This is a great craft to make, using the beauty of candy canes, a nice floral centerpiece. The red and white peppermint sticks go really well with the red roses in the video. What’s nice is that the centerpiece is reusable when one set of flowers withers. The best part, if course, is that the peppermint sticks are still wrapped and thus edible. That means even more candy cane goodness for all!
These chocolate egg holders make great place settings at the dinner table. Let kids design different holders for everyone at the table.
Directions:
- Print this page and use crayons or coloring pencils to color the egg holder below.
- Use safety scissors to carefully cut around the dotted edges.
- Secure egg holder around a chocolate Easter egg and attached with transparent tape or glue.
My wonderful coworker Erin, who is our resident baker and craft goddess, made this little gingerbread house covered in chocolate. When i told her it looked good enough to eat, she warned me that it was actually a few wooden birdhouses spackled with chocolate. I maintain that this is enough for it to be technically edible. I will just have to wait until everyone goes home before licking it and will hope to not get splinters in my tongue.
If you look closely, you will notice that it is not just covered in chocolate, but it also has truffles and small pieces of chocolate on the outside. I am enjoying getting to know Erin and seeing the creative things she comes up with. Most of them are edible and rarely stay in our kitchen for a long time because of that, but some, like this, are on the line of edibility. I think it’s worth a try. Our front office smells like rich chocolate and it’s almost too tempting to just walk by. We will see how long it lasts.
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Dec
NCA has put together some PDF files of candy-themed gift tags you can use. Simply print these on colored paper or else color in with crayons or markers – a great craft for kids! The one downside to this file is that there are no circus peanut images in there. I will have to fix that at some point…
Do you ever make your own gift tags? This can be a great way to add some creativity to gift giving!
A couple years ago, the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, widely known as the largest mall in America, took on the project of hosting the largest gingerbread house for the winter holidays. There it is in the picture, and as you can see, people are lining up to walk into. Yes, it was that big.
That’s pretty neat, right? Well, not so fast. Here’s the thing you may not have know about this giant gingerbread abode. Unlike the ones we make at home, this one had an internal metal frame. You can see the top of it, still under construction, in this photo.
Is that fair? Seems to me that this is a bit like cheating. What do you think?
Gingerbread House by jpellgen.
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Dec
As you can tell, Rosa’s gingerbread house is in a pretty good area of town. Her gingerpeople residents made snowpeople decorations for the front yard and keep the place well-decorated and looking very nice. Go check out more of her pictures. When I lived in Worcester, MA, I lived in a neighborhood that looked a bit like this, except less tasty to eat:
Have you made a gingerbread house? Leave a link in the comments. We want to see the photos!
Brenda Ponnay at Alpha Mom has some great ideas for how to deal with the gobs of candy that you are wading through in the after-Halloween madness. Me, I simply ate everything that was leftover so I wouldn’t have to deal with it, but I understand some of you prefer a more civilized approach.
One of Brenda’s ideas was to make something like an Advent calendar with small paper cups and tissue paper. Every day, her daughter can take one of the cups with candy in it. This is not just a great idea for how to not gorge oneself on that much candy, but also establishes a system and standard for portion control. Her daughter will not only get an appropriate portion of candy but will also develop a mental model of what that portion size might be.
Another idea she came up with is a harvest tree, which is is a plant with tissue-wrapped candy hanging off it. The candy then becomes not just a delicious treat but also a decoration. Her final idea was to make a turkey piñata. I like this idea a lot, partly because of the absurdity of piñatas in general. A giant creature you beat until candy comes out both frightens and delights me. I will have to reexamine my vegetarian sensibilities and maybe even get back in touch with my old boss Tom Reagan to figure out if having a turkey piñata puts me in a philosophical quandary.
In the meantime, be sure to check out Brenda’s blog post for some great ideas.
