Cookie Bowl Results

September 7th, 2007

Basically, I used Royal icing to ‘glue’ panels of cookie bars to a
cardboard hat box that was purchased at Hobby Lobby. Then I used
Betty Crocker icing to fill in the gaps. It might have been better
with chocolate decorators icing because it would have hardened.

Then, I baked 22 dozen cookies to fill it. Actually I baked 29 dozen, but they didn’t all fit in the bowl.

***If you want to know more than that, here is a detailed version.***

Here is a recipe for the cookie bar panels. I added 1/2 cup more flour to make sure they were stiff enough.

Anna’s Cookies (from Tina Jobe)

Ingredients
2 1/4 c All purpose flour
1 t Baking soda
1 t Baking powder
1 t Salt
1 1/4 sticks Butter
6 tablespoons Crisco can use the “trans-fat free” Crisco
3/4 c Sugar
3/4 c Brown sugar
1 t Vanilla
2 Eggs
2 c Semisweet chocolate morsels

Instructions
Cream butter, Crisco and sugars, add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, Add gradually to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Bake at 375° 10 to 12 minutes.

Bake them in a cookie sheet that has sides or a jelly roll pan. Bake until very well done. I think I used two batches to make 4 pans. I think this bowl had 6 panels. I cut each large pan into 2 smaller panels. The smaller panels were easier to manage than larger ones. I used wax paper as a pattern for seeing what size to cut the panels.

I recommend doing the following process slowly. After baking and cutting the panels (cut while warm) wait until the cookie panels are cool enough to shape around the hat box, but not so warm that they will slide down the icing. One panel did that and I couldn’t fix it. You smear Royal Icing on the hat box and then hold the panel on it until it sets. Do this for each piece.

After all the panels were set on the hat box, I let it dry out for 2 days. In those 2 days I made cookie dough into small balls, which I froze to bake on the day of the wedding. It was loosely covered in wax paper to keep it clean and still allow air in to dry it out.

On the day of the wedding, I set the cookie bowl on a tray big enough to hold it and added the decorator ruffles. You have to add the ruffle before you ice the final touches. After it was set in place (glued to t he tray with royal icing), I used 3-4 jars of Betty Crocker dark chocolate icing and piped it in all the spaces and all around the top.

Then, I put in the cookies that took many hours to bake. (I put a big white doily inside to make it look better for when the cookies became scarce.)

I hope I have not forgotten anything. I was learning how to do it as I went along using suggestions that I received from friends and family.

Thank you, MOMYS for all your help! Happy Baking!

Jody

My son’s drawing

February 6th, 2007

Elijah's shepherd drawing.On Tuesdays, my inlaws keep three of my kids so I can get some stuff done with the older kids. So, today, I took Elijah, Jeremiah and Londyn over to their house. I usually leave some schoolwork for them (well, for E & J who are 7 and 6) but today I was rushed and forgot it. But I happened to have my busy bag with me and it had their Awana books and one big (walmart type) math book that they could share. So I gave that to Memaw and Pepaw. This evening, after they got back home, Elijah (the 7 year old) brought a picture to me and said, “Look, mama.” I looked and then asked him who drew the picture he was showing me. He said, “I did.” I said, “did you trace it?” No, was his answer.  I asked if someone helped him. No, again. I asked if he had something to look at to know how to draw it and he said yes, it was from his Awana book. It is a picture of a shepherd. He did an awesome job! I was so proud of him. I scanned it into the computer so I could email it to the other grandparents and then thought it would be neat to share it here as well. 

 

Elijah's shepherd drawing

PS I can’t make it show up any bigger, does anyone know how I can do that? TIA!

How to make the Toothbrush Holder!

January 16th, 2007

Buy a regular bathroom hand towel, not to thin and not to thick, a good medium texture. Lay it flat and cut it right down the center:


This will allow you to make 2 holders! Then you want to fold over and pin the raw (cut edge). I pin it and then sew a straight stitch. You may want to serge it or even bias tape it for more durability.


The next step is to fold over the bottom, where the toothbrushes slide in. I fold it in the middle of the decorative embroidery section, move it around to however you like it most. Then you will want to measure for your toothbrushes. I start in the center and work my way out, but really it just needs to fit what you want.


It helps me to actually set up the toothbrushes then measure across the bottom, while marking, this particular one I measured 1.5 inches for each section except the toothpaste in the middle was about 2 inches. I would not suggest using the large tubes of toothpaste, this one is the smaller 3.5 oz, I think the larger ones may weigh it down to much. You dont have to add toothpaste at all, I just thought I would see how it turned out.

Once you get the bottom marked, mark the top as well to help guide you while you are sewing. Next you will go to the sewing machine and sew a straight stitch along all your measurments. Then you are done. I do like to reverse stitch the tops to make them a bit stronger as that is where the tugging will be as they are pulled out.

Lastly you will either want to attach metal circle snaps, or just sew a button hole in the top corners and hang it on the wall. And you are done! It takes about 20 min to sew one and the cost is practicaly nill, If you buy a hand towel for two bucks, your cost is 1.00 a holder!!

Happy toothbrush holder making!!

Curriculum Choices

January 11th, 2007

Bob Jones, Abeka, Switched on Schoolhouse, so many choices! What do you use, what do you like, what are you thinking about? 

The Saga Continues… Wednesday morning

December 6th, 2006

We are on Wednesday today — I am up at 6:30 with a cup of mocha — and all the children still asleep — and husband was off to work at 5 a.m. this morning :)   It is COLD here but our home is cozy with our trusty and faithful wood stove. 

I have packed for 35 hours so far and 800+ books are on the way to you MOMYS — there are 500 left to go — so we will see how many hours we can go today :) )

My helper, Ashley, (22y.o. dear friend / homeschool grad) has been a DEAR!  She has made 7 round trips to the PO in the last 2 days and will be back again today to go for me again as many times as we can go with a full minivan — until they close today.  Her mom has been my friend for over 20 years and called last night and said she was bringing our whole family a hot meal so I wouldn’ t have to fix supper between packing — so you never know!  — We might get all 500 out today LOL!! 

All of the children have been GREAT helpers — they are  becoming an expert as the system I have set up :)   What a blessing to have help!

You are goin’ to LOVE the cookbooks!  They are more than you are expecting — I PROMISE!

Saturday’s Cookbook update!

December 2nd, 2006

hpim3995.JPG  hpim3996.JPG

Here are your MOMY cookbooks ready to go to the PO - my living room getting fuller by the minute! 

 

hpim3994.JPG

Helpers are WONDERFUL!!! Now I know I am thankful for children!!

 

hpim3993.JPG

The full cases are coming off the trailer one by one

 

All of you MOMYS please pray for Michaele Hilton-  a MOMYS - as you think of her today — she has cancer — and the outlook is not good — I am praying for her as I pack boxes all day today. 

Snow Day!

December 1st, 2006

img_0532.JPG    img_0566.JPG    img_0512.JPG

What great fun with all the snow; we haven’t had a good snow like this for a long, long time!  It was a beautiful, peaceful, relaxing day.

img_0530.JPG

Let the packing begin!

December 1st, 2006

hpim3990.JPG

How do you like the bubble wrap roll?  biggest one I ever saw — the packing has begun!! I have fifty 110-yard rolls of tape — wonder how long that will last?  I want to have 100 packed tonite before I go to bed — won’t the PO worker be surprised when she gets to work tomorrow morning???? 

 hpim3988.JPG   hpim3987.JPG  hpim3989.JPG

 

Marmee- Friday Evening.  [Carri’s Note: Marmee has packed 3 full cartons into teeny little individual boxes!  Way to go Marmee!  Only 113.6 more to go!  At a rate of 20 minutes per box, you’ll only have 94.6 hours to go.  Ooops- that doesn’t sound too encouraging!! LOL]

They are here!!!

December 1st, 2006

The cookbooks are at Marmee’s… it’s a little dark to tell, but the truck was filled to the brim in theback, and the trailer about 8 feet high!!  Whahoo!!! 

 van-full.jpg

 Here is a picture of a book inside Marmee’s house… Isn’t it beautiful?!?!  I cannot wait to actually hold one in my hands.  :)

 book-on-box.jpg

Carri

 

Dec. 1- First Cookbook Blog!!!

December 1st, 2006

Today DEC 1 - is here!
The call came yesterday that indeed the cookbooks were packed on a FED EX truck headed my way!

No matter they are 10 days overdue (Late! from our promised date!) They are on the way!

My husband must go to the FED EX distribution center to retreive the shipment as it will be on a large 18 wheeler semi and we live on this tiny rural road with a curvy skinny 1 mile long driveway — so — it would be impossible for the truck to have a place to unload or even turn around - and my husband felt like we could not even dream of stopping the traffic on our road for however long it took to unload. So…

he was up at 4:30 a.m. and off to his 1 hour commute to work — He installs top of the line closet systems in million $$ homes (MOMYS - I tell you these closets in these houses are bigger than my entire HOUSE!) — he will have another long commute once he gets the 1 hour to pick up the supplies and company cube truck. He took my 16 y.o. son with him today as a helper to hopefully get the job done quicker.

As soon as they finish they head another hour in a different direction with our full size (clunker/junker!!) cargo van we use on our farm — pulling a huge trailer we use to haul lumber for our housebuilding project. The van will hold 2000 lbs and the trailer has a capacity of 4000 lbs — so we are good! I at first thot he might have to make a couple of trips! Yikes!

They will back up to the dock and let a fork lift insert 1 pallet of books into the van — then re attach the trailer and let the fork lift load the rest onto the trailer!

The next hitch is this!! We are to have nasty weather today? maybe? I woke up at 6 a.m. to howling winds and clouds and now it is pouring rain - we had heavy rain last night and possibly again all day? The trailer is not covered so he will not be able to pick up with rain! Pray for no rain for the trip home with the books! and to get them from the van/trailer into the house!

I have been working for months on end now organizing and keeping track of the orders and $$ — It will be fun to finally get them on their way to you! We live in a small 14′x76′ trailer (130 acres but I can’t stash the books on land!) while we are building our house — so there is not a lot of room in here — We will be stepping and climbing over boxes for a few days and I told Carri — hopefully my household will not cave in and everyone will have meals until this is over.

Here is a picture of my living room now — You’ll soon see it full of packing tape, boxes and MOMYS COOKBOOKS!

livroom-2.jpg

http://www.MarmeeDear.com
“Offering All Things Precious & Pleasant for the Home Circle”
Join our discussions in THE HOME CIRCLE at HOME WITH MARMEE