Chocolate-CHIP Cookies

The extra special Santa Shrine Cookies that are a part of the offering to St. Nick, came from a recipe within the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book . They just called them Chocolate-Chip Cookies though.

The 1953 version is apparently one BH&G's most popular cook books.  So much so, that it was reprinted in 2005. The entire book was reprinted with an aged look, having a "nostalgic patina"!

Each category in the cook book binder is divided by super cute illustrations of happy baking and cooking scenes....

There are 50 color illustrations of lovely garnished meals and place settings...

Here is the sacred recipe.....it is very basic, but more importantly, it is Santa approved!

St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine

 

For this month's DIY Holiday Decoration Challenge on Dollar Store Crafts I am submitting a St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine.

St. Nick gets a lot of requests this time of year. Best to get in a good word for yourself, especially if you happen to be on the infamous naughty list . Shameless and utter worship may help! Why not build him an illuminated shrine? After all, he is a Saint, right? This shrine is made out of shiny stuff (his favorite color) and cheap materials (it will be dark and his vision isn't the greatest). Simply write your request on a piece of paper and slip it into the enchanted stocking.  Offer food and/or beverage (a flaming rum punch wouldn't hurt), say the magic words ( "shiny tinsel and a silver bell, please bring me what I wish for or someone will be getting hell...I mean a mug of wassail" ), and elfin magic will whisk away your hopes and dreams to the big man at the North Pole. It's just that simple!

A couple of close ups of the shrine. Magic stockings can be found at your local thrift store :

The elfin mystical reindeer express:

Behold! The Shrine in full offering and worship mode!

and like I said before... if you happen to be on the naughty list, a bit of a bribe...er... love offering of cold hard cash may be helpful....Even St. Nick has his price.

****************

To make your own Shiny St. Nicholas of the Sacred Silver Pan Shrine, locate the following ethereal items at Dollar Tree:
1 silver aluminum pan, 1 Santa face ornament, 1 strand red garland, 4 sets silver glitter bells, 1 package green glitter " Merry Christmas" ornaments, 1 silver glitter star ornament (I bought 1 set of red glitter reindeer but did not use).

Items I had on hand were: small red felt Santa figures, reindeer, pixie, silver glitter snowflake stickers, and one of those lights-on-a-cord deals that is used for Christmas village houses. They sell them at Dollar Tree also, but I had 1 or 10 already around here.

Construction involves using hot glue and wire to attach everything to the pan.  Cut a small hole in the back of the pan behind St. Nick's head to insert the light in to produce the heavenly glow.  I lined the cut out hole with some electrical tape to protect the electric cord from being severed and thus diverting the Christmas wish to surviving electrical shock.

Please be aware that results may vary... I mean, you could be so far down on the naughty list that even the cash won't work!

a few finds....

 I stumbled across a nest of old jigsaw puzzles recently at a thrift.  The puzzle pieces are faded to the point that completing the puzzle, if all the pieces are even there, is going to be a major challenge. But I loved the boxes... what to do with the boxes?  

I also picked up these cutie reindeer and a LUMBERJACK elf! He was a gift "To: Mom  From: Keith 1983". We are going to redate him for 2012 in remembrance of our lumberjacking days!

For serious, I would love any ideas on how to use the puzzle boxes for some DIY fun/decor.

Sunbeam Mixer Juice Extractor

We slapped on the Juice Extractor attachment to the lovely Sunbeam and "joggled" some grapefruit juice!

I posted about my sweetheart Mixmaster several years ago here.
Recently, I was able to get my mits on a bounty of FREE grapefruit.  No, it didn't require me to scale fences after dark and chunk them over... that's what I have the kid for! No kidding, the grapefruits were obtained perfectly legally.

As mentioned in the older post, when I bought the mixer it came with the original owner's booklet.  Here are some of the sold separately accessories:

Good lord, no.... if I ever have to grind meat for food...that is just gross. I think i would rather eat sticks from the yard. I can imagine it being an extreme hassle to properly clean that thing anyway.

 I am really liking the Slicer and Shredder attachment.  Grates cheese and chops ice and is all contained in a neat looking hopper!

The Butter Churn claims to help make butter easily and quickly... I can't imagine it being any easier than reaching an arm out and picking some up in the dairy section for a buck 50.

Death Star Cookie

 I saw Death Star cookies on neatocoolville awhile back. Mr. Neatocoolville's really turned out awesome, Mine weren't quite as neat or cool ...but it was just as fun to destroy/eat them!

We used prepackaged sugar cookie dough since it's what was on hand. Next time we will have to try out the official Darth Vader approved recipe.

Neatocoolville got the recipe from a book he had when he was a kid:

I didn't feel like cooking tonight so I told pumpkinbutt that the huge death star cookie was for dinner and he could have halloween candy for dessert. I explained that it's similar to the restaurants in Texas where if you eat the massive steak (cookie) than you win a prize...chocolate cake!  He opted for "real dinner", surprisingly.