day 187: christmas rocky road

honestly ... this is so good!

day 187 and christmas is getting so near i could burst with excitement!!  i love making christmas sweets and tonight i made a really christmasy version of rocky road :)  this idea was from patricia at technicolor kitchen and adapted from a donna hay recipe.  when i saw them on pinterest i wanted to make them then and there they looked so yummy but i didn't have the right ingredients so instead they were pinned to my christmas is coming board so i could make them today.

unfortunately i still couldn't find any freeze dried strawberries in our local grocer's so i have made some adaptions to the recipe.  the ingredients i used to make my version of a christmas rocky road are below:

2 c white marshmellows
1 c dried cranberries
1 c of red licorice
1 c of pistachio nuts
 of white chocolate
additional cranberries to scatter over the top

the goodies in this rocky road :)

my little helper adding pistachios!

once everything is added the the melted chocolate, mix!

pour into a loaf tin or cake slice if you can't find the loaf
tin ;)

the finished product, looks even better in person :)

outcome:  YUMMO!  for white chocolate lovers (ben and i) this is the bomb!  perfect colours for christmas and i will have to make this again because it won't last for christmas day!  seriously so good and so incredibly easy to make.  rocky road is so underrated is a sweet .. can't imagine why when you can make it so quickly and it tastes so good.

my thanks to particia at technicolor kitchen for posting her version of a christmas rocky road ... i will still look our for freeze dried strawberries to try them in a rocky road because i bet it tastes awesome! in the meantime, i will gladly eat today's creation and munch on the copious amounts of fresh strawberries we currently have growing :)

day 186: free colourable gift tags

happy birthday my not so little boy/man, 10 years ago today your dad and i started a family and we have never been happier :)

free, printable and colourable christmas tags!

day 186 and it was a busy day of lego building for someone in the family today.  we had full on festive birthday enjoyment intermingled with a hockey final (ben's team won 7-0), a movie with friends, a dinner with family, and some christmas wrapping ... yes it was a busy but wonderful day for our birthday lad! 

we started with some gift wrapping and that meant we needed tags.  as the presents we were wrapping were from the peeps to their cousins and people who have helped them learn throughout the year, i wanted a homemade element from them on the presents.  these tags i found on pinterest from raggedy scrappin were ideal as they were designed to be coloured, something my peeps love to do so they were pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board.  this site has lots of free printables for all sorts of uses and plenty of wonderful things for using in card making and scrapbooking.

and away they went colouring .... 

... and colouring some more :)

away the peeps went with the colouring and i got the parcels wrapped and ready to adorn with home made flowers and bits.  it was fun, i really appreciated the peeps helping with the giving to others, especially on a day when they were given so much :)

the perfect tag for this present to their cousin

a present from the peeps to their grandparents :)

another tag, another cousin, another
happy parcel finished and adorned with
ben's cool tag :)

outcome:  i really think the presents look awesome with the peeps home made tags!  our family, friends, and activity teachers will hopefully know that extra special effort was put into their gift with a big heap of love and plenty of the peeps time!

my thanks to raggedy scrappin for the freebie tags, small things like getting the peeps involved in the present giving process really help them understand charity towards others ... and these tags were a big help in aiding that learning, not to mention how cute the tags were to begin with and they just became more vibrant with colour :)

day 185: diet coke fudge brownies!

two ingredient cake :)

day 185 and .... ben's surprise birthday is today!  his actual birthday is tomorrow but we are throwing him a surprise birthday party today :)  it was so exciting and if you are interested there are some photo's at the end of this post.  on with today's creation, it had to be simple, i had other things on my mind, and the diet coke fudge brownies totally fitted into that category and this is a pin i have been wanting to try for ages. the recipe is available on so many blogs but the one i pinned is from aunt peg's recipe box.

it really doesn't get much easier than this for baking ... pour the brownie mix into a bowl and add in a full can of diet coke (i used coke zero), stir, and put in the oven for ~35 minutes.  REALLY, no excuse not to bake this at all and apparently it is awesome :)

this is what happens when you add the coke to the mix!

ready to go in ... it is a really runny mixture :)

the final brownie ... yummO!

outcome:  for a brownie that is full of sugar and fat this would be fantastic, for a brownie that hardly has any fat and sugars in it ... its OUTSTANDING, especially in a house with a diabetic!  this recipe will come in handy and be used over and over again!

thank you to aunt peg's recipe box, she provides wonderful, really precise instructions so you know you aren't going wrong with the really liquid mix ...  and the recipe was incredibly delish!

a couple of photos from ben's surprise party!

we GOT you benny boy!

add face painting ...

plenty of friends ....

a very happy boy ... 

and you have a very very happy birthday party :)

day 184: ribbon christmas trees

the finished ribbon christmas tree :)

day 184 and the weather outside is frightful .... so windy it is making me grumpy!  time to lock myself indoors and make something pretty.  today's pinterest creation can definitely be defined as pretty, the ribbon or paper christmas trees made with polystyrene cones popping up all over pinterest are so beautiful they were on my list of must do's for this festive season.  my sweet friend dee made two a couple of weeks ago (one ribbon and one paper) and hers looked so cool it confirmed my desire to make them!  i pinned two different types of these trees to my christmas is coming board, this one is from polished to perfection and uses paper to make the tree and this one is from whipperberry and uses twisted ribbon to complete the christmas tree.

i thought i would use a combination of both tree types to finish my tree.  i went with ribbon as it was on sale (50c a metre!) but i didn't want to deal with twisting it for my first attempt so i am just going to do straight forward loops.  just a word of warning, when dee made her tree she went through rolls and rolls of ribbon so if you are going to do ribbon make sure you have heaps of it and it's not to expensive ribbon otherwise this project is a costly one :)

to complete this project you need ribbon or paper, pins or hot glue, and a polystyrene cone.  this tree is going to end up in pollyanna's room so i have used the colour palette from her room as opposed to christmas ribbon and it's got a sheen to it ... she's a girly girl.

i found it easiest to make the loops with the hot glue and then attach them all around.  i ended up with three different lengths of ribbon for the loop making: three rows of 4", three rows of 3 1/4", and then three rows of 2 1/2" ribbons before doing the top.

starting out with the hot glueing of the loops

going up!

the finished tree!

and there it sits happily in pollyanna's room :)

outcome:  i love the finished effect. it looks really sweet in polly's room too. actually i love it so much and it was so easy to do, i think i will make 3 red ones for the kitchen!  definitely going to be making a bunch of these over the coming festive seasons, easy and you can totally make them to fit with your decor :)

a big thank you to both whipperberry and polished to perfection for their tutorials.  both had wonderfully handy hints in them, each offering different advice and that really helped.  together these tutorials worked an absolute treat for today's creation.

day 183: xmas pudding bean bags

the finished xmas pudding bean bags ... great for tossing,
throwing, warming, and juggling!

day 183 and i am halfway through my 365 days of pinterest creations :)  today's creation was found on pinterest and pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board!

for today's pinterest creation we made these cool xmas pudding bean bags, instructions from activity village.  if you aren't into christmas puds there are plenty of other felt creations and instructions on activity village, which you can link to here :)  we were quite short on time today so rather than showing the peeps how to blanket stitch, we used the sewing machine and also went with some store bought holly to adorn the top of the puddings.  something i have learnt over the last few days of crafting with the peeps is to make things easier (rather than learning intensive) to keep them coming back for more crafty home made goodness!

i used the fiskars circle template to cut my circles out, but
a glass would work just as well :)

sew around the edges leaving a gap to add the fill

i used rice in our beanbags as i thought it would be a great
idea to heat them if it was cold during summer ... teehee!

then finish sewing around the circle once filled, and once
that's done you simply glue some frosting on and a piece
of festive holly ... so cute don't you think!

outcome:  today's projects were a triumph because i have learnt!  i have learnt i love crafting with my peeps and they love crafting with me when the projects are achievable for them.  i have learnt that the peeps have years of learning ahead of them and it doesn't all have to happen right now!  the christmas puds have been tossed EVERYWHERE!  i am having a ball this festive season thanks to pinterest and all the creative goodness it offers, which i otherwise would not have had time to find.  and also thanks to my family who have completely supported me with each day's creating, you guys rock!

and finally thanks to activity village for the awesome tutorial for making christmas pudding bean bags, these have been a huge hit with my peeps!

just a couple of photos of my peeps, we had a fantastic day :)

day 182: fabric house ornaments for the christmas tree

the finished barn ornament!

day 182 and the kids were keen to get back to the sewing machine today after their successful pillow making yesterday.  just as well because today's pinterest creation AND book advent craft are to make fabric houses to go on the christmas tree.  i was absolutely inspired to make some after seeing this one of astrid's from red red completely red on pinterest.  it looked so sweet and i thought they would look absolutely adorable hanging from the tree.  the idea is pinned to my 2011 advent crafts board.

the other aspect i liked about the fabric houses was the the ability to individualise them ... we could make them however we wanted!  this was particularly appealing because we currently live in a barn shaped house and i thought it would be neat if we could recreate that look on a christmas decoration!

the templates i made for making the houses

ben studiously working away!

the starting of a little barn ...

ben's finished ornament ... he was so so
HAPPY

polly's finished ornament ... she thought sewing each
day for the summer holidays would be a great idea!

outcome:  mental note, don't complicate an already perfectly beautiful craft.  the peeps AND i found it really tough to sew around the round "barn" roof.  individualisation is overrated! we should have stuck with the triangle roof, mastered that and then moved on to barn shaped ornaments.  so while i struggled with the imperfection of my ornament, my peeps thought they had made gems.  they were so PROUD of their creations, i had to take a step back and realise just how awesome they are.  here they are learning to sew and loving it!  while today's pinterest creation was the fabric house ornaments, in reality today's pinterest creation was teaching two enthusiastic little peeps the joy of making something with your own two hands ... and that my friends was priceless :)

my sincere thanks to astrid from red red completely red for this fabulous idea.  i feel in love with her site, this week she made pen holder as a male christmas present (very cool idea), so of course i now follow all her creations!

day 181: christmas pillows

pollyanna's finished pillow

ben's finished pillow

day 181 and today the peeps and i made christmas pillows.  we started out by looking through pinterest for ideas which we pinned to our 2011 advent crafts board and then selected the ones we thought we could make today using the printing on fabric technique i LOVE so much :)

ben chose this design ... totally him, he loves the concept of naughty or nice and frequently finds himself on the edge of the cliff!  i am sure over the festive season the pillow will be turned frequently ;)  if you are not into sewing, the lovely debra from joshua by oak sells them on etsy.  it looks like this design is copyrighted so ben and i decided not to copy it and instead did the nice and the naughty on different sides of the pillow.  after using freezer paper to print on fabric (you can see me attempt it for the first time here!) i got ben to do some sewing and stuffing to complete his pillow.

what's required to print on fabric

it's so nice having help with my pinterest inspired
creations!

are you feeling ....

.... or this?

pollyanna chose this design and luckily it comes with a tutorial and is not subjected to copyright!  the tutorial from the 36th avenue is fantastic but i thought would be a little challenging for my little seven year old peep, so we modified the idea.  we used an envelope feel for the front and then on the flip side of the pillow we wrote her letter to santa. once we had printed off both sides, pollyanna sat down for her first attempt at sewing and then stuffed the resulting pillow!

the typesetting on the computer

one happy girl learning to sew under the watchful eye
of her big brother!

side one of polly's pillow

side two of polly's pillow :)

outcome:  the peeps did so well, i think i may employ them to do my straight line sewing!  actually both their pillows turned out so well i made some more of my own using the same designs.  i thought pollyanna's pillow was such a great reminder of what she wanted from santa for 2011, i made one for ben as well and thought we could make yearly ones to sit on their beds during december.  then i decided to make more of ben's because every one should have access to a pillow like that!  the only downside was we made so many pillows to be stuffed we ran out of stuffing!

my thanks to debra from joshua by oak for the inspiring idea to use nice and naughty on a pillow for christmas and also many thanks to desiree at the 36th avenue for a wonderful tutorial and the very inspiring design of her christmas photos!  She is incredibly crafty so i suggest having a look at her blog and being wowed!