Monday, November 24, 2014

American Girl Doll Clothes - A Homemade Christmas

If you've been reading my latest posts, you'll know that this year for Christmas my kids are making gifts for each other. My youngest two girls are hoping for American Girl-type dolls for Christmas. So my oldest daughter and I made them a couple outfits. I think they turned out darling!

American Girl Doll Clothes

My oldest made the outfit below. She's does a great job at sewing. I was there helping her read the pattern, because according to her "it wasn't in English". There is a certain learning curve to understanding patterns - in fact it's taken me years :)

American Girl Doll Clothes

Although she's good at sewing, she doesn't enjoy it for very long. So I helped her out with the other outfit. The shirt was more complex - so I'm glad I had her start with the easier one.

18" Doll Clothes

We used Simplicity Pattern 3936 and made options E & F.
Thanks to my sister for lending us the pattern!

Simplicity Pattern 3936

 This was a really inexpensive gift. We used my husbands old jeans for the pants. I had the elastic and the fabric for both of the shirts already. So we just had to buy a small amount of white fleece, red knit fabric and some velcro. 

American Girl Doll Clothes

Check out the other handmade items my kids and I have made for Christmas this year:

Farmhouse Doll Bed for American Girl Doll

Easy Painted Canvas Bags

Christmas Jelly Neighbor Gift


Monday, November 17, 2014

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats are one of my favorite recipes. These little peanut butter bites are made with Special K cereal and perfectly ooey gooey peanut butter.

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats Recipe
I got this recipe from my sister-in-law. They are very similar to O'Henry Bars. I rarely make them because I can.... not.... stop.... eating them when they are around.

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats


I made a batch to stick in the kids lunches. I bagged them and stuck them in the freezer {after we ate a bunch, of course} and then in the morning I just had to grab a few and throw them in their lunch boxes. By lunch time they were thawed and ready to eat.

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats Recipe
I was hoping that if they were out of sight in the freezer it would prevent me from eating as many. That didn't quite work out - I really need to work on my self control:)




Enjoy!

More Peanut Butter Desserts








Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats

Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats

Yield: 24
Author:
prep time: 20 Mcook time: total time: 20 M
These peanut butter treats are made with Special K cereal and an ooey gooey peanut butter mixture. Oh. So. Good.

ingredients:

  • 2 c. sugar
  • 2 c. corn syrup
  • 2 c. peanut butter
  • Special K Cereal (use all but 2 cups of a large box)

instructions:

How to cook Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter Treats

  1. In a pot, combine sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil.
  2. Remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter until smooth.
  3. Pour over a cereal and mix well.
  4. Drop spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet.

NOTES:

I always start with less cereal and add more until it's coated how I like it. I like lots of ooey gooey coating, so I don't use the whole box.
Calories
277.27
Fat (grams)
10.69
Sat. Fat (grams)
2.04
Carbs (grams)
44.99
Fiber (grams)
1.24
Net carbs
43.75
Sugar (grams)
40.42
Protein (grams)
4.93
Sodium (milligrams)
128.63
Cholesterol (grams)
0.00
Nutritional information is automatically generated and is not guaranteed to be correct.
peanut butter treats, no bake peanut butter dessert, ooey gooey peanut butter treats
Desserts
American
Created using The Recipes Generator

Thursday, November 13, 2014

DIY Farmhouse Doll Bed for American Girl Dolls

Last weekend I helped my son build two doll beds for his little sisters. They are hoping to receive American Girl-type dolls for Christmas, so they will have lots of fun putting them to bed at night in these cute beds.
We got the plans for the Doll Farmhouse Bed from Ana White's website. If you like to build stuff, head over there for a HUGE list of free plans. I can spend hours browsing and dreaming up projects from her site.


DIY Farmhouse Doll Bed for American Girl Dolls

My son and I had a good time working together. Since he's ten, I cut out the wood. I'm not quite ready to let him use a power saw. But he was stoked to use a few other power tools, like the orbital sander, nail gun and even the drill. All with supervision of course.

DIY Farmhouse Doll Bed for American Girl Dolls


 He helped sand all the pieces and then we assembled the beds together. We used a nail gun in place of the screws for some areas of the bed, but for the most part we followed the instructions.

DIY Farmhouse Doll Bed for American Girl Dolls


I was originally going to have him paint the beds, but he didn't want to. I'll probably spray them with a coat of lacquer to help protect the wood.

These were really inexpensive to make. I already had some 1X3's, the backer board, and the screws, so I only had to buy a 2X2 and a couple 1X2's.  But even if you have to buy all the supplies you will spend only a fraction of the cost it would take to buy one.

Now I need to make some little quilts for the beds. I'm going to make them similar to the striped quilts I made for the girls.

A couple other handmade gifts we've done this year:

Christmas Jelly - Neighbor Gifts

Painted Canvas Bags




Monday, November 10, 2014

Christmas Jelly - Neighbor Gifts

I'm breaking tradition this year at our house. Every year in the past, I've made a cookies and candies to give to our neighbors, friends and our kids church teachers. The list of people on the the treat list keeps growing and growing. I love baking - but not necessarily in huge quantities.

This year our raspberry plants would not stop producing. I froze raspberries, I made jam and syrup and fruit leather with them. Then it came to me - I could use up some of the surplus of raspberries we had and at the same time eliminate some of the stress I would surely feel in December. How would I do this? By making jam and jelly for our neighbors ahead of time, instead of the plate of goodies that I end up making the week right before Christmas. Another plus - I won't have as many treats around tempting me.



Christmas Jelly - Neighbor Gifts


I ended up making both grape jelly and raspberry jam.  I just followed the directions on the package of pectin, but if you'd like more of a step by step then click the links above. Want to make jelly, but don't have grapes to juice - you can just buy 100% grape juice from the store!

Today, I'm going to show you how I packaged them. Super simple, yet it ended up so cute!

I only have pictures of the grape jelly. But I did the same thing with the raspberry jam, I just used different paper. 

Christmas Jelly - Neighbor Gifts
1 - Gather up your supplies - you will need a few sheets of coordinating scrapbook paper, glue stick and twine.
2 - Trace around the canning ring onto the paper.
3 - Cut just inside of the pencil line and place it in the ring and screw onto the jar.
4 - Cut out tags - I used my silhouette, but you could use a tag punch or even cut them out by hand.
5 - Glue the smaller tag on top of the larger tag and hole punch.
6 - Attach the tag with a piece of twine.


Christmas Jelly - Neighbor Gifts

It does take time to make jam or jelly. However, to me it's worth spending a little more time now to be a little less busy in December.