Make-A-Shake

Now that Christmas is over, I can post a few pictures of some gifts I enjoyed making.

On the non-food related front, I cross-stitched my little heart out. Here are some of the ornaments I made.

My experiments at making grapevine wreaths were a bit of a failure (snap, crackle, pop are not the noises I was hoping to hear) so I ended up buying these wreaths. I'll try again with the grapevines, earlier next year so they aren't so dry.

Though I am not much of a seamstress, I was inspired to try making a t-shirt quilt after I saw the one adorning the bed of one of my son's friends. His had a sports theme, but I made this one out of my son's marching band t-shirts, so its motif is music. The white fabric around the outer edges is sprinkled with musical notes, and the backing, black fabric has musical instruments scattered across it.

This is a close-up of the center square, a nine-patch pattern made up of the front pocket designs from five of the shirts. Can you see the actual quilting, done in musical notes and treble clefs? God bless the quilting shop that had the machine that could do this! If I'd had to quilt it myself, it would be one of those projects perpetually unfinished.

Back to food: my husband and I teamed up to produce a "favorite smoothies" recipe book. I provided the recipes and text; he provided the photos and layout expertise. Copying and binding, by Kinko's.

And finally, the recipe portion of the post. You thought I forgot this was a recipe blog, didn't you?

This Make-A-Shake jar is filled with layers of crushed Oreo cookies and M & Ms. Alternate the layers, and include a gift tag instructing the recipient to pour half the jar into the blender, add a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream and 1/4 c. of milk. Blend and voila! Instant sugar rush.

So now the question is . . . did you have time to make any gifts this year? I'd love to hear about them.