DIY No-Bake Candy Buttons!

If you were a child of the 90's (heck, if you were a child of the 1930s!) you're familiar with candy buttons, or candy dots. They're drops of colored sugar on a piece of paper. While they're a classic of everyone's childhood (ok, most people), they did have a couple of disadvantages:

1. You always had paper stuck to the bottom of them and you subjected yourself to eating paper.
2. You were stuck with the three flavors made - cherry, lime (the blue ones), and lemon.

But did you know you can make your own? With the help of some Jello and wax paper, you can pick any flavors you want (grape, orange, berry blue - you name it) and not have to deal with eating paper anymore!

Here's what you'll need to make your own candy buttons:

1. White card stock paper
2. Wax paper
3. Jello (I chose cherry, orange, and lemon)
4. Powdered sugar
5. An egg white
6. Scissors
7. Double-sided tape
8. Plastic bags (for however many flavors you're making. 3 flavors = 3 bags)


Start by cutting your paper into 2"x11" strips (1 sheet of paper should get you 4 strips).

Do the same for the wax paper - cut four strips of 2"x11" wax paper.

Use double sided tape to attach the wax paper to the card stock.

Mix together 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar with 1 egg white in a mixer for 3-4 minutes.

Divide the mixture into as many bowls as you have flavors. Add 1/4 tsp. of Jello powder to each bowl.

Put each mixture into it's own plastic bag, cut off a bit of the corner, and squeeze the filling through the bag onto the wax paper. I did four rows of each color but however you want to divide it up is totally up to you.

Let them harden overnight and that's it! Your homemade candy buttons are ready to be eaten! The great thing about choosing the flavors you want is that you can color-coordinate with whatever holiday is nearby (red/white/blue for 4th of July, green/red for Christmas, and the ones I made look ideal for Valentine's Day).

Be warned: you'll have enough to make quite a lot! I made 8 paper strips and probably could have made 9!

TOTAL COSTS: About $12 to make 288 buttons, or 8 strips of 36 buttons

$.99/box of Jello
$2.49 for powdered sugar
$2.49 for a dozen eggs (but you only need 1 egg white)
$4.09 for double-sided tape
$2.09 for box of sandwich bags
Wax paper, card stock, and scissors already on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 40 minutes + overnight to harden

15 minutes to cut out the paper and wax paper strips (though I used a ruler and was very exact, which took time)

15 minutes to whip up the powdered sugar and egg white and to add the Jello powder

10 minutes to pipe on four sheets

Overnight to harden

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5

The only "difficult" part might be getting even-sized dots, if you're not used to piping. However, the more you do it, the easier it'll be and this project certainly gives you enough to practice with!

DIY Wax Paper Luminarias

Want a fun decoration this Memorial Day weekend? Or maybe you're having a rustic wedding this summer and want to make an easy centerpiece? These wax paper lanterns are so ridiculously easy to make, you could whip together a few before any of your guests arrive! I took these instructions from APracticalWedding and added a few pointers! All you need to make these are:

* Wax paper

* Scotch tape or washi tape

* An x-acto knife or scissors

* Pressed flowers (sorry for my pathetic selection!)

* A ruler

* An iron

* A tea light candle

* (optional) Skewers to help support the lantern

Start by measuring out four 4 1/2" x 9" rectangular pieces of wax paper. Once they're all cut out, fold them in half so you have four squares.

On top of an ironing board or towel, lay out your rectangle with the pressed flowers on one side.

Fold over the wax paper so the flowers are now inside the square.

And using an iron on medium heat, gently go over the wax paper until it has melted together into one panel.

Once all four panels have been ironed, tape them together. Whatever you want to be on the front of the lanterns, have that side face you and not the table. I recommend taping the entire length of the panels, but you could use more if you want.

Once the four sides have been taped together, crease over the tape to form a nice cube shape. Stick your candle in the middle, and voila! Your wax paper luminaria is complete!

You really don't need the skewers, unless you want extra support and weight. If you don't use the skewers and plan to place these outside, be prepared for them to fly away because there's nothing holding them down! One tip? Keep the flowers away from the edges of the paper, otherwise the tape may cover them up!

TOTAL COST: Free!

Flowers from the overgrown abandoned bush down the street

Wax paper, tape, iron, ruler, scissors, and tea light candle from IKEA all on hand

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 20 minutes

I'm sure the more you do it, the faster it'll be, especially if you could get an assembly line going (one person making the rectangles, one person ironing, and one person taping). Most of the time was spent cutting out the wax paper rectangles.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5

This is very easy - I thought I was going to burn the paper or have it melt and make a mess. If you have a garden and want to display your flowers in a unique way, or just want some simple decoration for a dinner party, I highly recommend giving these a try!

Tea Bag Cookies - Perfect for a Sherlock Holmes or Downton Abbey Party!

Everyone is hooked on "Sherlock Holmes" or "Downton Abbey" (we're a "Poirot" family, ourselves) so what better way to enjoy the shows than by enjoying some tea bag cookies! These would also be great for a wedding shower, a tea party, Mother's or Father's Day, etc. I found these on FrostMeBlog but incorporated the recipe from Food Network. And yes, it takes three sticks of butter! I was able to make 45 cookies but I think you could probably make 60 (I just put the remaining dough in the fridge for another time).

If you watch the video of Barefoot Contessa making these, there are three things she says to do that I didn't and they still came out great:

1. The butter doesn't have to be room temperature. I took the sticks out of the fridge and straight into the mixing bowl.

2. I didn't separately mix the flour and salt and then add that to the butter mixture. I poured the flour straight into the mixer because I didn't want to dirty another bowl!

3. You don't need 6-7 ounces of semisweet chocolate - I was able to do it with 4 ounces.

Once you've made your dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and stick in the fridge. While it's chilling for 30 minutes, that's a perfect time to make your tea bag template. I just eyeballed it, using a corner of a piece of paper for the straight edges. Cut it out and then transferred it to a piece of wax paper. You really don't have to cut out more than one because you can use it over and over again.

Take the dough out and roll it out 1/2" thick using a rolling pin. Note: put flour on the rolling pin before rolling out the dough! Otherwise, the dough will stick to the pin and make a mess. Trust me on this one...

Once it's rolled out, take the wax paper template and cut the tea bags. You can use a knife, a pizza cutter, whatever's easiest for you. As I said, you can probably make 60 cookies with how much dough you're going to make. Cut out the tea bags and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Once all the cookies are on the parchment paper, take a frosting tip or a toothpick and cut out holes at the top of the tea bags. Make sure you do this before you put the cookies in the oven, otherwise you won't be able to string through your tea bag tags.

Put the cookies in the oven for 18-20 minutes. The recipe says for 20-25 minutes but I found that around 18 minutes, they were definitely brown on the bottom.

But while the cookies are in the oven, get your chocolate ready. As I said, I just used 1 box of Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate (4 oz) and had enough to cover 43 cookies. Make sure you chop up 2oz. first, put them in the microwave for 30 seconds, chop up the other 2oz., put that in the bowl, and microwave again for another 30 seconds. That way, you won't burn the chocolate.

I gave the cookies about 3 minutes to cool before dipping them in the chocolate. Once all the cookies were covered, I put them in the fridge for 15 minutes, just so the chocolate could harden faster.

If you want to add a string and teabag tag, you certainly can, but I was too hungry to make too many! Enjoy your tea bag cookies! Cheerio!

TOTAL COSTS: $2.99 for Baker's chocolate
Butter, sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt already on hand
Baker's chocolate - $2.99 at Vons

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 2 hours
15 minutes to make the dough
30 minutes to let the dough chill
30 minutes to cut out 40 cookies
18 minutes in the oven
3 minutes to cool
10 minutes to dip all the cookies in chocolate
15 minutes to chill chocolate in fridge

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The two things that might make things difficult for you are 1.) melting the chocolate and 2.) making sure the cookies don't burn in your oven. Keep an eye on both, though, and you should be fine!

Oreo Peppermint Truffles

Oreo. Peppermint. Truffles. Three of my favorite things rolled into one! They're perfect for a cookie exchange or a holiday party you might be hosting, they don't require an oven, and they're super easy to make! This recipe comes to us from Cooking Classy.

Ok, so here's what you'll need:

1 Package of Oreo's (NOT double-stuffed)

16 oz. of white chocolate (I realized after I bought them I had CandiQuik, a vanilla candy coating, instead of white chocolate. It still worked!)

8oz. cream cheese (the "whipped" kind worked great!)

1 t peppermint extract

Crushed peppermints (I used 10)

Plastic bags & a hammer or rolling pin (or a food processor if you have one)

Wax paper and cookie sheet

So the first mistake I made was using a VitaMix blender to try and crush the Oreos. Big mistake and big waste of time. I ended up transferring the Oreos to a plastic bag and using a rolling pin to crush them instead.

Once the Oreos are crushed, mix the cream cheese and peppermint extract in a bowl. Now I know the instructions say to add the cream cheese mix to the Oreos but I did it the other way around and it worked just fine. 

Once you've mixed it thoroughly, then it's time to get your hands dirty! I used a big spoon to scoop out the mixture and the balls were formed quite easily. Put them on the wax paper that's on the cookie sheet and stick 'em in the freezer for 10 minutes. The original post claims you can make 36, I was lucky to get 24.

While they're in the freezer, get out your peppermints and start crushing those as well. It's times like this I wish I had a food processor. Instead, I have two plastic bags and a hammer. Double bag those suckers (incase you make a hole in the bag like I did) and crush those bad boys! It's also a nice stress reliever.

Once those are crushed, it's time to melt your chocolate. Now here's the second mistake I made: I burned the chocolate. While I was able to melt it in two minutes on the stove, I was also able to slightly burn it, which resulted in some chunks in the chocolate. However, once you dunk the Oreo balls in the chocolate and sprinkle with peppermint pieces, you can't even tell!

And voila! A yummy peppermint chocolate treat!

TOTAL COSTS: About $16 (assuming you need all ingredients - prices from Vons)
$3.99 for Oreos
$4.49 for CandiQuik
$2.99 Peppermint extract
$1.99 for Cream cheese
$3 for 2 packs of peppermints

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Almost an hour to make 24
10 minutes with the blender (that didn't work)
5 minutes with rolling pin after that to crush Oreos
5 minutes mixing in cream cheese, peppermints, and Oreos
10 minutes to roll into balls
10 minutes in the freezer (which was enough time to melt chocolate and crush peppermints)
15 minutes to dip in chocolate and cover in peppermint

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
The only difficult thing was crushing the Oreos and the peppermints but it wasn't that hard, just tedious. It's worth it in the end, though, I assure you!