Art for a Friend.

I loved making the 3D Wall Art for my bedroom and a week ago I decided to make another one for a friend of the family. It's a little different from the ones I made for myself, but I like the changes. Here are a few pictures of the finished product. If you're looking for a tutorial on how to make one of these yourself, (and you have a few days to commitet to it) go HERE.

By the way, she loved it!!!

        
            

Big Hit.

1 lb. ground beef
1 pkg. (6 oz.) STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix
1 cup water
2 Tbsp. A.1. Original Steak Sauce
6 oz. (3/4 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups hot mashed potatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 jar (12 oz.) beef gravy, warmed
Make It
HEAT oven to 375ºF.
MIX meat, stuffing mix, water and steak sauce; press into 12 muffin cups sprayed with cooking spray.
BAKE 20 to 25 min. or until done (160°F).
ADD cream cheese and garlic to potatoes; stir until cream cheese is melted. Stir in parsley. Scoop over meatloaves. Serve with gravy

Alton's Pumpking Pie.

I like pumpkin pie. Mackenzie LOVES pumpkin pie and asks for it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I made my first pumpkin pie ever this year using Alton Brown's reicpe and it was fantastic. It was different enough from a store bought pumpkin pie that Mackenzie wasn't so happy with it, but she did eat some. :) Can't complain too much right?


Crust:
6 ounces gingersnap cookies
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 ounce unsalted butter, melted


Filling:
16 ounces pumpkin puree, recipe follows
1 cup half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk


Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust:
Combine the gingersnaps, brown sugar, and ginger in the bowl of a food processor.
Process until the cookies are fine crumbs.
Drizzle the butter into the crumb mixture. Pulse 8 to 10 times to combine.
Press the gingersnap mixture into the bottom, up the sides, and just over the lip of a 9-inch glass pie dish.
Place on a cookie sheet and bake the crust for 10 to 12 minutes.
Cool crust at least 10 minutes before filling.

For the filling:
Bring the pumpkin puree to a simmer over medium heat in a saucepan.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the half-and-half, nutmeg, and salt.
Stir and return the mixture to a simmer.
Remove the pumpkin mixture from the heat and cool for 10 minutes.

Whisk brown sugar, eggs, and yolk until smooth in a large bowl.
Add the pumpkin mixture and whisk until thoroughly combined.
Pour the prepared filling into the warm pie crust and bake on the same cookie sheet until the center jiggles slightly but the sides of the filling are set, 45 to 50 minutes.
Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before slicing.

Pie can be made and refrigerated up to 2 days in advance.

Pie is best the day after it is made.

Also Known As...

These neat pomanders have many names, kissing balls and wedding balls are just two. I like them because they are super easy to make and of course the ruffle effect sucks me in every stinking time!

Here's what you need to make your own kissing balls:
1 Styrofoam ball of any size, the bigger the ball to start with the bigger your over all project will be.
Hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks.
A pencil or some kind of wooden stick.
Tons and tons and tons of circles cut in your choice of fabric. The more circles the better!

Once you've cut out your circles, mine were about 3'' in diameter but you can go bigger or smaller, depending on how big you want the final product. Use your wooden stick to poke a hole in the Styrofoam ball, not to deeply. You're going to want to keep this depth every time you poke a new hole so try and keep it shallow and consistent.

 Now take one circle, fold the bottom part up to the top part like so...

Now take the left corner of the half circle you just folded and fold it over to the right corner of the circle, like so....

Do this one more time, folding left corner over to right corner and you'll end up with something that looks like this. Make sure you get a nice point on the end of the triangle, this is the part that will be glued inside of the Styrofoam ball.

You can leave out this last fold if you want too, keep in mind you'll end up with looser ruffles.



Now place a small amount of hot glue in the hole you created on the first step. Pinching together your folded circle, slide the pointed end of the triangle into the hot glue and hold for just a few seconds until the glue starts to set.

Continue around the Styrofoam ball, either in a straight line if you're particular or you can eyeball the placement of the folded circles like I did. Keep your circles close together so you don't see any empty Styrofoam through the ruffles when you're finished.

Poke, fold, fold, and fold, glue hold. Repeat that dozens and dozens of times until your ball is completely covered in folded circles. Cute already right? You could use these as decorative balls too, instead of buying those in stores our of wood and other material.

If you want to hang it though, like I wanted to, then you'll can use a floral pin and ribbon or if you finished decorating your Christmas tree like we did you can use an extra wire ornament hanger.

You're going to fold your ribbon over and tie both ends of it to your wire hanger or floral pin so measure the right length for where you want your kissing ball to go.

Find a good spot to force your floral pick/wire hanger into the ball and then dab a small amount of hot glue on top of the knots so that everything is sealed in pretty well.

Now you're ready to hang your cute pomanders up. Please ignore my ugly curtains in my bedroom. They are simply there to keep out the light until I can figure out what window treatment I really want. I think these will look cute hanging with whatever I finally decide on. I'm working on a few more of these of other side and I think I might throw in a gray one or two to add a bit more color.

Wouldn't these be cute in a miniature version for a Christmas tree? Maybe next year! :)


I'm linking up:
  

Snow Days

Finally!!! We had our first snowfall last Sunday. With almost 4 inches falling the kids, and myself, we anxious to get out in it.

They were sneaking and opening the back door without my knowing to scoop up small handfuls of snow so they could feel their plastic ice cream cones. (Yes, they did eat all snow in their cones)
Evan Grace worked hard on making her snowgirl. We used acorns for the eyes and buttons and rocks for her mouth. I love the leaf skirt and Evan Grace's pink nose. :)

Isaac played outside with us for a bit making snow angels and then he dashed inside to eat more snow while peering at us from the window.

It's snowing as I type this. The weather channel is calling for up to 8 inches of snow. I hope we get every bit of it.

The Finishing Touch.

As promised here's the last part of the ruffle dress I made the other day. Let's jump right in.

I cut half circles almost 4 1/2'' in diameter. You can cut out circles and then just cut them in half but I didn't have a big enough piece of fabric left over from the shirt to do that.

I cut out 10 circles, but only ended up using 9 of them. It all depends on how big of a flower you want to end up with.

Once your circles are cut, fold them over, with right sides together. You'll end up with two straight sides and one curved side. Sew along the curved part of the folded circle ONLY.

Once your circles are sewn turn them right side out. Make sure you get the top point of the flower petals pushed out or your petals will look weird.

Now, lay your petals in a row, with all the top points facing the same direction. Baste each petal, by setting your machine on it's longest stitch and sewing a straight line across the bottom of each petal WITHOUT cutting your threat and with as little space as possible between the petals.  If you look hard enough you can see the bottom part of the petals sewn close together in the picture below.

Now pull on one side of your thread until your flower petals are gathered and somewhat ruffled. Then simply place, them in a circle, where you'd like them to end up. I placed mine smack dab in the middle of the shirt in as perfect a circle as I possibly could. Pin in place. Use as many pins as needed to keep the circle together. Sew in place.

Once your flower is sewn onto your shirt, cut a circle from a matching fabric or the same material of the flower, the size of the hole in the middle of your flower but add 1/4''. Tuck the outer edges under as you hand sew it in place. 

What do you think? A keeper for sure? Evan Grace loved it.

One thing I forgot to mention, I hand stitched a few stitches in the very tops points of the top petals. They were too big and kept falling forward over the middle black circle. If you start with smaller circles you'll of course end up with smaller petals and may not need to add in the stitches. I think this flower would look cute if it were smaller and on a headband of some sort. I might do that next.