Heart Brownies

Heart Brownies, originally uploaded by emerzim.

Looking for a fun and easy Valentine treat? Make a batch of your favorite brownies and then cut out hearts using a cookie cutter. Easy peasy, and the scraps are delicious!

Valentines - 1st Draft

Back around Christmas time I made some vanilla sugar to use in some sort of undetermined gifty way. Well, when I found the coffee toffee recipe all thoughts of the vanilla sugar went out the window. I spent the holiday season completely obsessed with the coffee toffee.

Which I have decided is a really good thing because what would be a perfect thing to hand out on Valentine's Day? Homemade vanilla sugar, of course! It is soooo tasty and has so many possibilities! The paper in this photo is from the dollar section at Target and I just can't believe how perfect it is for this. I didn't have to cut it at all. I kind of like the way it is totally oversized for the little bags too. These are, first and foremost, valentines, you know, and that makes them seem more valentine-y to me. My graphic design obviously needs some work, but this first attempt was mostly just to see if it would work and figure out sizing. I'll let you know what else I come up with.

Valentine's Day Ribbon Shirt

Remember the Christmas tree ribbon shirt? I wanted to see if the concept would translate to Valentine's day. Turns out the answer is yes!

Neighbor Gifts

It is always nice to have a little something for neighbors, teachers, hostess gifts, etc. Well, this is what I came up with this year. While gussied up mason jars are hardly an original concept, I still think they are fun and festive and I know that I would certainly be happy to get one. So easy to put together with a little bit of scrapbook paper and ribbon. And what to put inside? So many options. I'll let you know what I filled mine with in another post. Stay tuned.

Christmas Ribbon Shirts

I'm getting sloppy with my pictures, but I just love these shirts so much I'm posting them anyway. I mean, they gave me an excuse to go buy ribbon! How could they not be fabulous?

The idea came from here, a blog that I recently came across that has some really great ideas. You can get the instructions there, although it wouldn't be hard to figure it out just by looking at the picture.

I'm interested in seeing how well these shirts hold up in the wash. I'm sure the stitching will hold just fine, but will the ends of the ribbon unravel (even though I used fray check)? Will the ribbon color bleed into the shirt? Do I worry too much?

Here's a picture of Abby wearing her shirt at a Dec 1st holiday kick off playdate:



Updated to add this slightly better picture of Abby in the shirt. And to let you know that I washed it without incident. No fraying, no bleeding, no problems at all.