Holiday Open House....

Help us start the holiday season!

Don't miss out on the many Models for Sale!!!!

An unexpected surprise....

 What a surprise to come to work and find this! 

 About 9:00 AM a truck took out our sign.  We always knew one day that sign would save us....  In this case it saved the dry cleaners next door.  He came to a stop in their parking lot right up against the building.  Good thing the sign slowed him down.  The dry cleaners was open at the time, we weren't open yet.  That is probably a good thing! 

Thank you sign!



We had so many requests for recipes after open house that I wanted to share of few with you.

I wish that I could give credit where credit is do for these, but my hand written recipe cards passed from person to person doesn't tell me where some of them originated.

Here are a few of the favorites....I do know where this recipe comes from.

A good friend of mine would bring them every Christmas morning. Her sweet 85 year old mom in Canada would make them and mail them to her, and she was kind enought to share them with my family.

This recipe is

Aunt Cora's shortbread

1 1/2 cup salted butter - soft at room temperature

cut into small pieces and cream

add

1 cup icing sugar (that is Canadian for powdered sugar)

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp vanilla

beat well

place mixture on cookie sheet. I use a jelly roll pan, it works wonderfully. Roll out.

It will fill a full sized pan side to side.

Use very little four on your rolling pin to roll out the mixture.

Prick with a fork up and down the pan.

Bake at 325 degrees

30 minutes until golden brown

Shut off oven

cut cookies while warm and still on pan.

Leave on pan and place in oven again for 5 minutes

let cool completely and remove squares from pan.

they are soooo good, and only 4 ingredients!

this recipe was printed in a past Reebok magazine

Lemon Thumbprint Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar

beat together until well blended then add:

2 large egg yolks

1 Tbs grated lemon zest

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp kosher salt

with mixer on low, beat in

2 1/2 cup flour

until moist clumps form

gather dough together in a bowl to bind.

shape tablespoons of dough into 1 inch balls. Place them 1 inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheet. Make a deep well in the center of each ball. I used a melon baller dipped in flour to make the well.

Bake cookies until firm and lightly golden on bottom, about 18-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Remove cookies from oven and immediately fill indentation with lemon curd.

You can also use lemon pie filling.

The whole recipe only uses about 1 cup of lemon curd.

Return to oven and bake 2 minutes longer to set curd.

lightly dust edges with confectioners sugar before serving.

I wish that I had a picture of this Cranberry Salsa. It is just a beautiful color.

it is good all year around. I freeze cranberries and use them in July.

It makes a great chip dip salsa if you leave it really chunky.

Wendy's Cranberry Salsa

1 12 oz. package fresh cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

1 medium jalapeno, remove seeds and coarsely chop

3-6 chopped green onions

3 Tbs fresh cilantro or about 1 tsp dried (but fresh is MUCH better)

1/4 tsp cumin

place all ingredients in food processor. Process until mixture is coarsely chopped. Store in refrigerator overnight to allow flavors to blend.

You can serve it over cream cheese with crackers,

and it is also great as a relish with pork or turkey.

and last but not least.....

Pecan Toffee Bars

I will post a picture after I make these again. I promised Joy I would make them every once in a while. She absolutely loved them!

to make the bar cookie base:

1 cup butter

2 cup flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

crumble together and put in a 9 x 12 cake pan.

Bake at

350 degrees for 15 minutes

top of bar cookie:

mix together

1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

add

1 cup chopped pecans

1 10 oz pkg toffee bits

(I use heath bits you find in the chocolate chip department)

pour over cookie base (no need to cool)

bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes

chill until set and cut into bars

These won't last long!

I hope that these recipes make their way into your annual holiday baking!

They are always in mine...

Where friends gather

What a fun party. Where all friends gather, laugh, shop and eat. What a great way to spend a Saturday. We love to see you all!

So much fun stuff!


These three always have a fun time. We love to see their smiling faces at the shop

Thanks for coming to the party everyone!

The big day is here!

Well, it is that time....the first Saturday of December.

The annual

Christmas Open House.

This is a peaceful picture of the front of the store, before the crowd!

Hey, the more, the merrier!

Yep, the last storm took the petunias...so sad.

My sister in law said, "come over and take some branches from the pine tree out front". While she was at work I played Edward Scissor Hands and did a little pruning. I was a little afraid she would say, "what happened to my tree!!" but you actually couldn't even tell that I took any branches out. Whewwww.

The cabinets are filled and displayed. If you like the sampler on the top shelf: Lizzie Kate's "Green Flip-it" series, we have a great sale on it right now. All 6 patterns and the border for $12.00. The regular price is $27.00!
We really have a lot of beautiful Christmas pictures. We have some really wonderful friends and employees that stitch for us. We love you guys!

Of course one of the coziest things about the shop is that we have a fire on the cold winter days. It is wonderful to spend the day stitching by the fire with friends.

It's coming along!

We are almost done. I guess I should say ,"the guys are almost done". I make it sound like I have been working on the garage out in this heat. Not a chance....
Things get a little crazy in the parking lot some days with the work guys and the customers. But as you can see the stucco is almost done! Just a few things to finish up and a big door on special order. We will miss the guys when they finish though. It has been nice having them around and they were great to work with.

Art Festival 2010

Did you go to the downtown Art Festival this last weekend? If not, you not only missed out on some wonderful works of art and very imaginative artist, but the food! Check out these delicious kabobs that my friend and I found. They were fabulous! Something I may try to recreate at home for the kids. They were yummy!!!

Yes...there is something going on back there...

So many of you have been watching the progress of our building behind the store. It has been fun watching the progress. It will be storage for us, heaven knows that we need to clean out that bathroom! We will keep all of our extra racks, fixtures of all kinds, mailing supplies and all of the other extra stuff that just keeps getting in the way in the shop. We will have a nice covered two car carport. one that won't crash down as easily on my car as the last one did. Boy, that was a story to tell... I will keep you posted with pictures of the progress. We have really got to know the workers. I bribe them with cake. But I am afraid they are a little camera shy.

Seminar was great!

I had a lot of fun at the Rocky Mountain Seminar held at the Sheridan Hotel this weekend. The people were lined up at the door waiting to come into market night! I met some really nice people, designer and retailers. I haven't participated in anything like this before and wasn't sure what to expect. I set up a mini display of the shop and color co-ordinated everything, right down to the apron that I wore. Okay, maybe I went a little overboard, but sometimes I get a little out of hand. It was a very successful night!The lady in the wonderful yellow and black hat is Monica Ferris, the mystery writer. It was such an honor to have her in town for the event.
I saw many familiar faces like Don, Karen and Pat.
When Sandy wasn't running around with a walky talky I got a picture with her and Alice. Cynthia was helping out at a table with a friend, and did a little shopping.
Brenda and her husband were there with their chocolates (I'm sorry the only picture I had is with her eyes closed.) They are the most wonderful chocolates ever! I got to taste a special one with pop rocks inside. That was a blast from the past. I think I would like to ask her to bring her chocolates in for our Christmas open house this year. You have got to try these!

It was fun to see these four smiling friends at the seminar. There is Kathy, Geri, Mary and Sandra. Some of our wonderful customers!

Thanks so much for a really fun night!