Auntie Ann's Style soft pretzels

My family loves this recipe....

 They're great with cream cheese or melted cheddar cheese.....

 Sometimes we do cinnamon and sugar which is really yummy....and if we do that I make cream cheese icing with some cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla....

Soft Pretzel Recipe

1. Mix a package of yeast + 1 tsp of sugar with 1 &1/4 cups of warm water and let stand for 10 min.

2. In a large mixing bowl mix: 

~4 cups of flour (5th cup of flour if needed) 

~1/4 cup of sugar

~1 &1/2 tsp of kosher salt

3. Make a well in the center of the ingredients above and add:

~1 melted Tbs of butter

~Yeast mixture from the first step

4. Knead dough until smooth, spray a bowl with cooking spray and flip dough to coat, cover and let rise 1 hour.

5. Dissolve 1/2 cup of baking soda in 4 cups of hot water.

6. Punch down dough then shape dough into desired shape (I usually do bread stick style because they're quick and easy and they bake quicker)

7.  Once you've shaped all your dough dip each one into the baking soda bath then sprinkle with kosher salt OR cinnamon and sugar...

8.  Bake at 420 deg. for 8 min. after removing from the oven brush bread with melted butter

Handmade baby shoes

We have alot of uncarpeted flooring in our house, so when I saw these cute, little felt shoes/slippers on the Martha Stewart website I thought they'd be fun to make for Mighty. 

*Click here for the download-able pattern*

These little grey ones are made from felt I got at JoAnn's fabric store...

I made the blue set first from some wool coating fabric I had on hand.

 And I also ended up sewing a circle of elastic to the back of the heel to keep them on better....

 My other addition was some cabinet liner between the layers of the sole so she wasn't sliding around in them.

 These are so much fun because she LOVES shoes!  And bracelets, and hair stuff, and hats.....

 This is right after we put them on :)!!!

 You can see the elastic band on the right shoe...

Of course you could decorate them lots of ways!!! I like the embroidered stuff since I know she can't pull it off....and eat it :)

Something new...Phish!

December is always such a whirlwind of activity...  I made many things to give away as gifts, and many things for others to give away as gifts....

 so I've been holding back until after I knew they'd been given to post any photos!!! 

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And I have to say I feel really honored that people would choose to have me make something for them to give.  So THANK -YOU to those of you who asked me!!!  It was fun to be a part of your Holidays too!!!

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This is by far one of the coolest things I've made so far...a "Phish" key ring for a friend of mine to give to her husband....

 This is the drawing I came up with...she was looking at some ideas on etsy where they incorporated the number of shows you've been to with a fish scale symbol.

 So I started with a drawing on paper.  Cut it out and traced it onto some aluminum...What you see below is after snipping it out with tin snips (my husband bought me a jewelry saw for Christmas!!!) ALOT of filing and sanding....

These on the red background are when it's almost finished...

I sent her some photos so she could see how it was looking...

 I used my upper case "D" to create 50 scales...I must have counted and recounted about 50 times! 

  Then to finish it off I used scotchbrite to give it a brushed look... I really like the finish.  I usually hammer my pieces but lately  I 've been liking the simple look this has.  A lot cleaner looking...

 I had a lot of fun with the challenge of making it work and figuring it all out...

Very unique....

Cinnamon clay

Ok all you mommas out there who are about to have kids at home on Christmas break....

This is a good one....

You'll need Cinnamon and Applesauce and that's IT!

 For those of you who need "exact" measurements I don't have 'em....dump out some cinnamon into a bowl.

 *BEFORE* you let your 4 year old dump it out explain that ground cinnamon DOES NOT taste like cinnamon rolls....

 Start adding your applesauce in a little bit at a time and mixing it up...

Your house will smell like a picture out of Country Living or Martha Stewart :)

Yes I said it will smell like a picture.....

 You might want to save back some of your cinnamon (we had two jars) to use in case you add too much of the applesauce.  It also works well as your playing with your clay to keep the clay from sticking to everything...think flour on cookie cutters or your hands...

It should look something like this.....you'll know when you've got it right it will work just like clay.

 We used the nonstick silicone cooking mats and our mini cookie cutters 

 And of course just PLAYED!  Don't forget to use a toothpick to make holes if you want to be able to hang them...

They make great little ornaments.  They also smell really great if you sit them on your stove top ~~~ of course you have to actually use your oven to warm them up so they smell good :)

 The beautiful ornaments below were made by Doodlebug who got a little stressed that his hands were getting dirty... This from a child who LIVES in the dirt all summer....

But it reminds me to tell you that it will stain your towels if you don't get it all washed off your hands.  I'll let you decide how I learned that one....

Wire stars

Finally posting about my wire stars I made awhile back!  I've been too busy living my life to post about it on my blog....and making gifts which I can't post about  until I know they've all been given!!!

 These are all over our house and were really quick and easy to make.

 Here's the wire I used.  I think we paid $8 for it at Lowe's...you'll need pliers to wrap the ends around each other to finish the star.

 Here's the jig I made to bend my stars.  From point to point (left to right across) it's 6"

 It doesn't have to be perfect and the wire is pretty easy to bend so you can straighten and bend it by hand.

 I cut off about 24" pieces of wire for each one...

 Because I used screws I had to stretch it out to get it off the jig.  If you wanted to get fancy you could  use dowel rods and it would just slide off and keep it's shape.

 I love these little buggers!  I mixed them into the tray on my table with the epsom salt ornaments....

 hung them on my living room window with some bright red ribbon... (you can see how I wrapped the ends in the photo below)

 hung them around the mirror in my hall bathroom with the red ribbon...

 They were fun to make and I like things like this that I can save and reuse next year.  And I like having alot of them....

 I even put 3 of them on top of our tree this year because I have a whole thing with tree toppers.  Why are there only 2 choices....scary angels or stars covered in lights or glitter???????

 And outside who can compete with this Holiday Decor?!?!??!  They've been here since the end of October...

 Their favorite time to fire up the equipment and make lots of noise is about 6:30AM or 2PM.....

God Bless us every one!!!! Right?!!?!!?  

Merry Christmas!!!