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Whoot! We've made it to Friday Faves #50! And, since Thursday the first of February was National Candy Making Day, what a great way to celebrate our faves! Do you enjoy making homemade candies? We've shared a few of our favorite candy recipes in the past, but we will also be sharing a new favorite this week as well. These homemade candy choices will be perfect this time of year as it gets closer to Valentine's Day! You could even make your own little candy box for that special someone.
What are your favorite homemade candies?
You are going to notice that there is a theme among us here at 3 Winks. Chocolate! I thought about giving a Divinity recipe, but let's get real. It really is all about the chocolate.
But, Maddy, with her usually healthy vegan ways said, "Nope! If I am going for dipped chocolate, it is going to be the delicious fondant centers you make, Mom." (She didn't really say that, but I am sure that is what she was thinking as she picked these dipped chocolates.) If you click the picture, it will take you to the Spring version of these delectable treats.
And Now, on to our newest recipe...
Butterscotch Not-So-Squares! These are an attempt at a copy cat of the delicious See's Candy recipe that is so wonderful. I found different recipes for this candy on Pinterest, but adapted it to my own taste. It is pretty darn good, but my family thinks it is closer to a toffee taste rather than the Butterscotch Square taste. But, they gobbled it down and found it to be good, so I will call it a success anyway!
All of these recipes are super easy to make and would be perfect to share! Do you have candy recipes you love to make? Be sure to let us know about them!
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I thought that after the holidays (already a month ago!) that things would slow down and there would be fewer events and gatherings. But, I was wrong, it seems like we have had a lot of reasons to celebrate life's events. Not only that, there are more reasons coming up! Think Super Bowl, Galentine's Day, Valentines Day, Birthdays...the list goes on. Of course, delicious dips are appropriate for any of these occasions, so we have put together a list of our faves for you! With so many things always going on, it is nice to have options of different recipes for appetizers and finger foods. We have a plethora of printable recipes for you today, so hang on to your hats and get your printer paper ready to take advantage of Friday Faves #49.
What are your favorite dips?
First of all, we have a few favorites that we usually purchase, even though we sometimes make them. It is just that a lot of times there is a brand that we love that makes life easier and sometimes even less expensive.
Purchased Dips:
Hummus-Maddy loves a Red Pepper hummus that we get from our local grocery store. Hummus is actually easy to make in the food processor, but this flavor from the Private Selection Kroger brand is so good that we tend to stick with it.
Pesto-I love pesto, and I have wanted to make it, but the price of pine nuts always holds me back. It has to be fresh pesto, too. None of that on the shelf canned stuff.
Guacamole-Actually, I have made guacamole a lot of times. But, the Wholly Guacamole brand is so good and fresh tasting that many times I just end up purchasing it.
Our Recipes:
Now is the time to get ready to print! Here are the dips that we love to make and eat with chips, crackers, bread, tortillas, fruit, veggies or whatever makes you happy!
Alicia came up with great new salsa recipe that has roasted peppers and tomatoes in it. I showed you my fresh salsa recipe a couple of years ago on this post. But this one looks delicious and I am sure you will love it as well!
Lindsey was trying to decide which dip is her favorite and going through all of the kinds with her husband. When they hit upon Slow Cooker Spinach Artichoke Dip, she was like, "That's It!" She loves this recipe because you can put everything into the crock pot and it all comes together into a creamy, cheesy dip that is so good!
My choice is an oldie but a goodie. I have fond memories of making and eating Clam Dip with my husband early on in our marriage. I hadn't made it for awhile, but I thought about it the other day and decided it sounded perfect for our upcoming party. (I had to get my cute new owl kitchen towel in on the act, of course!)
My oldest son, whose family is staying with us for a short time, tells me he has tweaked and perfected his Chili Cheese Dip over the years. I have to say, as I sit here eating it as I work, It is pretty darn delicious!
My DIL and my grandchildren, on the other hand, love this fluffy fruit dip! I love it, too! A splash of OJ in the mix is an alternative to this dip that brightens it up.
If you haven't tried any of these, we hope you will give some of them a try! Introduce something new at your event or party this year! Have fun!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
Last Sunday was Organize Your Home Day, which seems like an appropriate day for the month of January. When you put away all of the Christmas trappings and new gifts, it is the perfect time to organize your goals and your home at the same time. It takes me more than one day to do all of this. January should be Organize Your Home Month!
The 4 of us here at 3 Winks Design are all in different stages of life that require various different types of focus when it comes to organizing our homes. Alicia and her husband and 2 children live in a tiny little apartment in the expensive Bay Area in California. Lindsey and her PH have a brand new baby in a new home. Maddy lives at home with my husband and I in a small bedroom with millions of clothes and shoes. Plus she eats vegan, so she has different food items that need to be stored in our pantry. My husband and I are about to have a home with only 3 people in it. (My son and his family are soon re-locating to his new job!) We are going to be re-purposing some of our rooms in our house. Because of all of these needs, we have decided that, for today's Friday Faves, to share with you our current favorite tools and products that we are using to help us be more organized.
Helen's Faves
If you have been following along with me at all, you know that one of my goals for this year is to go through all of the books in the house and weed them out and organize them. I have always wanted to have a library area in my home. To help me with this, I have purchased 2 new bookcases. I love them! They are the Target Threshold brand and they look so nice. They come in a variety of colors, they do require assembly, and they are sturdy and budget friendly.
Another tool I use for organizing is something I made for my pantry. It is an inventory method that I use to help me know what I have in my food storage and to keep my pantry stocked with the basics. I used word strip charts that I purchased at the Target One Spot to make them. I don't see those available right now, but they are usually there at the beginning of the school year. Many people have asked me to share my method and I will on another post in the near future. In the meantime, here is what it looks like. It hangs on the peg board wall of my pantry.
Lindsey's Fave
Lindsey and Austin are furnishing their new house from scratch! They have of course spent a lot of time and effort in the nursery, getting it ready for Baby Emily. It was really nice when they received some Target Gift Cards as wedding gifts and were able to purchase this beautiful dresser with them for her. Their crib is also grey so this goes so nicely with it and goes so well with the Where the Wild Things Are theme. (I talked about that here, as well as her adorable letters of her name!) The 6 drawers give lots of space to hold all of a baby's many article of clothing and supplies. It is a dresser that will grow nicely with her over the next few years.
Alicia's Faves
When I tell you that Alicia lives in a really tiny place, I mean really tiny. They actually rent a 2 bedroom, 1 bath guest house that just had a kitchen added. (For awhile, they lived with a hot plate, microwave and mini fridge. Their only sink was in the bathroom!) It is super cute, though and is helping them to save money for the future. Alicia has worked really hard to make it as organized as possible and to use as much wall space as possible to make it work for their family.
Recently, Alicia shared how she made a hanging diaper stacker from a t-shirt. It has been extremely popular, which leads me to believe that many young mothers are needing some of her space saving tips.
There are some other clever ideas that Alicia has used as well.
She ordered these plastic containers from Dollar Tree. When you order them online, you get 24 of them! At first, she thought that was going to be way too many. But, surprisingly she started using them at a very quick rate! They are perfect for nuts, crackers, cereal and other dry goods. When her kitchen was added to her apartment, they put in a nice long pantry cupboard. Look how organized she is making it with her plastic containers! Another great buy from Dollar Tree are these cloth boxes for organizing shelves. Baby Sofia has a cabinet instead of drawers for her clothing. Alicia uses these fabric boxes to hold her clothes.
There are a couple of kinds of these boxes. There are these with grommet handles, and these collapsible cubes. When you order the grommet handled ones, they come in units of 24. When you order the cubes, they come in units of 4! These boxes also look great on shelves and bookcases to keep things tucked away neatly.
One last thing that Alicia loves are her library style bookends. They work very well to hold up a lot of books and although they are plain, they are very hard working! Alicia has ideas for decorating them if you would like to to that. But, in the meantime, they fulfill her need to keep her shelves neat.
Madalynn's Faves
Maddy also uses the fabric cubes for storage in her room. As I mentioned before, she has a ton of shoes. One of the best ways to keep them organized is by using a shoe rack. Here are some choices from Target.
Maddy also uses some Dollar Tree items to store some of the grains and things that she uses in her healthy diet. We love the decorative glass storage jars for storing chia seeds or other grains. (Do you know that chia seeds never seem to run out!)
Dollar Tree also has these nice canisters! When you order them online, you can get 4 to a unit! That is perfect for flour, sugar, brown sugar, marshmallows, rice or any other thing you may want to store!
So, those are our suggestions for storage and organization around the house! We hope you can use some of our ideas. Is there a product you love that you couldn't be organized without? Let us know down in the comments! We'd love to to try them out.
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support.
Believe it or not, Saturday is Rubber Ducky Day! (You can order all kinds of rubber duckies at Oriental Trading at that link!) Whenever I hear about a Rubber Ducky, I always thinks of Ernie on Sesame Street singing the song! When I was a teenager, and my oldest nephew, Doug was just 2 years old, I taught him to sing that song. He was so adorable. Now he has teenagers of his own. Whenever I see him, which isn't often enough, I remember that cute little 2 year old. (Sorry Doug) I don't know if he ever taught his kids that song though.
This year for Christmas, my grandchildren received Sesame Street books and stuffed characters from Sesame Street. (Kohl's is really good about selling books and stuffed toys for $5.00 to help kids become readers. The Sesame Street Books are on clearance right now!) So, all of these things combined prompted me to ask this week's Friday Fave question:
Who is your favorite Sesame Street Character?
As we begin, you have to know that we are an old school Sesame Street family. When I look at Sesame Street now, I hardly recognize it! My kids remember when Elmo was just a little no name monster, when Grover was hilarious and when Big Bird was finally able to let everyone see Mr. Snuffleupagus. Remember when the Cookie Monster was allowed to eat cookies? Those are the Sesame Street days that we know and loved.
Grover
I didn't even need to ask Alicia who her favorite character is. She has always loved Grover! When she had braces on her teeth, her retainer even had Grover on it! He was so funny as Super Grover and when he played the waiter at every restaurant on the show was hilarious. Alicia's favorite Sesame Street book has always been The Monster at the End of this Book starring Grover! Here are the boys reading it!
The other one is reading its sequel that stars Grover and Elmo, Another Monster at the End of This Book.
Both of these books feature Grover trying to get you not to turn the pages to the end of the book because he is afraid of the monster at the end. In the second book, Elmo aids the reader in thwarting his attempts. Both of the books have a funny and happy ending! (of course!) Today, you can get them in hard cover for under$5.00 on Amazon!
Cookie Monster
Lindsey chose Cookie Monster. I kind of wanted to pick him as well, because who doesn't love Cookie Monster? Who doesn't sometimes feel like Cookie Monster on the inside when you see your favorite cookies ready to be devoured? When Madalynn was little, she had a talking Cookie Monster (similar) that always said, "Oh boy, oh boy!" It is one of those silly little phrases that have always stuck with us.
When the kids were little, we had a cassette of Sesame Street songs that taught the letters of the Alphabet! We loved that thing! Of course, it taught the letter "C" with Cookie Monster singing "C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me!" We have found the songs on YouTube, and I was looking for it on Amazon. I think I have found it on CD! I hope that this is it! I have used these songs when I was teaching. Kids love them and some of our favorites are the letters "L", "W", and "Y". I think I may have to order this for my grandchildren! It is a classic.
Oscar the Grouch
Madalynn had a hard time choosing because Cookie Monster was taken! She finally ended up with Oscar the Grouch, the lovable guy in the trash can! Here is a cute book called A Day in the Life of Oscar the Grouch. It is a good compare and contrast book as Oscar talks about what he likes and doesn't like on Sesame Street. Another cute one is Grouchy Hugs. It has litter Oscar arms that interact with the pages.
Ernie or The Count? I Can't Decide!
Ernie and the Count are both favorites of mine! My kids tell me that when I laugh really hard, I sound like Ernie and I love the Count's Transylvanian accent as he counts. I used to imitate him for my kids all of the time.
When my kids were very young, my friend sent me an entire set of Sesame Street Treasury that had short stories, activities and songs in them. They even taught American Sign Language with Linda! They were so great for teaching pre-schoolers and I used to use all of my best imitations of all the characters that I could as I read them. Guess what! I found them on Amazon! They are collectible and if you want them, hurry because there are only a few left!
Who are your favorite Sesame Street Characters? Do you have fond memories of them from days gone by? Do you remember the Rubber Ducky song and other Sesame Street classics? Leave us your memories in the comments below and enjoy Rubber Ducky Day!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
June 2024
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