~66~ Gifts for a Baker

If all you had to get to know me were the gifts I received for Christmas, it'd be safe to say that you'd be able to determine that I like to bake.  Here's what I got: 

1. 4 Cookie Sheets

2. A new cake knife/spatula

3. Angled spatula

4. New revolving spice rack that measures out a 1/4 tsp at a time.

4. Christmas cookie cutters
 I've already put to good use the cookie sheets, cookie cutters, and spice rack making sugar cookies for our New Year's Eve party.

And best of all: 

A Wilton cake decorating class at JoAnns.  I have always wanted to take one, but have never taken the initiative.  Jake got it for me and has even agreed to take the course with me :)  I can't wait!

~43~My Favorite Things v11.21

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!  It is also Wedndesday, so that means it's time for another "Favorite things" post.  For once, I actually have craft-related items on my list!

Between work, grad school, and well, life in general, I sadly have not had any time to craft.  To feed my desire to craft, I've bought some new stamps from Stampin' Up that I am SO excited to use.  I am seriously itching to make cards.  Now that I am no longer working at the Y on Saturdays, I'm hoping to have some more free time to do so. Ha. 

I bought 2 sets of clear stamps.  The first is "Petite Pairs".  The other is "One in a million".  I chose these stamps because I was wanting stamps that I could easily use on cards, and adds to my database of sentiments, something I didn't currently have a lot of. I already have tons of card ideas swirling in my head.  The first I made for a good friend's baby shower next month, but I won't post it until after the fact.  Definitely one of my new favorite cards!

My other favorite thing for this week is something I've had for a while, but just never remembered to share.  If you remember eons ago, in a previous favorite things post, I mentioned my love for scrap book paper.  Well, I have had paper coming out of my ears-I have so much. Being the organized person that I am, I was going crazy having too much paper spilling everywhere.  So, I did a little bit of researching and found exactly what I had been looking for.  It's a ten drawer, moveable cart that holds 12x12 paper.  Best of all, it has a hard top, which can act as a shelf for my Cuttle bug and Cricut Cartidge binder. It has made a huge difference.  I can sort each drawer by color with the first 6 drawers for the ROYGBIV colors (minus indigo), another drawer for neutrals-black, browns, white/cream, a drawer for sparkly paper, and the bottom 2 for my patterned paper.  

Finally, Thanksgiving brings a lot of my favorite things-namely, food.  While yes, I adore my family and getting to spend some stress free, quality time with them, the food is what I really love about this holiday.  That and getting 5 glorious days off. This year, my parents and grandma are coming to Des Moines to spend Thanksgiving here!  Traditionally I drive home and spend a few days with my family and MN friends, so while I will miss seeing my friends, I am very thankful hat I do not have to spend almost 8 hours in the car this break.    The absolute best part of Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie and fresh whipped cream!  It really wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it.  My dad and I will be getting up tomorrow morning to get our baking on-per tradition-and I've got all of the supplies ready to go!

What are your favorite things about Thanksgiving?

~4~ Christmas Recap

Today, I wanted to take a minute while it was still somewhat relevant, to talk about Christmas.  Christmas is by far my favorite holiday.  I love the smell of fresh cut pine trees, the twinkling lights, and of course, spending time with family.  What I love most of all though, is baking!  There is just something about the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas that makes me want to bake.

Even though I'm adopted, I tell people that I inherited my baking skills from my paternal grandma and that it just runs in my blood.  My grandma Vicki, was very well known for her knack for baking all kinds of pies, which she passed on to my dad, who passed it on to me.  In addition to my dad, I also grew up baking with my sister-in-law, Sue.  Each year for many, many years, we would get together around Christmas and make cookies to give out to friends and neighbors.  Although we no longer bake cookies together, I still enjoy baking cookies in the few weeks prior to Christmas to give to our friends, and family members.

This year, I made 3 kinds of cookies-Frosted sugar cookies, Snickerdoodles, and White chocolate cherry shortbread cookies.  I was particularly excited to do sugar cookies this year because I discovered through Pinterest of course-a new website called, "Sweetopia", that showed a more polished way of frosting sugar cookies and how to use the feathering technique.  Instead of spreading on the frosting with a knife, you outline the cookie shape using royal frosting in a piping bag.  I used a #3 Wilton tip.  Then, you flood the inside of the outline with frosting and shake the cookie to even out the frosting and make it smooth.  To feather, line different color frostings next to each other and then use a toothpick to drag through it and intertwine the colors together.   When I was done with all of them, I was so happy with how they turned out!  I will definitely be doing sugar cookies this way from now on.

After making all of my cookies, I put them in a small plastic bag, and used scrap book paper and ribbon to seal the bag and make them look really pretty.

What Christmas/holiday traditions do you have?

P.S. For any of you who actually read my blog (do you exist yet??) and are wondering what ever became of my craft table-I was able to work on it more tonight, but haven't finished it quite yet.  I promise to post an update once it's done :)

Until next time,