We would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday weekend!!
This is a family that I know well. Our kids have had many great playdates together and even shared some birthdays too.
And this is one of the most amazing moms I know. She is so sweet and patient with her kiddos, a true role model.
What I love most though about them? Is how much fun they have as a family. This shoot reflected just that.
Boys, can you see my eyeball through my camera lens? They really tried their best to find it.
Thanks to my special friends. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the rest of the Holidays.
As promised here is my how to on the Sand-Art Brownies. The dust settled and we found our groove with this project over the weekend.
The kids LOVED doing it and their teachers loved it even more.
The recipe we used for this can be found here at What’s Cooking With Kids Blog.
First start with your wide mouth quart jars (we used regular mouth but had a funnel to help). Start the kiddos layering the ingredients based on Michelle’s Recipe.
Although this does get a little messy, the kids really can do most of the work themselves. And as I said, my kids loved it.
Don’t be afraid of the mess, go for it.
Once you are done, you will have a beautiful layered jar full of delicious ingredients. You can stop here and just attach your tag now, or you can do what I did and add that extra step.
I baked many batches of these yummy brownies then I cut our brownies into squares (some circles…when I was trying to pass them off as cookies) and layered them neatly in the jar.
Next, I went to work on my tags.
I found these already ready to go printables via pinterest. Here are the direct links. Here and Here.
I opened them up in Photoshop and then added my own text.
I simply cut one out around the edges and used a circle cutter for the other.
I used a sizzix (best gift from my husband) for the backers, I used a scallop and gift tag template. They worked nicely with the printables I found.
If you don’t have a sizzix don’t sweat it, you can always find a template online somewhere. The beauty of the internet.
Next, I glued the circles and tags onto the backers.
One of the biggest obstacles was finding a way to attache both jars and still look cute. Japanese washi tape. Pure brilliance and oh so adorable. This was my first time using the tape, I had been looking for an excuse. I happen to find mine at Anthropologie on clearance but you can find them online and in most craft stores now. I did two layers of one design and then for the middle layer went with a little something funky. I attached the tags with colored twine.
We just happen to have lids that were pre-drilled from the Princess’s bash last year so we didn’t have to do anything for this project. But for purposes of a tutorial I will show you that we just took a drill and drilled through the lid. Easy peasy. And for those that are very visual…this picture was just for fun. We didn’t really use that large of a bit. 😉
Now for the fun part, the handle! I found this thick jute rope at the local hardware store. It’s very cheap and easy to use. I cut down a piece about 10 inches long.
I put the jute through the opening of the lid and tied a knot at the end.
I slipped on the ring to secure. Next, I put the 2nd ring on (that’s an important step!)
And then repeated the knot through the 2nd pre-drilled lid.
Fastened both down and voila!!
A duo of mason jars. One with the deconstructed brownie mix and one with a yummy batch of brownies.
If you are looking for a last minute Holiday or Teacher Gift, here is a great one! Give it a try!
Happy Holidays.
I recently posted on Facebook (FB) that I am sometimes so disorganized and such a lagger. My sweet, sweet friends chimed in with things like, “they seriously doubt it, not possible, etc”. I laughed because it reminded me of another FB post by a friend, that people on FB only posts their “greatest hits”. Although I do try to mix up my status posts, I think maybe I left the wrong impression on people.
Let me explain how most of my projects really play out.
I had been brainstorming on Holiday Gifts for all of the preschool teachers. I had been pinning like crazy on Pinterest, but ran across a thread on a FB page of one of my favorite blogs–Feed Our Families. Gina, from Feed Our Families, was also brainstorming on teacher gifts. She mentioned that she did these gifts last year—Sand Art Brownies–which she got from here. By the way, if you haven’t checked out Gina’s blog or Michelle’s blog, do it now. You won’t regret. Chalk full of family ideas for meal planning, healthier eating, etc.
Back to the post—I thought the Sand-Art Brownies were such a great activity that the girls and I can do together. Their teachers will LOVE them. I quickly scanned over the instructions and ingredients and this is how it played out.
Dec. 8th–decide to do Sand Art Brownies. Print out instructions and ingredients. Lightly scan over instructions. No time that weekend so plan on doing them as an afternoon activity the following week.
Dec. 12th–my birthday and the princess gets sick. Home with her all day next day too.
Dec. 14th— LONG DAY.
9am–Bring in babysitter to help out with the sick princess. Work for an hour then head out to run errands all morning, stop by grocery store to pick up vanilla baking chips because that’s really all I thought I needed to complete the task. Thought being the operative word.
12pm—Get home. Relieve babysitter. She looks at ingredients and says I bought white chocolate chips not vanilla baking chips. Damn. Call my amazing friend….she agrees to stop by another grocery store and pick up vanilla chips for me. I love my friends. But, she can’t get there till 4:30 pm. No problem, it saves me from taking sick kid to grocery store.
430pm—Fantastically, fantastic friend drops off vanilla baking chips. Time to rock and roll. Go to get all ingredients to get project done. The first thing I need–wide mouth quart mason jars. Go down into my stash of mason jars (a big, large stash). Crap, I only have pint jars. No quart. Crap, crap, crap. (Only I was really saying…F***, F***, F***). Maybe I can cut the recipe? Nope, too complicated. I suck at math.
500pm–Call around to grocery stores. No one has wide mouth quart jars. Of course not, it’s frickin’ December! Call honey-do, tell him my panicky story and ask him if I can find proper jars will he stop and get? Yes, he is awesome! I call around to 1, 2, 3 stores. Finally, found a store that has them, but they only have regular mouth. WHATEVER, I will take them. Honey-do goes out of his way on his way home from work.
6:00pm–Honey Do gets home with jars in hand. I throw them into the dishwasher. Give the kids dinner. Set out all the necessary ingredients to make jars. F*** again. What? I don’t have semi-sweet chocolates. But I thought I had them? WTF? Nope, I have butterscotch morsels. Honey-Do heads back out to the grocery store.
645pm–Dinner done. Kids and I throw together 4 jars in 15 minutes. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but still got it done and they still enjoyed it. Oh, but I don’t have pecans to top it off. Whatever, I will buy them the next day.
7pm–Throw kids in bath.
Dec 15th—
9-1pm–Print out labels. Attach to jar. Get the bright idea that I will make more of these jars for more teachers (another kid, another school) and since I am doing all of this work then I will just make this my cookie (cough, cough…I know it’s a brownie) for my annual cookie party that I go to each year. Go run more errands, go to store to get more ingredients–the pecans, get gift cards to go with gift. Get home, throw pecans into jar, throw jars in car, head to kids holiday party. Give to first set of teachers. Whew. Half-Done.
Dec 15th continued…..
2pm till 8pm–Take care of kids, take a short nap, make dinner. Get kids fed and into bed.
9pm–Start baking brownies for Cookie Party. Did I mention that it was the next day? Yeah. Fun for me. And did I mention I need 7 half dozen? Oh and now I get the bright idea that I want to include the layer (deconstructed jars) with the cookies. Luckily, I had picked up these adorable snowman bowls so I figure I will just put the layered jar in the middle, put the cookies around, and wrap with cellophane. Perfect.
10pm–Come to quick realization that I don’t have any eggs. F***! Sorry, I don’t mean to swear. It’s just really? Again? WTH is wrong with me? Send out my husband to my in-laws to pick up a dozen eggs. Thanks to them for having them and for living around the corner. Finish baking brownies…..all 5 batches, meanwhile I am upstairs on computer printing out more labels! I start to layer them into the bowl and realize they don’t fit. The bowl is too big. I also realize they won’t stay fresh. Sigh. I am done for the night.
1am–Go the F*** to sleep.
December 16th-
9am—head to Honey-Do’s holiday party. Gone all day.
4pm—get home. Start to wrap up snowman bowls with jars. Hate them. Get the bright idea that I am going to do something else. I want the brownies to stay fresh. So I think, put them into another mason jar. But how to attach them?After several minutes of brainstorming, I figure out a plan.
430pm–head to hardware store. Buy jute rope. Buy some other things for a gift that I am supposed to bring (yeah, waited on that too). Head home and go to work. Luckily, it all worked out and I headed out exactly on time for the Cookie Party.
7pm till 2am—party like a rock star with all of my peeps. We eat cookies, laugh. And I guiltily admit to my day of craziness. They make fun of me, we laugh more. Oh, and I might of admitted that part of the secret-santa gift contained honey-do’s favorite mug. What? I didn’t have time to stop and get one. You saw my day. 🙂
December 18th–Enjoyed a quiet day with family. Girls and I made more jars, much more enjoyable and less rushed.
Now, do you all believe me? Do you all realize that I am not only crazy, but totally disorganized. I mean who takes 5 + trips to the store to get ingredients for one simple jar? Who steals their husband’s favorite mug and uses it as a gift?
Me, that’s who.
Luckily it all worked out. I LOVE my duo of mason jars. And it happens more often than not–I will get a plan, screw it up, have to do something completely different, and LOVE the end result. It ends up being so much better than how it started.
Tomorrow, I will share a tutorial on how I made them. And maybe you all can share tips and tricks on how not to be a scatter brain. 🙂
Thanks to Gina and Michelle for the wonderful inspiration.