Ribbon Place Cards

I have become a bit obsessed with vintage letterpress, and after scouring the internet for a set of block letters to use for stamping, came up with a cheap and fun idea for place cards.

I found an inexpensive rubber stamp kit at Michaels that I used a 50% off coupon during the black Friday sale for around $5. I also got a gold ink pad for about $4 and some white and gold ribbon for $0.50 a spool.

About half an hour before an annual Christmas dinner with some friends, I cut the ribbon into 12" pieces, and simply stamped their names onto one end, and tied them onto my vintage stemware. The stamp set I bought was the Typewriter font, and included both capitalized and lowercase letters. I chose to use the lowercase for my names since it looked a little more fun and festive. I love how they turned out, and the ribbon really dressed up the glasses too!

I also bought black ink that I can use on a darker color ribbon, like red for Valentine's Day, or a more elegant party or shower. Of course you could use the stamps on some colored paper for gift tags too.

I kept the dinner simple with red square paper plates from Target, and some bright green polka-dot napkins from the party store. Each guest got a brightly wrapped gift - check out the How-To tomorrow!

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

Mini Southern Pecan Pies

 

Since everyone starts thinking "healthy" as you stuff your face with food during the holidays, I decided to make a twist on a classic family recipe this Thanksgiving. I took my grandmother's delicious Southern Pecan Pie, and made it into bite sized versions, so that no one would feel guilty about trying just one. 

I took a pre-made pie crust (2 actually) and cut small circles in it using my stainless steel 1/2 cup measuring cup. It was about 2.5" in diameter, so you could use a Tupperware lid too... whatever you have that is close to this size. I just cut them out with a knife, and then pressed the dough circles into my mini-muffin pan. Then I made the recipe below, and simply spooned the contents into each mini crust. I baked them for the same amount of time as a regular pie, and they turned out just perfect! Try them with your favorite pie filling for a small but savory dessert!

Southern Pecan Pie

Ingredients:

1 cup Sugar

4 Eggs

1 1/4 cup Dark Corn Syrup

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 1/2 cup broken Pecan pieces (make them small for the mini pies)

1 9" pie crust (or 2- 9" pie crusts for minis)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a saucepan, boil the sugar and corn syrup together for 2-3 minutes. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, and make sure you don't make them too stiff. Slowly pour the hot syrup into the eggs, stirring as you pour. Stir in the butter, vanilla, and pecans. Spoon into the pie crust(s) and bake for 45 minutes.

Dazzling Mini Pumpkins

So I did not get to my pumpkin carving last night, but I did do a pumpkin project that is just as cute: Dazzling Mini Pumpkins!

This project can be super easy or super hard, depending on how intricate you want to get. It does take a little bit of time, but can be done by adults and kids of all ages. 

Start with mini pumpkins, or in this case, I used white marbled gourds sold in a pack of 3 for $2. I purchased self adhesive round rhinestones and elongated black beads at Joanns, as well as some superglue for this project. The round self adhesive rhinestones were easy to work with (no glue needed!), but I did find myself tired of peeling off the paper from such tiny things.  They easily made cute dots and letters. I made up the font of my letters, but yo could put in a little extra effort to find one you like online and try to replicate it.

The elongated black beads were much easier to work with to make the lined pumpkin, but needed to be glued on. I chose super glue so that they would stick and stay immediately. However, this is not recommended for children. My suggestion would be to use a craft glue and maybe bead the top half, wait for it to dry, and then flip it over and bead the bottom half.

You could certainly buy larger rhinestones and decorate a larger pumpkin too. I just love the little ones, and this great project is not only for Halloween, but can be left around the house through Fall!