peppermint pretzels.

I'm trying to be on top of things this year. I got my cards made (and half sent), I made gingersnaps yesterday (let's not talk about how I tried to make some on Sunday and mistook nutmeg for cloves), and today I made the peppermint pretzels you see above! It's tiny twists dipped in white chocolate and then into crushed candy canes. Super easy. Super fun. Pretty delicious. (I'm not big on candy canes, but the pretzels are a nice way to cut down on the sweetness.)

I tried using a double boiler to melt the white chocolate, but honestly, it didn't work great. I got about half of my pretzels dipped and wasted about half the chocolate as it hardened in the pan (despite the boiling water underneath it). What worked better was just putting about a half-cup of white chocolate chips into a ramekin and sticking that in the microwave for about a minute and a half. Seriously. I wasted almost no chocolate with the microwave method. It might be the type of chocolate I'm using (Ghirardelli), but I would suggest microwave on this one. Plus, then you can make these with a kid (or a clumsy adult like me) and no boiling water!

Mmm.

christmas card design - 2011.

I'm having a little bit of trouble adjusting to Blogger's new interface, but one of the things I find really fascinating is all the Google Analytics information that they've started tracking for blogs. For instance, in the past week, the post I wrote last year with a christmas card inspiration gallery from flickr, has gotten 99 views. Helps explain why the gallery itself has over 900 views.

This year, my inspiration came from an advertisement that I got from Paper Zone. I realized I hadn't ever made a wreath card, and I was planning on using green card stock this year (not blue, because I always make blue winter holiday cards). I've sent a little over half of my cards (was trying to wait until I sent all of them before posting about them, but I just can't wait anymore!), and have a couple more to make.

Here's what I came up with:


I made a guide (stencil?) with a 3x5 note card and then used that to position the holes on the card. I had purchased some biopsy punches a year and a half ago at Urban Craft Uprising and I managed to dull all 4 of them by punching 20 holes each in about 20 cards. Add a little craft ribbon, and presto, you've got yourself a wreath!

I do love making cards with cutouts, will have to think about other things I can do, especially now that I've gotten myself this handy Martha Stewart "Screw" Punch.

And that's that! If you're interested in past years' card designs, you can take a look at: last year's penguins and the retrospective from 2004-2009. Looking through those, I think I probably need to go at least another year not using blue card stock, but we'll see. Maybe I should branch out and use red or something.