Pumpkin Bars

Our son and daughter-in-law had a little gathering at their home last Sunday after their daughter, Hannah was blessed.  Amber wanted to serve a dessert bar and everyone pitched in by bringing their favorite treats to sample from.  Everything was yummy!  My contribution, Pumpkin Bars.  I received this recipe from my mother-in-law several years ago and have made it many times since.  It's a tried and true favorite around our house.  Especially this time of year.

4 eggs

1 2/3 cup sugar

1 cup oil

 Cream together, then add:

16oz. can pumpkin

2 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda

 Mix well.

 Pour onto ungreased pan.  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:

3 oz. cream cheese

1 cube margarine

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cup powdered sugar

Mix well.  Spread over cooled pumpkin bars.

 Cut into squares.

RECIPE:

4 eggs
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 cup oil

cream together, then add:

16oz. can pumpkin
2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda

Mix well.  Pour onto ungreased pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

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Mother Goose Popcorn

This is a childhood favorite, introduced to me by my grandmother.  She made this popcorn every Christmas.  Soon we made it throughout the year, changing the color and flavors for different holidays.  I changed it up by drizzling chocolate (milk and white) over the top.  It tasted great!


RECIPE

1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp butter
dash salt
1 1/2 tsp desired flavoring
Food coloring
Popcorn

Ingredients

Mix sugar, water, butter & salt.

Bring ingredients to a boil.

When it reaches the soft ball stage, remove from heat.

Add flavoring and a few drops of desired food coloring.

Pour over popcorn and stir until it becomes sugary and cold.

Drizzle with chocolate (if desired).

Voilà!  Yummy popcorn, great for gift-giving! 

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Halloween Treats, No Trick!

A very good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless per her request) and her family got together to decorate cupcakes and a few other Halloween treats.  They hand-dipped fruit, strawberries, grapes, etc. in chocolate and then decorated them to resemble Frankenberries and other little monsters.  She brought in some of the grapes that had stringy orange hair and eyes made by dipping a toothpick into melted chocolate and then dotting it onto the grape.  So cute.  And yummy!

Here are some of the picture they took.

 Take a look at some of their cupcakes.

Doesn't that just make you want to go to the kitchen and start creating your own?

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Dangly earrings

What little girl doesn't look through her mother's or her grandmother's jewelry box and dream of the day when she will have her own sparkly diamond ring, strand of pearls, or dangly pair of earrings to wear?  I know as a small child I was constantly combing through my mother's jewelry box.  She had an old fashioned jeweled hair comb that belonged to my grandmother and I absolutely loved it.  I pretended it was my princess crown.  To this day, I still love jewelry especially dangly earrings.  I sat down before work and whipped up this pair.

Selection of beads.

Pieces I chose.

Finished earrings.

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Pumpkin Door Hanger

My niece Jen and her daughter created this one.  They were not able to join us so they did their pumpkins on their own.

Saturday was our "family craft day", which I'm very much enjoying.  This month, we all made our own individual pumpkin door hanger.  My dear, sweet hubby cut them out of wood for us.  As you can see, each one came away with it's own personality.  It was a lot of fun.

Supplies needed:
wood
wire (for the hanger)
hot glue gun
scissors
buttons--variety
orange paint
white paint
sand paper
paint brushes
raffia
fall flowers
ribbon (Halloween colors and/or variety)

Cut the pumpkin shape and nose piece from wood. 

Paint all the pieces.  I wanted to make my nose look like a piece of candy corn, but when I opened my yellow paint it was dry.  :(    So, we just did variegated oranges. 

My sister's pumpkin

After the paint dries, sand to make it look a little distressed.  My daughter took her's to the garage and also beat it with a hammer (but be careful not to break it!)  ;)

Hot glue your eyes and nose in place.  Sam gave her's rosy cheeks. 

My niece Sam's pumpkin

Add the handle and some ribbon, flowers, etc.  

This is my sister, Paula's pumpkin.



This is one my niece, Tiffany and her three-year-old daughter, Chloe made.



This is another one Jen and her daughter made.

My daughter, Courtney's pumpkin, mine, and my d-i-l, Amber's pumpkin

Some placed their noses upside down, which I thought looked much cuter.  Courtney added eyeshadow to her's (a row of colorful buttons above her eyes).  We all had fun designing our pumpkins.

I will try to add the pattern but it is a little big for my scanner, so I have to scale it down first.

pumpkin pattern

Remember this is scaled down, so you will have to size it up a little bit in order to get it back to the size we used.  Have fun creating your pumpkin faces!

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