, but the snow didn't come this far north, and I really don't mind!  Anyway, on to the list:

COOKIES
Chocolate Spritz
Pepparkakor
Sacher Torte Cookies
Whipped Shortbread
Macaroon Kisses
Eggnog Logs
Almond Raspberry Thumbprints
Date Nut Casserole Cookies
Pride of Iowa Cookies
Homemade Granola Bars

CANDIES
Special Holiday Fudge
Heavenly Delight
Lemon Ice Candy
Lemon Pistachio Fudge
Chocolate-Covered Fruit Jellies
Different types of bark (Mr. T bought many pounds of almond bark after Christmas last year!)

Plus I also plan to make several batches of homemade hot cocoa mix and some bran muffins for gifts.  As I said, the list is subject to change.  I nearly always find a few new recipes I want to try!

Candied Pumpkin Spice Nuts ~ a great kitchen gift!

(Photo from Taste of Home)

I was looking for something different in the way of a nutty confection to make for a friend's birthday gift.  This recipe sounded good, so I decided to try it: Candied Pumpkin Spice Pecans.  I didn't have pecans on hand (and they are so expensive right now that I didn't want to buy any), but I did have a can of mixed nuts, so I decided to try that.

I had just over 3 cups of mixed nuts, and the recipe calls for 2 cups of pecans, so I made one-and-a-half times the recipe.   I always find making any caramel-type recipe like this a bit intimidating -- it seems the sugar and butter always separate at some point -- but it worked out fine in the end.  It seemed to me that the nuts were going to end up a bit greasy, so after they had cooled on the foil and appeared set, I transferred them to paper towels until they were completely cool before packaging them in a jar.

These went over well with our friend -- his wife has just asked me for the recipe -- and here at home too, as I had enough left over for us to enjoy some as well.  These nuts would make a nice kitchen gift for friends and family this Christmas!

A fun and different Advent countdown

(Photo from workmanfamily.typepad.com)

This Christmas Bucket, which I found via Tip Junkie, looks like a really fun way for a family to count down the days until Christmas.  There is a wrapped and numbered gift for each day.  The "gifts" needn't cost a lot of money; some of them are simply an activity to do that day.  I have done something similar in the way of Christmas countdowns in the past, using slips of paper with activities, etc. but this looks like such a fun and different idea.  If I had kids at home, I would be trying this one for sure!

Free Christmas cupcake wrappers at Food Art Party!

Cover those plain cupcake papers with a pretty wrapper!

Are you thinking ahead for Christmas kitchen gifts?  How about Christmas parties?  If you plan to bake some fabulous cupcakes for these occasions, you will want to take a look at these free printable cupcake wrappers from Food Art Party.  There are ten different designs, from Christmas trees to snowflakes to vintage Bingo cards.  Some of the designs are for winter, not just Christmas, so they are even more versatile and would work for New Year's or any winter occasion.

In fact, I just happened to think, these would also work great as muffin wrappers.  I do have muffins on my short list of kitchen gifts to make, though I do not have cupcakes listed (yet), so I will be printing out some of these to wrap around my muffins for gifting.

You'll find the wrappers here -- Free Printable Christmas Cupcake Wrappers -- along with directions for using them.  Have fun with these!  They will kick your kitchen gifts up a notch, for sure!

A new Pinterest board

A "kissing ball" made from old Christmas cards

Just wanted to mention that I just started a new Pinterest board titled Crafting for Christmas.  To start, I repinned most of the crafts from my Christmas board onto this one.  I decided I needed to have a separate board for Christmas crafting in order to keep the crafts somewhat separated from other Christmas ideas like decorating, inspiration, etc.  (Some time back I also started a board called Vintage Christmas, since I noticed lots of vintage Christmas images I liked.)  To get to the board, just click the red "Follow Me on Pinterest" button in the sidebar.  From there, you can easily access the Crafting for Christmas board.

 I've been adding Christmas crafts onto this new board as I find them.  You might get some craft ideas from this new board, so be sure and check it out if you enjoy crafting for Christmas as much as I do!   

Christmas planning ~ a short list of food gifts

I will surely make more than the items on this list at Christmas time.  There are many old favorites that are "must-haves" in our home at this blessed season.  But I have made a short list of food gifts which I am planning to give to specific people.  I thought I would post it here so I don't lose it.

*Hot Cocoa Mix
*Pride of Iowa Cookies
*Bran Muffins
*Eggnog Log Cookies
*Sacher Torte Cookies
*Whipped Shortbread Cookies
*Lemon Pistachio Fudge
*Lemon Ice Candy
*Chocolate Covered Fruit Jelly Candies

It's a great feeling to have this list made.  What about you?  Will you be giving some food gifts this year?  Is your list made yet?

Rudolph Day for October

I remember this scene from a favorite childhood Christmas book!

I didn't accomplish a lot yesterday; I'm really busy trying to make a few handcrafted birthday gifts that need to go out in tomorrow's mail at the very latest.  I'm hoping to observe Rudolph Day tomorrow with some Christmas tea and some planning and crafting.  However, today I did do a few things toward Christmas:

*  Stocked up on flour, sugar, margarine and brown sugar for holiday baking
*  Used up a few things I'd had stored in the freezer, and removed a nearly empty cookie tin, to make more room for Christmas cookies, etc.
*  Bought some plastic bangle bracelets for making some bracelet purses for little girls' Christmas gifts.

That is probably about it, but it did feel great to get those few things accomplished on October 25.

Christmas countdown printable to frame

(Photo by Life {Sweet} Life)

I'm sure we've all seen those nifty little dry-erase message boards made from printables and picture frames.  Under the glass is a menu or family to-do list.  One then uses a dry-erase marker to write in the weekly dinner menu or the necessary chores, directly on the glass.  Next week, a quick wipe erases the information and one can again use a dry-erase marker to repeat the process.  With imagination, a printer and an inexpensive or repurposed picture frame, the possibilities are truly endless.  The clever person who came up with this idea deserves a medal.

Well, thanks to Tip Junkie, I've discovered a Christmas countdown which utilizes the same concept.  Go here to check it out:  Printable Christmas Countdown .  The designer of the countdown offers it as a free printable download in either the red damask (pictured above) or a green polka dot.  What a nice idea!  It isn't quite as much fun for kids as the Advent calendars with the little doors that you open, but it's still a superb idea (especially for households without young children) and I've already downloaded the red damask version.  Maybe you would like to do the same.  Or, if you are gifted at designing, you might like to design and print your very own variation on this theme, maybe even utilizing a family photo for the background.  Have fun!

Baking, beverage, and seasoning mixes for your own pantry or for gifts

Mulled cider mixes are something I make up almost every year.  They make the best mulled cider!

For quite some time now I have had the thought to make up some seasoning mixes as gifts and package them in little homespun fabric bags.  I have done this on a smallish scale in the past, making pumpkin and apple pie spices, and have made plenty of seasoning mixes for my own use. 

These spice mixes are for pumpkin pie spice and apple pie spice.  I packaged these with a pretty pie pan and a little book of my favorite pie recipes.

However,  I haven't had time to do a lot of research into seasoning mixes.

Now I find that someone has done that research for me!  Check out this page at Tipnut:  100-plus Recipes for Homemade Mixes and Seasoning Blends.  I expect to find some great ideas there, and thought others might like to check out the link as well, whether for gifts or just to add to one's own pantry.  Have fun with this list!

Inspiration for stocking your freezer for Christmas!

It won't be long now before I will start baking a few Christmas cookies for the freezer.  This year I will be trying some gluten free recipes to see if I can adapt them to some of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes.  I always try to begin my baking with our first snowfall (usually in November, but sometimes in late October) if I can.

Today in an email from TipJunkie, I found a link to an inspiring post from Money Saving Mom.  Here's the link:  Freezer Cooking for the Holidays. 

There are lots of great ideas here for freezing not only baked goods, but doughs, mixes, etc. to make your holiday meals and your kitchen gifts simpler and easier.  Doing these simple things ahead (assuming one can find room in the freezer) will free one up from last minute details and give much more time for family fun and paying attention to the true meaning of Christmas.

I'll be trying some of these ideas and I hope they will be helpful to you, as well!

A mini Christmas in September

We hung a string of lights and brought a mini decorated tree.

I can only take a moment, but wanted to quickly post a couple of pictures from our weekend and the mini Christmas we had on Saturday night.  We never get to have Christmas all together, so this little bit of Christmasing was a treat.  We drew names ahead of time -- adults with adults and kids with kids; there were 15 of us in all -- and then shopped at the dollar store.  A fun time was had by all!

Some of the celebrants

Although this one does not show our Christmas as such, I wanted to add it because it shows the beauty of our weekend's surroundings.  Perhaps later I can post more of the pictures of our mini Christmas!

Red, green and white

... however, not Christmasy!

A finished curtain

A closer look at the design

I thought I would take just a minute and show you the curtains I just made for two dining room windows I had been wanting to partially cover.  This vintage fabric crossed my radar screen (it surfaced from a stash) again, and I decided to use it to make the curtains I needed.  Read the full story on my regular blog if you like!

And, on a Christmas-related note, I should add that the tension rods I purchased for this project will make it more likely that I finally get around to making Christmas curtains for these windows!