Monday, December 19, 2011

Have you Seen this Stuff?



I visited a friend this week and she had some of this stuff called Deco Poly Mesh with Foil. It comes on a roll and it is very light and airy. It is kind of stiff and is great for decorating. My friend had used some with greenery to make a fabulous table runner for her dining table. She also used some with ornaments to decorate a table in her entry. I went to Stein's Garden Center and they had several different colors and widths. They had this mesh on a number of displays including as a ribbon on a ginormous wrapped package. They wrapped the mesh with lights to make swags. They used two different colors shaped to make a giant candy cane.


I bought lime green in a 10" width and used it on the mantle as a backdrop for all the stuff I have there.
Don't laugh at my meager decorating skills, but take in how fabulous this stuff looks and how it makes instant wow factor wherever you put it.

The Geese May be Flying South...


But mine seem to have taken up residence on my cutting board. I have to make a skajillion of these for the quilt I am working on. I have been so busy with Christmas stuff that my flying geese are just sitting on the runway waiting to take off.

Be sure to check Judy's blog to see what is on everybody's design wall.


Hope you are getting lots of sewing time in. I am just enjoying the holidays.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Little Houses


I am starting a subdivision in my sewing room. I saw this pattern last week and got busy this afternoon making these little cuties. I found a linen blend at Joann's and had a lot of fun finding colorful scraps in my piles to play with.

I hope to get a few more made in Christmas colors for our tree. These are destined for gifts.

Friday, December 2, 2011

It's Cookie Time



Time to start making cookies for the holidays. I'm sharing my most favorite and easiest cookie recipe ever. They are also the first to disappear at the church cookie walk.

Here we go:

First start with these great ingredients.



Weigh out 10 oz. of almond bark and heat over low heat until melted and smooth. No lumps, please. Take it off the heat. Add 1/4 tsp. of mint extract and a couple of drops of green food coloring.


Once it's all stirred together, take one Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer and dip half of it in the melted bark.


Place it on a waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Repeat until you have used up the whole box of cookies. There will always be one or two broken cookies. Dip those,too. Those are you treat for a job well done.

Melt 3/4 c. of your favorite choc. chips. I use milk chocolate. The recipe calls for mint choc. chip. Dark choc would be good too.


Put the melted chips in a ziploc bag. Cut off a teeny tiny piece of the corner of the bag. Squeeze the chocolate and move it back and forth across the cookies about 3 or 4 or 5 times. Whatever looks good to you.

Start about 1/2 inch away from the edge of the cookie and just keep the chocolate coming as you go the whole length of the pan and back. That keeps from getting big blobs of chocolate on the cookies. Not attractive.

Let them dry until the coating is hard. These are so yummy.
I also made Raspberry Ribbons which are also very yummy.

Hope you try some and like them. The hardest part of this recipe is finding a box of choc. wafers that are not broken and making sure the grocery checker and bagger don't maul them. I usually hold on to them the whole time and don't let the bagger touch them.