No more baking...almost

Wow, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. And what have I been doing? Baking, making candy and packaging all the peanut brittle Gary has made. I think this is a record year for him. He and Debbie (from the store) gave out almost 100 bags to their customers. If you have ever made peanut brittle...especially a lot of peanut brittle...you know what a mess it can be when you break it apart. Well, all is done now and there is no more sticky residue on my kitchen floor. I made about 250 truffles, lots of buckeyes, vanilla cremes (that's new for me this year), and toffee crunch candy bars. I used snowflake stamps to decorate the cookie boxes, the candy wrappers, and tissue paper for the peanut brittle. (No, I did not stamp 100 pieces of tissue paper for Gary...just a few for some friends). I also stamped snowflakes on white cardstock and made pillow boxes with the Big Shot.
Here's what a few of them looked like.
Inside the pillow boxes were lip gloss and a mini candy bar. I made about 60 of these for my sister Becky. Almost all of them were on cardstock that I had stamped on. Just a few were made from designer papers. The pillow box die is a really great tool to make great favor boxes.








So what did I do today, now that most of the baking is done and the kitchen is finally clean? I helped Bree make her Christmas gift for her papa.
We took a giant pinecone, smeared it with peanut butter, and then covered it with bird seed. If you see smudges on her face, that's where she sampled the peanut butter. She did a great job and we had lots of fun. A couple of hours later we put it in a gift bag and hid it behind the tree. I explained that she was to keep this a secret until Christmas. Yeah, right! When he walked in the door, the first thing she said was I made you a present. She started rambling about birds and feeding them all the while I'm laughing telling her she isn't supposed to tell. But then that's what happens when you're three.
So, now we're a few hours away from Christmas Eve, and then everyone is here Christmas afternoon. We have one day to catch our breath and then on Saturday it's to the hospital where Bree's new baby brother will make his grand appearance. So the next pictures you see will undoubtedly be of Ty Harrison Hall.