Thanksgiving Teacher Gift: Hand Pies

This year at the Little Men's school I am in charge of teacher appreciation. If you follow me on Instagram (and I totally think that you should...hehehe...@larissa_anotherday), then you have already seen a sneak peak of these little thankful pies.

I made simple hand pies with premade pie crusts and canned pie filling. So easy. I cut circles out using the top of a glass. Filled each pastry with one tablespoon of pie filling. Then I topped each pie with another circle of pie crust and sealed it with the tongs of a fork. Bake. Cool.

Then I packaged them all up.

I used really simple supplies, all which I bought from The Mart.

I flattened a cupcake liner and used it to lay the pie on. Then I put the pie into a paper CD envelope.

I used a paper doily and a small flattened truffle paper liner for the tags.

I hand wrote a little message in a gold Sharpie...my new favorite thing.

I used a plain clothespin to attach the tag. Then I just repeated a bunch of times...enough for all our teachers.

I am grateful for good teachers. I kind of geek out over thinking of ways to thank our teachers. I had a lot of fun with these little Thanksgiving pies.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Brownie Point Teacher Valentine

I had so, SO much fun making these valentine's for the boys' teachers.
 
I pinned an idea for using a brownie box mix and a "Shooting for Brownie Points" tag from Lauren McKinsey Designs onto my Valentine pinboard.

I really like her tags and the idea was insanely cute.

While I loved her idea, I really wanted to make brownies and I wanted to package them differently.

I designed a label in PicMonkey, my online photo editing best friend. They have some fantastic Valentine's overlays, like that arrow. SO cute!

I had these white lunch bags and I remembered reading somewhere (probably on pinterest) that you could print on lunch bags.

So through some trial and error I figured out how to print my newly made Valentine label onto a white lunch bag.

I kind of love it a lot. I will probably be doing this super neato trick again.

In order to make it more of a treat bag instead of a lunch bag, I cut off the bottom and then stitched it closed with a decorative zig zag stitch.

Then came the brownies....

Oh the delightful brownies.

This is my new favorite recipe and if you keep reading, you just might find the recipe at the end.

The brownies are dense and truffle-like.  They are rich. They are glorious.

I tripled the recipe and decided cutting out heart-shaped brownies would be perfect.

Look at all those delicious and cute brownies.

I packed them up first in cellophane bags and some washi tape.

Then I slipped them in the paper treat bags. I folded over the top and, again, used washi tape.

Now they are all ready for Thursday. Hopefully they will earn my Little Men plenty of brownie points.

Did you use Pinterest this Valentine's day? As always, Pinterest is full of ideas. I would love for you to follow along and join me in my Pinterest adventures!

And now, I think I promised you a brownie recipe!

Truffle Brownies

Printable Recipe

1 2/3 cups 63% dark chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3 Tablespoons water
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 325. Line an 8x8 pan with foil, with enough excess to allow you to pull the brownies out by the foil when they are done.

Heat chocolate, butter and water in a microwave-safe bowl for one minute. Stir well. Continue to melt at 30 second intervals, stirring each time until melted and almost completely smooth.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Next beat in the eggs one at a time. The batter will be smooth and glossy. Next stir in the flour until just combined.

Spread the batter into the foil-lined pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes until a slight crust forms on the top.The center when tested should still be slightly moist. Place the pan on a cooling rack and allow to cool for about an hour and then either refrigerate for 2-3 hours or freeze for an hour.

When they are set, remove from the pan by lifting out the foil. Then cut the brownies. If they are still too tacky to cut, put them back in the freezer for another 30 minutes.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk.