Creative Team

Cranberry & Feta Cole Slaw Lettuce Wraps

1 · Nov 19, 2013 · 1 Comment

Hello my Whipperberry friends! It's me, Shannon, from eat.sleep.make. If any of you follow us over at ESM, you know that I'm a vegetarian. I share an abundance of veggie-friendly recipes that I've come up with. Today I'm going to share with you a delicious (and very pretty, if I may say so) Cole Slaw lettuce wraps recipe. This is perfect for holiday gatherings or even just for no reason at all! I chose to use all organic products. And not only is this organic and vegetarian, but it is also gluten-free.

Measurements:

1/2 cup Cranberries

6 cups chopped Cabbage

1 Carrot

1/3 cup Mayo

1 tablespoon Honey

Fresh Ground Black Pepper (to taste)

1 teaspoon Celery Seed

1/2 Squeezed Lemon Juice

Feta

1 teaspoon Raw Sugar

1 – Slice and dice your cabbage and carrot

2 – In a food processor, chop up your cranberries and Raw sugar.

3 – In a bowl, mix your cranberry/sugar into the mayo, lemon juice, and honey.

4 – Pour cranberry/mayo mix onto cabbage and carrots. Add celery seed and black pepper – MIX.

5 – Once your cole slaw is done, clean and lay out one leaf of butter lettuce. Fill it with your cranberry cole slaw, drench with feta and wrap it.

6 – Enjoy!

Stop on over at eat.sleep.make. and check out some of my other vegetarian friendly recipes!

Perfect Gingersnap Cookies

1 · Nov 12, 2013 · 2 Comments

Hi all! It’s exciting to be back here from One Sweet Appetite! Today we are talking cookies. Around this time of the year it seems that all I can think about are trays full of the little treats. Every year we like to have a baking day to put together fun plates of goodies for our neighbors and this cookie always seems to take the show! These gingersnap cookies are full of holiday flavor. Lots of ginger, cinnamon, molasses… All rolled into a cinnamon and sugar mixture then baked to perfection. Chances are good you’ll end up snacking on one (or ten) before packaging them up for neighbors and friends!

Perfect Ginger Snap Cookies

2 C. sifted all-purpose flour
1 T. ground ginger
2 t. baking soda
t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
3/4 C. shortening
1 C. white sugar
1 egg
1/4 C. dark molasses
1/3 C. cinnamon sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, ginger, soda, cinnamon, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Set aside. Combine the shortening and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Pinch of small amounts of dough and form into a circle. Roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture, and place on your prepared tray. Bake for ten minutes and cool on a wire rack.

These are full of flavor and one of our favorite cookies. I know they should be crisp, but I’m a soft and chewy kind of gal. If you want to each cookie to be equal in size I suggest buying a small cookie scoop. I found one on amazon for fairly inexpensive.

I hope these cookies will inspire you to create some treats of your own! Check out a few other cookies that you might enjoy:

Gingerbread cookies & Eggnog Dip // Oatmeal cookies three ways // Homemade Thin Mints

Sparkly Ornament Advent Calendar

3 · Nov 7, 2013 · 8 Comments

Well ho ho ho hello there! I'm so happy to be back here again this month! I'm stepping away from my usual food posts, and instead I've got a little Christmas project to share with you. I know, Christmas feels very far away, but it's not really, especially if you want to make your own advent calendar which needs to be ready for December 1!

Every year we have advent calendars for the kids and they love the countdown to the big day (secrets be told, I do too)! I've always just bought those candy or picture advent calendars, but this year I wanted to do something a little different and make my own. I was inspired by this advent calendar that I saw on Bower Power blog a couple of years ago, so when I received a box of ornaments in the mail recently, I knew they would make an amazing advent calendar.

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The idea with this advent calendar is that there is a unique ornament for each day leading up to Christmas that the kids can hang on our tree.

Here's How To:

Materials:

A picture frame
A piece of cork board to fit the frame
Paper or fabric to cover the cork board
25 paper key tags (you can find these in any office supply store)
25 silver push pins
25 ornaments
number stamps & silver stamping ink
Large ribbon for hanging the frame.

Instructions:

First choose a frame for your calendar, then string through a 2 1/2 foot long ribbon for hanging.
Then cut a piece of cork board to fit the frame, and wrap it in paper or fabric. I liked this sparkly wrapping paper, as it was very forgiving when I needed to move around the push pins…it hid tiny holes well.
Place the covered cork board firmly into the frame.
Chose 25 different ornaments to hang in the frame.
To mark each day, you can use paper key tags, and stamp them with the number of the day.
Now it's time to hang the ornaments! First lay out the ornaments approximately where you would like to hang them.
Use a push pin to first hang the date tag, then the ornament.

That's it! SO simple!

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Here's what mine looks like all done! Sparkly, fun & festive!

The fun part of making your own advent calendar is you can tailor it to your own Christmas decor. Have fun with colours, textures and different kinds of ornaments!

Here are some ideas for your calendar:

Use a picture frame that you can hang on your wall each season.
Or put heavy duty magnets on the back of the frame so that you can hang it on your fridge.
Keep the background on the frame neutral so you can change the ornaments every year. I just used silver sparkly wrapping paper.

Instead of tree ornaments you can hang:

Little envelopes with Christmas messages.
Or put a little note in an envelope that has a seasonal activity to do for that day: things like skating, make hot chocolate, go for a walk, bake cookies…
You can hang little bags filled with candy.
Fill envelopes or little boxes with tiny treasures like money, earrings, erasers…fun little dollar store items.

I hope I inspired you to make an advent calendar of your own!

Thank you so much for reading today! Have a wonderful day!

Feel free to stop on by anytime! I'd love to have you!

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DIY Thanksgiving Garland

0 · Oct 28, 2013 · 10 Comments

DIY Thanksgiving Garland //

Hi Whipperberry readers! Haley here, from Life Is Sweet. I can't resist festive garlands, and this year I made a few! I'm enjoying them on our mantle, but any of these would be great on bookshelves, windows, railings, or just up on the wall. Two embraced the feeling of autumn and one embraced the wonderful holiday coming up next month, Thanksgiving! Jenn said it perfectly in her post of her fabulous Thanksgiving Centerpiece–it's a beautiful time of year dedicated to expressing gratitude for blessings, surrounding yourself with loved ones, and making and enjoying great food!

The first two garlands I'm sharing how to make are pretty simple. The leaf garland just calls for needle+thread along with leaves bought from the craft store (I've tried displaying real fallen leaves but they shriveled and lost their color within a couple days). The second one calls for needle+string and pompoms. I happened to find my pom balls at a thrift store (cheers to pre-loved nick-nacks!) but you can order felt poms in an array of colors from Hello Maypole. Then string away!

The "Give Thanks" garland takes a little more work, but is still very doable and you can create whatever message you'd like!

SUPPLIES:

Black cardstock

Scissors

White color pencil

Pencil

Rope/String

Paper hole-punch

Pencil sharpener (not pictured)

Ruler (or Colorbök Scrapbook paper pack has a ruler on the back)

You'll first want to decide the shape and size you want your garland pieces to be–pentagons, triangles, rectangles, circles, etc. Mine are pentagon-shaped that measured out to be 7.5 inches tall and 5.5 inches wide.

For a pentagon shape you cut off two corners–the two short sides of mine measured 2.75 inches and 2.5 inches. Then use that pentagon to trace the rest of the pieces you need–I got two out of each 12×12 inch sheet.

I used a pencil to lightly sketch out the letters (after typing out "GIVE THANKS" in a Word document and chose the two fonts I liked: Snell Roundhand Black and Baskerville Old Face). But stencils would be another great way to get the letters on the garland. You'll then use the white colored pencil to fill in the letters. I loved how it gave it a fun chalk look, without the mess and I was able to be more precise. Now is when the pencil sharpener will come in handy.

You'll use a hole punch to put holes in the top corners of your garland pieces. I used a three-hole punch, and the spacing worked great for me to punch two at a time. Then string them up!

I hung/displayed all three garlands using good ol' scotch tape and, because my mantel is white, colored the tape with a white Painters marker (purchased at Walmart) so it's a bit camouflaged. 😉

Thanks again Heather for having me!

xo, Haley

Creative Team

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