One last *sweet* post for 2010

Although most everyone will be reading this in 2011, especially since it is 10:30pm PST and already 2011 most places.

This blog is about the sweets I made for the holidays.

First up my sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving. I also made two for Christmas.

Recipe for the dough here.

I had quite a bit left over and I have one non round cookie cutter so I cut out some extra pieces and added a decorative border I guess you could say to the pie.

Recipe for the pie can be found here.

Photo below is before baking but looked about the same but with more golden flaky looking crust. It was delicious although a little jiggly/runny at first. Make it the day before you want to use it and let it cool and then sit in the fridge overnight and it will stiffen and be AMAZING. I think my oven is a little off and might be why it didn't cook evenly/well.

Here is a photo of my baking ingredient corner for my Christmas baking, lot's of stuff, lot's of sweet goodness made.
My most adventurous baking endevour for the holidays was definitely the tiny gingerbread houses that perch on the edge of your mug. Directions, recipes, and much prettier pictures than mine can be found here. I adapted gingerbread recipe by using vegan margarine and using ener-g's egg replacer. I found an egg/dairy free icing recipe to use but apparently didn't bookmark it. It used 1 cup powdered/confectioners sugar, 2tsp non-dairy milk, I used rice milk, 2 tsp light corn syrup, and 1/4 tsp almond extract. If it comes out too thin add more sugar or corn syrup until it's to desired consistency. Really wish I had bookmarked the recipe I found so I could credit them.

Here are my pieces all cut out for 2 houses.
Pieces all baked and cooling. Made some extra rounds just for eating with excess dough I had.

My first attempt wasn't super successful, the icing was a bit thin and they looked a bit sloppy and had to be held together before icing dried enough for the pieces of the houses to stick together. I thickened up the icing with more sugar for subsequent houses and it worked great.

All my pretty houses all put together and nicely decorated.
Made some gingerbread turtles with the left over dough bits.

The houses are made to be put on mugs of coffee or hot chocolate or something like that but me being me, I put one on my rum and coke with Christmas dinner. Seems people really got a kick out of this!

Got this wonderful book as a early Christmas present.
Made the books delicious peanut butter bomb cookies. They are quite cakey and I could have used more peanut butter in the middle but they were still delicious.
And lastly and the easiest I made some Candy Cane hearts to wish everyone a Merry Christmas with! I probably shouldn't share how to make them because sometimes I like to feel all cool and make nifty things that others are jealous of, they are seriously so simple! But I will because I like sharing. Candy Cane Hearts instructions.
(side note, don't you just love how I am all Christmasy but with an obvious non Christmas themed shirt, seeing this picture and realizing that made me LOL, but anyone who knows me knows that's just me being me!)

New Years Eve wasn't without it's *treats*. I bought myself a bottle of Venezuelan rum on the urging of a friend who lives there, and enjoyed a drink or two, while writing this no less. ;)

Hope your holidays were fun, happy, merry, and all that good stuff.

Cheers to a new year full of more fun and excitement.

*any mention of specific products and my opinions on them are all my own and not influenced by anything other than my personal experiences

My mostly handmade Christmas

Note: If you happen to be reading this Mom, stop until we have exchanged gifts, you'll spoil the surprise!

My Christmas was mostly homemade, on my part at least. My brother, M-I-L and her twin sister came over Christmas morning for pancakes. I decided I wanted to display my holiday cards, didn't get many, mostly because I stopped sending them out to everyone because I just couldn't justify the paper use. I had some rope which I believe is jute, I cut a piece to a good size tied a knot on each end put a thumbtack inside the knot and hung or clipped cards onto the rope. Instant holiday card display.

I made some gift tags to go along with the pretty boxes I made from tea boxes. There was a box that had an add/coupon on the inside and one that I ripped too much for it to be considered pretty. I took parts of those boxes and glued the pieces to another piece of cardboard and made pretty matching tags.

I used the boxes for cookie, mmmmmmm cookies. I made Sandtarts for everyone, my favorite holiday cookie. A bit of foil and a stack of Sandtarts who wouldn't want those.

I made boxes for my Mom to take on her flight to Seattle tied with some hemp twine and my gift tags.

I put the boxes in a paper bag and found some Christmas stamps in my desk drawer and had some fun.
I used this same principle to wrap a calender and cd for Rich's Aunt. Cut up a paper bag for wrapping paper and used my Christmas stamps to decorate.

For my M-I-L and my husbands Grandma we got them a framed picture of the two of us and I added a card I decorated with stamps all tied together with hemp twine and a gift tag.
My mom got a framed picture too, an eye pillow I made, and a bookmark I made (more about those in a bit), wrapped in a t-shirt we bought her.
I bought my husband a new pair of headphones he desperately needed and quickly sewed a bag to put them in and added some tissue paper we had lying around.
Here are my cloth bookmarks I made. I used an old pair of jeans, cut off one of the legs, cut that into strips, sewed along the edges so they wouldn't completely fray and added a cute charm on the top. Quite easy and very useful and everyone seemed to really like them.

I also made a few lavender eye pillows from scraps I had lying around, I took my Mom's sewing machine earlier this year and never did anything with it and recently started teaching myself to sew, the bookmarks were one of my first attempts at doing something. I then found a box of scraps, a lot I recognized from Halloween costumes or pillows we had on the couch as kids. With some of the scraps I made lavender eye pillows. They are filled with flax seeds and dried lavender flowers, they smell delicious and are oh so relaxing.

For the people that I gave a bookmark and a eye pillow to I wrapped them together with hemp twine. They go together so well, don't you think.

One of Rich's other Aunt's got a framed photo (that I think has probably had mustaches and other things added to it already by Rich's uncle, hehe) and an eye pillow and I wrapped those two things together.

Everything is so simple yet still festive and pretty.