NYE: An Etsy Treasury!

Hope you enjoy this Etsy Treasury of New Year's Cheer! 

Have a fun, festive and safe celebration! 

xoxo,

radmegan

NYE Crafts: Confetti Eggs & Yummy Drinks

I don't know about you, but I am really looking forward to next year. This week seems to be just as busy as the last, and while my New Year's eve plans remain uncertain, what is certain is that these confetti eggs I made for New Year's 2011, and these tasty, tasty Egg Creams are a fun way to ring in the new year with your friends and loved ones! 

Smashing Confetti Eggs!

Drinking NY(e) Egg Cream's

I've got loads of new craft tutorials coming your way in 2012! In the meantime, have a Happy New Year!! Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for making 2011 a great year for me!

xoxo,

radmegan

Christmas, I Miss You

I got home late last night from a weekend Christmas celebration with my family. In only two days and some change, they managed to re-build my fractured and frazzled soul just by being the supportive, funny and creative lot they are. 

On Christmas eve, we had our usual crew of friends and family over for some good-natured games and grub before visiting the church I was raised in for a beautiful midnight mass.

On Christmas morning, my mom prepared a FEAST of assorted breakfast meats, Æbleskivers, fruit, eggs, "breakfast slush" AND her incredible sticky buns. I'll be making those for you very soon! After breakfast, mom, husband and I went through some old crafting books, found my 7th grade wood-burning kit, made quick work of the new knitting nancy my husband made for me, and we also cooked up a batch of fresh tortillas (photos coming up in a separate post!)

 

We cooked together, crafted, chatted, wandered around the garden, saw a little bit of the city and just enjoyed each other's company.

It was especially difficult for me to say goodbye this year. Even though we only live about three hours away from each other, I don't see my parents and sister as often as I'd like to.

And that's a real shame, because my parents and sister are some of the best people I know. 

Thanks for everything this year mom, dad and sis.

Last-Minute Edible Gifts: A Round-Up

I've been buried under a kid's craft camp this week and am going to be making a mad dash for last-minute gifts this afternoon. One of my shop-stops will be the supermarket- where I'll get ingredients for quick & easy edible gifts! If you too are feeling a bit behind, here's a round-up of some of my favorite edible treats to give out at Christmas. 

Homemade Marshmallows!

Hot Cocoa Mix

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Sweet and Spicy Mole Fudge

Peanut Brittle

Peppermint Bark




And if you need a gift for someone who doesn't have much of a sweet-tooth, try this easy sugar scrub- Perfect for soothing dry winter skin. It's not necessarily edible, but it will make your shower or bath feel INCREDIBLE!

Bath Time Sugar Scrub

Holiday Party Food: Mini Pumpkin Pies

This is a mini pumpkin pie. It's baked in a mini pumpkin and topped with whipped cream. This is the best thing you can possibly do to left over mini-pumpkins from Halloween. Why am I posing about this now? Because this is a rad thing to bring to your coworkers at work, a holiday party, or your family's Christmas dinner.

They may not look like much in this light, but they are DELIGHTFUL.

 

To bake your own mini pumpkin pies you will need:

Many mini pumpkins and ramekins (to bake any remaining mix)

A pumpkin carver

A melon-baller

A cookie sheet

1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

1 teaspoon ground ginger 

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 

4 large eggs

1 (29 ounce) can Libby's 100% pumpkin puree

2 (12 ounce) can Carnation Evaporated Milk

12 mini pumpkins or small ramekin containers

whipped cream (optional)

Directions:


Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Using your carving tool, cut the tops off of your mini pumpkins. Then, carve out as much of the seeds and pumpkin meat as you can with the melon baller. Set the pumpkin meat aside for another recipe. 

 


Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. 
Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. 

Pour the mixture into the carved pie shells. Pour any remaining mix into the ramekins. Arrange your shells and ramekins onto a cookie sheet and add a quarter cup of water to the cookie sheet.

Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Then, reduce the temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack. While the pies are cooling, add about a cup of whipping cream, teaspoon of vanilla and tablespoon of sugar together until you have stiff peaks. 


Dollop the whipped cream onto the pies and serve immediately. Or, if not eating immediately, leave the cream off the pies, and keep everything refrigerated until ready. 

Your friends, co-workers and family will be tickled. Even though these pies are missing a traditional crust, there is something about being handed a mini pumpkin or an individual ramekin of pie (all for you!!) that is very special.

And you will feel pretty pleased when you see people scraping the bottoms of their pumpkin shells (which have baked and are indeed edible on the insides!) for every last morsel! 


Hope you enjoy! Happy holidays!

Stocking Stuffer for Men: Road-Trip Matches

I am in frantic, last-minute Christmas mode, and I am sure I'm not alone. This weekend, I needed a quick stocking stuffer for my husband, the mountain man. I wanted something cheap (he LOVES cheap) and practical (he's nothing if not practical.) Since one of our favorite combined passions is piling in the van and escaping on a long-road trip, I thought I would make him a set of road-trip matches. 

Road-trip matches occurred to me while I was cleaning out the glove box of our beloved Vanagon after the last big trip... We went through about nine states in eleven days, and in that time, accumulated about a zillion free AAA maps. 

To make your own road-trip matches, and create a quick and easy stocking stuffer for the mountain man in YOUR life, you will need:

- A free AAA Tour book (or other small map)

- A large box of matches

- A bottle of Mod-Podge

- A paintbrush

- A pair of scissors

I started by flipping through one the AAA Tour books and finding a map that encompassed enough of an area that would be useful for us to get around (eliminating the need for a giant map on my lap while we drove), and would be helpful for us to get our bearings while we discussed our route over the evening campfire! The beauty of the AAA tour book, is that most of the maps are exactly as wide as a large box of matches- so minimal cutting is required. Simply use one blade of the scissors to score the pages of the book until the map you want falls out. 

 

Next, using the paintbrush, cover one side of the match box with the map. 

The large box of matches I was using had a striker pad on both sides, so I carefully cut my map in half and aligned the second part of the map on the Mod-Podge-painted underside of the box. 

I trimmed up the edges of my map, gluing them down, and pressing the extra around the corners of the box. 

Then, I used the handle of my scissors, to carefully smooth out any bumps of glue in my map. 

When I was done, I'd converted a previously generic box of matches into a helpful driving aid for our next big road trip- and all for under a few dollars!

I've got a few other odds and ends for my hubby's stocking, but I'm looking forward to him seeing these matches so we can begin to plan our next big road trip! 

Hope you enjoy this quick and easy craft for your favorite road-tripper!

Photo Saturday: Christmas Eve Pictionary

This is my dad. 

He's trying desperately to score points in our annual game of Christmas Eve Pictionary. Every year, the girls (mostly artists) crush the boys (mostly mathematicians). Every year, I am accused of cheating by a particularly sore loser on the boy's team (*cough* Mimi's husband)

I am so looking forward to seeing my family and friends this Christmas Eve. I'm thankful for Pictionary, for my mom's homemade everything and for all the laughs, warmth and comfort that bubble up when we are all together.

I cannot wait for Christmas Eve.

Blue Christmas: An Etsy Treasury

Maybe it's the week in bed, or the fact that it's freezing outside- but I'm in a blue Christmas kind of mood! 

Hope you enjoy these truly beautiful items I've selected for today's etsy treasury!

Stuffed Stocking Winners!

Thanks so so much to everyone who participated in the stuffed stocking give-away!

The grand prize winner of the stocking, lucet, needle-felted Christmas garland, ornament and yarn is:

Katie said...
I really want that fork! I'm following on Twitter now too.
Congrats Katie! Send me an email at megan at radmegan dot com with your mailing address- and thank you so much for following my blog :)
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Winner of the Needle-Felted Santa is:

Cassandra of Pooknflip said...
I shared your giveaway on my FB page! http://www.facebook.com/PooknflipProductions
Yay Cassandra! I appreciate you reading and following! Please send me your address as well!! Merry Christmas!
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And winner of one needle-felted elf ornament is:

Allison said...
Not sure if your giveaway is available to overseas followers (I'm in Australia) but hey, if not, no biggie, am happy just to share the love!!
So, have worked my way through your list and:
already follow your blog and subscribe to emails (so big check there!)
liked you on Facey 
followed you on Twitter (for verification my name there is Narrabrite and my profile pic is a piglet that I hand reared!!)
I'm pretty sure that I added you to my circle on Etsy - am pretty new to it - but again am Narrabrite
I tweeted about the competition and tagged you in the tweet so you could see it (https://twitter.com/#!/Narrabrite/status/145699129107021825)!
I posted a link to this page on Facey (and again tagged you - https://www.facebook.com/allison.michell.davis)
As for my favourite posts - so many to choose from - but I am still busting to try the cedar plank salmon, I LOVED the string gardens and as for that peppermint bark that you made for your sister, what can I say - ambrosia!!
Finally for some extra unasked credit, I thought that since I first found you on Pinterest I would go back there - I followed all of your boards, and then pinned a link to this page and tagged you in it (here's a link http://pinterest.com/pin/111112315776174320/) and then just for fun I also tweeted that one!
Crikey - I'm beginning to become that kid in class that we all hate, but hey, I love my daily emails from radmegan and anything I can do to help spread the love is a pleasure!
Good luck everyone!! xx
Allison! Congrats and thank you so much for the kind words! It would be my pleasure to send this little elf down to you in the land of Oz! Please send me your mailing address and he will be on his way :) megan at radmegan dot com. 
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To everyone else, thank you so so much for reading, for participating and for following this blog! You all mean so much to me and I really wish I could have given a stuffed stocking to all of you! 


Stay tuned for a New Year's Give-Away! I've got something very special in the works for you- so if you didn't win this time, give it a few of weeks- 2012 is just around the corner and so are more radmegan give-aways!

Sick Day

I've been in my pajamas for a couple of days with a cold. The most I can do right now is organize etsy orders. 

Sick days are the worst, aren't they? 

Weekend at Renegade!

Over the weekend, the Renegade Fair came to town! My awesome friends at the Urban Craft Center had a huge and inviting booth where they held craft workshops and sold loads of crafting kits and supplies (*cough* including radmegan terrariums, ornaments and DVDs!!!) 

In fact, on Saturday, I hosted a workshop on how to make Danish Woven Hearts! Here are a few pictures from the workshop. 

 

 

I'm including the pattern and instruction sheet I made for this workshop, here.  

 

Click on them to view in a larger scale. 

After my woven heart demos, the U.C.C conducted workshops on how to use my radmegan knitting forks AND how to make my needle-felted Christmas lights! It was an incredible day for radmegan crafts at Renegade! 

And by the way, if you missed it this weekend, I've got a very special Christmas Give-away going on right now... Check out THIS POST for details!