February has been a fun month for craft projects, mainly because they consist mostly of anything PINK! I found a few ideas on pinterest that I decided to attempt and I've got to say that I'm pretty impressed with how everything turned out.
I baked some homemade sugar cookies using a recipe that I got from another blog that I follow. I used my new heart shaped cookie cutters and they turned out amazing! These cookies were pretty and very delicious. I will definitely be using this recipe again for future holiday cookies.
I found these little stuffed hearts on Pinterest and fell in love with them. They were my first Valentine craft that I made and the one that I was most excited about. I ordered the felt, thread, string, and stuffing from hobby lobby and went to town the day everything arrived. Once I had about eight hearts completed, I hung them in the doorway from the kitchen to the dining room. I had so much fun making them that I just kept going. I made more of the hanging patch hearts to hang and then I started making smaller stuffed hearts (without patches) just to fill a hurricane vase that I keep out for decoration. Then I decided to make Brinleigh her own bigger heart. I stitched her name free-handed and I'm quite proud of how nice it turned out.
My next project to make were these Love yarn letters. I thought they looked like a nice Valentine decoration to have in the house and they seemed simple enough to make. My friend, Kate, made yarn letters for Brinleigh's room as a baby gift for us and I love how cute they are. For my first time attempting this craft, I was thrilled with how they turned out. But I damn near pulled out all my hair in the process.
For Kolt's Valentine's Day gift, I decided to make him some homemade chocolate chip cookies and white chocolate covered pretzels. I've made the pretzels several times now and have it down to a science so it's fairly easy now. This was the first time I have added anything extra, but I had to add some Valentine's sprinkles for the festiveness.
Pretzel Recipe
Ingredients: Bag of tiny twists pretzels
Bag of Nestle' Premier White Chocolate Morsels
Crisco Shortening
Food Coloring or sprinkles (Optional)
Cookie Sheet & Wax Paper
Directions: In a small glass microwaveable mixing bowl, add half a bag of white chocolate chips and a tablespoon(ish) of shortening. Microwave for 60 seconds. When you take the bowl out, the chips won't be completely melted, but they will be softened. If you want to add color, now is when you would put your drops of food coloring in. Stir, stir, stir. The chips will melt and then you can start dipping. I add several pretzels at a time to the bowl, and using a fork I pick up one pretzel at a time. I let the excess chocolate drip off the pretzel and then place it onto a cookie sheet covered in a layer of wax paper. The chocolate won't dry immediately so if you want to add sprinkles, you can dip several pretzels and place them on the cookie sheet & then sprinkle. I let them sit for a while to make sure the chocolate has hardened before I put them into a container.
If you want to drizzle a different color of chocolate on top, repeat the chocolate melting process and then drizzle once the pretzels have hardened.
If the chocolate in the bowl hardens before you are done with your pretzels, you can reheat & melt the chocolate again. I think re-heating only takes about 30 seconds in the microwave. But the experience I have had, is if you only heat half a bag of morsels at a time, it usually won't harden before you're done.
I have only done this using a glass bowl, I'm not sure if the microwave time will differ if using a plastic one. Different brands of chocolate chips might take longer to melt or soften or could take less time. I have only ever used the Nestle morsels.
I bought a couple festive plastic containers at the drug store last week and filled those with the cookies. I put the pretzels into some jars that I had kept for craft projects. I made a few extra jars of pretzels for some of my friends and wrapped a bow around the jar and added a stuffed heart that I had sewn as a little decoration.
