Haven't been doing any crafts lately, sorry for not posting.

Fresh Strawberry Frosting
1 cube softened butter
1 cup strawberries
splash vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
cream (amount varies due to differences in strawberries) -
Variations:
Lemon zest/juice added.
Banana mashed added.
Peaches added.

Milk Chocolate Frosting (for brownies.)
1 cube softened butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
splash vanilla
Melt chips, beat together , then add
4 cups powdered sugar
and
1/4 cup cream (or correct amount to make the consistency you want)
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Recipe makes enough frosting for an 11 x 15 sheet of brownies to have the frosting almost exactly the same height as the brownies.

Another variation of Stephanie's cookies
Cherry Chocolate Cookies
1 white cake mix
1 cup Hershey chocolate syrup
3 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips
Cover 1/2 cup of dried cherries, 1 cup of chopped almonds & a shot of cherry brandy with boiling water and soak overnight. Drain and grind.
Grind chips.

Combine all ingredients into stiff batter.
Spread the dough in a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with sides).
Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

This is the frosting for the previous cookies, sprinkled with chocolate jimmies.
Got it years ago on Gail's Recipe Swap from: Dawn/NYS -- VERY sweet
caramel/butterscotch frosting
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
5 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar
Sift sugar if lumpy, and combine sugar, butter, and salt in saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
Add milk and reduce to low heat; simmer for about 3 minutes. Let cool.
Add powdered sugar and whisk until thickened.

Chocolate Butterscotch Bar Cookies
1 Devil's Food cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup chopped butterscotch chips

Mix together.
Spread thick dough in 15x11 cookie sheet
Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool, remove, frost, cut in small squares.

Making toasted coconut/butterscotch blondies, blueberry cookies, and cowboy cookies for the apartment house this month.
Found the recipe for the blueberry cookies here - http://www.phuocndelicious.com/2011/05/20/marblised-chocolate-and-blueberry-cream-cheese-cookies/
We skipped the chocolate dough for marbling and used only the blueberry dough, They are a nice blue color with bits of fruit. The first pan at 12 minutes was a little too overdone, so the others were in for only 10 minutes.

The monthly cookie bake for the apartment house - 15 dozen fruit&nut oatmeal, 7 dozen peanut butter, and 6 dozen sugar.
I blame the hubby for the odd flower middles - he tilted the rack before they were dry and they flowed. We sent birds, flowers, alligators, lizards, roosters, and two varieties of fish; but Tommy wanted to keep all the caterpillars at home.

The ladies have requested more delicate, ladylike cookies; so I made some coconut macaroon-like ones using the recipe from the December 10th post.
Yellow cake mix,
1/2 cup oil,
2 large eggs,
3/4 cup chopped maraschino cherries and juice,
1 cup or so of coconut (ground finer in the Magic Bullet) and
2/3 cup finely-ground almonds.

Spread in a jellyroll pan.
Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.
The pink icing uses the remaining maraschino cherry juice and more coconut. It's a lovely pink.
Will post photos later.

Here are a couple of Perler bead owls.
I saw a similar one recently, and will post the link when I locate it. I think the purple one needs some changing, so haven't ironed them yet.
Hope you like them.

Sugar Cookies and half-dipped Granola Cookies for the apartment house.

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snowflake bird
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The snowfall at the end was giant wet clumps full of air, and that has melted; but the small hard flakes that started it all are still making us look like a Christmas card.
The birds and squirrels are hard at work emptying the black oil sunflower seeds from the feeder, the cats are watching them from the comfort of the window, and the hens are grumbling their feet are cold.
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Yesterday Tommy went for a walk in the snow.
He didn't want to sit in it or play in it, he just wanted to make tracks all through it.

Our January snow 2011.
Click for larger size.
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Makes me want to cut some snowflakes.

I tried to put the lens in the
places I saw my grandson
put his head, to give us
a child's view of a
Christmas tree.

Christmas tree photos.

Here's the snowflake-bedecked bedroom door.

Well I made the cookies using the recipe from the December 10th post.

Instead of individual cookies, I spread the dough in a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with sides) with 6 pulverized candy canes in the batter, and candy cane flavor Hershey Kisses dotting the top of each cookie bar. The dough raised up around the kisses, sinking them in a little bit. Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.
The folks went mad for them... snitching them from the bowl before hubby could get them arranged on the platters. The peppermint scent was very strong and you could smell them as soon as they entered the room.
I had been afraid that 6 candy canes wasn't enough, but we tasted the edges without the Kisses, and the peppermint flavor came through beautifully.