angry chicken

and the brittle was a success.

The cooking/baking/candy making mojo has been really good this year. This brittle, made from the Craft of Baking, was a huge success and was frighteningly easy. No thermometer—just a watchful eye is needed. I will say, a good pot and patience is helpful when heating it up. I have learned to bring it to a boil slowly and then put it on high heat after the sugar is totally dissolved. I didn't use cashews for this brittle but almonds. The almonds were roasted and salted, which has made the brittle quite salty although really tasty nonetheless. Next time, however, I will use unsalted nuts.

We are well prepared for Solstice—the girls are done with the gifts they have made for each other and I made 3 fancy skirts for them with plenty of sparkle and gauzy magic. I have made our Solstice cake, which I made last year and will make every year from now on because it's the perfect cake in my book—it's in the freezer now. On Christmas Eve I will make the Swedish Braid. I love holiday baking, especially Christmas breads. Also, I need to switch up my baking. If I make any more cookies I will really lose my mind. I made a lot this year and while it was fun, I am so done with cookies.

We had a family trip to the mall last night to watch the ice skaters and see the decorations and lights downtown. An added bonus, we also saw some public vomiting while watching the ice skaters. The unfortunate episode took place between the Cinnabon and the kiosk for the pre-paid law services, all to the music of an Air Supply tune blaring from the ice rink. I felt bad for the young woman, but she sure seemed ready to go party after she was done. Good for her! What a trooper.

Okay, I sure hope everyone has a safe, relaxing, and un-vomit filled Holiday and New Year. See you in 2010!

and I did make marshmallows again, too.

They worked like charm. I used the recipe I linked to in the last post. These are peppermint marshmallows dipped in semi-sweet chocolate. They are oddly refreshing!

A few things:

• The recipe (I think) calls for a 9" x 12" pan. I used an 9" x 9" to make them extra thick—so they are almost perfect squares when cut.
• I used about 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
• I used an alarming amount of natural red food coloring to turn these pink. But they aren't pink at all. They are sort of an undead looking grey/mauve. How appetizing! Either I need to bust out the real food coloring, synthetic dyes and all, or just go with the uncolored white and let people use their nose to tell them they are peppermint.
• I dipped them in melted chocolate chips and then added the sprinkles on the top, popping them in the fridge to help the chocolate set up.
• These are so good, but I can't eat them unless they are at least a day old and have been chilled in the fridge, which is where I store them if I dip them in chocolate. I like the chocolate crunch with the soft marshmallow—if they are too fresh, they make me gag. I know, I'm not doing a real good job of selling these—they are really good though!

There are an insane amount of wonderful ideas over at Everybody Likes Sandwiches for holiday food gifts from the kitchen, including links with recipes and cute labels to print out. Outstanding. (Via Poppytalk, I think?)

previously seen holiday fun-

Solstice Candy Cones

I was looking back through my holiday archives (woefully incomplete, random, and missing a ton of stuff which is categorized elsewhere) and pulled some of my favorite holiday projects for my own inspiration.

Homemade chocolate dipped marshmallows

Personalized Photo Clips for Small Friends

Easiest Homemade Fudge Ever

Chalkboards with Fabric Bags

 Cake in a Jar

I think I will definitely have to make homemade marshmallows again. Actually, I want to make all of these again.

Oh! And before I forget, we saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox and loved it.

And I have a new banner.

next up, brittle.

This has been a banner year for baking books.

I have had this book, The Craft of Baking: Cakes, Cookies, and Other Sweets with Ideas for Inventing Your Own, by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox for a few months now and it's just getting better and better. Melissa blogged about it, and has made quite a few things from it with great success. Grammie borrowed it kind of permanently and loves it too—especially the biscotti. It's got cakes, candies, breads—quite a bit of variety. I'm going to try the brittle and caramel corn this week.

There is a very helpful review of it here along with a recipe. I'm thinking last minute gift ideas with this book. Family and friends, act surprised when you get a copy, okay?

I'd like to mention that this book was sent to me as a review copy by my lovely publisher, Random House.

just some pancakes.

We make a lot of pancakes around here. We call them handcakes, because they are usually eaten on the sofa out-of-hand, not off a plate. The powdered sugar gets all over, but oh well. I make extra and freeze them. The girls pop them in the toaster oven. I like them with maple syrup, of course, but the girls like them with either powdered sugar or butter and cinnamon sugar—or just plain.

Sadie is starting to flip them herself. The recipe is on my cheat sheet and I use the same recipes for waffles, sometimes switching the white flour out for whole wheat flour or another grain. Buckwheat is good too, although gets some suspicious looks.

Really I just like taking photos of food, so that's about all there is to say about this.

Links:

• I am terribly excited to see Gentleman Broncos (via Miss Emily) although it seems to be in the movie-video purgatory and not on netflix yet but not in the theaters anymore either.
• I have in my hands the lovely Winter and Holiday Correspondence Sets from the fine folks at Yellow Owl Workshop and am in love with them and highly recommend them as a gift-y type item to keep or give. I am writing more real letters lately and this set is perfect for that. The boxed set fits nicely in my bag (which is a pretty big bag, I will admit.)
• I am enjoying (and laughing out loud at) The Selfish Seamstress. (via the Burda Style Blog)

holiday napkins and me on television

It was really fun appearing on our local morning show AM Northwest last week. I showed how to make these holiday napkins, embellished with a bleach pen.

You can see the clip here on the AM Northwest site, and here you can also get the directions and the materials. I also have put the video on my You Tube channel. I was busting up pretty hard at the end—Dave and Helen are pretty dang funny.   

Completely unrelated but riveting nonetheless, I can't stop reading this Letters of Note blog.

magical verse

We are in a poetry phase around here—reading aloud usually while standing on the fireplace mantel which is a perfect stage. I was thrilled to find this lovely first edition of Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected For Boys and Girls for the girls for Christmas.

Such sweet illustrations—

The book is nice and heavy. They seem to be really into heavy books. I think it makes the reading more serious. The poems are all pretty short, which is perfect. I think this book might be more for me than for them, but there's nothing wrong with that.    

In other book news:

• I am totally not embarrassed to admit I am now on book four of the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books, by Charlaine Harris, and am loving every minute of this series. I haven't seen it on HBO, and I am not sure if I will. Grammie says it's not her cup of tea and she's the one with the HBO. She says she's not into vampires—she's all about the mummies. (?!)

• Gracia Haby's art books are a visual delight. I have her blog in a folder on Google Reader titled "happy blogs" for obvious reasons. Please note her reading list in this post I link to is much more highbrow than my current tastes.

• Camilla Engman has a beatuful new book out of her artwork. She sells it in her shop—shipping from Sweden. If you are in Canada or the US you can get it a bit faster at Uppercase, who is also the wonderful publisher of this book. It looks so very lovely. (Big hint to family.)

another notable cookie

I went to a cookie party last weekend and these cookies are what I brought. I have mentioned them before, they are the Apricot Crumbles. They are sick with love. A ton of butter and apricot jam with ginger added. The only change I made was to decrease the butter by about 3 tablespoons and double (or even triple) the amount of fresh ginger. I love them so very very much, I only make them about once a year.

The cookie party was a wonderful event because it's just for consuming cookies on the premises. Of course there is extra to take home, but the no-pressure quality of this is genius. This pie was in attendance and I can't say enough good things about it. Really.

• I just got word the the AM Northwest show I will be on this Thursday will not be airing in the morning, live, but later that evening, between 7-8 on Comcast channel 302. They will have it up to view on their site right after 8pm Thursday, but you don't even need to remember this because I will link to it as soon as I can and also put it up on my YouTube channel if possible.

• If you are out and about this Sunday the 13th Crafty Wonderland here in Portland is having a huge holiday event with really great vendors. It's sure to be stellar. Details are here.

Holiday decor and other items

The tree went up last weekend and we decorated. It was an equal balance of kids helping and Mama pulling rank and relegating certain holiday items to the play area downstairs. The girls decorated the tree all by themselves (only 3 broken glass balls) and we taller humans finished up on the out-of-reach areas.

A simple mantel.

Here's a better shot of the room and you can see the penny rug above the mantel.

Okay, the holidays are heating up around here. I feel like I am doing a crazy two-step dance of making homemade gifts and having fun holiday activities (going to plays, seeing lights, outdoor events, etc.) while not over-scheduling. I actually think that I have cleared our social obligations/events after this week completely. I feel so good about it getting less busy before Christmas/Solstice than more busy. We shall see if this can be maintained. I am my own worst enemy here.

Randoms:

• I will be on AM Northwest again this Thursday (this is our local morning show on channel 2 KATU) between the hour of 9-10am. I will be adapting a technique from my new book to embellish holiday napkins. Hopefully hilarity will ensure. Or at least, disaster will be avoided. There will be bleach involved. Chemical burn potential + live television = total comedy, right?

• The newest Tie One On gallery is up over here on flickr showing all the amazing Peppermint Candy aprons. They are divine and so festive. Please take a look and leave a comment. I will post the next theme after the New Year, and if you have a good ideas, let me know—

• I really really want to get this game for the girls, Wildcraft. It's a game for learning how to pick and prepare wild herbs for medicinal uses. Um, my awesome alarm just went haywire. You can also get it at Mountain Rose Herbs. I have yet to find it locally here in a shop, so I may just have to order it. Update** You can also get it direct from the makers, Learning Herbs.

• We celebrate Solstice here, big time, and only handmade gifts are exchanged—ones the girls decide to make for each other, with help from us. I am so stoked that this year Delia will be making Sadie stilts (using the tool box full of real tools that her uncle got her for her birthday) and Sadie is making Delia a doll quilt (which she has already started with Grammie's help.) Baby is getting a bear, made by the two of them. Listening to them try to NOT tell each other what they are making is pretty funny. Like last year, when Delia said her Solstice gift for Sadie was a secret, but she would say it was "doll shaped."

holiday garland, thank you, & links

Thank you all so much for coming out to the book signing and saying hi. We had a blast. I will try to upload some photos soon, and if you all do, let me know—

I had forgotten long ago that I posted this free Holiday Funtime Garland project—you can print out several copies and make your own. I use to have a PDF for this, but I don't know where it is (long story) so here it is on flickr, just hit "all sizes" and download and print the big one.

Have fun! (And please just keep this for personal use, thanks.)

Some very important unrelated links:

• Colette Patterns has some new fabulous vintage inspired sewing patterns available for pre-order right now—please take a look, you won't be sorry. I love her designs so much.

• BurdaStyle is doing a Holiday Giveaway everyday this month, and it's crazy. They just gave away a sewing machine. You can see the info on the blog. You have to be a member to leave a comment to try and win, but as a member myself of this awesome group—I say sign up and go for it!

• Mix Tape #11 is now available and is in a new format. Very nice.

• A Wee Wonderfuls Folkster Dolls pattern is out now and I think this pattern, along with some fabrics, trims and threads, would be an awesome gift to give to a crafter.

• A stunning Jen Corace print is available over at Tiny Showcase.

I'm in Seatle Right Now!

Come by and say hi!! I will be at The Quilting Loft tonight with the lovely Miss Emily Black Apple.

Hope to see you!

The Quilting Loft

Thursday December 3rd, 7PM

2601 NW Market St
Seattle, WA 98107
(206) 706-0445

holiday gifts and such

These are some of my favorite items from Stubby Pencil Studio, an excellent online kids art supply shop which I have blogged about before—I just love their inventory. They have items I haven't seen anywhere else. (And here's a handy 10% discount code: ACSAVE10)

I snapped this photo before the gifts got tucked away in a box. Note to self—don't let the girls see the blog this month.

Star shaped crayons!! I drew these book covers and printed them onto card stock to make blank books to go with the nice art supplies. They say "This Very Important Book Belongs To:"

And "Mildly Interesting Secrets Belonging To:"

While I was at it with my brush pen (yes, the one from Jet Pens!) I made a fill-in-gift list for myself. I love drawing, scanning, and printing so much. I just want to play copy shop all day. Remember the stinky ditto machines?! I used to beg my teachers to turn that crank and make copies. Were they actually called mimeographs? I don't even know. But they stank to high heaven.

Hey there Apron Makers:

I am super-slammed this week and will need a little extra time to get the Peppermint Candy aprons up for Tie On One gallery. They look amazing! I will be back from Seattle on Friday sometime and will get the gallery up over the weekend. Thanks so much!