Rice Krispy Treat Kisses

One more pre-Valentines treat for you - a perfect last minute treat for anyone!

We made these for a church activity this week, and they were fun to make and turned out cute. I didn't think to bring a camera, but they're easy so hopefully you can figure them out without pictures :)

Rice Krispy Treat Kisses

Materials:
Butter, Marshmallows, Rice Krispies
Funnel
Nonstick spray
Wax paper
Plastic wrap
Tin foil
Slip of paper w/message

1. Prepare Rice Krispy treats as directed on box
2. Lay out some wax paper on the counter.
3. Spray funnel with non stick spray. Spoon rice krispy mix into funnel and push it down as you fill it to the top.
4. Flip upside down on wax paper and press funnel down to form the shape a little better. Remove funnel and repeat with the rest of the "batter."
5. Wait for them to cool then wrap in plastic wrap. Add the paper strip and wrap again in tin foil leaving the end of the paper poking out.

That's it, but you're not done until you give it away!

Just make sure you make some extra for yourself :)

Love Note Pillow

Here's a fun pillow for a gift, or for yourself! The idea is to insert a love note and leave it on the bed on someone you love. Then pass it around the house - easy way to share the love!


I made it to use as a gift at a Valentines themed game night, but might not be going now so it may be mine! I don't have pictures of everything because the idea kept changing as I realized I didn't know how to do what I wanted... But hopefully it's enough to get the idea.

For materials, I bought 1/4 yard of each fabric, and I still have enough left to make another pillow. (I used the same fabric for the back and the pocket)

*Two squares 9"x11"
*Extra fabric for the pocket
*18" of pom pom trim
*A heart pattern (mine was abt 6" wide and 5.5" tall)
*Fiberfill
Start on the front panel first.
For the pocket, you'll want two "copies" so fold the fabric over (not pictured) and trace around the pattern on the wrong side.

So you have: (ignore the ribbon)
This is the part I kept changing and there's probably better options, but to do what I did:
Place right sides together, sew around the edges (leave an opening), clip edges and the "v" & flip. I then top stitched around it and closed the opening.

Then to sew it to the front panel I sewed over the topstitch line, but don't forget to leave an opening for your note! I inserted this card so you could see where my opening was. I sewed just to the top of each hump so they wouldn't flop over.


With that done, you're ready to sew the trim on and the pillow together. This part I was horrible at, so if you've never done pom pom trim before, I'd read these instructions first (scroll to the trim/sewing instructions). But remember we're just putting the trim on two edges. It's clearer and if I had followed those, I probably wouldn't have felt so incompetent.

So use a basting stitch (and a zipper foot if possible) to sew the trim on one edge first, and then layer it like this. The corner balls kept getting in my way, but the goal is to sew around with a 1/2" seam allowance. (Mine had to be less to catch the edge of the trim.)
Leave four inches or so open on the bottom edge to flip and stuff.
So you end up with this! You can see how my pocket is not really straight, but it makes it qwerky, right?
Then stuff it, and close the opening with a slip stitch. Follow the link for a tutorial. I always forget how to do it...

Now just add a note and give it to your Valentine!

A little bit of chocolate

OK, here's the deal. I love making Christmas treats for my friends and neighbors as presents and just to show that I care. It's a fun excuse to get a few different ingredients and get a little more involved in the kitchen. (Well, for me at least.)

The hard thing about living in a student area, or where everyone leaves to go to their home homes, is that I have to really be on top of my game to get things done in time. That time is coming, so I stopped at the grocery store today to pick up my supplies for treats, including the Mint Thins Ritz mentioned Monday. (Funny that her nickname is Ritz and the recipe calls for Ritz crackers??)

I get home...and my roommate has made a disastrous mess in the kitchen...and she's not one to clean it up for a few days at least. And I HATE cooking in a messy kitchen; I simply can't do it. So after putting off cooking when I got home, and then finishing some to-do list stuff, going to the gym, and visiting a friend leaving tonight, I return home ready to prepare. Not that I expected any differently, but the kitchen is still a disaster. Normally (it happens quite often) I clean it up, but it was beyond what I had time to do tonight. (How is that possibly in just one evening?!?) I even cleared off one section of our counter space before I realized that my extensive Christmas cooking projects would take more room, make more of a mess, and would take too much time to both clean the kitchen and complete. Which is why today I am only sharing my plans and some idea links.

I'm still really excited about these treats so I'll post pictures later. Promise.

Ok I think the theme for this post will be things dipped in chocolate. It just seems Christmasy doesn't it?

Mint Thins: I didn't get the Mint extract the recipe calls for, but did get some peppermint candy canes and spearment drops. I'll crush this to get the minty taste, plus a cool looking outside.

Chocolate Candy Canes: (She has some good pictures) The idea is to be able to use these in hot chocolate to add extra chocolate taste, plus a little mint. I'm couldn't find peppermint sticks so I have canes, and am not quite sure how to wrap them or make them look cute to give out.

Chocolate Cinnamon Bears: Do these need any more explanation?

Last year I used pretzel sticks and made a caramel sauce that they were dipped in. I did a few with chocolate too, but didn't have actual melting chocolate and burned my melted chips. Which is why I LOVE this tip (not so much the cookies) from this video tutorial for making Rudolf's Christmas Cookies.





See 1:35
Pour almost boiling water into a bowl.
Put the chocolate chips in a zip-lock bag and place in the water.
Wait about 5 minutes while the chips melt.
Cut off a corner of the bag and drizzle away.

How easy is that!

Christmas Decorating

Well, my roommates and I put up Christmas decorations this weekend. It was very exciting. I love the lights and garland and, as of this weekend for me, the snow. It's finally really beginning to look like Christmas. :)


We had one huge white wall that doesn't even have anything on it usually. But with all the holiday decorations up, the wall looked especially bare. We weren't sure what to put there, but then I remembered some wrapping paper I had. The whole room kinda has a red and white theme, so I thought this paper was a good solution...unless of course something better comes up down the road. :) I'm sure its not for everyone, but I kinda like it. You can obviously use any kind of paper to match your style. I like the short rolls that seemed just the right width for this type of stripe.


On another Christmas decoration note, I started mod podging my Christmas tree boxes. For the first and smallest one I cut a bunch of tiny strips from different paper. I like how this looks, but it takes forever. The hard part is covering the edges.



So for the biggest one, I used just one large cutout for the front and covered the sides with a solid red. I'll probably add some ribbon on the front.




I've yet to decide what to do with the third, middle box. Once I'm done, I'll set them on some fake snow on the top of a mantle or something.

Being thankful

I know this is the time of year to show gratitude, but I think I would be there regardless of the holiday. However, I'm really excited for Thanksgiving this year and for the break from everything. I admit I didn't get a chance to complete my personal Thankful project yet, but I wanted to share with you my idea.

One thing I've never been good at when it comes to scrapbooking is not only journaling (because I'm not good at that either) but recording the things about life that aren't the who, where, why. In this case, the little things in life I'm thankful for. So my first step is to record 100 things I'm thankful for. As my friend Whitney challenged:

Make a list of 100 things you're grateful for. You'll be surprised at how many things you'll have to leave out.

Sounds like a fun activity and starting point, huh? Then I want to find some way to creative record my thankful thoughts. I'm thinking a 12 x 12 scrapbook page with squares with each item...and some represented with a specific image or something. I've never been great at focusing on thoughts and words rather than pictures so this will be a challenge—but a fun one—for me. :)

Here are some other thankful pages that I like and that I hope can motivate us all to remember the tiny things we are grateful about with life.








If any of us get a chance to complete a thankful project over the break, send in a pic. We'd love to feature it. :)


As I was thinking about Thanksgiving crafts, I was reminded of THESE amazing cookie turkeys. Every Thanksgiving at my Grandma's house growing up featured these at each plate.

I also love the yarn turkey idea and sticking the feathers with the Thankful notes in the back. If I had thought of it earlier, this would have been fun to do in my apartment with my roommates and any friends we had coming over.

pumpkins: the non-messy way

Welcome October. It seems as though the rest of the year is already winding down, but maybe it's too early for me to jump to those conclusions. But we will certainly be on a roll when it comes to holidays, first Halloween, soon Thanksgiving and before we know it Christmas and New Years Eve, and all that those entail. This certainly is a great 3-month period of the year, so I wanted to possibly for the first time make an effort to decorate my apartment for some of the festivities.

When it comes to pumpkins, I'm usually not thaat interested. The gunk and the goo and the knives and the inevitable failure (in my case) which produces simply a mess of pumpkin with one big hole in the front....well, it's a hassle for me usually. But pumpkins are still a great choice for decorating Halloween style, so I love the idea of painting or decorating them—less mess and they are really cute!

This sample is pretty simple, but I just placed ribbons along some of the ridges of the pumpkin, using Tacky glue to keep it in place. I didn't have any buttons on hand, but I LOVE the look of gluing these all over as well. I saw a really cute one in my neighbor's apartment, but didn't get the chance to snap a sneaky picture! :P Try different patterns together and give that pumpkin some personality! (P.S. I also love this example at All You of using buttons for little pumpkin faces!)

For painting the pumpkin, well I am a HUGE fan of acrylic paints so that was of course my paint of choice. The one issue: the paint does come off pretty easily. It's a good idea to do a few coats, or to actually paint the pumpkin with a sealer to hold the paint better. I opted for a black pumpkin and red stem. (Those stems are prickly!!) But I didn't want the pumpkin to look TOO seriously scary, so I painted stars, squiggles, and dots all over it. Then I added a fun ribbon bunch over the stem. This all definitely helped balance out the moods—tons of fun with just the right touch of midnight suspense. (And no, the picture doesn't give it justice.)

This is another really simple touch I put together. I purchased one of the plastic black, cauldron bowls from the dollar store. I filled it with cotton balls to give a boiling, steaming effect and dropped a selection of candy in the middle. Simple, but still fun. Then I tied a white ribbon around the outside.

Holidays give an extra reason to be creative, plus you get to display your projects pretty prominently around the house. I'm learning that it doesn't take much effort to splash even a little holiday festivity in your living space. Now I just need more ideas!!

-KK