Shirley wanted a sweet-and-salty dessert for her bridal shower favors last month, so I made a couple batches of the Potato Chip Cookies that I had brought to her Super Bowl party back in February. I made all the cookies the night before, and dipped them so the chocolate and crushed potato chips would have time to set overnight.
Potato Chip Cookies
I got the kraft boxes and pink bakers twine from good ol’ Paper Mart, and lined each box with parchment paper so that no grease stains would show through the box.
Shower Favors – Potato Chip Cookies
Joanne created really cute tags for the boxes, and I assembled everything the morning of.
Only the Earl Grey Shortbread cookies had actual tea leaves in them. The rest of the cookies were just flavor-inspired, and I paired them with Stash brand tea bags in Peppermint Herbal Tea, Chai Spiced Black Tea, Earl Grey Black Tea, and Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea.
What’s Inside
While this box was far more festive than last year’s cookie boxes, I think last year’s were more my style.
All Wrapped Up!
However, I think for the individual packages, this year’s tagline is about on par with last year’s cheesiness.
Brew Up Some Fun, and Have a Tea-riffic Holiday!
One more post, and then I’m DONE with the Holiday Bake-A-Thon from 2012!
Sadly, I’m already caught-up on my backlog of holiday baked goods. I thought I’d wrap-up with a short ditty on how I packaged the treats. I typically opt for a cellophane bag, some festive Glad Tupperware, or a little Christmas bag or box. However, I am quite the sucker for all things Martha Stewart, as well as cute paper goods. Naturally when you combine the two, I’ll wreak all kinds of domesticated havoc.
I didn’t create a separate post for the Snickerdoodles because I made them at night-time and the photos were just awful. Plus, no one would be impressed by the process of making a Snickerdoodle… not that anyone is impressed by anything on this blog anyway.
Getting excited to bake this weekend! My hiatus is drawing to a close!
As an aside, I usually take a lot of pride in carefully selecting things to hyperlink to throughout my posts to shed a little light on certain situations. Well, I’m shamelessly swallowing that pride and am admitting to having absolutely no tie-in to the one I’m about to share. It just plum made my week. Hell, it’s made my year so far and I couldn’t find a clever way to include it. So here it is. #nerd
I completely forgot to post about the wine cozy gift set I made Christina last winter until I was reminded while Christmas shopping on Black Friday last weekend. I never thought I’d voluntarily stay up past 10pm to (of all things) go shopping, but Jamie is a very passionate bargain hunter and convinced me to go, especially since I too can appreciate the value of a dollar and a good bargain. I don’t get to see her very often since she lives up north, so I figured how bad could it be? I should have known I was in over my head when she said we should get there early because they were giving free Cliff Bars to the first 500 people in line for Target.
After over 4 hours of sheer mayhem, wading through a sea of red Target shopping carts being pushed by tryptophanatic zombies, and getting pummeled by an old lady who was literally running while en route to Macy’s, I managed to escape with a plethora of new kitchen tools and appliances. My Santa sack was filled with a 7-cup food processor, a blender, mixing bowls, frosting spatula, dough bands, a whisk, and some other goodies irrelevant to this blog. During the weekend, I also acquired a pre-owned Ultra Power Kitchen-Aid stand mixer (holler) in exchange for $30 cash plus some of my baked goods – quite a deal! Oh, the wonders I will make with all of my new toys!
At about 3am, Jamie and I parted ways. She went on to another Target, another Macy’s, Old Navy, and some other places, and I got the f-ck out of there, slightly traumatized but content with my new treasures. Jamie told me the next morning that she got home at 9am, took an hour nap, and woke up to go to a few more places. Jamie, you are a beast.
So back to the subject matter of this post. For Christina‘s wine set gift, I threw in a bottle of cabernet and a pretty jewel-top wine stop from Sur la Table to match the cozies and coasters.
Wine Cozies, Coasters, Cab, and Jewel Wine Stop
The wine cozies make great gifts for housewarmings and wine aficionados (winos?) alike. I recently made a couple more wine cozy sets as housewarming gifts for Shirley and Spencer…
Shirley and Spencer
…and Leslie and Tri, respectively. As you might have guessed, all four of them like Hawaii – and who can blame them?
Tri and Leslie
Might make some more to throw on the Etsy account, which (I’m happy to announce) is now live.
I’ve been meaning to show off my latest kitchen addition. I got this spice rack from The Container Store as a gift over the summer, and I had been meaning to share what a difference it made. Here is a photo of one of my old spice racks…
Old Spice Rack
Yes, it is a paper bag with spices in it that sat on the kitchen floor next to the microwave. I also had a plastic box full of spices too that acted as my other “spice rack”, but it was never in the same place. Now, they’re all in ONE PLACE and easy to find, making my spice and herb utilization swift and unstrained. It’s changed my life!
AT-AT Everywhere 
