Hugs and Kisses

AK and I started on a Valentine's Day adventure this morning, and finally wrapped it up this evening with a little shopping in between. I had decided to make these cookies for her teachers this year. Now, keep in mind I am no baker. I can do brownies out of a box, but that is about as fancy as I get. However, in my quest to be crafty, I ran across this blog that was link from who knows where because I've read so many great blogs these days! Here is our journey...



Here are the ingredients. You can see I already got flour everywhere before I even started mixing and stirring. That was my first warning.



How could I forget this?



My little helper. Notice the flour on her forehead. Warning number two.



Mix and stir!



There was flour flying everywhere! Third warning.

And here is where we ran into trouble...



This is some seriously thick dough. I didn't know if it would ever come off of the beaters, but my handy spatula came to the rescue!

Here is the dough ready to be chilled for 2 hours.



After the dough chilled, I got ready to roll out the dough. Well, it was hard. The dough, that is. After I mashed on it for a while it softened up nicely. Instead of rolling (because I don't have a rolling pin...I told you I'm not a baker) I pressed out the dough. I used our cute little fondant cutters to make circles (hugs) and squares (kisses).



And here they are cooked.



Nice and golden brown on the bottom!

We added the finishing touches...



And here they are!



I plan to package them in these cute little boxes once the icing is dry. Hope they like them!



I forgot to say we had a wanna-be helper...here's Kramer :) He was waiting patiently for something yummy to fall to the ground.

Saturday Crafting Fun

Today AK and I decided to do a test run on her Valentine's Day craft for this year's Valentine's Day cards. We wanted to make crayon hearts. I found this adorable idea on the long thread blog, and decided to make necklaces out of them. Here's what we needed to get started.

The biggest struggle was peeling all of the crayons...whew...what a chore.

So I went online to find an easier way. Here's what we used. Thank you whoever created the box cutter. I love you.

The tutorial said to break the crayons into small pieces. I remember reading somewhere that you could shave the crayons for this type of project. We decided to experiment with both. I must say I am glad we didn't shave too many crayons because the broken crayons worked out much better!

Here's what it all looked like going into the oven...275 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

Meeeelllllttttiiiinnnnggggg....

Add straws during the cooling process.

The final results!

Now, all we have to do is go to the craft store and buy something to string each heart onto, and we'll be done with these! I wish they were a little thicker, but I think they turned out pretty cute. If I feel the urge to peel more crayons, I might try again and make them a bit thicker :)