Christmas Giving: Gifts in a Jar

I love the idea of giving people homemade gifts in a jar for Christmas.  I think they are more thoughtful and a lot nicer than the often given box of chocolates or tin of biscuits.  Over the years I have made bath salts, soaps, preserves, flavoured nuts and baking mixes like brownies and biscuits.

Recently, I saw this recipe for Christmas Cookies in a Jar on The Larson Lingo and The Organised Housewife.  They looked gorgeous with their festive MM layer.  I had to make some for myself.

I picked up the jars at Kmart, the Christmas MMs at Coles and printed my own labels on sticker sheets.

If you want to have a go yourself, The Larson Lingo has free printable labels for your jars or you can buy labels from The Organised Housewife.

If cookies aren’t your thing, you will find heaps of other sites out there with ideas and printable labels.  Here are some of my favourites …….

Cul-de-sac Cool has 5 different ideas with labels including pumpkin cranberry bread and toffee blondie bars

Squawkfox has heaps of ideas including soups in a jar.

Organized Christmas lots of ideas, and not just for food

Skip to My Lou has a few gift jar recipes.  I am loving the sound of injecting more candy canes into the Christmas season with peppermint brownies

I hope you enjoy the crazy last days before Christmas.

Christmas Craft: Salt Dough Santa Handprints

Yesterday, I shared with you the Snowmen families we made out of the kids’ handprints.  You can read about them here.

In keeping with the handprint theme we also imprinted and decorated some salt dough.

I had seen these Santa ornaments about the place, loved them, but thought they looked like a bit of work.  Surprisingly, the salt dough is really easy to make and cheap!  The decorating didn’t take long and was a lot of fun. So if you want an easy, budget-friendly christmas craft to complete with the kids, give this a whirl.

Salt Dough

Ingredients

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup flour

1/4 water (give or take)

(These measurements allowed me to make two thick handprints, with a little dough left over)

Method

Knead ingredients together until dough a forms.

How to make your Santa Ornament

1. Roll the dough out and press your child’s hand into the dough.  With a sharp knife, cut around the imprint, leaving a small border.  Using a skewer or the tip of the pencil, make a small hole at the base of the handprint so that it can be hung once it is baked.

2. Place the ornaments into a 90 degrees celsius oven and bake for 3 hours

Baked Salt Dough Handprint

3. When cooled, paint the whole ornament white. Using some red and pink paint and a black marker, fill in the features of Santa’s face, beard and hat.  Use mine as a guide or make your own creation.

I think they look so cute!

We are going to make another batch of salt dough this weekend and use Christmas cookie cutters to make some more ornaments. My 4-year-old is going to love it!

 

Christmas Craft: Handprint Snowman Family

I regularly take imprints of my boys’ hands.  I love looking back at those paint-splodged reminders of their pudgy little fingers.  So cute!

Our latest handprint has been given the Christmas treatment.

You have probably seen these about the place.  I think they are just to precious for words.

To make these handprints extra special, I purchased some small blank canvas which I painted a background colour.

 

A white hand print, some snow blobs and a bit of texta work later, the snowman family was complete.

These are great as Christmas gifts for the family.  The ones I have kept for myself, I have attached magnets to and hung them on the fridge.  I hope to do a series of these over the years.  They will be a great visual reminder of how they have grown.

 

 

Christmas Giving: Reindeer Noses

You have probably seen this idea about the traps.  It is just so adorable.  Reindeer noses.

It is a great small treat to give the kiddos in your life, and the perfect present for kids to take to school for their classmates.

All you need to do is pop a bunch of candy in a cellophane bag and stick on a label.  I have seen these done with chocolate beanies/smarties/MMs, jelly beans or with round chocolates like malt balls.

In each packet, I popped in 8 Maltesers – one for each of Santa’s reindeer.  I tried my best to get a hold of some jaffas so I could throw in Rudolf’s  nose, but I had no luck.

There are quite a few tech savvy bloggers out there who have created beautiful labels for your reindeer noses.  Some of my favourites can be found in the following places…..

Beautifully Organised (This is where I got my labels)

Craftaphile

Mum of All Trades

Visual Meringue

 

Christmas Craft: Pine Cone Christmas Trees

Earlier in the year, Master O collected some pine cones while out adventuring with his grandfather.  I had told Master O about the Christmas craft I used to do with pine cones as  a child and for months he had reminded me we were to do some pine cone craft together.

I feared what I planned was going to be messy and difficult for my 4-year-old.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  It was lots of fun and simple.  I recommend giving it a go with your kiddies.

Earlier, I had dyed some rice green.  To avoid mess, I put the rice in a ziplock bag and poured in a few drops of colouring I had mixed with about a tablespoon of water.  Closing the bag I gave the rice a good rub until it was all well coloured.  I left he bag open to allow the rice to dry out for a few hours.

When the rice was ready, Master O covered sections of the pine cone in a thick layer of PVC or craft glue.  He then popped the pine cone in the ziplock bag and rolled it in the rice.  In no time the pine cone was covered in the coloured rice and looking very tree like.

Together, we then decorated the tree.  In the place of baubles, we glued on sequins and jewels.  Some glitter pipe cleaners easily transformed into tinsel and treetop star.

Master O loved this activity so much, he moved on to creating more pine cone Christmas trees without my help or prompting.  Christmas crafting score!

I think they look adorable.

Countdown to Christmas: Advent Traditions

Like most, I love Christmas time.  I especially love the lead up – the planning, cooking, gift wrapping and craft.  As a child, I especially loved the Advent calendar tradition.   It is no surprise then that we have a whole myriad of ways to celebrate and countdown the Advent season in the Crooked household.  Today, I thought I would share these with you.

Advent Calendars

I really hate the chocolate mould advent calendars.  Nothing about a Cars or Barbie themed calendar screams ‘Christmas’ to me.  I instead love the ones with beautiful illustrations and glitter.  They can be hard to find these days so whenever I find them I buy a few to put away.  This year we have this lovely Santa one.

Advent Stockings

A few years ago I picked up this cute string of stockings.  In each stocking I put two small chocolates for my 4-year-old and husband to have after dinner.

Santa’s Beard Christmas Countdown

I saw this free printable on A little Delightful.  Each day you trim a little more of Santa’s beard in the lead up to Christmas.  I thought it was a great idea for my son who needs to practise his use of scissors.

My Mother-in-law is Danish so we have a few Advent tradition from Denmark in our household.

Advent House and Presents

My Mother-in-law has made both the boys their own Christmas house which each year she fills with little presents.  Each morning in Advent they can open a new present.  The kids love it, obviously!

Danish Elves – Nisse

These guys are seriously cute and such a fun tradition.  Folklore says the Nisse lived in farmhouses and helped the family take care of the farm.  Around the  holiday season they could be mischievous, playing pranks on the householders.  Children on Christmas Eve would leave rice pudding out for the Nisse in the hope he would be ‘good’ and not play so many pranks.

I have  a collection of cardboard Nisse, each day in Advent I hide another cutout of a Nisse in the house for the kids to find. This year, as Master O is 4, he is old enough to have the Nisse trick him a few times.  Today, they left an apple in his shoe.

Advent candle

Many houses in Denmark burn an Advent candle in the lead up to Christmas, taking the time each night to sing carols while it burns.  I didn’t burn mine last year as they are hard to come by in Australia.  This year, Master O is preparing for a Christmas concert, so I hope we can practise his songs in the light of the Advent candle.

After writing all these down, it looks like we won’t have time to do anything but countdown to Christmas in December!  At least there is no way we are going to miss it.

A Weekend of Fun and A Great Salad Recipe

Despite everyone in the Crooked household getting over some bug or another, we had a great weekend. 

We found out we are in for a bunch of trouble soon as Master C, 8 months, began to pull himself up on furniture.

 

We took advantage of some wonderful winter weather and got out for a walk/ride and breakfast at South Bank.  Such a lovely place.  We are so lucky to have facilities like this in our great city.

 

I popped out to see comedian, Judith Lucy’s new show last night and returned home with a sore face from laughing so much.  I know I am going to get some weird looks this week as I randomly start laughing as I recall her very funny, and rude, quips. 

 We also caught up with family for a Christmas in July celebration.  Certainly the best time was had in the jumping castle but the food was a close second. 

I thought I would share with you an easy salad that we took along to the party.  Yummo!

Roasted Garlic Chickpea Salad with Feta and Herbs

Ingredients

2 cans chickpeas – rinsed and drained

2-3 garlic cloves (depending on how garlicky you like it) – minced

2 tbs olive oil

1 red chilli (more/less/none depending on your taste) – chopped

Salt and Pepper

3/4 cup – 1 cup feta – crumbled

3/4 cup chopped herbs – any combo you like. Parsely and mint work really well

Lemon wedges

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius

2. Mix together chickpeas, garlic, chilli, salt, pepper and oil. Place on a roasting tray and bake for approximately 15 minutes. You want the chickpeas to be hot and beginning to crisp on top.

3. Let Chickpeas cool slightly before tossing in feta and herbs. Squeeze lemon on top to taste.

 

I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are set for a great week.