Craftaholics Gift Swap!

Back in November, I signed up for a gift swap over at Craftaholics Anonymous.  My partner Natalie and I exchanged emails and she was excited to see that I was from New Jersey.  She grew up in Sussex County, which is the same county I grew up in!  Such a small world!  She told me her fabric stash has lots of bright colors and polka dots.  So this is what I came up with!

I sewed a cute little zipper pouch with a detachable handle/key chain and made a snowman ornament (with glitter of course!).  I really hope she liked everything!

Christmas Cards

I'm really slacking with this blog lately.  I guess that's what happens with Christmas right around the corner!  This year, like most years, I made our Christmas cards.  I tried using what I had since I have tons of paper and envelopes.  The only thing I did buy was the base for the card.  I didn't have enough of one color and wanted them to all look the same.

For the tree, I stamped the image using black StazOn ink.  I used StazOn because I was going to color in the image with Stampin' Up watercolor pencils and then use a blender pen to give the tree a watercolor look.  I colored the entire tree, stump, and star.  Then went over with the blender pens.  I used markers to color in the ornaments and garland.  And of course, the tree needed some sparkle!  So I used Dazzling Diamonds for the star and ornaments.

After I finished coloring and blending, I corner punched each tree and then glued them on to red card stock.  By the way, I love the Martha Stewart Adhesive Tape Roller!  And I love the fact you can buy it at Michael's and use a 40% coupon.  Once the cards were assembled, I added more sparkle with these little stick-on gems I found.  I'm really happy with how the cards turned out.  And I realized I never took a picture of the inside!  I printed off a little saying, backed it on card stock, and signed the cards.  Here is a picture of the finished product!

Applesauce!

A few weeks ago, I went apple picking with Jeremy and my sister, Amy.  We picked over 60 pounds of apples and our (well...Amy and I) goal was to make applesauce, can it, and give it as Christmas gifts.  We went to Pochuck Valley Farm in Glenwood, NJ and picked as many apples as we could stuff into the three bags we bought.  I'm not really sure what types of apples we picked, but we had a mixture of both green and red types.

After picking over 60 pounds of apples, we went back to my mom's house to start making the applesauce.  Amy has fruit and vegetable strainer for her KitchenAid mixer.  This is the best thing to have if you are making tons of applesauce!  All we had to do was cut up the apples and cook them down before sending them through the strainer.  The strainer does all the hard work.  It separates the seeds and stems from the sauce.  A bowl catches all the apple sauce (see the pictures at the beginning of this post).

Once we had enough applesacue to fill some canning jars, we put the sauce on the stove and let it boil for a few minutes.  Once it was boiling, we put the sauce in the jars and placed the jars in boiling water for 15 minutes.  You can find the instructions on canning applesauce here.

In case you were wondering...60 pounds of apples produces over 20 quarts of applesauce!  We canned most of the sauce, but froze two large batches to serve at Thanksgiving. 

Check out the large, silver stockpot behind us.  It's filled to the top with applesauce!

Cinnamon Swirl Quick Bread

Here is a simple recipe for a yummy cinnamon swirl bread.  I made this for breakfast the other weekend, and it was delicious!

Cinnamon Swirl:

1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

Bread:

2 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 egg

1 c. milk

1/3 c. vegetable oil

Directions:

(1)  Preheat oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour a 9x13 loaf pan.

(2)  Combine the cinnamon swirl ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

(3)  Prepare the bread - mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl.

(4)  In another bowl, beat together the egg, milk and oil.  Combine with the flour mixture until moistened.  It's okay if the batter is a little lumpy.

(5)  Pour half of the batter into the loaf pan and sprinkle with half of the cinnamon mixture.  Pour the remaining batter on top and sprinkle with the rest of the cinnamon mixture.  Using a knife, swirl the cinnamon mixture with the batter.

(6)  Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

(7)  Cool in pan for a few minutes.  Remove from pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack. 

(8)  Slice and enjoy!

Long time since last post...

And this is going to  be a quick post as well!

I just signed up for the Craftaholics Anonymous gift exchange!  I have never done one of these before...so I thought I would try it out.  Plus, it's an excuse to make something for someone!  If you are interested in joining the gift exchange, check out the info here!

I have been crafty quite a bit lately...I finished some Christmas gifts, made 20 quarts of applesauce with my sister, and did some baking!  I try to post some pictures and recipes soon.