Chocolate Pretzels and Fresh Limes

Chocolate Pretzels

Pretzel Rods (I found mine at Dollar Tree)
Almond bark or
Milk chocolate
Toppings: Score bar, Andes mints, other candy bars chopped into very small pieces, colored sugar, sprinkles etc

Melt the almond bark or chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave. Dip pretzels in and spread the chocolate up the pretzel with a spoon. Set on wax paper or tin foil. Sprinkle toppings over the chocolate (don't roll the pretzel in the toppings because the chocolate will drip off). You can also melt carmel and cover pretzels in it, allow it to harden and then dip it in chocolate. Make sure to SPRAY the tin foil with nonstick spray before you put the carmel ones on it!

Thanks to a recipe from Keiauni, we made these pretty fresh limes the other night at my Pampered Chef party and they were a hit! Just put ice and Sprite into clear cups, add some marachino cherry juice and squeeze limes into the drink. Add the limes and cherries. So pretty at Christmastime!

Cute Foam Balls

Today's tip is actually a project, but a very easy one. Simply take foam balls (found at craft stores, in the craft section of Wal-mart or at DI), cover them with Mod Podge and cover with scrapbooking paper. (The paper I used is from the company "My Mind's Eye").

Beware: when Kirsten was up on the counter helping me make these, she saw me wadding up the paper around them and took one and said, "Mom, are these garbage?!" In other words, the paper is supposed to be wadded up but don't let your kids/husband throw them away!

Welcome!

Welcome to my "other" blog! I wanted to create a new blog where I could share my ideas, ones that I find elsewhere and yours. If you have a great tip, trick or recipe feel free to share! This can include a household tips, projects, organization, recipes...anything. I hope this blog can be useful and fun!

The first project I want to share is in the picture above. I got the idea from a Pampered Chef winter cookbook. It is so easy and so cute! Truly it only has one ingredient:

Almond bark (found in the baking aisle by the chocolate chips)

If you want to make snowflakes, draw circles on parchment paper then draw an X across the circle. This will be your template for "drawing" your snowflake with the almond bark. Melt the bark in the microwave and then transfer it to a gallon size ziplock bag. Cut an extremely small hole in the corner of the bag. You may want to wait a minute until the bark thickens a little. You can then draw to your heart's content on parchment paper (I think tin foil would also work). When the bark thickens up all the way, put bag in a bowl and reheat in the microwave. Your shapes should harden within a few minutes and then you can peel them off.

When making a mitten or star, pipe the outline and then fill it in with squiggles making sure some of the squiggles touch the outline.

You can also add colored sugar or experiment with sprinkles, drages (little silver balls that look like BBs) or with coloring the almond bark.

(One cute way to use these would be to stand them up on top of a cake or stand one up on an individual piece of cake.)