Oreo Truffles and Hot Cocoa Gift Tutorial

December is a busy month, so we're going to kill two birds with one stone by making a hot cocoa gift set and some Oreo Truffles to present it with. Plus, you get to eat the leftover Truffles!



Before I get started, I want to say that you can easily get a hot cocoa gift set like this at stores like Target and Walmart for a few dollars, but if you have some old bottles and some hot cocoa laying around, why not just use what you already have?

We'll start with the Oreo Truffles. These are cheap, easy and don't require any baking! Plus they're absolutely delicious.

Materials:
8 oz of cream cheese
1 package of Oreo cookies (off brand will do just as well)
Ivory bark (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)
Sprinkles, powdered sugar, colored sugar, or whatever you want to add
Finely ground nuts (optional)
Food processor (or a hammer and a LOT of time and patience)


First, put the Oreos into your food processor and finely grind them.


Then, toss them into your mixer (or you can hand mix, but it takes a while) with your cream cheese and (if you wanted them) nuts. I did opt to put the nuts in, but they taste great without the nuts, too. Soft cream cheese works better than the block stuff, but either will do.




Mix until well blended. You want your mixture to be moist.



Start rolling the mixture into 1 inch balls and set them aside. I use a cookie sheet with a piece of wax paper over it.



Once you have your balls made, melt your bark (or semi sweet chocolate chips) according to the package instructions. I cannot stress this enough. Follow the directions exactly or you risk burning your bark (or chocolate) and making it useless.

Drop your oreo balls into the melted bark (chocolate) and get them pretty well covered. I usually drop them in and then use a spoon to spoon the melted goodness over them. The spoon will also come in handy for removing the truffle from the bowl.




Set the truffle back onto your baking sheet (or whatever you're using) and decorate with sprinkles or nuts or colored sugar or whatever and, once you have them all done, place them into the fridge until the coating is completely hard. I usually go for 2 hours (if I'm feeling impatient) to over night, but I definitely recommend a minimum of 4 hours.

I don't recommend using food coloring in the bark. It didn't work out very well for me.



While those are setting, let's work on our cocoa.

Materials:
Hot cocoa
Bottles (I used 3)
Decorative yarn or ribbon
A small bell
Corks
A little bag
Small marshmallows (I used snowmen shaped marshallows)



I don't know that it gets much easier than this:

Before beginning, make sure to wash your bottles. Make sure, then, that the bottles are completely dry inside. I suggest doing this several days in advance.

Pour the cocoa into the bottles, stick the cork into the bottle.

Once that's done, tie a bow around the bottle neck (and don't forget to attach your bell!).

Put the marshmallows in the pretty little treat bag and viola!




I used three different types of cocoa, so I intend to add a gift tag with the type of cocoa in each bottle and how much to use for a cup of hot cocoa.

Line a decorative tin with wax paper (or just use another treat bag, however you want to do it) and line up the truffles. My tin was deep enough to do two layers of truffles.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece Tutorial

We're making a simple Thanksgiving centerpiece that doesn't require a whole lot of crafting ability (hey, some have it and some don't). You can click on the pictures to enlarge them if you need to.

Here is our finished product.











Materials:
Funkin (or a pie pumpkin)
Basic tools (but a razor blade and small pin will do just fine)
Leaf mold
Glass candle jar things
Glaze (optional)
Liquid sculpey (optional)
Polymer clay in the colors of your choice (I used red, yellow, brown and orange)
A paintbrush (optional)
Sticks
Fake grass or moss
Glue
Styrofoam (I know there's a ball pictured here, but I ended up using a piece of a block because it was easier to cut into the shape I needed)
Baby powder (or corn starch)









First, cut a hole in the top of your Funkin (if you're using a real pumpkin, scoop out the insides, too). Then, cut the styrofoam to fit inside your pumpkin.


Next, start sticking sticks into the styrofoam (you can opt to glue the grass into the styrofoam first. I suggest doing this, although I didn't do it myself).


Continue until you are satisfied with the number of sticks in your pumpkin.


If you did not put the grass on first, this is the time to do it. Since I decided to go about it the difficult way, I used a small paintbrush to get glue onto the styrofoam and then used the back of the paintbrush to press the grass in place. Do this until you are satisfied with the amount of grass (at least until the styrofoam is covered).


Set this piece aside and get the leaf mold. Dust the mold with baby powder (or corn starch) to prevent the clay from sticking. Gently blow or shake off excess powder. Press a ball of conditioned clay into the mold of your choice.


Carefully use a razorblade of knife (or whatever you want to use, really. I do not suggest chewing the excess clay off with your teeth, though) to remove the excess clay on top.


Use the excess clay to get the leaf out of the mold by touching the excess clay to the clay in the mold. The leaf should come out easily if the mold was powdered well. Brush excess powder off of the leaves.

Do this for as many leaves as you would like. I used small leaves from the mold for the pumpkin and larger leaves for the glasses. I chose to do 6 small brown, 4 small red, 4 small orange, and 4 small yellow for the pumpkin. I chose a medium sized leaf from the mold and made two of each color for the smaller glasses. I used the maple leaf from the mold for the larger glass and made one leaf of each color. You can mix and match and do whatever is best for you. Expirement a little, you can come up with some really awesome stuff.

Use a needle to poke a hole in each of the small leaves. Make sure the hole is big enough to pass thread through, but not so big that it is immediately obvious.


Bake the small leaves according to the directions on the clay. DO NOT BAKE THE BIGGER LEAVES FOR THE CANDLE GLASSES YET. Each brand is slightly different, so please follow the directions to prevent burning and other badness. I use a toaster oven for small things like this. You can put a little tent of tin foil over the leaves to keep them from scorching (I especially recommend this if you are using a toaster oven).

Now, while those small leaves are baking, grab your glasses and begin to arrange your larger leaves on them. The clay should stick right to the glass. If you are having problems with it, you can use a little liquid sculpey or clear drying glue to hold the leaves on.


Once you have the leaves arranged how you want them, put the entire glass (or all of the glasses) into the oven and bake according to the instructions on the clay. Again, if you are using a toaster oven, I suggest the tin foil tent. Your little leaves should be baked by now, so if they are cool, move on to the next step.

While that's baking, take your small leaves and use thin thread or fishing line to .. uhh .. make something loopy that you can hang? Here, look at the picture.


Arrange these on your branches however you would like. (See the picture up top for the finished product.)

Once your glasses are done baking, leave them alone. Let them cool in the oven. You don't want to touch hot glass. It hurts. Once they're cool enough to handle (or totally cool), you can take them out and stick some candles in them.

Tada, all done!

Christmas Tree Craft Tutorial

Just a quick and simple project.

Supplies:

Elmer's school glue
Very small terra cotta pot
Pine cone
Paint (whatever colors you want for your tree and pot)
Glitter, beads, sequins, whatever you want to decorate your tree with
Toothpick
Paintbrush


First, paint your little pot whatever color you would like it to be. I went with red.












Next, paint your pine cone whatever color you would like your tree to be. I chose green.












Use the toothpick to add small dots of glue to the pine cone and then apply your "decorations."












Finally, put your "tree" onto the painted pot. It couldn't be easier!












I also made one to sit next to my haunted birdhouses for Halloween.

Corpse Bride Influenced Cake

Miniature Cakes

Minature Foods from Clay and Earrings

These will end up as earrings once they're done.