Happy IDA Day!

Love is in the air, right?

Blech.

I kinda hate Valentine’s Day.

The stuffed animals and chocolates and overpriced flowers and card aisles overflowing with pink hearts and mushy sentiments…make me throw up in my mouth a little.

I’m not down on love; quite the contrary. I love love. I love people who are in love.

I don’t love that people will express that love today by giving their significant other a 4-foot teddy bear.

Throw up. Mouth.

Seriously, anything done today has very little meaning. The other 364 days a year? Go to town. Love it up. Because if you bring your lady flowers on June 14th, it’s clearly because you love her and wanted to brighten her day. Four months earlier? You’re a sucker willing to pay inflated prices because Hallmark guilted you into it.

All of the jewelry and chocolate and lingerie commercials? Throw. Up.

I not-so-affectionately refer to this as IDA day – Insincere Displays of Affection.

My plans include shipping the weekend orders (shameless plug), shuttling to not one but two different Girl Scout meetings (and picking up cookies!), and hopefully squeezing in time to straighten up my studio. If I’m really efficient I’ll pull off a trip to the grocery, too.

Romance out the wazoo over here, let me tell you.

The one part of the holiday that I do enjoy is the kid stuff. The cutesy homemade cards, the decorated boxes for the school exchange, the sweet treats baked for friends. That I can do, so do it I did.

Super cute, right?

And more than that, these suckers taught me a life lesson. A friend gave me the recipe and I was so excited to make these…until I saw that 2 months later, the recipe was also printed in Family Fun magazine. I immediately felt deflated, like my cool treat was reduced to ‘Oh yeah, I saw that in Family Fun too.’

Bakingcandycanesuckersforyourownglorymuch?

{hanging head in shame}

In case you don’t get Family Fun and you’re still dazzled and want to make your own, read on.

You’ll need some miniature candy canes and lollipop sticks to start out with

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and lay out your suckers on a greased cookie sheet.

Be sure to use your oldest, most stained, super worn baking sheet, especially if you plan to take pictures to share with the world. That makes you look klassy.

Pop into the oven for 2 minutes – watch the clock very closely because they will melt and be ugly very soon after that 2 minute mark. Remove and quickly pinch the candy cane ends onto the lollipop sticks. They will be warm and soft, but won’t burn your fingers. Unless you’re a wimp.

Your frames should look like this:

Again, in order to keep up that klassy appearance, be sure to snap your pictures in front of liquor bottles, particularly when you are showcasing kids projects. That’s awesome.

{Responsible Parenting Note – My kids weren’t drinking. This was a Christmas gift and I used it in that nasty honey-lemon-whiskey concoction that aided my pneumonia recovery. 3 weeks prior to this. I’m just too lazy to hide the evidence. And also the bottles are FULL.}

Now you’re going to need some white chocolate and perhaps a few sprinkles.

You can melt the chocolate in a pastry bag and pipe it into the suckers, but I’m not too handy with an icing bag. I opted for a simple dish and spoon.

And then I spooned it into the suckers whilst they lay on waxed paper.

At this point you could call it a day and go for the less-is-more look

but around these parts, we like excessive embellishment.

They’ll only need to cool off for 5-10 minutes before they will be ready to wrap.

And if you’re like me, you’ll then wish you had made them sooner, since they make a nice little IDA Day decoration for the counter.

Enjoy your day peeps!

Paper Love

Wednesday brought us snow day #2 this week, and we put it to good use making homemade Valentines.

Catie’s preschool class even got to decorate a box to collect their cards in, which delighted me to no end.  I felt very nostalgic for my own childhood whilst helping her pick out just the right frills.  I always loved decorating that box, and was so disappointed that Annie didn’t get to do that last year (or this year, either, for that matter). 

Catie opted for pink-on-pink paisley fabric, red ric rack, white fluffy lace, seed pearls, and red ribbon roses.  And her name written in red glitter.  It’s girly fabulous, which suits my little fashionista to a T.

For the cards, we went completely old school as well.  Interestingly enough, the throwback cards are a financial setback, since even though I bought the paper doilies at the dollar store, these cards cost me about 5 times as much as just buying the pre-made ones would.  But ours are cuter.  And certainly more unique, since no one seems to make homemade Valentines anymore.  Such a pity.

Annie was methodical

Catie was creative

and Lilly had a wardrobe malfunction

She also thoroughly impresed me.  While Annie and Catie were writing their names on the back of their cards, Lilly decided to make her own mark on hers – in the form of tracing her little handprints, all by her OWN self.

It was an extremely messy project

but the end result was well worth it.

Another fun project we did was the heart flower suckers from last month’s Family Fun.  (Love that magazine!)

These were super easy and a big hit with the kids (and teachers!) that we gave them to.  Thumbs up!

Mess and all, it was another great snow day.