Christmas Cheer

Hey Friends!

I apologize for the recent neglect on my part.. I have been working hard on secret Christmas and winter birthday projects for a while now. But in all my secretive crafting I failed to capture any quality photos. Whoops.

Anyways.. I made some fun things for my family this year for Christmas.... brought to you by Pinterest, of course. It was the first Christmas in a long time that I was able to make gifts. For the past few years we have either just moved or were in the throws of packing to move, so my boxes of future ingenious gifts/ projects were boxed away or in storage.

But no more! Hurray!

Since I have been teaching myself to knit, I made scarves for my sister and sister-in-law and my pal Celia (sorry for the spoiler, Celia... someday we will exchange gifts...). Each one was different- Jenn's was a purple infinity scarf, Rachel's was a creamy white cowl, and I won't ruin the surprise any more for Celia.... I will post on that masterpiece later....

For my brother-in-law Nick I made him a sweet set of coasters to go with four pilsner glasses and a large glass bottle for his home brewed beer. The glasses had chalkboard paint on the bottom rims and the bottle had chalkboard paint in the middle for him to label his concoctions. I would be remiss if I left the chalkboard areas blank, so I put witty little sayings on each one ("Johanna is the coolest" "Drink this"..etc).

I also sewed fabric baskets for my sister and sister-in-law and filled them with all the random little gifts I pick up throughout the year.  I sewed my mom a few Scrabble tile pillows of her initials, as an homage to one of her favorite games. Wait until you see the cuteness I made for a little friend... my step dad loved it so much I made him one! Check back for a forthcoming post on it! For my brother I made a fireplace kit, complete with matches. It wasn't until later that I discovered that his fireplace is gas... oh well he can still use the firestarters in his fire pit.

I also made some yummy white chocolate peppermint popcorn to give to friends.

This popcorn has three ingredients- 4 quarts popped popcorn ( about 1/2 cup of kernels popcorn), 16 ounces of white chocolate chips,melted and 10-12 candy canes ground up. so easy.

Side note: my favorite word in Portuguese is the word for popcorn: "pipoca" (pee-PO- ka). Try saying it- I promise you will smile.

 Melt the chocolate while you pop the popcorn, then add the crushed peppermints to the melted chocolate. In a big bowl, pour the chocolate mixture over the popped corn and stir to coat every bit. Once well-coated (you will have to work kind of fast) spread the covered popcorn on a baking sheet covered in wax paper. Let the chocolate harden and then eat or package it up to give as a tasty gift. The hardest part was keeping Mr. Lemon's quick fingers away... all in all it took about 15-20 minutes to make.  It would also be yummy with milk or dark chocolate and peppermint... mmmmm.