Christmas Cooking with Bah Humbug

Hello Friends -

I'm back with my Guest Designer projects at Humbug Hall.  I must say, the ladies of the manor have certainly made me feel welcome and loved.  They are the sweetest ladies you could find and so much fun.

So, I wanted to start off with a little treat especially for Max and Ann.  I made some Hot Buttered Rum and Mint Cocoa.

Don't you just love them?   Do you want to know what I did?  If so, grab yourself a drink, pull up a chair because this might be a long post.  I have a LOT of pictures for you today and I'm not even done.  I think you might be seeing pictures of my second project for the rest of the week.

I started this project with two small milk type bottles from Starbucks.  I bought the bottles of Frappacino at the grocery store and convinced one of my brothers to drink all of them.  I only wanted the bottles.

I filled one bottle with cocoa, marshmellows and a combination of mint chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips.  I put a cut little circle on the top wishing the recipients a Merry Christmas and then moved on to the Hot Buttered Rum mix.

I'm sorry to say there is no rum in the mix but once you add the rum and heat this up you are guaranteed to have a better evening.

Using my Sure-Cuts-A-Lot (SCAL) I printed out the tags and then cut them with my electronic die cutter.  This paper is from Little Yellow Bicycle.  It was two sided so it worked well with the box handle and on the outside of the box.  I also used it for the tag.

I knew what style of carrier I wanted but I was far too rushed to figure out how to make it on my own.  I used a file I bought from a favorite site of mine, The Cutting Cafe.  I resized it a little bit and put this one on a 12 x 24 piece of cardstock.  It ended up being about 1/2 an inch larger than I needed.

Here is the inside of the box.

The pattern paper on the bottom of the carrier is from the same piece as the handles.  This box came together like a dream.

Here is one final shot of the carrier.  I must say I love this paper.  It seems to fit well with the carrier.

And now for my Cookbook...

In my house Christmas isn't about a specific meal.  In fact, we don't focus too much on Christmas dinner.  Christmas Eve is about the rest of the family going to church and me staying home to get the presents wrapped that the Da bought on Christmas Eve day.  We have traditions around the breakfast meal and Christmas night we pull out a game of Trivial Pursuit and play while we eat cheese and crackers and shrimp and veggies (or whatever else we've picked up for the evening).

However, that doesn't mean cooking isn't an important part of our tradition.  In fact, I'm already starting to plan my baking and candy making.  I will turn 50 or more pounds of sugar into cookies and candies.   They are then carefully packaged in 30 or more Christmas tins and shipped all over the country.  This process is time consuming and a little daunting.

The Brits have decided to deport my youngest brother so by early November I should have a helping hand with this crazy process because of family weddings, travel and other unexpected issues, I'm hoping to finish all of the candy making and packaging by December 9th.  I'll let you know how that goes.

OK, back to the project.

I have wanted to make a cookbook of the recipes I use every Christmas.  In fact, I planned to do it last year when I made this cook book for my brother's Christmas present.  But you know how things go.  I ended up making the things I needed and this fell by the wayside.  Then, the Ladies of Humbug Hall said they wanted something with the cooking theme.  Well, now I had an excuse to make my cookbook.

I ended up with 20 recipes that I use every year.  After some thought, I decided I would put them on tags a la Tim Holtz.  They still need some spritzing up (both figuratively and actually) but here they are in all their glory.

Then I pulled out some regular old #10 envelopes, sealed them and cut off the end.

They looked like this with the ends cut off.

If you have a choice, I recommend ones that don't have a printed inside but it wasn't so bad that I decided to buy a new box.  You can see that this one is already covered with a pretty pattern paper.

I pulled out my Bind-It-All and punched holes in the envelopes, on the end that was not cut, and the back of the cover.  You can see the binding on the left side and some of the tags sticking out of the cover on the right.  The section that says "Treats" is actually a flap with a magnet to hold it to the front. This configuration allows me to stand it up.

This is the cover before I added the flap and the decorations.

This is the inside of the cookbook with all of the envelopes bound in and the tags sticking out of the envelopes.  I know, still a little plain but it is getting better.

This is a picture of the cookbook from the opposite side of the one above.  I put a pocket on the inside because I know I'll have more recipes over time.

Finally, this is the bottom of the cover.  If you look closely, I attached this with jump rings to the front and back.  This allows me to swing it all the way around.

So, what do you think of my little project?

I have a ton of work to finish for the Wonderkids Fall Festival.  In fact, I can't wait for it to be done because I want to get back to some peace.  I'll show you the masks we are making and the banner I'll have at our booth.  I may even show you some cakes and other treats.

But, I'll definitely be back with more of the cookbook. Is there anything special you would like to see/hear about?

Have a good day, see you soon.