Broccoli Chicken Cups

I made these for a Christmas Eve get-together at our house.  They were easy and very yummy.  I am posting my version of the original recipe which I found in a Taste of Home cookbook I have.

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups diced cooked chicken breast
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) reduced-fat reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 1 cup frozen chopped broccoli, thawed and drained
• 1/2 cup diced carrots*
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup diced red pepper
• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the first eight ingredients; set aside. On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry into a 12-in. x 9-in. rectangle. Cut lengthwise into four strips and width wise into three strips. Gently press puff pastry squares into muffin cups coated with cooking spray.
• Spoon chicken mixture into pastry cups. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake at 375° for 35 - 40 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.

* - I used the matchstick carrots and then diced those, seemed to much easier than dicing a whole carrot.   

Homemade Gift v 1.2 - Flower Pens

I've been making these as an accompaniment to the journal because they are adorable and incredibly easy to make.  Plus what good is a cute journal without an equally cute writing utensil?

I've also made several of these into a bouquet arranged in a glass jar with decorative stones. 

Supplies:
Floral tape
Artifical flowers
Wire cutters
Pens (only the kind with caps, not the click pens)

Cut the flower stem to be the same length as the barrel of the pen, just not completely to the tip.  Hold the stem in place against the barrel of the pen while winding the floral tape around the pen and stem starting at the top of the pen.  Once you get to the bottom, wind it around a few times and then start winding back up making sure any portions of the pen or flower stem that are exposed are completely covered (aside from the point of the pen of course ;-)). 

Viola, a lovely addition to the fabric covered journal and especially nice to slip into the ribbon when you wrap the gift!


Here are a few examples of the finished product.

First Homemade Gift of the Year: Fabric-covered journals

Technically this is not a Christmas gift, it is a December birthday gift, but I am making 3 more of these as Christmas gifts so I am going to put them together and call it good.

This is a great Christmas gift for a host of reasons.  First of all you can prepare for this by hitting all the after "Back to School" sales and getting the composition notebooks on an insane discount.  Second - and this especially rings true for scrapbookers - a lot of the things you need to make this are always on hand. 

For these gifts, however, I really sought out specific materials and embellishments that would be very personal to each girl (they just all happen to be for girls), not just use what I had.  It would probably require much less easier to get personalized gifts without a trip to the store if you do a lot of sewing... which I don't.  But I digress.

I am doing the step-by-step tutorial based on the first gift I made, but I'm also going to include pictures of others so you can get an idea of how different these gifts can be made.

Supply List:

• Composition Notebook
• Material
• Embellishments (ribbon, scrapbook paper, stickers, etc)
• Hot glue gun

You start with your composition notebook and material

Cut your material so that it is slightly larger than the notebook when it is open.  Start by folding one end (I usually start with the back of the notebook) and hot gluing it to the notebook.  Then cut a small slit in the material at the binding of the notebook so that you can fold the top and bottom of the material over and glue it to the notebook as well.

Repeat that with the front of the notebook and now you have a completely fabric covered journal and are ready for embellishments.

I love adding ribbons to these, especially adding ribbon that can be tied closed.  For the first notebook I didn't make the ribbon able to be tied, but just glued it as an embellishment.  I also added some bows, blingy accents and an initial to the cover.

And the other three I made as Christmas gifts:

The final journal is one where I left the ribbon on long enough to make it tie closed.

I really love making these, and personalizing them for each individual.  So much fun making these for some very special girls. <3

Superhero Birthday Party

I wanted the first party I blogged about to be my daughter's first birthday party because I worked very hard on that one (think completely homemade pink rosebud topiaries), but as I didn't take the pictures I am still waiting to get my hands on them.  And it really is pointless to detail everything I created when you can't see the end result.

So that brings us to our most recent party, my son's 3rd birthday.  A few months ago he requested a superhero birthday party.  I started doing some inspirational google searches and hitting up some crafty family members for ideas, but I also kept asking him if he was *sure* this was the kind of birthday party he wanted before I dove head first into designing this party.  Yep, every time he insisted he wanted a superhero party.  Not Superman, not Batman, not Spiderman, Thor, Ironman or even Wolverine... just a superhero party.

Normally I like to do birthday invitations with pictures of the birthday boy or girl because A) they are cute and B) I like the personalization.  But this time I found some really adorable digital scrapbook kits so I went a slightly different direction:

The invite includes elements from KAPOW and Super Me digital scrapbook kits.  Awesome kits at awesome prices!

Thanks to pinterest and some awesome Google results, I came across this Valentine's idea and reworked it a bit for Andrew's party.  This was my result:

Superheros all need a city to save so I ordered a fantastic skyline background and added some superhero wall clings.

For each table we had "buildings" and "superheros".  The buildings were all made from boxes spray painted in either yellow, red or blue and black Sharpie windows.  The superheros were actually Dollar Tree ninjas sans their swords since I couldn't find any inexpensive true superheros that were the right size.

For anyone who didn't wear their superhero costume, we had a superhero creation station!  Masks, capes, stickers, jewels, markers, foam shapes, feathers and other decorations were available for any adult or child wanting to transform into their superhero alter ego.

For those who who needed refreshment, there was a make your own "hero" table:

And ice cream cake with Andrew's superhero logo:

And that was that.  They came, they played, they crafted and my son had a BLAST!

Cran-Citrus Chutney

Every year I make unique holiday recipes in the hopes of finding that quintessential one that will become a holiday staple.  A tradition if you will.

This year I accomplished that with my cranberry dish.  No canned sauce in this house anymore!

Cran-Citrus Chutney
12 oz bag of fresh cranberries, 1/2 cup reserved
3/4 cup sugar
Lemon zest
1 slice of lemon, unpeeled
1 slice of orange, unpeeled
1/4 cup white cooking wine
1/4 cup red cooking wine
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 cup raisins
2 Tbs water

Empty cranberries into a saucepan and transfer 1/2 cup to a small bowl. Add sugar, 1 strip lemon zest, red and white wine, a cinnamon stick, ginger, orange and lemon (seeds removed), raisins and  water to the pan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and cook until the cranberries burst, about 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the reserved cranberries for about 5 minutes.

Cool to room temperature before serving. 

Hiya *

I'm going to start blogging again.  That's the plan at least.

Beginning this endeavor around the holidays is proof my timing is less than stellar, but I'm feeling quite inspired as well as crafty and creative.  I do not, however, feel like spilling all of this into notes and pictures on Facebook alone so my new blog is born.

Coming soon:
Allison's 1st birthday party in pictures and design details
Andrew's 3rd birthday party in pictures, descriptions and linkage
Homemade gift ideas

Check back soon!


* - My darling daughter's greeting of choice ;-)