Delicious Jødekager/Jewish Cookies

I made these delicious cookies this morning. They're pretty easy to make. The recipe says to roll them out and use a glass to cut them. I didn't have a roller and my dough was pretty sticky (not sure if that's normal?) so I ended up rolling pieces in my hands and flattening them out on the parchment paper. That worked really good for me. It also says to use almonds in the garnish but I didn't have any so I just didn't use them. I didn't have a brush to put the egg on with either but I managed using a small spoon.

The recipe is in grams and I don't have a scale but I think these measurements translate to about:

10 tablespoons butter

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

It may not be exact but this is what I used. My butter said 4 ounces and it was 8 tablespoons so I cut what looked like 2 more teaspoons from another stick. If you have a scale definitely use it!

I ended up with about 22 cookies, theirs says 50. I got so few because mine were quite a bit bigger I guess.

This is the original. Click it to go to their site and see all the directions!

Cookie dough

150 g (5.5 oz) butter

250 g (9 oz) all-purpose flour

100 g (3.5 oz) sugar

1 egg

Garnish

1 egg

50 g (2 oz) almonds, chopped

3 tbsp sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

I found this recipe through Pinterest. They're really tasty and soo easy to make! I guess the recipe was from Martha Stewart  originally but this lady changed it a little. When I went to see how Martha did it I realized the recipe was double the amount of the recipe I had found, so when I made mine I doubled it. She also says to use unsalted butter but I used salted butter and they're fine. Her reasoning is that peanut butter has salt already but I don't think it matters if you don't have unsalted, like me. :) Here's a link to her post.

This is what I ended up doing.

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

4 tablespoons room temperature salted butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

I didn't measure the white sugar I rolled them in. I just put some in the bowl I mixed the flour and baking powder in and added more when needed. I mixed everything by hand with a fork. Other than that I followed her directions. The 2nd batch I rolled them a little to big so they took longer to cook but I just set a timer for 10 minutes and checked them and put more time if I thought they needed it.

This is 2 batches worth. There are about 12 cookies in each container. I tried dipping a few in chocolate but they were still cooling when I took this so imagine there's another container or 2 and that's about the amount it makes. The first batch I counted and it was 36 total.

I'm not much of a baker but if you have any problems feel free to comment here or on the Facebook page and I'll do my best to help you! :) 

Red & White Glitter Christmas Nails

I did these nails for Christmas in 2013. They came out a little weird but if the tips were done correctly I think it would look great which is why I'm posting this. Plus from a distance it didn't look to terrible. :P I'm quite a bit better at nail painting now.

Toes came out a little better

So here is what I used. I'm not sure what I used for a base and top coat but anything will do.

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - White On

e.l.f. - Smokin Hot

e.l.f - Dream Maker

Red & Gold Christmas Nails

My holiday toes! They really remind me of shiny Christmas wrapping paper. :)

Sinful Colors - Sugar Sugar

Sally Hansen Xtreme wear - Golden-I

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat

Green & White Christmas Tree Nails

My holiday nails! :) 

O.P.I - Amazon...Amazoff

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. There's no sticker on my bottle but its green and white glitter in many different sizes with clear polish.

L.A. Colors Art Deco - White

And I forgot to include it in the picture but I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

DIY Tulle Christmas Wreath

Here were my supplies. We got the biggest round foam ring they had, they had some that were squared off. I already had this tulle at home so in place of pine needles that's what I used. I like it in the rolls personally for what I was doing here. I really recommend a larger rotary mat but I love my rotary cutter. Below you can see I cut myself with it. They are VERY sharp!! I barely tapped myself with it. After I did that I switched to the scissors...I think a larger mat would have prevented that but either way you have to be careful with those things. They're really better if you're cutting a big layered piece of tulle, or other fabrics. In rolls this size you can get away with a big pair of scissors.

I wish I had taken pictures before I added the little extra things like the presents and snow flakes because it looked a lot less cluttery. I later thought some people might prefer the less cluttery look but if you just Google "tulle wreath" you can see what I'm talking about. You can get a fuller look by moving the tulle ends to face toward you. I did that but stuffed some behind the snowflakes since it covered them. My pattern was: 

1 red ribbon

2 dark green

1 glitter green

2 dark green

1 red ribbon

2 light green 

1 gold

1 white

1 glitter white

1 white

1 gold

2 light green 

1 red ribbon

Then repeat the pattern with 2 dark green, 1 glitter green, and so on. If this is to confusing feel free to comment and I'll do my best to explain it!!

With and without flash

Adding the extra things (not sure what to call them lol), I just slid them through the tulle. For the snowflake I stabbed it through the foam and bent it against it where it came out the bottom. You can probably do that with any of them but that's just how I did it. 

I used maybe 18-22 inch pieces? I didn't really measure but it was longer than my mat which only goes to 16. It doesn't matter what length you use but you have to make sure they're not to short. I cut a few pieces starting with 16 inches and it was so short. I could hardly tie it. The way I attached them was folding it in half so there's a loop. Then I placed it over the foam and grabbed the 2 loose ends and pulled them through the loop. I tied it just like you would start your shoes. I did it twice because I found that the nob it made just wasn't big enough and they kept coming off.

Here are some pictures taken afterwards to try and explain it better. Keep in mind 1 end of this tulle is still attached to the roll cause I didn't want to cut it off just to take pictures. I used 3 rolls together here hoping to get better pictures. You could also do that on your wreath to get a different look.

Folded in half

Made a loop

Flipped over (so you can see what I'm doing lol)

Hand through the loop, grabbing the loose ends. While making a wreath you'll probably just use your fingers.

Grabbing them and starting to pull them through

Here is where you would tighten it against the foam ring and tie it. You would have 2 ends coming out rather than 1 since your tulle would be in strips unlike how mine is in these pictures. :)

Please comment and let me know if anything was confusing and I'll try to explain it better! :) And I'd always love to see photos of crafts you do inspired by my posts, or just your crafts in general. You can post pictures on my Facebook page.

 Happy Holidays! 

Christmas DIY Cabinet Decorations with Bows

I saw this idea on Facebook. I think the bows they used were the glitter ones you can buy in the store, but I made my own. They put theirs in the center of the ribbons. I've heard people saying they would attach their Christmas cards to ribbons like this. I also thought about putting another strip of ribbon going horizontal like presents so there's really a lot of variety with this.
We went and got this ribbon at Jo-Ann's. They had a tooon of Christmas stuff for 50% off! I don't know if it was just our store or if all their stores are doing that. Since so much stuff was 50% off we got stuff to make a wreath to! See the post here.

I taped these on the inside of the cabinets at the top and bottom. Just make sure it's centered or how you want it and that's it! :)

These are the tulle bows I made. They're super easy to make. As you can see I haven't finished yet but it'll look great when I do!

Instructions below these pictures.

This one is pretty big compared to the others. I made a white bow and wrapped glittery gold tulle around it.

I hope you can see whats going on in these pictures. Tulle is so hard to photograph!

Start with 1 piece like this

Fold it over.

Then the opposite way

Keep repeating til you have 5 "loops"

For my bows I make it so there's 3 "loop" like things on each side. A total of 6

As it's sitting in the above picture, that's 1 to many folds. You need to be able to take the end of the tulle and hide it inside the bow to make the last "loop" So below I'm trying to show how to do that. You would follow these steps after you make the 5th loop

Lifting it up

Folded underneath to make a Z like shape, creating the 6th loop

You can see the line in the middle where the tulle is underneath. It would be cut at this point.

Take the top where my thumb is and fold it down away from you.

Fold it again this time towards you. Then repeat.

You should end up with folds like an accordion or a fan.

These pictures are of the back and front side of the bow. I always make sure the first fold and the last fold face away from me so it looks rounded and neat in the front. You can compare these 2 pictures. The one on the left is the back the one on the right is the front.

After I do this I cut more tulle to whatever length I want the lower strands to be. 1 piece will be 2 strands hanging from the bow so make sure you cut enough for that. Then wrap them around the center a few times and tie them twice in the back. Getting it to look right might take some adjusting. You can cut another strand to go over the first so that there's 4 hanging down, or even more than that if you like. This can help it look better if the first time you wrapped it around it ended up looking weird.

Please let me know if anything was confusing and I'll try to explain it and fix my post! :) 

 Happy Holidays!