Gingerbread Men in a Jar

Thanks to a gorgeous book 'Kids in the Holiday Kitchen' that I purchased from Pottery Barn last year I found the perfect teacher gift for this year. They are biscuits in a jar. Basically you layer the dry ingredients in a jar and then attach a gift tag with the recipe. The recipient just adds the required additional ingredients like butter and eggs to then make their biscuits. I purchased jars from Ikea, gingerbread cookie cutters from Big W, cardboard and ribbon from Spotlight and with just a little patience whilst putting them together we have beautiful personalised gifts for teachers and daycare workers.

This is the recipe that I used and this is the text I put on a card attached to the jars.

Gingerbread Men in a Jar

For scrumptious holiday cookies preheat oven to 180^oC. Beat together 1 egg yolk with 125ml golden syrup and 125gm room temp butter. Add dry ingredients of jar, mix till well combined. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Place dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until 4mm thick. Use gingerbread man cutter to cut out shapes. Place on prepared trays 3 cm apart. Bake in oven for 10 mins or until brown. Push smarties into warm cookies to decorate.

And this is the completed products at less than $10 a gift.

Dry Erase Calendar

I'm going to completely ignore the fact that I've been MIA in a big way. I have all the best excuses though with the Uni semester finishing, an interstate trip and the general busyness of our family. But I'm going to try post lots in the coming weeks as I am on holidays and keen to enjoy them by letting my inner creative crafty self come out.

This week I completed the first of a long list of things I want to create. It is a dry erase calendar. My plan was to use colours to intergrate with the feature wall and splashback in the same living space. The completed product has definitely done this.

I started with an Ikea frame

Next up was the collection of paint swatches

I then painted the back board that came in the photo frame, I had some white/cream paint in the shed so I used this to create a nice background for the calendar. Using an old calendar lying around I cut the shapes out of the swatches for each day of the month, a year and month slot. I used a measuring tape to accurately place each square on the board...and this is what I created.

I have to say I'm biting at the bit to write things on to the calendar. It's so easy to write on and will be easy to wipe off at the end of the month too. Our house desperately needed a central point to put our whereabouts so I'm thrilled we can now do this so easily.