25 Days of Christmas: Day 24

For day 24 of my 25 Days of Christmas challenge, I took a stocking stuffer gift I had received and made it more festive. Gary got me three clear candles and holders from Bath and Body Works. I had been wanting to do something with epsom salts for a "snowy" look and these were the perfect opportunity.

Supplies needed:
Tacky spray
Epsom salts
Jar, bottle, vase, candle holder, etc.
Candles
Paper plate

Pour some epsom salts on the paper plate and spray the outside of your candle holder ( or other decorative object) with the tacky spray. Then roll the object in the epsom salts until covered. If there are some blank patches, take a pinch of epsom salts and sprinkle over the spots. The end result is a pretty snowy look. You can display them on their own or make a centerpiece by putting them on a silver tray and adding some ornaments as decoration.

25 Days of Christmas: Day 22

For day 22 of my 25 Days of Christmas challenge, I have another fun gift idea for the holidays. You can get this really cute snowman wrapper for free from Aimee Asher of you can design your own. Wrap it around a gift of your choice to make it more festive. You also use gloves for the hat so you could use it to make the gloves more fun if they are the main gift or you can buy a cheap pair at the dollar store and include it with another main gift. I chose to wrap it around microwave popcorn which is perfect to pair with a dvd or blu-ray gift.

Supplies Needed:
Snowman wrapper
Microwave popcorn (or you could use a chocolate bar, etc)
Pair of gloves
Tape
Ribbon

Simply cut the snowman wrapper to size and tape it around your item, in my case, the microwave popcorn. Next take your gloves and put one inside the other so the person gets a pair still. Then place the gloves over the top of the snowman's head. Next tie a ribbon in a bow around the gloves and you have a cute snowman with a hat! You can add a scarf using felt if you want but I chose not to. Pair with a Christmas favorite dvd or blu-ray for an awesome gift!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 18

For day 18 of my 25 Days of Christmas challenge, I made reindeer and melted snowmen cookies. As you can see from my previous posts, there are a lot of cute options for both reindeer and snowmen when it comes to holiday baked goods and crafts. Although I could have made these two separate days, I decided to combine them under a holiday cookie post.

Ingredients for Reindeer:
Your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe
Chocolate covered pretzels, white chocolate covered pretzels or regular mini pretzels
M&Ms - red and green ones or red and brown ones
Icing 

To make reindeer cookies, first make a batch of peanut butter cookies. You can use your favorite recipe or buy a mix or roll of pre-made dough. Once you take the cookies out of the oven, immediately press m&ms into the cookies. Use brown or green for the eyes and red for the noses. Then put the cookies on a rack to cool. I had originally read to also press the chocolate pretzels on immediately too but after trying this with the first two, I realized the pretzels were melting and looked sloppy. So I decided to wait until the cookies cooled and then "glued" the pretzels on for the antlers using a dab of white icing. If you're just using regular pretzels, you can probably press them in when you do the m&ms. I had a bag of white chocolate covered Flipz and a box of mini Godiva chocolate covered pretzels. I made a batch of each. I like the way the Godiva ones look better because they are smaller but I also really like the way white chocolate looks.

Ingredients for Melted Snowmen:
Your favorite sugar cookie recipe
White icing
Large marshmallows
Orange jimmies
Green, blue or black jimmies

These snowmen cookies are one of my favorite things I've ever made. They are just so darn cute! First start by whipping up a batch of your favorite sugar recipe, or buy a mix or pre-made dough. Once the cookies are cooled, cover each cookie with white icing. Next, place your marshmallows on a plate and put them in the microwave for about 20 seconds. I read a tip that you should coat your hand in cooking spray to help handle the marshmallows when you take them out of the microwave so I gave my hand a coat of Pam. Next take the slightly melted marshmallows and place them near the top of each cookie. Next decorate with jimmies. My bottle of rainbow jimmies didn't have any black so I picked out enough orange for the noses and a combo of blue and green for the eyes. I then took a bottle of Valentines Day sprinkles I had and picked out brown heart shaped ones for the buttons on each snowman. Place the buttons on the icing and press the nose and eyes into the marshmallow. The great thing about these is that they are supposed to look like melted snowmen so they don't have to be perfect at all when icing or placing the marshmallows and jimmies. Sloppiness just adds to their charm and helps them look more melted!