Rick Rack Flowers and Apricot White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

There's something about rick rack that just shouts playful and cute to me! Does it have the same effect on you, or am I just talking to myself on this one? These flowers have been on my 'to make' list for some time now. I first saw one in a cutesy little downtown shop where we live, it was attached to the front of an apron waistband, I thought to myself they'd make really cute hair clips.  

After attempting to make the flower myself and having no luck, I was happy to come across this easy to follow tutorial  http://thecraftingchicks.com/2011/03/rick-rack-rosettes.html 

I made mine a little differently, here's how

I went ahead and purchased the medium sized rick rack recommended. 

Under $7 bucks not 

   So the baker in me wants to start by telling you to "preheat" your glue guns. I know from experience if I don't remember to do this first I'll get distracted waiting for it to heat up, make a neat little pile on the edge of my kitchen counter somewhere and leave it there, oh for say.... more than a day or two. It's the kids fault really, they always find me? 

I measured two pieces of rick rack and cut them at 20 inches long,  placed them under the foot on my sewing machine and twisted the two pieces together. I then clipped the bottom of the rick rack with an alligator clip so it wouldn't come undone as I was sewing. I sewed along one side.

 I began rolling adding smalls dots of hot glue along the way

when you come to the tail end, tuck and glue it to the bottom of your flower to secure it in place. 

 I wanted mine to resemble flowers more than rosettes 

so using my fingers I opened and pressed back almost every layer.

This is how I make the base of my clips

 I sandwich a piece of ribbon between an alligator clip

apply glue to the top side only and press.Glue inside the little dilly of the clip(where my thumb is,
 can't think of what that part is called) follow it around with a dot of glue on the bottom side, cut your ribbon.
There's a picture of what the bottom side of the clip should look like when you scroll down which is more helpful.

I used craft felt, cut a leaf and a circle
  

sandwich the felt circle in the clip

apply more glue, place your flower over and press.

                                            Don't mind the white thread I was being lazy;)

I clipped them to a Crape Myrtle in our backyard, but
the sun was shining directly on the tree where I was trying to take pictures and the colors weren't showing true. So I ran to the kitchen to find what I could use to block the sun, perfect, a cookie sheet should do the job. I'm sure I looked perfectly normal with a cookie sheet held high above my head in one hand, camera in the other, standing on my trampoline taking pictures of my tree. I heard my neighbor come out into his backyard, he began chuckling, I'm not sure if it was at me, but I couldn't help but think of how ridiculous I must've looked. Yep, that ought to clear up any suspicions of your neighbors thinking you're a wacko;)

Even so, I think it was worth it

I love how they turned out!

Apricot White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This is a cookie recipe I collected from online back in 2007, it's adapted from The Neighborhood Bakeshop by Jill Van Cleave. It takes me back to the summer I had my first baby, when Shane was just a few months old and his daddy worked a lot. Between naps, breast feeding and all the new mommy worries we stayed home, well,  a lot too during the first few months. I can still picture him in his swing there in the kitchen, rocking back and forth sleeping for hours at a time, in his little onesie with bare feet. I gained a mean sweet tooth that summer, (along with a few other things I'd like not to mention;). That and I could already picture our first Christmas as a family together and I wanted my cookie tray to be fabulous! 

So I started testing recipes, it sort of became my mission that summer to start a collection of recipes I could make for our family and for my own someday dream bakeshop. It's when I taught myself to bake, I say taught because the first zucchini bread I made was nothing but pitiful! Baking didn't come exactly natural to me, I think it has to do with the fact that when it comes to following directions, I'm terrible. Something in me always wants to guess the last 5 steps? My goof up was that I grated only the skin portion of the zucchinis off and tossed the rest? Who does that, I know? I won't go into why I thought I should do that it's just embarrassing. So it baked up a whole 3 inches high, at most, and sat on top of the microwave for about a week. I remember being so proud of it too because it tasted like zuchhnni bread, a little, it just didn't look like it at all! My hubby was so sweet about it, he would saw through it, piece by piece day by day, microwave and slather it in butter and tell me it was good:) Looking back I'd like to imagine he had a Rules and Secrets For New Husbands Handbook stashed somewhere, inside it would state under rule 

#10

 If in doubt of her food and hurting her feelings, nuke it, cover in condiments, smile and say it's good.

Back to the cookie, creamy white chocolate compliments the sweet and tangy apricots nicely, it's a moist cake-like cookie. When I'm in the mood to switch it up, this is one that I go to.  

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup dried apricots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (3/4 cup is what the original recipe calls for but I prefer 1/2 cup of fresh or dried apricots)
4 ounces white chocolate, cut into 1/2-inch chunks or 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350
Cream the butter and brown sugar in medium sized bowl
Beat in egg and vanilla
Add flour, baking soda, kosher salt in small bowl
Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined
Add white chocolate and apricots, mix until evenly dispersed 
Drop tablespoons of batter onto ungreased cookie sheet
Bake 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned
Let the cookies sit on the sheet 2 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool

The recipe says it yields 26 but I usually get about 20 of what I consider as small cookies. 

I doubled the recipe, put to good use some fresh apricots I had in one batch and dried in the other, I only had white chocolate chips, so that's what I used. I like to chill this dough for about 30 minutes or so before baking but you can bake them right away if you can't wait, they're still yummy. 

If you're feeling brave, add a cup or so of oatmeal, a few pinches of cinnamon, and let me know how they turn out. I bet they'd make great bars.:) 

Heart Shaped Bird Feeder

 This was a fun activity to do with the kids and would make for a charming gift idea as well!

What I caught Lily doing the morning I was online pulling up instructions for the bird feeder. 

This picture makes me think of how an artist might stand back with a hand on one hip and ponder if they're truly satisfied with their work. I'm sure that's not what she's doing, but makes me smile to think so.

Supplies you will need

 3 cups of birdseed

2 1/4 ounce packets of unflavored gelatin

cookie cutters of choice 

 twine for hanging

straw

 foil 

 non stick cooking spray 

Directions 

Sprinkle two packages of gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. 

Let it sit a couple of minutes until gelatin has absorbed the water. 

Heat 1 3/4 cups water in a pan, then add in the gelatin mixture. 

Stir until dissolved. Stir in 3 cups of birdseed.

Allow mixture to cool until gelatin is thick and coats all the birdseed.

Spray the top piece of your foil and the inside of your cookie cutter with non stick cooking spray. I placed my foil and cookie cutter on a paper plate, I found this easier when transferring to the freezer. When birdseed mixture is ready, fill cookie cutter with mixture and press down until firm.
I made two 5 inch heart shaped bird feeders and a few small butterfly's and had quite a bit left over to make at least another heart with. The original tutorial said she had enough for three 5 inch heart feeders.

Cut a piece of straw or whatever you have on hand that will substitute to make a hole for hanging. 

Place in freezer approximately an hour or so, or until mixture has set.

String with twine, hang and enjoy!

          source:http://alphamom.com/family-fun/crafts/heart-shaped-bird-feeder-diy/

I tried a few mini butterfly shaped ones just to see how they'd turn out. I envisioned something like little spring ornaments we could try to adorn some blossoming tree in our backyard with, can you picture it? Kind of cute I thought, but they were just too small to make out what they were supposed to be. 

Since we made these in mid February we didn't have anything pretty to hang them on in the back. The trees still looked like sticks, so I asked the hubby if he would hold it over the daffodils sitting on our patio table for a somewhat of a "cuter" background. 

We eventually hung it out back where I could see it from our kitchen window and whenever I looked out at it, it made me smile. About a week or so later we had a couple of good windy/raining days and I noticed it missing. So the kids and I went out and searched the backyard for it, Shane was the first to spot it....... in Maddie's poop. So that's the story of the first bird feeder we ever made together.:)

Now that the weather is getting nicer and our Crape Myrtle's should start to bloom we may try making them again. Love to think we could catch some birds actually feeding from them and if I'm lucky, snap a few  pictures.

Flowers, Easter and a Birthday Boy

 My honey surprised me with these lovely flowers!

Wisteria...  

makes me think of my Papa, his patio is covered in it. Whenever I go to visit I can usually find him out there. When it's in bloom there's nothing more beautiful than sharing in some good talks and listening to the gentle hum of the bees. 

A few pictures from Easter

The kids loved their bubble guns from Grandma and Grandpa

Lillian in her eyelet dress

Shane was a smiley boy on his 5th Birthday at preschool. He planted green beans that morning in the garden near the playground, then hammered nails into wood with his class as they learned about construction from another student's dad that came for show and tell. His class sang and prayed for him, we shared homemade cake pops and dad surprised him with balloons. We are looking forward to his Lego Star Wars party this weekend!

Linen Ruffle Wreath

Here is where I found the inspiration and tutorial for my wreath 

http://jonesdesigncompany.com/decorate/a-spring-wreath/ 

My thought process after scrolling through the pictures, I can make a ruffle, I can make that wreath!

 picture from

  http://jonesdesigncompany.com/decorate/a-spring-wreath/ 

 In the tutorial she uses a 10" foam wreath, I chose a 12" and added an extra ruffle. Making the ruffles was the easy part and took no time. I happened to make my ruffles separately and missed the step needed to sew them all together to make one long continuous ruffle, this probably would've been easier, but was no problem to do after reading through the directions;). The part I found challenging was getting the ruffles somewhat of an equal distance apart from each other and trying to angle them just so without having them slide, I ended up using a small dot of hot glue to secure each ruffle in place. I made a very simple bow and also hot glued it to the wreath.

I saw an idea like this on pinerest and thought it was adorable!

I used tall clear treat bags that I had on hand from packaging Christmas cookies. I tossed some cotton balls inside the sugar cones not wanting to waste my precious peanut butter M&Ms where they wouldn't be seen, so it would give me more to inhale later that night while I was up making my wreath
( those suckers are dangerous!)

I like the pop of spring cheeriness these projects brought to our home!

Our puppy Maddie snoozing away under the kitchen table.

The Lilly Magnolia tree we planted a few years ago,

is now one of my favorite first signs of spring. 

Which reminds me

Image from http://southernpiphi.tumblr.com

Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook. It requires a little extra work,  grating  the carrots and chilling the dough, but its end result is absolutely worth the effort! They are a fun twist on an old classic, this cake like cookie gets a slightly chewy texture with help from oatmeal, and its cream cheese frosting is just divine! I can't wait to share these tiny inside-out carrot cakes with our friends and family! 

I've linked the recipe at the bottom of the page, enjoy:).

Happy Easter!  

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.marthastewart.com/259010/carrot-cake-sandwich-cookies

http://www.marthastewart.com/282958/cream-cheese-frosting