Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Truffle Hot Chocolate Mix

When the temperature drops, I crave hot cocoa and hot cider. Years ago I had something similar to this homemade hot chocolate drink...and I.Loved.It. I mean for reals. The truffle richness of that hot chocolate drink was heaven in a cup. The glory of the mix was that it was a ganache type chocolate mixture, poured into a glass jar and kept in the freezer. When it was time I just scooped three two spoonfuls into some warm milk, stirred, licked the spoon clean, and then cozily slurped my hot cocoa down.

I never got the exact recipe. Boo! However, I recently took a recipe I saw online and tweaked it to what I wanted. So today's recipe and Project Handmade Christmas Present project is this Truffle Hot Chocolate Mix. This the perfect edible gift to give this Christmas.

Truffle Hot Chocolate Mix

1 3/4 cups milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs sugar
1/8 tsp salt

In a microwave proof bowl combine all of your ingredients. Microwave in 45 sec to 1 minute intervals. Stirring with a whisk often. The first couple of minutes the mixture will not come together, but about minute 3-4 it will start to look smooth. It should only take 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 minutes for the chocolate mixture to become silky.

Let the mixture cool off for about 10 minutes. Then funnel into glass containers of your choice. One batch filled 5 tiny jars (about 2 servings a jar). I let mine set on the counter for just about another 10 minutes to continue cooling. Then I put in the freezer for 2 hours. Keep in the freezer until ready to use or give away.

To use, warm 1 to 1 1/2 cups of milk. Stir in two heaping spoonfuls and mix until chocolate is completely melted.

Let's do a photo run down, shall we??

Combine chocolate chips in a microwave proof bowl...

...with cream...

and sugar...

and salt.

Stir together.

Microwave in 1 minute intervals, stirring often with a whisk. Do this until the mixture is silky smooth, about 4 minutes.

Gather the containers you want to use.

Using a funnel, pour the mixture into the jars evenly. Fill to just about the top.

Lick the bowl...yes this is a step in the recipe.

Top off the jars with the lids. Let rest for 10 minutes and then put in the freezer. Keep in the freezer for 2 hours. After that, keep in the freezer until ready to use or give away.

If you are giving away, dress it up all pretty before giving it away.

Here is even a tag I made that you can use...I may not have been able to use it because my printer is completely out of ink...OOPS.

Give some away, but make sure to keep a couple for yourself.

Warm some milk. Scoop some of the delightful chocolate into the milk and stir.

Then enjoy yourself the chocolatey goodness of this cup of hot chocolate.

Merry Christmas!

Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Sugar Scrubs

The little handmade gifts are the easiest to put together, but sometimes the hardest to come up with. I especially struggle with what to make for the teachers in our lives. I want to make sure that it isn't a typical teacher gift. I try really hard to think of something that I would love if I were a teacher. Last year I did THIS. Since I can't give them a trip to Hawaii for rest and relaxation, I thought some relaxation and pampering for their busy hands would make an acceptable substitution.

I knew I wanted to make some handmade sugar scrub this year. So for Project Handmade Christmas Presents I am sharing a simple how-to on handmade sugar scrub.

I looked and looked all over the blogosphere for different recipes. There might be TONS out there. They range from the super easy and simple to pull together, to the intricate and supply intensive. All of the recipes looked delightful, but I was really hoping to find something that could be pulled together from items in my pantry.

So let's make some Lemon Sugar Scrub.

What you need:

2 1/2 cups of white sugar
1 cup of olive oil
4 TBS of Lemon juice
containers

First mix the sugar and the oil in a bowl. Stir until well combined.

Then you will add the lemon juice. I used fresh squeezed because that is what I had. If you have lemon juice in the cute little plastic lemon you can use that too.

Mix the scrub until everything is well combined. No your scrub will not be brown like in the picture below. That is for a different scrub that I will share at the end of this post. I just forgot to take a picture of the lemon scrub at this stage. This is about the consistency you are looking for.

Then using a spoon, divide your scrub into jars. I used the teeny tiny jars I had left over from these. A piece of advice for ya....do not fill the jars this full. The oil kept creeping out of the lid.

Put the lids on.

You can just leave them like this.

They sure are lovely just in this simple packaging.

Or you can add a sticker label to the top. You can add some fabric or ribbon to the jar. You can add a tag. Anything you want to do you can. On the Lemon Sugar Scrub I just added a sticker label to the top using my Silhouette.

Now I did make one more smaller batch of another scrub. I only had enough on hand to make a small batch, but I for sure will be hitting the store and making more of this scrub too.

Vanilla Brown Sugar Scrub 

You will need:
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup-3/4 cups olive oil
1-2 tsp of vanilla (your preference)

Mix sugars until well combined. Then slowly add oil, starting with smaller amount. If you need to add more then add all. Mix until well combined. Then add vanilla.

Package. Make pretty. Use. Or giveaway.

Now you have two simple recipes for the gift of pampering and relaxation for those busy, hard-working ladies in your life.

Merry Christmas!

Linking:
We Did it Wednesday: Sew Much Ado
Whatever Goes Wednesday: Someday Crafts

Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Adopt-a-Pet

Today my tutorial for Project Handmade Christmas Present is part store bought part homemade. Today I am showing how to make any sweet stuffed animal pet your child's very own.

How this all came about...my Little Men had a "Top Secret" item on their list to Santa this year. At first I was worried, but I soon figured out the secret. Then I had to start worrying again...their top secret request from Old St. Nick...a dog. Uh-oh. Yeah there isn't going to be a dog anytime in our future no matter how much we love these boys of ours. So we had to let them know that with big things like pets Santa always checks with the mom and dad and that we told him we couldn't have a puppy.

"How does he check with you?" inquires one Little Man.
"He has a special phone number to call mommy and daddy." I reply.
Three very shocked "What!!!!? Really?"
"Yup" Hubby replies.
"Awesome."

So they know that a really puppy isn't coming for Christmas, but who is to say they can't adopt a lovable, warm and fuzzy puppy stuffed animal.

All I had to do was take this adorable stuffed animal and add a personalized dog collar. Now they can each have their own puppy and I don't have to worry about cleaning puppy messes.

Aren't they so sweet?

I started with these three beagle puppies from, well just my most favorite store in the world, IKEA. The day after Thanksgiving all of their stuffed toys were 50% off their already low prices. These puppies cost us about 4 bucks each. Score.

They were just begging for us give them a good home.

In order to make them personal, I made them each a collar from felt.

If you want to do the same thing, all you have to get is velcro, felt, and some thread. EASY.

First, measure around your new pet's neck. Then add an inch. Our puppies each measured 9" around, so my measurement was 10".

For each collar you want to cut-

2-10x1 inch strips from felt in same color.
1-3x1/2 inch strip from gray felt.
2- circles cut from felt (mine was about a 1 1/2" circle)
initial for pet's name cut out of black felt
about 1" of velcro
thread

First I sewed on my letters to one circle.

Then to make the tag, sew the circle with the letter to the other circle, letter facing up. Then take the gray strip and fold so  the short ends meet. Sandwich the top of the tag into the bottom of the gray strip. Sew strip to tag.

 Set the tag aside and work on the collar part. Sew one piece of velcro on one side of one strip and the other piece onto the other strip on the other end. They will look like this.

Pin the tag in between the strip in the middle of the collar. Pin collar strips together. Make sure the velcro is facing the right way.

Sew around the edges of the collar attaching the two strips and securing the tag in.

Lovingly place it around your new family pet...or pets in our case.

To.Die.For. They are seriously so cute and it was so easy to take a simple store bought toy and make it more special.

To make your new pet adoption that much more special you can even provide them with an adoption certificate for their new pet.

Hey guess what, here is a blank one that you can even save to your computer, edit in picnik.com, and print off for your own new pet owner.

Happy handmade present making. This is a super easy project to add to your list.

Merry Christmas everyone! Come back tomorrow for a gift for teacher.

Linking:
We Did it Wednesday: Sew Much Ado

Project Handmade Christmas Presents: Hoodie-a-saurus

Okay, AH-dorable, right? So I will get back to these in just a sec.

So as Christmas approaches my brain goes into overload about gifts for others. My handmade gift to-do list pretty much is on overload. Last year I made a couple of handmade gifts...here, here, here, and oh yeah here...and this year once again I just couldn't help myself.

So this week I am going to share some handmade gift ideas with you. Gifts of all kinds, for all different people on your list. I am going to do a little holiday version of my Project Series. Project Handmade Christmas Presents.

I am going to start off the week with my Hoodie-a-saurus. Now, first off, I can't take the credit for the original idea of this super cute sweatshirt. I came across the original idea, where else...pinterest. I fell in love with the idea right away and with several dinosaur loving boys in our life, I knew it was a must.

I knew that I wanted to change it up just a bit. I wanted it to have a little more of a rocker embellished look.

I am so happy with how they turned out and I know our nephews will be too.

So I thought I would give a little run down on how I took her tutorial, tweaked it a bit and made my own version.

Here is what you will need:

cheap sweatshirt ( I got mine at The Mart)
felt, about 1/4 yard for 1 toddler sized sweatshirt
iron on stabilizer
coordinating felt or fabric for patch
coordinating thread
coordinating embroidery floss

First step is to work on the scales. The easiest way to do this is to first determine how big you want the scales to be. I liked mine a little bigger. Draw a triangle in that size. Fold your stabilizer up just enough to allow for your triangle to fit. The folded edge will be the bottom of your triangle. The point will go to the edge you folded up. Keep folding and tracing as many triangles as you will need to go from the back of the sweatshirt up to the front of the hood.

The 24 month sweatshirt took 7 and the 3T took 8.

Cut out your triangles, not cutting on the fold. They will then open up to this diamond shape.

Iron each diamond onto the felt you want. Follow the instructions that come with the stabilizer.

Once all of the diamonds are ironed on, cut out leaving about 1/4" edge all around the stabilizer.

Pin your diamonds with felt side down onto the back of your sweatshirt. Make sure measure what the middle of the back is. Pin first one just above the waist part. Follow up, point to point all the way up the hood. If there is a middle seam in the hood, the middle of the diamond should line up with it.

Pinning over the hood can be a bit tricky...just breath, be patient, and do the best you can.

To attach the scales, start at the diamond by the waist. Sew up the middle of each scale. Again, sewing on the hood is tricky. Go slowly. Again breath and be patient. I did have to rip out stitches on the blue hoodie once because I was trying to speed demon my way through.

Once the scales are sewn on. Fold in half so that you sandwich the stabilizer in. Pin together. Then with coordinating thread sew each scale closed. Starting at one bottom point going over the top of the triangle and stopping at the other bottom point. Repeat with all the scales.

Now you can stop here...but I just couldn't. I had to add some umph.

First I googled dinosaur silhouettes. I picked out a simple one. One that I wouldn't pull out my hair cutting out or sewing on.

This guy was the winner.

For the olive hoodie I used this orange felt. The glory of using felt is that you don't have to finish the edges. You can simply cut out the shape and sew it right on. No applique type techniques needed.

Then you can easy peasy add some rocker embellishment to the pocket with some coordinating embroidery floss. I simply just looped several times around the edge of one spot on each pocket with a needle. The beauty is that it can look a little messy. I mean they are supposed to be rocker dinosaurs, right?

So the blue hoodie was a little more difficult. I chose to use regular fabric for that dinosaur cut out. Which meant I had to either blanket stitch it on or satin stitch. The bad news is that I am not great at either...but because I was going for a rocker look, I knew I could purposely have it be a little rough around the edges...quite literally.

Now the hoodie or hoodies are all done.

I loved both of mine immediately. Not sure Littlest did. In fact during the photo shoot he was a little grumpy about the blue one.

So then I put on the olive one.

Happy it seems in his cousins hoodie-a-saurus.

So it only seemed...

I soon had a photo session catastrophe on my hands. If the hoodies weren't his, he didn't want them on.

So I took my prized handmade Christmas present off him before he could shed tears and probably snot on them.

Now they just need to be lovingly packaged and wrapped up for our dino-loving nephews. I can't wait till they try them on.

Do you have any dinosaur fanatics in your life? I am pretty sure they would love to have one of these! I am told my 19 year-old sister would even like one...hahaha...maybe someday K.

Linking here:
Made By You Monday: Skip to My Lou
Making Monday Marvelous: C.R.A.F.T.
Craft-O-Maniac Mondays: Craft-O-Maniac
We Did it Wednesday: Sew Much Ado
Show and Tell Wednesday: Blue Cricket Design