Santa Claus Nutter Butter Cookies

Another fun gift I made last year for the kids class was Santa Claus made from Nutter Butter Cookies. I found SEVERAL ideas to do this, I will give credit to Taste of Home. But like normal I tweaked them just a little to be my creation.

Ingredients

• Unsweetened Coconut
• 1 package (1 pound) Nutter Butter sandwich cookies
• Red Candy Melts
• vanilla or white chips (I used White Candy Melts)
• Miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 32 red-hot candies

Directions

• 1. In a microwave, melt white chocolate at 70% power for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.  Place on wire racks.
• 2.  Dip other end of each cookie into melted chocolate for beard, leaving around half the cookie uncovered. Before it dries, dip into coconut. Place on wire racks.
• 3. In a microwave, melt red melts at 70% power for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.  For Santa's hat, dip into red melts on top part of cookie. Press one vanilla chip off-center on hat for pompom, OR with pipping bag put a little white chocolate dot; let stand until set. Leave the center of the cookie uncovered to make the face. With a dab of melted chocolate, attach semisweet chips for eyes and a red-hot for nose. Place on waxed paper until set. 

Have a GREAT Weekend!!

Homemade Tree Ornaments Revisited

Timehop reminded me of some fun tree ornaments I've made in the past and had to repost and share with any who didn't see them before.  The previous post is HERE.

Candy Cane Reindeer

What you Need:

Candy Cane

Brown Pipe Cleaner

Small Google Eyes

Red Pom Pom

Hot Glue Gun

Twist a pipe cleaner around the loop of the cane and form like antlers. Using a hot glue gun attach the eye balls and nose. They hang nicely on the tree.

Cinnamon Applesauce Holiday Ornament Ingredients:

• 1 container ground cinnamon, 4.12 ounce
• 3/4 Cup unsweetened applesauce

Directions:

1. Combine cinnamon and applesauce in a bowl, knead into a dough.
2. Roll dough out to desired thickness (if you have problems with dough sticking, you can 'flour' the surface and rolling pin with more ground cinnamon). Cut shapes with a knife or cookie cutters. Use a straw to make string hole.
3. Bake at 200 degrees for 2 - 4 hours, turning each hour. Allow to cool on a wire rack. Alternatively, you can air dry for 2 - 4 days, turning each half day.
4. Decorate and hang!

Snowmen Handprint Ornament

Take an ordinary ornament of any color.

1. Slather the kid's hand with white paint.
2. Make a hand print on the ball, fingers pointing towards the top (where the hook is). This may be obvious, but I have to mention that it is important that they do not move their fingers once they are on the ornament. If they do, you will be on your own as to how to make those smudges into cute little snowmen keepsakes.
3. When the paint dries, begin adding details to turn the fingers into snowmen. There will be 5, in case you were wondering.
4. Make eyes, buttons, and scarves...whatever you like.
5. I added little asterisks snowflakes for kicks.

Happy Thursday!

Fun Family Christmas Card Idea's Done

A few weeks back I posted some fun Christmas Card Ideas that I found on Pinterest and Google. I printed off the doable ones and my amazing friend at Johansen's Photography made them happen! I even got Rick talked into doing the Christmas Story themed one for next year (more motivation to get myself in shape to wear a house dress). Hope you find an idea to do with your family!

This was the best one!

Jennifer stood behind Cole and photo-shopped her head out.

LOL a few of the texting family.

I love my youngest taking Selfies!

My oldest really played hill climb the whole time ... lol.

This was my fav with my face and my husb looking like he did that on purpose.

Had to add the dog in also!

So many ppl around the dog was in overdrive and not looking forward.

We tried the Heart with our Hands

I saw many that said Merry but with 4 of us we do Ho Ho

Signs saying Parents for Sale (next time BLACK marker)

Good Cook (arrow to me)

Pretty Handy (arrow to husb)

Someone already had this on the barn wall

Superman pose!

Nice family shot in front of barn.

There you have it some fun Family Photo ideas!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Candy Cane Dreams Gift Idea (Teacher, Neighbor's and Friends)

I made this last year for the boys teachers but then forgot to post it, so here we are a year later and I finally can post since we are in December!  I like finding fun unique gifts to give to people. I saw several ideas on pinterest and just kind of came up with my own.

What you need:

Candy Candy Hershey's Bar

Candy Candy Marshmallows (put in a fun Christmas bag)

Starbucks Via Latte Peppermint Mocha

Candy Canes

Lindor Chocolate (Peppermint if you can find them)

Santa Cup (Dollar Tree)

Starbucks Gift Card (because everyone wants a free cup of coffee / tea)

Put as much as you can in the cup, the rest I gathered up and put in a clear bag and tied with a ribbon and handed them out to the teachers. Easy gift but a yummy one!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

TMNT Cupcake Toppers (Modeling Chocolate)

I've made a few different versions of TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), I like to make different versions when I make them. I signed up for another Birthday Dreams cake delivery for a sweet little homeless boy. Please look up this charity with the holiday's coming less people donate and they could use any donations you can give.

What you need:

Modeling Chocolate (Green, Red, Orange, Purple and Blue) - see recipe below

Circle cookie cutter

TMNT Cookie Cutter (Bought on Ebay)

Roll out your green modeling chocolate, I like mine to be on the thick side. I then cut out circle's for the face's (I made 24 total). I set these aside on some parchment paper and got to work on the mask. I made all 4 characters so I needed 6 mask total of each color. I rolled out each color and used the cookie cutter using only the mask cutter. I then dabbed a little water to the back of mask and attached to the green circle. I then used mouth cutter to make the smirk. NOW you can do this with a tooth pick also. I didn't like the rest of the cutter when I used it before so I use parts of it that I like.

I let them sit out a while to harden up then attach to the top of my cupcakes! And your done!

For those who haven't seen my post about Modeling Chocolate:

Modeling Chocolate

12oz Candy Melts

1/4 Cup light corn Syrup

Melt your Candy Melts in microwave (mine takes about 2 minutes). Stir them to become smooth and add the corn syrup.  It will become thick and form a ball.  Wrap in plastic wrap and let it sit out and dry.  Takes a few hours or over night is best. (Alexis note: I found to roll this out use a little powder sugar (like you would do with flour), also you have to kneed it a little like you would dough to make it easy to roll out).

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

For a fun exta I also tried the rice in the cupcake pan for baking!
I must say this trick worked great (I've done it several times since), the rice soaks up any grease the you get when you use from scratch cupcake recipe!

WHERE did I go?

Sorry after the holiday I disappeared for over a week. In my head I had timed out perfect I would have post pre-typed up and scheduled for each day. WELL Thanksgiving happened and so did black Friday. Friday I flew out for my office's annual holiday event. I then stayed for a whole week (Friday to Friday). I just flew back in last night and bam a whole week of post well never made it to the drawing board.

I leave you with some fun photos of our Holiday Event!

Our whole staff for the Christmas Card

And a Silly one!

And one with Santa!

Have a GREAT weekend!