Day 14- Icing makes every cookie better :-)

Frosted Ginger Cookies

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
FROSTING:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch salt

Directions
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in molasses and vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to creamed mixture.
Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 325° for 12-15 minutes or until cookies spring back when touched lightly (do not overbake). Remove to wire racks.

For frosting, in a large saucepan, bring the brown sugar, milk and butter to a boil; cook and stir for 1 minute. Remove from the heat (mixture will look curdled at first). Cool for 3 minutes. Add confectioners' sugar, vanilla and salt; mix well. Frost warm cookies.

Makes about 6 dz.(although I don't think it made quite this many :-)

I think these are one of my favorite cookies this year and even better when you drink them with milk!! :-)

Day 7-13- Cookie baking

So I haven't been as faithful as promised, to my every day christmas posting! But I'm going to try my best the next several days and post some recipes from my cookie baking:-)

So the other day I had a free day off of work and I baked christmas cookies!!! I love baking and I was soo excited to do this:-) Usually my mom, sisters and I bake together, but this year we did not, so I took it upon myself to bake!

Now before you think I'm weird that I baked christmas cookies all by myself, let me assure you that I LOVE to bake and give cookies away this time of year, and to me it's relaxing! I put on my ipod, got everything ready and starting baking!! And YES I did make 19 DOZEN COOKIES!!!! And NO I don't plan on eating them all myself! I take a tray of cookies to every party I go to and give away to friends and family :-) This is one of my favorite things to do this time of year!!!

So stay tuned for cookie recipes!!! I also plan on making some candy :-) That is if I can stand any more sugar!

Peppermint Bark

White Chocolate/ Raspberry cookies


Mint crinkles

Soft gingerbread cookies

Day 6- A christmas tree of yarn

1- You will need:
foam cones of different sizes
2 yarns, one fuzzy and one normal(christmas colors)
pins
embellishments



2-Take both yarns and pin both ends(one from each yarn) to the top of the cone, arrange and pin the top as needed. Start wrapping the yarn all the way down to the bottom of the cone and then if you want it to be more yarn-wrapped, wrap again up to the top(so that's its wrapped twice) Cut and pin in place.

3- Embellish as you want. I took fake berries and hot-glued in place and also put a cute little metal star on top that I borrowed from my mom :-) I used ribbon on the other one.

And then you're done! A very fun, easy project :-)

1st tree

2nd Tree

My christmas tree shelf!

so if you think all I ever get done is making crafts.........you're right.....haha! Well not really, my mom, sisters and I get together once a year and make christmas crafts, half of my collection has come from this! The advantages to having sisters :-) We had so much fun and we all made something different! I didn't get pictures of everything, but here are some...

My sister's twine-wrapped trees.


My mom's assortment of yarn and scrapbook paper trees.

Day 5- Making a fabric wreath

1- You will need:
a foam wreath
different christmas patterned fabric
a rotary cutter
a pencil with a sharpened point
a mat to cut on



2- using the rotary cutter, cut strips of fabric 2" wide. Then cut the strips into 2" (ish) squares. I just eyeballed it :-) I used 5 different, coordinating fabrics. I didn't really count them, but you'll need alot of each, you may just have to keep cutting as you go, until you are satisfied with how it looks!




3- Now the fun part, take the pencil through the middle of a fabric square and just poke it through into the foam until it sticks! It really does work, however if you want your wreath to last for years and years, it may be better to dot the end of each fabric square with hot glue to make it more durable. Did I feel like spending 10 hrs. doing that????? NO I DID NOT :-0 So far only a couple fell out and I promptly put them back in:-)



4- Just keep poking the squares in until all of the foam is covered(or until you like it). You can then embellish with ribbon if you desire :-)

......and tada!

a fun, shabby ruffled wreath you will get! Now go hang on a wall or something!

Day 4- "it's looking a lot like christmas"

It's looking a lot like christmas here at our house!

Day 3- A homemade wreath

So after we got our tree, I trimmed the bottom and used the extra branches to make a wreath! I had made wreaths a couple years ago with one of my friends and so I had the ring to make it on, I just needed the branches.


It's really very easy to make, you just need:
-Wreath ring
-some kind of craft wire to attach the branches onto the wreath
-wire cutters (or I just used an old scissors)
-pine branches(this was from a Douglas Fir)
-any decorations

Then you can just go to town and wrap and arrange the branches any way you like around the wreath ring! Mine was a little more delicate and thinner than other years, just because I ran out of branches, but I ended up really liking how it turned out! And then I just added a bow and some fake berries(that I stole off of my fake wreath :-)

And voila....

Day 2- O Christmas Tree

I should say that this year was our first "real tree" experience. We'e always gotten a real tree, but it was always already cut and all we had to do was pick it out and take it home, which took all of 5 min.
This year we decided to go to a tree farm and cut down our own tree!

So off we went in search of the perfect tree!


Finally after going back and forth between several different ones, we found one we both liked! A short fat christmas tree!

Time to cut it down!



You can see how short it really was! The perfect size for our small house:-)

Jesse is the master at stringing lights!

And here I am decorating the tree. (Sorry the picture is blurry, but I kind of liked how it made the lights look)



And.......the finished product!!



I should tell you that the farm we went to was like straight out of a story book! A farmer with a very rustic house and shop. There was a sleigh off in one corner of his work shop that had a cat that kept meowing at us. In the other corner was a random calf. Hanging above our heads were old, worn saddles. And following the farmer's side was his faithful beagle. It was quite the experience, we had fun and now we have a beautiful christmas tree that is filling our whole house with the fragrance of pine!