Gluten free Christmas baking

Every year I do lots of Christmas baking and every year I say I will cut back on the amounts and every year I over estimate and every year I still make too much. This year was no exception. Of course every year I seem to screw some thing up and out of it comes some thing new. Last year I came up with chocolate pudding peanut butter balls, This year it was....

Yes, Nutella. I needed 2 cups of peanut butter for my last batch and after cleaning out the house I only had one. Whats a girl who doesn't want to leave the house to do? Well, I have a cup of Nutella, bingo. Nutella peanut butter balls are born. My husband, who loves his peanut butter balls, really liked them. Still liked his regular balls better but liked these as well. I don't think it would work as well if it was all Nutella because I think it would have been too strong of a flavor. I think the blend works well and it just tastes like Nutella to me. 1 cup of peanut butter 1 cup if Nutella 12 TBs of butter 4 cups of powdered sugar Cream your peanut butter/ Nutella Add your powdered sugar and mix well Roll your balls and let sit at least 20 mins to dry a little (I did not find this necessary for the Nutella balls because they were already on the dry side and I think the powdered sugar could have been reduced a bit, this is just my regular peanut butter ball recipe and I haven't played with it any yet to adapt it for the Nutella) Melt some chocolate in a double boiler, not generic (for some reason it doesn't seem to melt all the way for me) and dip those balls and let dry til set. Enjoy!

I also made some thing new this year. Egg nog truffles, a recipe I found on Pinterest and of course they are delicious and the recipe never makes as many as it says it does. Also they never look as pretty as they do online but they sure are delicious!

I also made my normal peanut butter cookies but this year added a small peanut butter cup because I thought it would be easier for Alec to eat those rather than a Hershey kiss.

He loves them. I made sugar cookies too but have yet to frost them because he prefers them with out the frosting. I will frost some of them later today though. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Bye!

Finished Basket

I really enjoy basket making. You take strips and pieces of wood and make them into awesome baskets and some of them can be very detailed. They always look more complicated than they really are. Eventually you get so many baskets you just don't know what to do with them. I have a friend that I do basket class with that has so many that they are piled into a huge mountain in an extra room in her home. We joke that she has created another layer for mount basket. When I start a new basket I try to think of a use for it. Will it be a decoration on my shelf, a laundry basket. Will it hold apples and other fruits or can I use it to pick the produce from the garden? But lately it is getting to that point where I am running out of ideas for uses and have started a mount basket myself. This newest basket I just finished will not be part of the basket mountain. I created this one with one thing in mind, Alec's Hot Wheels collection. Alec has quite a Hot Wheels collection at my house and at home. Here they are piled into different places, a wagon he likes to pull around, a Mickey Mouse Easter bucket from last year, a Halloween candy pumpkin bucket, you get the idea. So when me and Becky dug through all the reed I had bought for home to use it up I decided I needed a large bushel type basket for Alec's Hot Wheels collection. About the using up reed I had at home. When I cleaned out my sewing room at one time I realized I had a tub full of unused reed for basket making at home. The thing about that is I do not weave at home at all. I prefer to use my time at home for sewing and fabric crafting and I do not have the room to spread out and keep things out that long to work on a basket. Also reed goes bad. It gets brittle and will eventually be un useable. So I took the tub to Becky's and said lets use it up, what can we make? This is my second finish from the tub. Hot Wheels bushel basket.

I'm hoping that its sturdy enough to hold up to Alec. I know it will do what I want it to do but Alec likes to push baskets around and climb in them but hey, who doesn't like a good basket sit. For example....

That's just him chillin, watching Mickey. Obviously, the basket I made would not hold up to this so if he does try this I will have to use it for some thing else until he's older. We shall see. Wish me luck. And progress on the cross stitch gift.

Bye!

My sewing room

On a quilting group I'm on we have been talking about sharing photos of our sewing rooms. I have shared mine before but I don't think I've shared since Dan made my awesome new cutting table. I also rearranged my sewing room a few weeks ago. This layout works much better for me and makes the room feel like it is bigger. I've always been opposed to having my back to the door but I told myself to suck it up and do it. Well it's fine. I don't know why I had an issue with it but issue resolved. This is the view from outside the door looking in.

This is the front of my cutting table. I left the table top wood because I was too impatient to paint at the time but I will probably paint it white some time down the road. As you can see I didn't bother to clean it up for the photos. I don't mind if you see how messy it is. You can see my large stack of knits for clothes for Alec Daniel. I have a good sized stack of fabric cut out to make pj's for him. I have some Christmas ones cut out too. On the left there is a pile of taped together patterns for a couple of pajama patterns I am trying out to find a go to one for Alec. I love pdf patterns and have accumulated quite a few of them. My tv is up there too.

I have shelves above the table for supplies and you can see I like to hang things I love everywhere and I love bright, bold colors.

This is my sewing desk. I love this desk. We bought it years ago and used it for what it was intended but when we went to lap tops and I finally wised up and decided to use this room for a sewing room and not a junk room I started using it as a sewing table. When I upgraded to a much nicer machine Dan cut it out for me and added supports so my machine bed was level with the desk top. I love that he is so handy and can do anything! I never need a mechanic and never need to hire any one for repairs of any kind or to build buildings. It's awesome! Anyways, this desk is huge and I even have my serger on it permanently with plenty of room for quilting still.

Nothing fancy in this corner. Just my ironing board, some extra machines (there are more in the closet, these just didn't fit) and some books stacked up that don't fit on the book shelves. I do love this oversized ironing board. I bought it years ago with some birthday money my Grandma sent me. It's a nice reminder of her since she has since passed.

This is just the bookshelf. Lots of quilting books and magazines here. That awesome green chest on top is a floss chest to hold my cross stitching floss. It's home made and I bought it off a yard sale site full of floss and had room to add my substantial collection. It was a stained wood that I was not fond of so I spray painted it this awesome green. I do need to touch it up a bit but that will be awhile before I get around to that.

This is the door to my closet. You can not look in there, it is that bad. It is my plan to tear every thing out and reorganize it some time after Christmas.

This is the shelving unit under my table. Lots of craft supplies, fabric, and aida cloth crammed down here. I'm out of room down there.

And that is it. I'm hoping to get those tubs in front of the books case into the closet when I reorganize and also those extra sewing machines. I like an uncluttered space. I work better in one. What am I working on now. Well some of it I can't show yet and some clothes I plan on sewing this weekend but I can show you a gift in progress that I am working on.

Heres a shot of the pattern. This pattern and many more can be found here Wee Little Stitches I can not say enough good things about their patterns and customer service.

And just a shot of Alec so you can see how big this little boy has gotten lately.

So sweet. Bye!