Color chips

Everyday for 100 days, Rachel Berger, a graphic designer in San Francisco, picked a paint chip out of a bag and responded to it with a short writing. Incredible and imaginative I think. You can read about her project here! Kim Neill, also a graphic designer decided to deviate from the usual chocolate chip cookies and make some paint chip cookies for her clients ... I am blown away by such creativity!

When I was up in Berkeley with my daughter we went to Blick's Art Supply to get her some supplies for an art class she is taking.

Have you been in one of their stores? It is the best! Just their selection of spray paint made my heart pound with excitement. I also saw these metal storage boxes and wanted to get a few but I knew that I already had overflowing luggage and so I passed on them. I was thinking I would store samples in them. A few days after I got home, my daughter sent me an email showing me an image of some paint chip cookies that she found online and they were packed in the same Pantone metal boxes. 

Amazing right? I had to know who made them so I searched a little and found that they were made by Kim Neill. Her website is: KimCreativeStar.com and you can get the directions on how to make the cookies here. 

My daughter also sent me this clever Valentine idea that I see now has circulated around a lot of blogs but it was new to me:

Country Living

And then I found these made by Vanessa Rough @ Silly Eagle Books and I like them very much!

Fave Crafts

Have you seen this paint chip wreath? I'm thinking my daughter is probably going to have to hitch a ride to the nearest paint store when she sees this! And I'm wondering ... how many chips is okay to take legitimately?! 

Ready for Christmas?

I don't know what happened but I am very behind with my Christmas preparations this year. I started way to late and had too many things distracting me. But ready or not, Christmas is here. And so in order to stay relaxed and enjoy this time for what it should be, I have given myself permission to just do less. "It is okay", I am telling myself, if everything I wanted to do did not get done, or if everything is not done exactly the way I wanted it to be. This letting go does not come natural to me. It is a struggle to fight the 'everything has to be perfect' thing. But I am trying.

Despite being behind, the gifts did get wrapped and are officially under the tree.  I like anything with initials and love using them for gift tags. I printed these using a white card stock; the font is Edwardian Script and the font size I used is 260. They are a simple way to add a little flair to a package. I had fun bringing in this year's color of the year - turquoise. 

I make snowflake cookies every year at Christmas. They are very time consuming but they are so worth it. They are like little works of art. I give them out to special friends and I usually give one for each person. I stack them and wrap them in cellophane. I also make round cookies (snowballs?) which are much easier!  I had a lot of issues baking them today. My 20-year-old oven decided it would throw a little fit this morning and it took some adjusting before I could get a good batch. And so many of them broke! So I made what I could. And I am reminding myself again that it is okay.

I hope that you are enjoying your last minute preparations and that you will give yourself permission to let some things go too. xo Sherri

Christmas candy

Today (Wednesday) was supposed to be my baking day. All day. I had intended to make dozens of cookies and at least several batches of my Christmas candy. I make these two things every year and give them out to friends and neighbors. I don't know what happened. I thought I could get the house straightened up a bit before I started the baking project. I did some laundry, cleaned up a bit, read some blogs (that could be part of the problem) and then had to go to the market to pick up nuts and chocolate and butter and more sugar. I went to three stores, ran a couple of other errands, got stuck in a huge downpour (it is STILL raining) and came home worn out. So I took a break. I worked on the Christmas cards for a while. Friends stopped by. And then it was time for dinner and going out for sushi sounded really good. You get the point, right? I didn't get the baking done. 

I did come to the conclusion that I do not have to stress over this. People love my candy. And they look forward to it. But it will be okay if they get it as a wonderful 'Happy New Year' gift instead of a Christmas gift. Right? So I took that off my list. I made one batch and called it a day. 

Sherri's Christmas Candy

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 & 1/2 cups blanched, slivered almonds

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips.

In a HEAVY skillet over medium to medium-high heat, mix butter and sugar. Add nuts. Continue cooking until golden brown and almonds start to pop, stirring constantly. 

Spread onto a cookie sheet and top with chocolate chips. 

After chocolate has melted, spread with a spatula. Refrigerate. Break into pieces.

I like to wrap the candy in cellophane and tie them with pretty ribbon, tags and little ornaments. Usually by this time each year I have about 20 of these waiting to be given out. I haven't made my tags yet either but this paper that I printed from the free MAEMAE PAPERIE download from Rue looks pretty great.

I also found this chocolate nut bark in Real Simple last year and clipped it to make this year. I thought it looked so pretty. It was super easy to make!  Just melt 12 ounces of semi sweet chocolate chips (I did it in a double boiler), spread the chocolate evenly on a parchment-lined 9-by-13-inch baking pan and sprinkle with 2 & 1/2 cups mixed nuts. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Break the bark into pieces and keep at room temperature for up to 1 week.

I like this because it is a beautiful and also because it is a healthier candy. It looks wonderful against the turquoise tissue paper in a chinese take-out box.

The cookies ... those are another story! I will start at the crack of dawn tomorrow and make as many as I can. How are you doing with your Christmas baking (shopping, wrapping, cleaning ...)? 

A casual dinner & pink Christmas trees

I had my Bible study group over for a casual 'potluck' dinner last night. We meet at my house most Tuesday nights and since this was our last meeting before Christmas we decided to have dinner. I provided dessert - my apple crisp (I had made two, one for me, one for my new neighbor). I also made a very easy hors d'oeuvre. I took Boursin cheese (the pepper flavored one) and poured Bonne Maman strawberry preserves on top and served it with crackers. It is always a huge hit and you can't get much easier than that!

I set a very simple table - we are a casual group - but I think it is nice to use cloth napkins and I just happened to find an entire box filled with acorn ornaments earlier in the day when I was going through my Christmas decorations that I had forgotten all about. I purchased them a couple of years ago after Christmas for a dollar or two. They made the place settings feel a little more special and everyone got to take home a little gift.

Our group spent the year reading through the entire Bible. Last Christmas we all got 365 day Bibles that had a passage for each day of the year. It was set up with a passage from the Old Testament, a passage from the New Testament, a Psalm and a Proverb to read every day. It starts at the beginning and goes in succession all year long. It is only about 15 minutes of reading a day. It was a great Christmas gift to give out because you can start reading it on January 1. I gave one to a lot of my family and friends. I thought it would be nice to all be reading the same thing at the same time. You know, like a great book club.

It was really amazing reading the entire Bible including all those passages you usually skip over. I know that the Bible is the number one most read book in the world (3.9 billion copies) but I wonder how many people have actually read it fully - not just parts of it. Reading it in its entirety was fascinating; it is filled with so much history and since it was in an "easy to read" translation a lot of it read like a novel that I didn't want to put down (some days I would have to read on). I would highly recommend it to everyone. Here is the specific Bible we read and if you are interested in finding out more about it or want to purchase it, click here: 

My sister, Patti sent this to me today - she is a photographer so of course she always has her camera with her (although this was actually taken with her phone). She had gone up to her camera store to get some supplies and this was in the store next to it. She thought I would appreciate it especially in light of the announcement of the new color for 2011 (Honeysuckle ... basically hot pink)! 

© Prizler Photography

How very cute is that? Later in the day I ran into this one at Borders:

Are you smiling? I think maybe this is a "sign" ... a pink tree for next Christmas? ;o) ha ha!

The welcome wagon & an easy apple crisp

We have a new neighbor. The house they are moving into was owned by a lovely couple who lived there while our kids were growing up but then they retired and moved away. It has been vacant for a very long time and the other day I heard that it had finally sold and that a new family was moving in.

I wanted to welcome them and introduce myself and I heard that they were moving in today. The day that we moved into our house my husband's aunt came over with a basket of goodies. She had put in the basket an old-fashioned glass jar that was filled with chicken salad. There were rolls plates and napkins and I can't remember what else but I have never forgotten how incredibly nice it was. I wanted to be thoughtful like that and so I decided to make an apple crisp for their move-in day. I could picture them working and unpacking and going in the kitchen for a treat of this great apple crisp and feeling blessed.

The recipe is super easy and needs just a few ingredients most of which I usually have on hand. The first thing you will need to do is peel and slice about 5 or 6 Granny Smith apples. About 4 cups of sliced apples. I vary the amount depending on the dish I am baking it in.

After you put the sliced apples in a cooking dish you need to make the topping. I am going to give you the actual recipe amounts but you have to know that when I bake, I change things up a bit and for this recipe, I always double the topping. Honestly, that is the best part and otherwise we always just have apples left because everyone eats the topping first.

This is all you will need for the topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup oatmeal
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup melted butter

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add to the mixture 1/3 cup of melted butter.

Put the topping on the apple slices and bake it in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes ... that is it!

Sometimes I serve it with vanilla ice cream (I heard Trader Joe's has an amazing vanilla ice cream).

After the apple crisp was finished baking and had cooled, I wrapped it up in cellophane and added a little tag that said, "welcome..." and took it over. When I was at the store picking up the apples I also bought an inexpensive pyrex pie dish so that they can keep the dish and not have to return it. I have done this before and I like to include the recipe with a note that tells them they can keep the dish for the next time they want to make one of their own ... but I was in a huge hurry today and I forgot to add the note or the recipe. Earlier in the day my daughter had seen the owner standing out in front and I wanted to make sure I caught her while she was still at the house. I imagined them going back and forth making trips from their old house and wasn't sure how long she would be there. So I was trying to hurry (picture me writing the card so fast that I had to start over and ended up cutting up the card and turning it into a tag) and then finally everything was ready and I rushed over, excited to share my gift only to find just workmen at the house.  As it turns out they are not moving in right away; there are renovations that need to be done first. You have to laugh, right?

A perfect day

Today was one of those perfect kind of days where you don't have anywhere you have to be and you can stay in your pajamas until noon! I have not had a day off in weeks and so today was that day ... I cleaned out some drawers and organized some papers that I have neglected, worked in the yard a bit and began to prepare for Thanksgiving.

I love Thanksgiving. For me it is a day that is all about family and being thankful for what we have. One of my family's traditions is our gratitude tree. Years ago I found a branch in our yard and stuck it in an urn and tied some photos of our family on it. It was kind of just an impromptu last minute thing and it turned out to be one of our favorite traditions. I put colorful slips of paper in a bowl and throughout the day everyone writes what they are thankful for on the little papers and we tie them on the tree with fishing line. It is such a beautiful tree and so meaningful.

This is our tree from last year with the papers still on it. I just brought it in from the garage where it was being stored and stuck in a vase. Tomorrow I will take last years papers off, hang new photos on it and cut up new slips of paper. I will probably put it in a nicer urn. 

I moved the sideboard that sits in our wide hallway into the kitchen to use for our buffet, pulled out the white hotel tablecloth to iron, and bought the turkey. We always name our turkey and this year's turkey is Kyle. I have the menu planned - a simple menu with just our favorite recipes - and I started baking our traditional cookies. 

I love these acorn cookies. They are delicious and as cute as can be!  Here is the recipe:

Tomorrow I get to spend the day with my newly married daughter - something I don't get to do as often anymore. She and I will make some leaf cookies and I will make a few cheeseballs to give to our friends and neighbors, set the table (I love the table setting!) and look forward to picking my youngest daughter who is away at school up from the airport. I am filled with gratitude.