White Chocolate Bark Bites

With Valentine's Day coming up I thought I'd make you a little treat that you still have plenty of time to make before V-Day yourself. These little bark bites are so cute and would make great little Valentine's treats for your child to take to school, or for you to distribute at your work. You could put a few in a little baggie, or individually wrap them in cellophane with a bit of ribbon.

Why don't we jump right on in then?

White chocolate melts (can be called melting wafers) I got mine from the bulk section at Winco, I know Ghirardelli also makes them.
M&Ms ( you'll see I have Valentine's m&ms as well as some mini ones)
Sprinkles or colored sugars (I couldn't find pink and white sprinkles so I just used the sugar)
Silicon mold (I used this heart shaped ice cube tray as well as a pacman one shown below)

So, you need to melt your white chocolate. You can either do it in a double boiler or in the microwave. I kinda rigged my own double boiler because my only metal bowl is waxy at the moment.

I put my chocolate in a pyrex measuring cup.

Bring the water in your pot to a boil.

Place the pyrex cup in it.

OR ALTERNATE VERSION:
Microwave it! This was actually easier and quicker.

Again put your chocolate in a glass measuring cup.

Stir and only microwave in stages. So start with like 30 seconds or a minute. Check on it each time and add additional time. Believe me, my second batch I tried to just do the whole 3 minutes in one go, and it burnt my chocolate in the middle and turned it into a clumpy brown mass. So take the time to do it incrementally.

While you are melting your chocolate you can get your forms ready. I used this heart shaped silicone ice cube tray and it worked fabulously. It's funny, but ice cubes is like the one thing I haven't ever used this form for. Hah. I think I got it at Ikea for pretty cheap, you can probably get them all over the place.

Once you're sure your form is completely dry (You don't want your sprinkles, etc to dissolve) you can start adding stuff. I started with some red and white sugar sprinkles because I couldn't find any actual pink, white, and/or red sprinkles at the store.

Next I added some of the Valentine's Day edition chocolate m&ms.

I also made some non-Valentine's Day ones in my husband's Pacman ice cube tray.

There I used blue sugar sprinkles and the mini m&ms.

Once your chocolate is all the way melted make sure you stir it well.

Now you can pour it into your forms. I choose to overfill mine a little and then to scrape the top to even it out, but you could also underfill it and have them be a little shorter.

You will want to tap the form to even it out, but also to give a release in case there are air bubbles in the melted chocolate.

I let it sit for a while and then refrigerated them for about an hour or two. Once they are completely solid you can start popping them out of their mold, and then refill if desired.

If you've overfilled them like I have, you may need to clean up some of the edges.

All in all I thought they turned out pretty cute.

I sent a couple of the pacman ones with my husband to his DnD group.

Man, this is gonna be the easiest quick summary ever!

White Chocolate Bark Bites:

Ingredients needed:
White chocolate Melts (Also called vanilla melts on occasion)
Sprinkles
M&Ms

Melt the chocolate
Put sprinkles into the molds
Put m&ms into the mold
Pour melted chocolate on top
Tap mold to release air bubbles and to even out
(If you have overfilled scrape excess chocolate off)
Chill
Remove from mold and clean edges if desired/needed

Tea Wreath

This winter out of necessity almost all Christmas gifts were handmade. Pinterest has been a godsend for that. There I found the idea for a tea wreath. I like the original poster's idea, but as usual I kinda took the basic idea and ran with it. A wreath circle with decorated clothespins and a teabag in each pin.
Here is the original idea. She made her  own wreath circle out of cardboard and decorated her clothespins with scrapbook paper. I'm more of a glitter kind of gal.

So, wanna make one of these?

What do you need?

A good selection of glitter. I have these two lovely different sets of glitter by Martha Stewart left over from some crafts I made for the wedding. A little bit of this stuff goes a long way!

A craft ring to use as the base wreath. I got this Biodegradable-Floral-Ring-Glueable-Wreath from amazon, and then painted it purple with acrylic paint.

Wooden clothespins, which I also got from amazon. These are the ones I bought.
Make sure you have some Mod Podge and a hot glue gun.

To glitterify your clothespins first put down a layer of mod podge, then cover with glitter. I would do a few of the same color at a time. Put a sheet of paper underneath them. Tap off excess glitter onto the page. Then you can pour the leftover glitter back into its vial. I liked the multicolored look, but you could make it all one color, or just two, etc.
Your clothespins should look something like this:

Once you've added the glitter and tapped off some of the excess put another layer of mod podge over it. The mod podge acts as a sealant and should prevent the glitter from rubbing off. So it's really important to use it. I suppose you could use a spray sealant instead. No one wants to be covered in glitter each time they get a tea bag.
Now here is where you get to make some choices again. There are lots of different mod podge versions. I used sparkle mod podge. It has iridescent glitter in it. I like to use this for almost all of my projects. You can use glossy, or matte, or any of the other myriad of varieties.

Here's the thing, like I said I usually love the rainbow style glitter effect from this one. I love the way the black glitter looks above, but you can see here after adding the sparkle mod podge, it overshadows the effect. For my next set I will probably test it out with regular glossy mod podge. Here I'll show you what I'm talking about:

See what I mean?

Here's the whole tray of my ultra glittery clothespins:

As I showed I painted my ring purple. You could paint it any color you want to. My husband suggested I added a layer of pink sparkly paint on top of this one:

Now it's time to use your hot glue gun to attach the clothespins onto your ring in regular intervals. Make sure when you glue them on that they have the opening, the pin bit, towards the outside. You want the tea bags to fan around the outside of your wreath. On the very top image you can see that I glued the clothespins part way through the circle. On the second one I made, I glued them on so the edge of the clothespin would be flush with the inner edge. I like the look a lot better, it seems more clean. You can however glue it on however you choose.
On this ring I used the sparkle mod podge over the purple paint.

I leave a spot free to add a ribbon to hang it up by. Again, this depends on your preference like so much in crafting. The original idea had the pins go all the way around, but left enough space between the pins to be able to use a wreath hook.

And here is another picture of the first wreath I made hanging up:

My future sister-in-law, Deedee, asked me about the possibility of being able to add Keuring cups onto a wreath like this. You might be able to get extra large clothespins, glue them on sideways and then fit them into the pin part. That's about the only way I could come up with. Wish I could be more helpful!

You can also put different things into the pins. Pictures might look really cute in a wreath like this.

#Day93

November 1st

#Day93 It's limoncello making time! Special for @houserbrenda and her hubby. :)

I got started on making the limoncello that my brother-in-law and his wife love. I've made it before and they've loved it. So I've started a batch to be done in time for Clint's birthday, or Christmas. I've started a blog post on it, but am not posting it until I have finished the limoncello so I can post the complete process. Here is the original site I got the recipe and instructions from. The author is super helpful and answers comments really fast. Limoncello, or as the author calls it: Sunshine in a Bottle

#Day90

October 29th

#Day90 working on more coffee cup sleeves. I loved using mine today. Still super excited about them!

I've been making a ton of these coffee sleeves and am way too enamored by them! I have given some away, and am also making a whole bunch more. It's like an addiction! I have to have a coffee sleeve for every conceivable occasion!

#Day88

October 27th

#Day88 Got to make a Halloween wreath at work. :)

I love Halloween. I love crafts. I love not paying for them. I love getting paid to make crafts. I got all four in one day. How could this not be an amazing day? I supported a client at a free art class hosted by the art gallery of my work. The Prism Gallery in Salem Oregon. This is such an amazing opportunity for those we support, and really anyone as these classes are open to anyone who is interested. I'm proud to be part of such a fabulous organization!