Cranberry Snow - A Beautiful Holiday Treat!

CRANBERRY SNOW

A friend shared this with me several years ago 

when a group of us were swapping favorite holiday recipes.  

I wasn't too sure if I'd like it, 

but she swore it was amazing.  

She was right!

It was an instant hit with my family!!

It's like 'healthy' candy that you just pop into your mouth.  

One after the other.....

again and again and again!

It's better made the night before serving 

so it has time to air dry thoroughly.  

Ingredients:
1 regular size bag of fresh cranberries (2 lbs)

Sugar
1 egg white
Gallon size Ziploc bag

Directions:
Add one teaspoon of water to the egg white and beat by hand with a fork in a small bowl.

Put 1/2 of the cranberries in the Ziploc bag.  Add only half of the egg white mixture to the cranberries, zip shut and thoroughly coat the cranberries until they're all shiny.

Add 1 - 2 cups of sugar to the shiny cranberries, zip shut and gently toss them until as much sugar as possible sticks to the cranberries.

Spread out on a large waxed paper covered cookie sheet and allow to air dry completely (preferably overnight).

You're gonna love 'em, so go ahead and make the other half of the cranberries and the rest of your egg white mixture while you're at it!

This is an amazing addition to any holiday relish tray or great by itself!

I'd recommend only making as much as you think 

you'll consume in a 24-48 hour period.  

It's best at room temperature and the cranberries 

will get mushy if left out for more than a couple of days.  

That's usually not a problem for us cuz 

we scarf them down pretty quickly. 

Enjoy and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Relief Society Birthday Party Picnic - The Ants Go Marching...

Celebrating the 174th anniversary of the 

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' Relief Society organization

with a picnic themed birthday party!

Mason jar flower vases with a junque bow and a string of buttons

Teacups and Teapots Made of Paper

As seen in my Dream Tea Party, 

and White Elephant Gift Basket Exchange

we handcrafted teacups as one of our activities after lunch.

Cuz what's a party if you don't craft something??

I also included a handcrafted teacup and teapot as part of my gift basket.

Each of my 9 party guests and I chose a separate theme to create a beautiful basket full of goodies that we'd exchange in a white-elephant-rules type of game.  

I chose Tea Party, cuz hey, I was already totally in that mode.

I filled this basket with so many delightful goodies,

the teapot and teacup,

as well as several other paper handcrafted tea-themed items.

(I made an extra set for myself to keep cuz I loved them so much!)

Tea Party White Elephant Gift Basket Exchange

This is all about the delightfully fun and beautiful

 gift baskets that my guests and I created

for my dream Tea Party.

I think this is what first got us all so excited 

and so into the spirit of it.

Way ahead of time, each of us chose a separate theme to 

create a beautiful basket full of goodies that we'd exchange 

in a white-elephant-rules type of game.  

I chose Tea Party, cuz hey, I was already totally in that mode.

I filled my basket with lots of  'British' goodies!

The first rule was to keep it around $30, so I didn't want to spend much on a container.

I found this perfect hat box at Goodwill for only a few dollars!

Cake Plates Made From a Chandelier and a Lamp

Chandy Multi-level Cake Plate

Lamp Cake Plate

My Tea Party Dreams Have Come True!

I've planned a lot of parties,

but they are always for my kids, or on assignment for large groups.

This time it was just for my close friends and me!

I've been planning this party in my head for about 20 years,

so it goes without saying that I had a lot of fun with it!

GUESTS

Good friends who are also crafty and creative.

These gals wore Easter bonnets, which ROCKS!

Here's our whole group in our tiny felt Easter Parade hats

 that we made as one of our two crafts.

Favorite Chicken Salad on Croissants

A few friends have asked me lately for my chicken salad recipe. Since I never really had it written down, this has forced me to be more specific with what's in it. It changes based on what I have on hand, but these are basically the ingredients I use. 

Costco canned chicken

Canned pineapple tidbits

Chopped red onion

Mayo

Plus any other delish dressing you have (ranch, Asian, whatever)

Bottled cole slaw dressing is really really good too

Coursely chopped cashews

Thinly sliced celery

Halved grapes
Frozen peas

Salt and pepper

That's pretty much it. :)

                                   

As you can see, last time I made it I made a LOT!  My family (especially Maddie) loves chicken salad croissant sandwiches big time, so they (her) were very happy that I had extra to bring home. ;)

Winter Wonderland Tree Centerpieces - Coffee Filter, Burlap, and Linen

In my last post I showed you our Polar Express ward party.

These are the centerpieces that we used to decorate our dinner tables.

I've had so many questions about the tree centerpieces,

so here's the how-to's on making your own

VERY SIMPLE and inexpensive trees!

We had tried other kinds of trees too, 

but nothing seemed to work out for us except these three.

Once we were done, WE LOVED THEM!

Our three kinds of trees were

LINEN, COFFEE FILTERS, AND BURLAP

Polar Express Ward Christmas Party

It's almost Christmastime again 

Ahhhh, that most wonderful time of the year.

Girl's Red and Turquoise Cake Decorating Birthday Party

I love planning parties, but THIS one is my favorite so far!

My daughter Madison just turned 12

and since she's sort of obsessed with baking ANYWAY

what better way to incorporate her love of baking than to include her friends in a 

CAKE DECORATING THEMED BIRTHDAY PARTY?

In my head it started out as a cute idea on a small scale,

but in my true Cindy fashion, it escalated into so much more.

Even my husband thought it was cool, 

and he doesn't think very many things are cool.

Besides baking, we tied in a few other fun things too, 

like hipster mustaches, big lips, and bow ties,

polka dots (WHO DOESN'T LOVE POLKA DOTS?),

ruffled aprons,

and cupcake liners as decor!

Dollar Tree and Party City are so great for finding affordable place settings and decor.  

Everything you see is from either of those places, 

except the cupcake liners, which are from Michaels.

I made the gift bag name tags out of several layers of cupcake liners.  

Scrunch each layer a little smaller so that all the colors show, 

then staple them in the center to hold it all together.  

Hot glue a name sticker to the top to hide your staples.  

These are SUPER fun and easy to make!

More fun with cupcake liners!  

I made a big long banner of different sizes, 

plus I added coffee filters and small paper lace doilies.  

A lot of decor bang for your buck, super cute, super easy, and adorable!  

Great way to add some color to the party!

Here's a full view of the cupcake banner which is draped across the mirror.

The big surprises we had in store were personalized ruffled aprons and 

a freshly baked double layer cake boxed up for each girl.  

The cakes were plain and unfrosted, 

but the party is all about cake decorating, right?!

I almost can't even stand how cute these aprons are!

Party In A Jar - A Fun Project Book For Everyone!

We've had a blast celebrating the release of my friend Vanessa's new book......

I have two words:

MASON

JARS

I adooooore me some jars!!!

It's all in the packaging, baby, 

and this book is full of fun projects 

IN the jars and 

special packaging on the OUTSIDE of jars!

Annual Holiday Open House

It's only the very beginnings of October and
 I've ALREADY HAD MY HOLIDAY PARTY!
Now I can just enjoy the rest of the holidays and be totally relaxed, right?

Yeah, right.  ;)



Meet my beautiful vendors!
Carol from Thirty-One Bags
Jen makes her own jewelry
Meaghan from Tastefully Simple
Andrea from Scentsy, Grace Adele AND Velata
Bethany and Brittany from Jamberry

The party was great!
I had wonderful vendors who worked hard,
the food was delicious,
(much of which was from Tastefully Simple),
and the turnout of friends was even better than last year!
My house was buzzing with ladies having fun shopping, eating and visiting with one another.
I love when I see my friends make new friends with my other friends!!!


The table looks similar to last year, but believe me, the recipes were different.
Next year I may need a new tablecloth just to mix things up!  lol
You can find a few of the recipes from last year's blog post
and yeah, pretty much the rest was provided by Tastefully Simple!

Sooooo here's what happened........

Neck Tie Wreath and Banner - Pies and Ties Party

Today I am delighted to introduce you to my guest poster Katherine!  

I've known Katherine a long time.  I mean, a LONG time!  

We met and became instant friends when we both bought our first homes in the same darling Provo neighborhood, back in the early 90's.  

In the past few years we've rekindled our friendship via Facebook, and now we're GREAT friends via internet.

Recently we've discovered something new about each other.....we're both SUPER CRAFTY!  

I am in awe of Katherine's creativity and since she doesn't have a blog of her own YET, 

I begged her if I could share this amazing idea of hers here on my blog.  

I am honored that she said YES!  

So here you go!  

If you have an inkling to make Father's Day extra special, 

or if you have a missionary {like Katherine's son who just left for Finland}, you will certainly LOVE these ideas!

Start planning now so you can track down plenty of ties!

Christmas Cookie Exchange and Homemade Snickers Recipe

I love blogging for many reasons, 

but the one that was the most unexpected

 is all of the wonderful friends I've made through blogging!  

I mean, my thought process when I started a blog was, okay, I moved to a different state, 

I think I'll blog so I can keep in touch with my out-of-state family and friends.

It's turned into so much more!

It has enriched my life,

and I'm hopeful that it may have enriched someone else's too!

So one of the ways I was enriched by blogging this week was being invited to a 

fab Christmas cookie exchange by Laura of Pink Cake Plate!

I haven't been to a cookie exchange in YEARS!

I was really excited to go and it was super fun!

In fact, I was having so much fun that, as usual, I didn't take enough pictures!

You should have seen the treat table!

You'll just have to take my word for it....

it was loaded with goodies from all the gals

and everything was DEE-LISH!!!

Here's just part of what I came home with!

SodaStream by House Party {party and menu recap}

 Not too long ago Kim from A Night Owl Blog had invited me to her Keurig House Party.  

I was intrigued, so I went to check it out.

When she explained the way House Party works I was blown away.  

YOU MEAN THEY JUST GIVE YOU REALLY NICE FREE STUFF???

AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY OR SELL ANYTHING???

Word of mouth between friends and fellow bloggers is powerful stuff!

It's successful effective advertising!

And these companies are getting it for just their cost of their product.

It's super genius and I'm so excited that I was chosen to demo the SodaStream! 

{each product only has a limited number of applicants who are chosen to demo}

House Party is a liaison between top brand companies and folks like me 

who want to try products in-home for free and share them with my friends.

Basically, in a nutshell:

*I get AWESOME STUFF

*I organize a party in my home

*I get to share the product with my friends

*I don't sell ANYTHING!  

*I just hand out a coupon or rebate form and 

it's all up to my friends if they want it or not.  

I'm not the middleman and I benefit in no way if they order or not.......

I already got all my free goodies!

Once you go to House Party's website, you choose which products you'd like to demo.

Then you wait.

You'll get an email asking you to go to their page and tell why you should be chosen to demo that particular product.

That was easy.  

SodaStream is a fun way to make your own soda at home for less money and a whole lot less waste.

Boom!

I was chosen!

Once you're chosen you have to hurry and invite at least 10 friends 

on a particular date to your party.

When I say hurry, I mean like I had 30 minutes!

THAT'S the only pressure in this whole deal.  lol

Here's just some of what I got in my shipment!

I honestly couldn't believe how much was sent!

This is the SodaStream soda maker {there's a CO2 bottle hidden inside it}

and several bottles of flavors, plus 2 one-liter bottles.

Each of those small sized bottles makes 50 8-oz servings!

FIFTY!

At $5.00 retail for each bottle, that's only $.10 per serving!!

WooHoo!!

As the party drew near I put on my favorite apron from my bestie Janeal, 

and got my bake on so we'd have some goodies to go with our homemade soda!

Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Candy Cane Buttercream

from I {Heart} Naptime.

Yes, they are as good as they sound!

Pulverized candy canes are inside that cream!

Most labor intensive cookie I've ever made in my life though!  lol

Crumb Topped Cranberry Eggnog Muffins

Pinterest Party @ Clever Pink Pirate's

Hey y'all, what's up?

Who loves PINTEREST?  Awesome!  Me too!!!

Sara at Clever Pink Pirate had a super fun Pinterest Party at her home some time ago

(I am way backlogged on sharing the good stuff)

Sara plus Laura from Pink Cake Plate were SO PREPARED to make this an amazing get-together!

The swag was GREAT!  They are unbelievable!

Another luscious name tag!

Autumn Party Menu

I.  LOVE.  FOOD!

I love making it!

I love eating it!

I love sharing it!

Here is the menu of a party I recently had:

PUMPKIN LASAGNA

BROCCOLI SALAD

CHIPOTLE MEATBALLS

VEGGIE TRAY

PUMPKIN BREAD W/CHOCOLATE CHUNKS

S'MORES MINI CUPCAKES

GINGERBREAD MINI CUPCAKES

MARSHMALLOW POPS

CANDY CORN POPCORN

4 FLAVORS OF CANDY CORN!

AND BEST OF ALL,

4 FLAVORS OF VELATA CHOCOLATE FONDUE

PLUS LOTS OF GOODIES TO DIP INTO IT!

I wanted the food to scream AUTUMN IS HERE!!!, even though the temperatures are still in the 100's.

Jumping in the Clouds!

I LOOOOOOOVE my calling in the Young Women's program!

I work with amazing women!

We love our amazing girls!

We get to create amazing projects like THIS!

Modest is Hottest!

Dedicated to the loveliness of all girls and women

Via

Pennsylvania, Part 3, Kim's Surprise!

(broke this trip down into 3 separate posts because I couldn't get it to post in one.  no idea why.)...

Pennsylvania, Part 1, Philadelphia

Pennsylvania, Part 2, My sister and her family

KIM'S SURPRISE 60TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

You gotta know how cool my brother-in-law, Kim is.