Tuesday, December 18, 2012

IHP Design Team December Challenge: Food, Glorious Food!

Since so much about the holidays revolves around food, our challenge this month was to make a food related project. Not so much of a challenge for me. This time of year, food is never far from my thoughts. Or my mouth.

I like to give homemade foodie gifts to the people at work. It’s fun, it’s cheap (usually), and it’s always appreciated. This year I decided to make little jars of dulce de leche (pronounced dool-seh duh laycheh), a devastatingly delicious, thick, caramelized sweetened milk. It can be spread on toast or heated a little and drizzled on pancakes and waffles. You can add it to your coffee or ice cream, or you can fill cookies with it. Or you can eat it with a spoon. Just saying.

dulce_de_leche-group I used half-pint canning jars, decorated simply but beautifully with a tag that rests on the lid and opens for more information.dulce_de_leche-tops To make the tags, I started by cutting a scored and folded piece of cream cardstock with a circle Nestabilities die, leaving the folded edge just inside the die so it wouldn’t cut completely. The inside with the information was computer generated and cut with the same circle die, trimming one edge just a bit to fit inside the fold, and glued in place.

The top of the tag also starts with another cream circle, but it’s decked out for the holidays. The red scalloped ring was made by cutting a scalloped circle the same size as the label, and then using a slightly smaller circle die in the center. Once I adhered that to the cream circle, I stamped the wreath and greeting, which is all on one stamp from the Flourishes Trimmed With Love set, with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The inside left also uses stamps from that same set. The wreath is colored with Copic markers, glammed up with some red Stickles on the berries, and then that circle is glued onto the top of the folded label. Why use a separate circle for the top instead of just stamping the front of the folded piece? Because the Copic markers are likely to bleed through. If you’re using cardstock that won’t allow that to happen, by all means save yourself a layer and just dress up the folded piece. Once it was all glued together, I just attached it to the jar lid with a couple of mini glue dots.

Wanna make your own dulce de leche? The most common way is to boil an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk, completely submerged, for several hours. That seems a little scary to me. I found an awesome blog post by Monica at The Yummy Life with 2 different ways to make it: one in the oven, and one in a slow cooker. I tried both, and I liked the results in the slow cooker much better (although in all fairness, I used a different brand of milk when I did it in the oven, so that might have had something to do with it). She gives wonderfully illustrated step-by-step instructions, and she even has labels you can print out for gift-giving. I didn’t use her labels, but I did borrow her wording. Thanks, Monica!

12daysdecember Before I send you hopping off to see the rest of the yummy projects from the team, I just wanted to remind you about the 12 Days of Christmas Sale that Kate has been having. Each day a new sale item is posted at a steal of a price. Sale items are valid until sold out or until Christmas Day, whichever comes first! (Sorry, no restocks or rainchecks!) Inventory is low on some items but be sure to join us each day for the IHP 12 Days of Christmas!

Today’s special is all Washi Tape 35% off!

Here’s what we’ve had so far!
12/13 – Stickles/Liquid Pearls $1
12/14 – Scor-Tape 1/8” - $2
12/15 – Spellbinders 35% off
12/16 – BoBunny Flexi-ruler $9
12/17 – Scor-Bug tool $5
12/18 – Washi Tape 35% off

OK, so go shopping. Or go hopping. Or both! Here’s the rest of the gang:

Happy Holidays!

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4 comments:

Deb said...

These are beautiful, and I know they are so YUMMY! I am gonna have to make some!

i {heart} papers said...

Oh my YUM! What a great idea!

Gretchen said...

Oh yummy, yummy! Your labels are so cute and I can't wait to give this recipe a try. Or you could just mail me a jar (just saying!) ;0

Happy Holidays!

whoistracy said...

Ohhh this is just adorable and such a neat idea!