DIY advent calendar

For the first time ever, we will be receiving for Christmas! This meant, I had no choice... I had to decorate and put up a Christmas tree! After selecting a color palette, off I went shopping for ornaments (and made a few thanks to pinterest!). Next was to figure out a reusable advent calendar for the kids. I wanted something I would be able to reuse, fill myself and would match our Christmas decor. It had to be big, bold and exciting. I browsed pinterest and found many great ideas. In the end, I came up with my own design! And here it is! 

 

Basically, I bought fabric in 4 colors, sewed 12 bags (about the size of a sandwich ziploc), I stenciled the number on the fabric with some glitter paint. I filled the bags with goodies and tied it with a little piece of shinny twine. I then covered my staircase railing with Dollorama Christmas garland and I used cloth pins shaped like birds (got them last years at homesense) to hang the bags.

I decided to make the bag big enough so that I could put multiple item in each (this way, all the kids will share the same advent calendars). I also decided to only make 12 bags, for the 12 days of Christmas... instead of 25. This way, I could buy better items.... hence less junk.... and not have to spend too much money.

The bags mostly contain useful items, craft material or even some fun activity... (example, in one bag a little card says, let's go to the pool! In another one, there is a pouch of hot chocolate and a memo that says, let's go play in the snow!)

The breakdown of the cost was as follow:

-Dollorama garland 4 $

-Fabric + twine 11$

-Cloth pins 7$

-Paint 1$

Bento Challenge

Good Morning!! I am glad to finally report on my Work Place Bento Challenge! On Friday the 17th of December, as to mark our last day of work before the Christmas Holidays, my coworker Lynn and I decided to have a friendly kawaii bento competition. For the both of us it was the first time attempting such thing (I had previously made some bento but not with a cute factor. As for my coworker, it was her very first bento EVER!!)

We had agreed on free choice of theme, even thought we both ended up making a winter-Christmas theme bento. I spend most of the night before preparing the bento following scale drawings I had made in the previous week. So did my coworker. And here are the results!!

Her bento featured a Santa Sleight made out of kani, a sliding penguin made of Devil egg and tortillas and a Christmas tree made of stuff beans. She added a gingerbread man, in a crêpe to mimic Santa's Toy Bag!  In total, she had 12 votes from the staff members. The penguin was a hit!

 My bento featured an inari reindeer, a tomato-sausage santa as well as a umeboshi star shape onigiri. I also made a Vietnamese rice roll that I decorated with Hungarian salami. I added, tamago, cheese cube and squash to complete the meal. In all, my bento received 13 votes. 

In all, we had a great time, trying each others food. We also shared with our school principal and our friends. We are now looking forward to our next challenge which  will be just in time for Valentine's day!!

'Tis the season to be cooking!!

From one disaster to another


Kuhn Rikon Stainless Cookie Press
and Decorating Set with Storage Box.



Off course with Chirstmas just around the corner, I have been cooking. The countdown is on, as I have to bake 78 cookies for my workplace cookies exchang on Friday December 10th! This year I wanted to outdo myself and went a head and bought the Kuhn Rikon Stainless Cookie Press and Decorating Set with Storage Box. I tried it with two different recipies and I was so please of the results. Easy, pretty, tasty cookies... that is until I tried washing the stainless steel tube. The tube is lined with a plastic inlay and the cookie dought easily gets between the layers. I tried cleaning it out. Impossible. I let it soak for a few hours, nothing to do about it. So broken heartedly I returned it to the store. After checking the manufacturer's web site, I realised many people seemed to have the same problem.

After  talking with friends, I found out that a good brand to buy would be the Norpro Brand of product. I was also told to avoid the Pampered chef brand. Unfortunatly, it is too late for me to pass an online order for this year, but I will look into getting one next Christmas.

I decided instead to stick to what  I do best and that is: make chocolate!! I went for an easy, white chocolate candy cane melt that I poured in silicone christmas mould from Dollorama. I use to buy chocolate mould from Bulk Barn but I find the silicone one work better and can be used for fudge, jello, candy and ice (off course). I didn't see the need in buying expansive mould from cooking store as the dollar store one work perfectly well!

I then proceeded in making the dought for some chocolate cookie sandwich with candy cane filling. A quick easy recipe I found online. Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies But just as I was ready to roll them in little ball, I found there must have been worms in my mom's flour... back to square one, I had to throw away the dought and head back to the grocery store.

I will give it a second chance on wednesday so check back for the results!!