Salt dough ornaments

Steph in Utah over at Its all in my head blog made these salt dough ornaments. I think they look great and she says they are easy to make.

RECIPE
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

Directions:

1. Mix salt and flour.
2. Add in half the water, then gradually add the remaining water.
3. Knead until the dough is smooth
4. Roll out the dough on baking paper or floured counter top
5. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or design your own.
6. Poke a hole for the twine.

Bake at 250 for 1-1 1/2 hr Make sure you don't burn them.
Let cool completely & paint. She used glitter glue on the candy canes & acrylic paint and then modge podged them with glitter. Thread the hole with twine and tie it on the end.

My Thanksgiving desserts 2010

I like to make random yummy pies and desserts for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I made Key Lime Pie and Cranberry Cheesecake bars this year to take to my brothers' house (they made the pumpkin pie). Sorry, I forgot to take a pictures of them. The key lime is really good and easy!

CARNATION® Key Lime Pie

This no-fail recipe makes the best Key Lime Pie you'll ever taste. Keep a few cans of Carnation Sweetened Condensed Milk on hand for quick baking projects.

Estimated Times:
Preparation - 5 min | Cooling Time - 2 hrs refrigerating | Yields - 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 prepared 9-inch (6 oz.) graham cracker crust
• 1 can (14 oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1/2 cup (about 3 medium limes) fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon grated lime peel
• 2 cups frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 8 thin lime slices (optional)

Cranberry Cheesecake Bars

Crust:
1 yellow or white cake mix
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup pecans, chopped (I didn't use them)

Filling:
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce

Combine cake mix, butter and egg and beat until crumbly. Add pecans and mix well. Press evenly into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

Bake at 350 for about 5 minutes just until crust is set.

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and egg until smooth.

In a separate bowl, blend together cranberry sauce and nutmeg. Pour cream cheese mixture over crust. Spoon cranberry sauce in 3 rows lengthwise in pan. Run a knife through the cranberry sauce and cream cheese mixture to form swirls.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, or until cream cheese mixture is set. Cool and cut into bars.

Letters to Santa-drop off at Macy's for Make a Wish Foundation

Have you written your letters to Santa yet? Well consider this option when you go to the mall with a Macy's Department store in it. Bring your stamped letter for Santa to a Macy's Department store. Make sure it is addressed to Santa at the North Pole and drop it in the Red Santa Mail Box. For each letter they receive to be sent to Santa, Macy's will donate $1.00 to the Make a Wish Foundation! They will then deliver all of the letters to the Post Office to be sent to the north pole! :0)

I think this would be a great thing to do while at the mall shopping (it's free to drop it off). You can take some extra time on your envelopes and feel great about dropping it off in the pretty Santa mailbox. Plus, this letter drop off helps other kids in need through Make a Wish foundation!

**If you need stationary for your letters, check out the free PDF from Macy's here.

Thanks to freebies 2 deals for the info.

A mommy moment.....her first stick figure.

As a mom of four I feel overwhelmed with STUFF! Don't you? I like to save stuff my kids created but I know I can't save everything meaningful nor do I have time to scrapbook everything. So, I save a few and I take pictures of some special ones. I toss the rest and look the other way back from the recycling bin. Here's some examples.

Here's my daughters first stick figure drawing.
My daughters first note to me.

"Dear Mom, I appreciate you.
I love you."

This was all on her own and I loved that moment when she presented it to me on the magnet board.

What do you do to preserve these priceless moments in your life?

Black Friday-UPDATE: I did end up going to 1 store.

Yes, it's almost time. Are ya going? I am torn due to a few things I hate about Black Friday! It's gonna be cold here in Utah (temps barely in the double digits or low teens), blowing wind, rude people, and lines! But the DEALS are pretty good depending on what you are going for. I buy Christmas stuff all year round for my kids so I am torn if I'll even go. I am going to go through my gift stock pile an see if I really "need" to wake up early. My preliminary guess is nope.

If you go be safe and have fun.

UPDATE: Well friends, I did end up going to Walmart at 11:30 pm for the 12:01 am sale. It was a ZOO!!! No pushing or shoving-- just packed! It was ok I got some stuff I wanted. I wish I had my crazy fun sisters with me (and with walkie talkies) to get me some extra stuff. The pallets were spread out in various location. Sneaky!! I didn't get the grittle I wanted but hey I got some stuff for my kids and underwear for my husband! I was in line for 45 minutes I think. Yikees. I went home and went to bed after that and didn't step into another store. I shopped online a bit. Whew, glad it's over.

Turkey-edible art but it wasn't a true success!

Well, I attempted to make the butternut squash turkey for my daughters school class party. I found the idea here. Well folks....it didn't turn out the way I liked it. My cheese kept splitting (and was barely hanging on to the skewer) when I threaded it on the skewers. I tried to warm the cheese, thicker cheese, and I tried the cheese cold--No success. I didn't like this project because of the cheese issue. Then I ran out of steam (and patience) and didn't put on the red pepper "feathers". I guess the only thing I was proud of was the turkey face and red pepper waddle.

Silver lining: My daughter was proud of me as her mommy. In the end, I smiled at my turkey and took her picture with it outside her classroom. Kids are very easy to please and it's refreshing and I need to remember that more often.

Free or cheap food on Black Friday

You gotta eat while your out and about on Black Friday then why not do it for cheap or free?

1. On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Sam's Club will be offering free breakfast to its members. Go here for details. Sam's Club also is offering a free $10 gift card to those who sign up for a new membership before Nov. 24. Details of that offer and a list of locations are here.
2. On Friday, Nov 26th A.K.A.Black Friday- head over to the Slurpee Facebook page. They will have a coupon to print for a Free Slurpee! This could be a good treat after a long morning shopping.
3. There are reports that on Black Friday, Nov. 26th you can eat cheap at Sizzler in UT, ID, NV, and Washington. Sizzler servers are handing out this coupon right now, but it might be possible that you can print a coupon from their Facebook page. Keep checking back to see if it's there. A steak dinner for just $5.99…or steak & shrimp on Saturday and Sunday!

Plus…Sizzler is doing the “buy $25 in gift cards and get a $5 ‘certificard’ FREE.”

Do you know of other food deals on Black Friday?

Kid friendly Thanksgiving place cards

You can make these easy and fun Thanksgiving place cards on Wednesday when the kids are out of school. Or maybe when the pies are cooking the day before the big day. Check out the details and a big Thanks to Frugal Family fun blog for the great idea

Our garden lives on during the winter! Using up peppers from our garden!

Picture is from mid-October.

Our garden is done of course as of mid-October but we are still using up our pepper crop this winter because we froze a bunch. We froze a lot of peppers to use in soups, casseroles, and fajitas. Unlike other crops you don't need to blanch sweet green peppers them first. I am proud to still be eating our garden produce on cold wintery days!

Freezing Sweet Green Peppers

You will wash then stem the pepper. Remove the center and seeds. These also freeze them whole halved, sliced or diced. Again I usually freeze them diced. We vacuum seal them and put in our upright deep freezer.

Freezing hot or mild chili peppers

Wash the peppers first. They may be frozen whole, halved, sliced, or diced. Just depends on how you'd like to use them. I mostly pack diced.

If you freeze green peppers diced in 1/2 cup quantities they are ready to be tossed into a chili or soup recipe right from the freezer.

Then pack into freezer containers or freezer bags. Remove as much air as possible by pressing your bag flat without crushing the peppers. Seal the bag (or use your sealer).

Label the contents, date the package and then freeze.

Please note: When handling and cutting up hot peppers I recommend that you wear gloves. The seeds can be very hot and may burn your skin. Remember don't touch your eyes or face!

Thanks to Simply canning for the info.

Welcome Tip Junkie blog hoppers!

Hello & a warm welcome to the Tip Junkie blog hoppers! Just so ya'll know I was featured on Tip Junkie (I love that site) for my
blessing mix #11 (as shown above!).

Go here to Tip Junkie to see my post!

Since I have new blog readers be sure to read about me here. I am happy you clicked over to my blog. Feel free to let me know you stopped by and what you checked out. I welcome feedback and your tips too. If you would like feel free to become a follower of my blog. Christmas is just around the corner and I have some fun posts coming up. Plus, I sprinkle in some designing and motherhood bits here and there. It's just my attention span....Short and sweet!

Welcome again to my blog. Staci ;)

What do you bring to a lunch potluck?

When I was on vacation earlier this month my mom, three sisters and I went to church ladies lunch potluck. The ladies from their church get together once a month and celebrate all the birthdays for that month. I think that is a great idea.

My mom and I brought:

• baked coconut shrimp with apricot jam and vanilla yogurt dip

• plain shrimp with cocktail sauce

What is your go to item for lunch potlucks? Leave me a comment and share!

Formal Living room window box treatment

A formal living room can get away with a cornice box and fabric like this. This is not my my personal style but not every client I work with should fit "my" personal style. I like to help my clients find their style. This was at a model home in Georgia.

The positives:

• Interesting diamond shape to the cornice box- neat angles and varying sizes
  

• I will admit the fabrics do coordinate well even if it's not my style.
  

• The cording on the diamonds is pulled tight and done by a professional.

• The cornice box is mounted tight to the ceiling for an illusion of height to the room (the ceiling detail is amazing too).

Yummy pear turkey appetizer

Do you need a snack to tide the kids over until the big Thanksgiving feast
(or an afternoon snack in November)? It's a healthy option they can have fun making themselves too. All the info. and photo are from Family fun.com

Ingredients

• Apple
• Clementine or navel orange
• Pear
• Dried apricot

• Peanut butter or cream cheese
• Mini chocolate chips
• Nut (we used a cashew)
• Dried cranberry

Instructions from Family fun

1. Arrange apple and clementine or navel orange slices on a plate as shown, and lay a cored pear half on top.

2. Use scissors to halve a dried apricot, then snip small triangles from each half and tuck them under the pear to form the feet.

3. Finally, use peanut butter or softened cream cheese to attach mini chocolate chip eyes, a nut beak, and a dried cranberry snood.

A window treatment for tall windows

I often asked this question in my Interior Design profession:

"What is the best window treatment for tall windows?" Sorry for the dark photo!I saw this model home window treatment while on vacation earlier this month. It answers the question nicely.

SOLUTION: Create a simple square LONG padded cornice box to fit the length of the entire window. Then add a punch of color (not a busy pattern) for the vertical fabric panels. I would use the cornice opposite fabric for the small drapery tie backs. Obviously this is a window treatment and isn't meant to be functional. Which is just fine and dandy! If you live in the woods like this house forget the window blinds!