Two quick holiday crafts: Santa hat brownie bites and Christmas card tree

It was TubaDad’s first day off in I-don’t-even-know-how-long and instead of having a lazy day on the couch, we were hopping all day. Oh well, tis the season, right? And we got a lot done, even though we’re both bushed right now.

One of TubaDad’s big projects for the day was assembling the new kitchen island. We ordered a second one like we had in the other house and it is awesome to finally have it. He had great helpers in my dad and his buddy Clark (who came over with the girls’ BFF to drop off some presents and then got sucked in) – thanks guys! I unloaded six boxes into that island tonight – SIX! It felt so victorious to toss those empty cardboard boxes into the garage. Ahhhhhhh.

While the guys were hard at work, my mom and sister-in-law Jane had an edible craft project for the kids: Santa hat brownie bites. Jane had seen these on the Pioneer Woman’s web site, and they arrived with ingredients in hand. Fun, yummo, and a great project to do with kids!

To make the hats, start with brownie bites (either bake brownies in mini muffin tins or get a container of brownie bites from the store), put a strawberry on top of your brownie bite and pipe a circle of frosting around the base, then dot the top of your strawberry with icing. Voila! They used homemade brownies and melted white chocolate chips on the PW site (here’s how they did it), but we used store-bought brownie bites and a can of white cake frosting squeezed out of a ziploc bag with the corner cut off. These little babies got rave reviews from the kids and the adults and would be so easy and quick to make for a Christmas party.

The guys were still working on the island, so Jane and I decided to whip up another craft project, a Christmas Card Tree. I had seen this one in Family Fun and loved the idea of using something we had lying around in the garden to display all the beautiful Christmas cards we’ve received. Basically we took an old, rusty tomato cage:

My mom gave it a quick rub-down with steel wool, then we sprayed it with some old gold spray paint we found in the garage. (If your tomato cages aren’t rusty and half-submerged in dirt like ours, you wouldn’t need any spray paint.) We wrapped a cone of Christmas paper around the top, and cut a circle of Christmas paper for the base (it should be a little larger than the tomato-cage base), then hung Christmas cards on it using binder clips.

Cool! In Family Fun, they had a bigger tomato cage that had another row to hang the cards from (here’s their picture). So I improvised a third row by tying some ribbon around the top of the cone and hanging cards from that. I’m definitely going to remember to do this next year.

While we were working on the card tree, by the way, my little bro tried to take a nap, and I couldn’t resist snapping a pic. I know, I know, pesky sister.

Alrighty, I need to get some sleep because tomorrow is going to be crazy with all the last-minute Christmas wrap-up that we should have finished ages ago and didn’t. Enjoy the holidays, and merry merry from our family to yours.

PS: You’ll notice from the pic that the new house doesn’t have a fireplace mantel, which drives me crazy! Maybe later, much later, if we get brave, we’ll try raise it and add a mantel.