Hootin’ Anni’s

Now, for the Show N Tell for the week – - -

I have this one special area in our home that is decorated for the certain season or holiday. For the past couple of months, it’s been barren. And as most know, when we moved about three years ago to the state of Texas, prior to that, I donated all my craft projects [mainly huge wreaths, grapevine mostly] to Goodwill as we were downsizing for the packing and such. Well, now that we’re completely settled once again, I’ve been trying to reestablish another collection of holiday/seasonal wreath projects. This past couple of weeks I’ve been working on something patriotic in theme for our Independence Day that will be here in less than a month.

And if you don’t know this by now, I’ve nearly become a vegetarian. And I’ve lost several fatty pounds in weight while doing so. Some of my clothes no longer fit properly, so I have slowly packed them in a box with intentions of donating them. When I took them to our donation center, I walked through and found this cute little ratty ol’ thing that would be perfect for my ‘special’ area. I bought it for fifty cents and brought it home, got out my acrylic craft paint box and started cleaning it up and painting it!

The star was quite dirty and brown, natural wood color. It’s wicker, wire and wood. I painted some white stars around the blue wooden section [trying to evenly space them around], painted the wicker red. Then while the white painted stars were still wet, I sprinkled some white frosty glitter for a festive touch.

After that was done, then thinking of what to add for decoration. I have had this Patriotic Beany Baby Teddy Bear perched on a shelf for months and I figured he’d be perfect to glue into the one corner on the left. And as always I ended up at Hobby Lobby this past week in search of some sparkly goodies to add! I purchased a flat miniature wooden USA piece the shape of the states. Painted it frosty white and again added the white glitter. I bought two inexpensive red white and blue streamers, and curled some of them to represent fireworks. I found a small bird house painted in patriotic colors and glued that beside the bear. And then for the finishing touch I sewed his right paw to make a ‘loop’ and stuck an “American” pinwheel to have it ‘look’ like he’s holding it! And then the final step was to add a miniature red cardinal flying out of the birdhouse portal. Done! And hanging in the view of all who walk by!

Here are a couple close-up photos [with captions on mouseover]…

- – -

If you were here for my Thursday meme, you’d know I didn’t have the opportunity to be online much after the 8 a.m. shift for construction workers; they cut cable by accident. Okay, then…if you also read I had some of the most tasty toffee at the mall. And that I came home and the cable still wasn’t repaired, so I ended up making MORE toffee here at home. Boy howdy, is it good. I searched and searched online for a recipe that DOESN’T use butter. Since it’s loaded with fat that I don’t necessarily need anymore, and try to avoid at all costs.

I couldn’t find one, and all the ones I did find said butter…”No substitute”!!

One I found on the Food Network I thought I could improvise a bit on it. It also called for water. Well, what is margarine [the 98% fat free kind] but rubber flavoring and WATER? Right? So, I figured I could just eliminate the water from the recipe and it’d be a ‘go’! So I poured the sugar and the margarine into the pan, and began melting and stirring…stirring at a full boil for about 10 minutes. Then, since I rarely make homemade candies, I have no candy thermometer, and ended up using the cold water in a cup method to make sure that it had cooked long enough for it to be the ‘crack’ stage.

By that time, it was a rich golden brown, and ready to pour into the prepared cookie sheet. I had covered the sheet with waxed paper for easier handling after it hardened/cooled. In the meantime, I took my bag of chocolate chips [in my case, I used milk chocolate], and melted them in the microwave and added a teaspoon of canola oil to keep it smooth and creamy. Once that was done, I poured the melted chocolate over the toffee and added the crushed pecans on top; covering the nuts/chocolate with another sheet of waxed paper so I could press the nuts into the chocolate.

After cooling for a few hours, I brought the pan out of the ‘fridge and used a paper plate [nothing fancy and no dish to wash afterwards] and cracked the finished toffee into pieces. Yummy. The elimination of water and substituting real butter for margarine worked fine!! I think the trick of it all is to make sure it’s boiled to the fine crack stage on the stovetop!! Really good. And a treat that really shouldn’t be on the menu at all around here, but much needed for the psyche sometimes!!