My favorite sugar cookie recipe with awesome icing recipes and good tips too!

My cousin gave me these recipes and they are really good and the icing turns out nice and glossy.

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter (real butter, softened)
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond exctract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar

Mix ingredients in mixer (or by hand if you want to work really hard).  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.  You can freeze it too.

Roll out dough (use lots of flour) and cut out cookies. 
****Here is a great tip for you - when you cut out your cookies stick them in the freezer for 10 minutes and then bake them.  It keeps your cookies from spreading and looking out fat and bloated.  In other words, they keep their shape better.
Bake at 350 for 9 minutes.

Tips:  Use cookie cutters that are about the size of your palm.  Use 2 - 1/4 inch dowel rods so your dough is even (see picture above).


Here are the icing recipes - there are two of them:

Cookie Icing

2 lbs. powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons of light corn syrup
2 teaspoons of vanilla
water (add just a little at a time until it is pourable)

- you can dip your cookies in this and scrap sides off and allow to harden (sprinkle with spinkles and such now) or you can use this as your "flood icing" after it is outlined with the Royal icing (recipe follows).

Royal Icing

2 lbs. powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons of meringue powder (find it at JoAnn's, Michael's or Hobby Lobby in the cake stuff)
water (slowly add) until its thick but pourable

Beat with a whisk or your mixture very fast for 5-10 minutes.

When you add the color - make sure you get really good food coloring to make really bright colors.  I used Wilton brand I believe.

I started to outline mine but had some younger helpers who wanted to go a little faster.  Again you can outline with royal icing and flood it using a toothpick with the other icing.

Here is the cookie icing that I just dipped (no outline) and yes it is the state of Missouri for you geography buffs.

Here is finished cookies (they are so gone by the way).

This is when I did it a few years ago with my cousins.

If you want to get really fancy you can buy these bags and labels from an office supply store and personalize them and print the labels out to give out the cookies in.

 Thank you to my cousin who gave me this recipe.  She is an awesome cake decorator too!

Pioneer Woman has a great tutorial but I found the bottles they used for the royal icing very tedious to work with and to clean!


 

More Random Acts of Christmas Kindness - cookies, cookies, cookies and the Fire station

The last few days we have been making cards and making cookies for our RAOCK. 

We did the Dollar Store on Monday and on Tuesday we made cards to the military and I mailed them today.

I showed the kids this video to make it a little more real to them about what they were doing.

Today our "wrestlers" told us we were making cards.  I chose the wrestlers because my 4 year old son is obsessed with them and basically plays with them all day and sleeps next to them every night.

We made cookies on our homeschool co-op day and we wrapped them and took them several places.

Yesterday was the day we were to bake cookies and take them to our neighbor but I had a cold so we made cookies on this day instead.

Those crazy wrestlers

 And this was the day the wrestlers "told" the kids we were taking cookies to the firehouse.

I've been talking with the kids about giving and why we should do it - expecting nothing in return.  But today they got such a blessing. 

We made the cookies.

We took them to the firehouse.

And guess what?  They invited us in and let us tour the place and get on the fire trucks.  The kids were beyond excited!

See the kid in the yellow coat?  My son - he was that excited!

I know its blurry but they were very interested in the axes.  The guy that worked there was so great to answer all of our questions.

My son especially wanted to know what this missile-like thing was.  It is what they use to break through floors to get to basements and such and it has holes in it to spray out water too.

The girls loved the big kitchen.

The boys loved the XBOX.

It was incredible and we are going to try to make it more of a monthly ritiual.  The firemen said they'd love for us to come back because it breaks up the monotony of the day plus I think they might have liked our cookies.

We then took some cookies to our local police station.

One of the boys decided they loved the one way mirror and wanted one for their room.

Then we went to a favorite local mechanic and the town hall.  The nice lady at the town hall gave the kids all suckers - again, something they weren't expecting.

We also stopped on our street and handed a plate of cookies out the window to some men working on our street.  

Lastly, we took cookies to our elderly neighbor lady who can't really get out.  We made cards too and she told us she really loved the card.

There were some great teachable moments for the kids.  It was cold out and kind of rainy but they all wanted to get out at every stop and hand out the cookies. 

It was so neat to see them in action today.  We must make this more a part of our daily lives.

 

First Day of Random Acts of Christmas Kindness - the Dollar store

We started our Random Acts of Christmas Kindness today. 

We are using toys they have around the house to bring messages about how we are going to give to others that day.  It is kind of our take from Elf on the Shelf.

 My 4 year old loves his little wrestlers so I've been using those.  Today we went to the Dollar store and taped dollars to some candy and toys.  I used the printables from my post last week.

Here the kids are putting them on things.

Honestly, this was a lot harder than I thought.  Not the putting on of the money but the explaining things to the kids.

My youngest wanted to use the dollars for himself at first.  I had to really explain to them what we are doing and why.  I had to go over it several times.  This just tells me this is a much needed project for the kiddos!

They were so excited though when we actually did it.  I told them it was like a spy mission and we didn't want anyone to notice what we are doing.  We just needed to get in and get out.

We will see how tomorrow goes.

 

25 Days of Random Acts of Kindness for the Christmas season you can do with kids!

I have been wanting to do this for a long, long time but never put anything together.  This year we are doing this!  I'm so excited that my kids are old enough to do this too and to understand it (most of them are anyway).

We are doing homeschool light in December - just the three R's in the afternoon so that in the morning we can do our service projects.  I am also planning fun outings to go along with these and I will post that tomorrow!  We are doing service projects at our church each Sunday so I didn't plan anything for those days.

Here is our plan for the month of December:

1 - Service project at church
2 -Dollar store Dollars - tape dollars to toys at the Dollar store
3 - Make and Send cards to the military (or family in the military) and/or sponsored child
4- Bake and take cookies or other baked goods to local fire station.
5- Cook and deliver a meal as a surprise to a mom with lots of littles
6 - Buy and take crayons and coloring books and put them in maternity ward waiting rooms
7 - Bake and take cinnamon rolls to neighbors and family and friends just because . . .
8 - Sunday service project at church
9 - Go visit Grandma (or an older relative or friend) and clean something for her and bring lunch
10 - Go buy several $5 Starbucks gift cards and hand them out throughout your day
11 - Take cookies to neighbors or those that can't get out much
12 - Take treats to our local post office
13 - Tape quarters to carts at Aldi
14 - Take treats to husband's work for the other workers
15 - Sunday service project at church
16 - Feed meters downtown
17 - Take thank you notes and Starbuck cards to Animal shelter workers and Pregnancy care workers
18 - Take goodies to nurses at my sister's work
19 - Pay for the food for the person behind us (or drink or coffee) at stores
20 - Taping quarters to vending and toy machines around town
21 - Donate cans of food to a local food shelter
22 - Sunday service project at church
23 - Write a letter to an elected official thanking them for their hard work.
24 - Take drug store workers notes and gift cards that have to work on Christmas Eve
25 - Take drug store workers notes and gift cards that have to work on Christmas

There are so many ideas out there - you can check Pinterest Boards and many other places for more ideas.

There are also printable cards that you can print.  Click on the link and it will take you to the blogger's website where you can print the cards.  You can also make it an Advent activity.



 

Here are some plain ones if you'd like.

Darling Doodle's cards
Blank ones to personalize
A Holiday one

 This blog has cards, calendars and bookmarks to download for free.

If you have more ideas I would LOVE to hear them especially ones to do with kids.

 

Repost - Advent Jesse Tree

This is a repost - it is what we have been doing the last few years for the month of December. 

First off, if you don't know anything about the Jesse Tree, please go  here and read up on it.  I ordered the book The Advent Jesse Tree: Devotions for children and Adults to Prepare for the Coming of the Christ Child at Christmas.  I used this book plus this tree tutorial to make our family's own calendar.  Now if you go to this tutorial it teaches you how to basically do what I am doing but mine is tailored to the Jesse Tree and its symbols.  This blogger is Mormon and her's is tailored to that, just so you know.

You will need the following supplies:

Felt - several colors including orange, gray, black, white, green, blue, pink, yellow, brown, gold.
Felt by the yard - 3/4 to 1 yard of green and white
Heat n bond light OR fabric glue - you don't have to get the Heat N Bond but it makes things a lot easier
Hook and eye closures (25 of them)
Invisible thread (optional but easier)
Whole punch

To make this easier on yourself and not so overwhelming I will tell you what I did in order.  


First, I used Shannon's page to cut out all of the ornaments.  You may go here to print it and the ornament is at the bottom of the paper.  Once printed, you will need 25 white ornaments (or you can use cream).  You will need 25 colored ornaments.  You may use any colors, but don't use green (something I did at first) or white.  I used orange, red, blue, purple, yellow and pink.

Next, find your symbols.  I used several of the symbols from here.  Just print these out and hold onto them.  You won't find all of the symbols on here.  I will list the symbols that you need.

1.  A globe or picture of the earth
2.  An apple and a snake wrapped around it
3.  An ark with a rainbow
4.  A camel and a tent
5.  A lamb
6.  A ladder
7.  A colorful coat
8.  A tablet with ten numbers
9.  A cluster of grapes
10.  A sheaf of wheat
11.  A slingshot
12.  A scroll or Bible
13.  A stump with fresh shoot or green leaf
14.  A lion and a lamb
15.  A dove and a crown
16.  A lamb and a shepherd's staff
17.  A cross
18.  A heart with writing on it
19.  A Bethlehem town silhouette with a star
20.  A fiery furnace
21.  A brick wall
22.  A star
23.  A candle or light
24.  An angel
25.  A baby in a manger

I used the book that I ordered and traced a few in there.  If those were too complicated, I just used ClipArt from Microsoft Word.  I just kind of played around with it until I had all of their symbols and MAKE SURE they will fit onto your ornament.  You will need to do the numbers next.  You may use Shannon's or make your own from the internet.  When you trace the numbers onto the Heat N Lite they have to be traced backwards.  They have to!  The symbols don't matter because it doesn't matter if they are backwards or not.  You will want the numbers to be gray and you will iron them on the colored side of the ornament (I did this wrong as you see in my pictures but it doesn't really matter).

When you have all of your symbols on paper, get your Heat N Bond Lite and trace all of your symbols onto it.  Then you will want to iron them onto the correct color of felt.  When using your iron, put it onto the steam setting even though the Heat N Lite instructions say not to.  Use a tea towel or something over the felt as your ironing it because felt will burn.  Yes, I said felt will burn.  Now some symbols have a few colors like the earth.  You can see an example here as I did the earth.   I made the circle blue and then I did the continents in green and ironed the green on the blue and then ironed the whole thing onto the ornament.

This is what takes the most time is putting the ornaments together.  As I said, I did it after the kids went to bed and during nap times.  When you have the symbols all done and the numbers done and ironed on the correct side of the ornaments (Don't forget to iron the symbols onto the white ornament - I did this wrong in mine.), then sew your two sides together.  I just put them together and sewed around the ornaments leaving a large opening in the top.  Theoretically, you could type up each day's devotion and fold it and put it in there, but since I am using a book I am not going to do that.

Once the ornaments are sewn together get out your whole punch and punch wholes in all of the ornaments one side at a time.  I used a scrapbooking whole punch and it seemed to work well.  I did have to trim the wholes a little.

Now is the time to make your tree and such - go cut out the tree, the angel and the stem if you haven't already from Shannon's blog.  Use the colors that she states.  Lay out your ornaments onto your green felt and cut out your tree per Shannon's instructions.  Then connect the two sides at every indent with a seam.

Once you do that you have a guide for where to put your ornaments.  I laid out my ornaments onto my tree and then pinned them on so I could tell where to sew the closures at.
 
This takes time so be prepared but you can do it while you are sitting on the couch watching TV - hand sew your hook closures on.

After I did that I laid out my tree on my white material.  I pinned the tree and the trunk and sewed around the tree.  After that, I pinned the angel and sewed that on.  Then I sewed the trunk and sewed around it and the X on it.

I then hemmed it on both ends.  I hemmed it about one inch because I'm not sure how I'm going to hang it up yet whether I will use a dowel rod like Shannon or not.

Then try it out and your done!

I realize this was not a thorough tutorial but Shannon's is very good and if  you still have questions, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer it.


This post is listed at Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family and