Garden Quilt Block #2 Update

It's a cloudy, dreary day here in Northern Illinois. Thankfully, it's above freezing so the snow we got earlier this week is melting. I love it when the snow melts!

I don't have anything too exciting to talk about today so I'll just post an update on Block #2 of my Garden Quilt:



I'm going to head into my Living Room and add some more do-dads & foo-foo's to this. I made a batch of Chex Mix a little while ago so before I stitch, I'm going to put together another batch.

Gingerbread Cookies & Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Well, I think I'm just about done making Christmas cookies. I may do a pan of Peanut Butter bars over the weekend but then I think that'll be it. I plan to spend some extra time just stitching and playing with my stash.

I thought I would share 2 more recipes with you today. Gingerbread Cookies & Chocolate Shortbread Cookies:



I drizzled melted white almond bark on both, added red & green sprinkles to the Gingerbread and pink coconut to the Chocolate Shortbread.

Gingerbread

1 cup White Sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground Ginger
1 teaspoon ground Nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon ground Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground Cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1 cup Butter, melted
1/2 cup Evaporated Milk
1 cup unsulfured Molasses
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Lemon extract
5 cups unbleached all-purpose Flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine sugar, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Stir in the melted butter, evaporated milk, molasses, vanilla and lemon extracts. Mix well.
Add the flour, 1 cup at a time. The dough should be stiff enough to handle without it sticking to fingers. An extra 1/2 cup flour can be added if dough is too sticky.
Roll dough 1/4 inch think and cut with cookie cutters. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

As you can see in the photo, I made bars out of these. I rolled the dough onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and baked for about 25 - 30 minutes. You'll have to watch them because baking time differs from oven to oven. The dough should spring back in the center when you touch it. That's how you'll know when they're done. You should only need a single recipe of this dough to make bar cookies.

Usually, I make Gingerbread Kitties. I use a kitty cookie cutter and then decorate them. I didn't feel up to that this year but the bar cookies came out quite well!

Chocolate Shortbread

1 cup Butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose Flour
2/3 cup Powdered Sugar
1/3 cup Baking Cocoa
Dash Salt

Cream butter & powdered sugar. Add salt and Cocoa. Mix well then add flour. Oven temp: 350 degrees.

I did the bar cookies with these as well but needed a double recipe to fill the pan. Baking time again for bars is about 25 minutes.

I'm not feeling well at the moment. I think I need to move around some. I'll leave you with an update on Block #2 of my Garden Crazy Quilt:



Oh, one last thing for today. If you'd like to see some real vintage Glitter Houses, hip-hop over to Freda's blog and take a peek! She has a lovely new Glitter House in today's post but be sure to scroll down a bit to see her vintage houses.

And The Winner Is....

My husband arrived home from work last night at about 6 pm. Once he had his beer, (heaven knows if the man doesn't have a beer when he gets home, the world will stop turning!) he drew a name from the basket. So the winner is: Allie A!



Allie, your mason jar filled with my homemade Christmas Tea Cookies will be on it's way to you in next 2 or so days. Congratulations!

Thank you to all who entered! I really enjoyed having this drawing and am planning on doing more. I have all sorts of ideas rolling around in my head (what else is new?) I will be doing another fun drawing or contest in January.

I received some lovely comments on my Glitter Houses:



Many of my long time readers know that Christmas is not my most wonderful time of the year! To be honest, the commercialism gets to me. The insanity in stores, the rude drivers, the hurry-up attitude, it's all so obnoxious!

For many years, I didn't even put up a tree. Just a few small things that were pretty to look at but didn't scream at me. I conceded to a real tree last year at my husband's request. Honestly, I couldn't have cared less about having a tree.

I must say, that my glittery little village is quite peaceful to look at. I truly enjoyed making them and after the holidays, I'm planning on doing some more. Anything that gives me a little bit of peace right now is a good thing!

I spent my afternoon yesterday stitching on Block #2 of my Garden Quilt:



The hand-painted lace at the bottom seems a bit heavy but I'm sure it lighten up with beads & sequins. I have a vintage spiderweb pin that will go in the bottom left-hand corner. I haven't decided on what to do with myself today. I usually go to the grocery store on Thursday mornings but it's a whole 2 degrees outside and I'm not sure I care to venture out in that.

I may do a bit of baking and then start beading this.

I received another lovely package in my mailbox yesterday. This pretty lace came from Gina in Australia:



Gina has found some really lovely things for me at her thrift shops. And I do believe that some of this will make it's way onto my Garden Quilt. Thank you so much Gina!

Glitter Houses

Grab a cup of tea and a Christmas cookie and sit back for a bit. I have quite a few nice things to share with you today!

Ya'll know I love old things. Anything with that 30's/40's feel to it is my style. Shabby Chic Cottage is so soft looking and soothing on my nerves! And of course, I love my glitter!!!

I decided a few months back, that because of what happened last year on Christmas Eve (my birthday), if I was going to put out any Christmas decorations at all, they had to be new and they had to be pink. I told my husband that I can't deal with a real tree this year. I can't tolerate the smell. Anything that smells like a pine tree takes me right back to last Christmas Eve when I had lightening bolts & fireworks shooting off in my brain and that is an absolutely horrible memory for me. He agreed that we would not do a tree this year.

So instead of my normal Christmas decorations that I usually put out, I made some new things for this year. I'll start with my pink pinecones:



I bought a bag of cinnamon scented pinecones at WalMart and a can of pink spray paint. I took them over to my mom's house and told dad that I'm spray paint challenged! Ha, ha, ha! I'm just not good with it! So dad sprayed my pinecones pink. When they were dry, I sponge painted them (by hand) and piled on the glitter! The little angel was made by my mom quite a few years ago. I always put her on the top of my tree. I decided she would look cute with the pink pinecones. The tablecloth on my coffee table was another of my mom's projects. Mom made this about 3 or 4 years ago. She also made the pink crocheted doily.

The pink pinecones were fun and are very pretty but my absolute treasures are my little Glitter Houses and Bottlebrush trees:



I have always loved little Christmas Houses. My grandmother had a set when I was little but after my grandfather passed away, they seemed to disappear. I would have loved to have them.
I found some at flea markets over the Summer but the colors were very bright. I remember my grandma's house were soft and pastel. So guess what? I decided to make my own!

The original vintage houses were called Putz Houses. Named for the company in Japan that made them. They were quite inexpensive, found mostly in dime stores from what my parents tell me.

Anyway, I gathered up some little bits & pieces from my craft supply stash, got out my cardstock and my glitter and had myself a good time with these!

Here's more:







Yes, my snow is pink! I put some quilt batting down and then I covered that with some pink tulle. I arranged my houses and the trees and then sprinkled some chunky glitter around them.

I made the trees too. Well, sort of. I decorated them. I bought the white ones and piled the glitter on those. Then I glued the tiny shiny glass balls on them. The green ones were in with my Christmas decorations so I pulled those out and did the same.

My mom made several houses too. I have mom's in my garden window. Mom's theme was "candy-land". You can kind of see them all in this photo but my favorite is the gingerbread man house:



Isn't that sweet? I have some pink trees with the candy houses. I found those at Hobby Lobby. I didn't decorate them. They already had pink glitter on them so I let them be. Kind of surprising for me, huh?

Anyway, that's my pink Christmas. I did hang my vintage Christmas towels on the doors of my Hoosier cabinet and I have another embroidered tablecloth that mom made on my kitchen table. But this is all I can handle for this year.

I must say, I loved making these houses more than I enjoy making cards! The wheels are turning!!!

There are more photos over on my Flickr site. Just click on one of the images to head over there and see them all.

In other news, the drawing for my Mason Jar filled with Christmas Tea Cookies will take place tonight when my husband gets home from work. If you haven't entered yet, there's still time. See this post for more details.

Here is the Mason Jar filled with my homemade cookies:



And here it is decorated with one of my handmade, glittery labels:



I will announce the winner in tomorrow's post.

I thought you would enjoy seeing this lovely angel ornament that Mary Anne sent to me:



Isn't she sweet and beautiful? I have her hanging on the mirror of my antique dresser. You know, I have met so many lovely and talented ladies in blog-land, gifted people that I never would have had the chance to meet had it not been for my computer and my blog.

Which reminds me, I'd like to ask the following ladies to drop me an email:

Sheila
Sandy G
Ann F
Cheryl
Jan

You have all left multiple comments for me but I have no way of reaching you other here. Please email me so I have your addresses for replies.

Finally for today, and ya'll know how much I love this (not) it's snowing outside:



This is view of my backyard from my deck. I will spare you all my complaints.

Well, I'm off to stitch on my Garden Quilt. Updates coming tomorrow.

Shortbread Cookie Recipe

Judy asked me if I would share my recipe for Shortbread Cookies. I'm very happy to do that!

Shortbread is one of the most versatile of all cookies. There are only a few ingredients and it's a rather plain cookie so it lends itself to all sorts of variations. It also holds it's shape well so it's perfect for cutout cookies, bar cookies, refrigerator cookies and so on.

Here is the basic recipe for Shortbread:

2 cups Salted Butter
2 cups Powdered Sugar
4 teaspoons Vanilla
4 cups Flour

Cream butter & sugar. Add vanilla. Mix well. Stir in the flour, 1 cup at a time.

This is a vary stiff dough. It may seem a bit dry at first so keep mixing until it holds together. This recipe is also easy to cut in 1/2.

To the batch I made today, I added 1 12-ounce bag of mini Chocolate Chips.

The oven temp. should be 350 degrees. Baking time will vary depending on how you choose to do these.

I rolled my dough onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet:



The baking time for this variation is about 35 minutes. If you use cookie cutters or roll into balls, the time of course is much less. I want to say about 10 - 12 minutes but you'll have to use your own judgement. It's been awhile since I've made them that way.

Once baked, I let the pan cool for a few minutes:



I want to say about 10 minutes. You'll have cut them while still warm:



I have a plastic ruler that I bought just for baking. It's about 1 1/4 inches wide so I use that to make my squares all the same size.

Finally, once the pan is completely cooled off, I drizzle with melted chocolate and add sprinkles:



Aren't they pretty? My father and even my husband love these! And I confess, I do like a shortbread cookie on occasion. They're buttery and melt in your mouth:



Well, that's Shortbread 101! It really is an easy cookie to make. If you decide to try it as bar cookies, you will need to do the whole recipe but if you want to do cutouts, you may prefer to do a 1/2 recipe first. The whole recipe makes quite a bit!

And speaking of cookies, if you haven't entered the drawing for my Mason Jar filled with Christmas Tea Cookies, please hop over to this post for more details.

Happy Sunday everyone!