Christmas favors

It's been busy busy busy around here.

At the beginning of December I was asked by Shirley (one of my moms friends/former teachers) asked me to make a stocking for her soon to be daughter-in-law. The stocking she wanted me to make was the same as one that her sister made for her 30 years ago.

I had no pattern to go off of, couldn't find anything close to it, and I just had the original stocking and a hope.

Original stocking

It's a really cute stocking. I liked it. And for being as old as it is, it wasn't too faded. The only direction I had was she wanted it to be different than hers. Like instead of the main color being green, she wanted the other one to be more red. So ok, it seemed easy enough. I spent a whole Saturday working on it and actually completed it in one day. That was a long day with, thankfully, lots of good movies to keep my brain happy.

Because trying to figure out the individual granny squares wasn't difficult, it was how to put it all together. I managed to find something and hoped it would work.

One square

Lotsa squares

It ended up being slightly bigger. But, I really didn't know what gauge of hook her sister used, so I had to guess. I think I came pretty close.

All crocheted together.

Trying to figure out how to do the point of the sock was the hardest. That took me atleast 45 minutes of planning to figure where to start so it would finish in the right place. After that was the easy part, the cuff.

Tada!

I could make more of these, they aren't very difficult really. But it's just a lot of work.

The new one was a little bigger. But it looked really good.

Not too bad

We got our tree up last week. We are still rocking out little fake tree that I've had for 6 years. We also found new ornaments for $10 that I just couldn't pass up...black and pink ones!

No lights...

Lights!

I'll have to take pictures of all of the ornaments we've given each other over the year too. Heck, that could be it's own entry.

Then this weekend I had some baking to do. I found this great recipe for Peppermint Bark Popcorn. I HAD to make it. So Lani came over to help. I let her break up the candycanes, She had fun and my counter was very pink and minty. Once we got everything mixed together (note to self, need a bigger bowl), it spread out really well on 2 cookie sheets.

Mmmm

And we had fun drizzling chocolate on all of it too:

Yummy

And breaking it apart into chunks.

Bowl of yum.

Then I had these awesome bags to put it in.

Ooooh

We are having a potluck tomorrow at work. Everyone was thinking that I would make another cheesecake. But, I really didn't feel like doing that, I wanted to do something different. So, I made some oreo truffles. And Nutter Butter truffles. And they are delicious.

I had to sort out my sprinkles first. Of course, I've got many different kinds.

Sprinkles!

Gingerbread men, snowflakes, and trees. I had a big plan to make mint oreo truffles too, but I ran out of steam. Thats what the trees were for.

The Nutter Butter ones were pretty easy. The cookie scoop I got on our honeymoon works really well.

Uncoated

I need to work on my dipping skills. Because lets be honest, they stink. I got a little better as I went on, but wow, I was terrible.

All covered

The gingerbread men sprinkles are so cute. I had dreams that they would be perfect on these.

Aww cute

The oreo ones were a little more difficult. The first coat didn't work so well, so I had to put a second coat on them. Again, in the time it took me to roll these ones out I lost my coating skills apparently.

Slight fail. But only single coat.

The second coat looked A LOT better.

Pretty.

They taste really really good. I messed up on a few and James got to try them. He approved. Hopefully when he brings them to me at work he doesn't eat half of them on the way. I can only hope. We also got our Christmas cards, and hopefully we can get those all addressed and out the door tomorrow or Thursday. Thankfully I think I still have labels left over from the wedding so this could be REALLY EASY. I hope so. Plus we have some boxes to send out. It's a lot to do. I think James will have a busy few days while I am working working working.