I can't believe it is already Christmas eve and that we are about to hit our one year blog-i-versary.
It hasn't been the perfect first year of blogging, but it has been fun and I have enjoyed it. I look forward to continuing and, hopefully, improving.
This year was my first Christmas without school... ever. So I decided to use the opportunity to DIY more things for Christmas. I usually DIY gifts (as you may have noticed throughout this year..), but this year I decided to do more than in the past. I painted three mugs (and used clear coat to increase the lifetime of the paint, as I updated in the DIY painted mugs post), made a good number of baking soda and corn starch ornaments, and made peppermint fudge and mocha truffles.
Everything turned out really well!
First, the ornaments!
I used this baking soda and cornstarch clay recipe. I followed the directions and they turned out pretty well. Some of my ornaments experienced some cracking on the back, but it wasn't enough to make me hate them. I think it may have been slightly due to how long it took me to get from rolling the dough to baking the ornaments. To poke the holes in the top, I used a straw.
Once the ornaments were baked and cooled, I painted them using acrylic paint. Once the paint was dry I coated both sides with a clear varnish that I found in the same aisle as the acrylic paints in my local craft store.
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| Red Hot Chili Pepper symbol for my 'brothers' to commemorate our RHCP concert experience this November. |
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| These were made for my boyfriend's parents. They are painted to look like their dogs. :3 |
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| This is a pair of matching ornaments. One I made for myself (the one with the funny business near the top of the star) and one for Anna! :) |
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| That's right, the deathly hallows = awesome. |
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| And this is one of my personal favorites - The one I made for my man. :) <3 |
I decided that I would make some candy for my boyfriend's parents in addition to their ornaments. I settled on these two recipes: peppermint fudge by Shugary Sweets and mocha truffles by Better Homes and Gardens.
These turned out fairly well. They weren't as pretty as I was hoping but they sure are tasty. I had to fudge some of the ingredients though (pun intended). The fudge recipe calls for Andes peppermint crunch baking chips, but I could not find any and I checked three grocery stores. So I used Hershey's candy cane flavored kisses, they have little bits of candy cane in them too, so it worked out great! Also, the topping with the peppermint marshmallows and candy quik didn't pan out (couldn't find peppermint marshmallows and accidentally melted the marshmallows in the candy quik the first time...), so I used white chocolate and regular marshmallows. It's not as bright white but it's tasty and it works. :)
As for the truffles. They are delicious and they turned out well. We were running a little low on time so we were less patient than needed to deal with coating the truffles in white chocolate, so we ended up with swirls of dark chocolate in the coating from the insides melting a bit. But they almost look like they were made to look that way. ;)
Overall, it was a success and it's all quite tasty!
I hope you all have a great Christmas. I'll be back before the week is out with a post for the new year!
God bless and may your holiday be filled with love, family, friends, and warmth.
Stay excellent!
- Jenny -
