Merry Christmas!!

Wow, by Christmas morning, I had 3 more items done from my Projects board and 1 from my Recipe board completed.  How did they turn out you ask?  Well . . . The bow instructions I found at this website

http://www.save-on-crafts.com/howtomakebows.html

did not turn out as well as I had hoped.  Maybe I didn’t read through all the directions and tips or perhaps it doesn’t tell you on their site (I checked and did not find a mention), you need to use ribbon that has the same print or colour on both sides.  I bought a ribbon that was white with a silver design on one side, when I followed the directions my bow would have been white with no design because the majority of the silver was now on the underside.  Ok, I simply turned the ribbon over and tried again, the results were still awful as my frustration level started going up, I decided that I would make a different sort of bow to finish up what I was doing and buy different ribbon later to try these directions.  Here is what I ended up with.

The Clementine Candle is very cool and as we had a crate of Clementines in the house for Christmas I asked my husband to watch the video and peel the next one by those directions.  He did and the peel came off in two sections

http://pinterest.com/pin/211458144973505967/

 

Sadly, the part that was to be the wick of the candle was quite short, but we added the olive oil anyway.  I let it soak for about 10 minutes and tried to light the “wick” not happening, so I continued to let it soak . . . an hour later I got the wick to light, YEA!!  However, because it was a short wick, it did not stay lit.  I will try this one again in the next few days as I still have tons of clementines in the house.  The video instructions are quite good although it doesn’t tell you how long to let the oil soak, I would make these early and let the oil soak for at least half an hour before attempting to light and use them.

We were invited to a friends home for dinner at the last minute and realized that we didn’t have any gifts for their kids and only a bottle of wine for them, didn’t seem too festive.  So, I went to Pinterest and found a link to this website

http://www.the36thavenue.com/2011/11/25-handmade-gifts-under-5.html

I looked through the list and chose items number 12 and 13.  I made up the Oatmeal chocolate chip bread quickly, cut and pasted the baking directions into a word doc, printed and asked my daughter Jake to make the front look festive!

She did a great job!  I placed the jar in some holiday bags I had, tied on the card and a mini disco ball and there you have it.  I also made a batch of Ylang Ylang bath salts and put those into jars for their daughters and the two exchange students staying with the family, same bags and disco ball decoration and we were set to go.

While looking over the list, I noticed the bath soak and thought I had the ingredients all on hand and made a jar of those too!  I chose an herbal peach ginger tea that I had and know smells really nice, I think it fits with the other items in my bath and body basket!

I hate to waste too much time on Christmas morning cooking breakfast so traditionally I have made a Monte Cristo casserole, I put it together before I go to bed Christmas Eve, put it in the fridge and it bakes while we open gifts!!  Quick and easy, this year I found this lovely recipe for French Toast Souffle

http://tomatoesonthevine-velva.blogspot.com/2011/01/french-toast-souffle.html

I went to my local bakery early in the day on Christmas eve and bought the day old croissants which I cut into large pieces and put those in a pan to dry out a bit more.  Before I went to bed I mixed up the cream cheese mixture, poured it over the bread, covered it and into the fridge it went.  I checked it first thing Christmas morning and noticed that the bread on top was not soaked in the egg mixture so I gave it a quick stir and let it soak a bit longer while I waited for the rest of the house to stir.  Once they were all awake, we opened our gifts while the Souffle cooked and then had a great breakfast, it was absolutely delicious!  What a great Christmas morning, made even better with my obsession even with the two fails!!!  Hopefully I will have time to work on some other projects or recipes from my Pinterest boards this week but with the kids here, tonight’s Chinese dinner and a catering job later this week, we will see!