Up to my elbows in stain...

I'm actually doing it...the cabinet renovation has begun. I have to admit, I've been hugely depressed the last several weeks and I think it stems in part to my completely dirty, torn apart house. And when it's your kitchen, it makes it even worse.

Remember those weeks and weeks ago that I started renovating? Well, it's been nothing but headache after headache. Shattered granite, cracked grout, etc, etc. I finally threw my hands up and said, "I quit!" (after pulling the doors off my kitchen cabinets). So we've been in limbo, because we all know that if I don't do it, it's not going to get done! lol

Living out of boxes, because I have no drawers, has been taxing none the less. Reminds me of all those good ole' moves. It takes me so much longer to cook when I have to go dig through a box to find a spoon, measuring cup, or towel.

My house is littered with doors, literally perched in every available corner. At one time I had doors laying on tables in the kitchen, food storage room and craft room.

Here's what my craft room looks like! Can we say, "Disaster zone!" All the drawers are scattered on the floor, with doors covering the island. I just close the doors to the room and pray that no one notices! But if you look closely, VERY closely, I was actually able to get the bond coat on the drawers. Still a long ways to go (glaze and protective coat to come).

But I am making progress....say a little prayer that it goes well, or I'll be packing up and moving!

"Edible Crayons"-a Best Seller!!

Edible Crayons. Yep, you read that right, edible. crayons. Though, as I'm writing this, I actually haven't tried to write with them-but that's not the point. The cuteness factor is all the matters, right?!?! And the fact that they taste great!!

It was Entrepreneurship day at school and, after unsucessfully convincing the teacher that cookies or brownies would work (yes, I was actually trying to do something simple for once!!), we were instructed to be more creative so I decided we'd do the over-the-top edible crayons.

Have you seen these yet?!? My sister blogged about them a little while ago, after I shared with her the idea (I found it online but can't remember where).

Cute, huh? It's a custom box, with four crayons in it (hah, it says that on the box!) We did "Foxola" because of the school mascot, and the colors were named after various aspects of the school.

So the crayons are made from large pretzel sticks, where the ends have been dipped in chocolate. Yummy! Here are the instructions-PLEASE, read the tips if you are going to make these-they will save you a lot of frustration (that I had)!

1. I printed my boxes, cut them out and glued them so I'd know how tall to make my sticks. My sister designed the box to be cut with the Cricut (love it!), to hold 4 crayons. It took me a little while to figure out where to line up my printed page, on the cutting pad, so it cut correctly, but went quickly afterwards.

2. Cut my pretzels. One stick made two, with about 1 1/2 inches leftover (from the middle). Yes, you will break some so buy extra!

  3. Dip the pretzels in chocolate-I used small containers and the chocolate wafers (already colored). My experience with trying to color white chocolate hasn't been good, so I paid a little extra and bought a bag of each color. Microwave the chocolate until just melted. (I did it in 30 second intervals)

TIP! If you want your crayons to fit in the box, you need to tap off the excess chocolate-I lightly tapped the pretzel on the side of the container (about 40 times) until the chocolate quit dripping.

4. Once you have tapped it, turn the pretzel over 180 degrees and you'll see where it's been dripping. To smooth this side out, just lightly tap again, about 8 times, and your drip will disappear and the chocolate will be uniform. (That's my drip in the picture, before tapping)

5. Let them cool and solidify. I used extra pretzel rods as my cooling racks. I dipped one end for all of them, let them cool, then went back and dipped the other end. (when I tried doing both ends at once  just made a mess!)

6. Add the wrapper. I took a picture of this step, but it's missing. So here's what I did: I found out that construction paper has fibers in it that makes it easier to roll better one way, than the other. It's a much cleaner roll if you go side to side (long side), versus top to bottom (short sides). So I printed my labels turned 90 degrees so they would roll easier

I put one layer on the counter, print side down, logo on the bottom. Starting at the top, I rolled my pretzel with the paper about 3/4 of the way down. Then while holding the wrapped pretzel, I ran a bead of hot glue right next to the bottom edge of the wrapper, then quickly rolled it up, keeping my fingers on top of the pretzel so I never got burned.

So if you look closely at the pretzels above, their ends aren't smooth. That's because I didn't "tap" the excess chocolate off of them, and they ended up too big for the wrappers and too big for the boxes!!! So I had to shave each one down to get them to fit!! Luckily, I had only dipped 1/2 of my pretzels before I realized this! The last 1/2 looked great!!

OVER THE TOP Tip-If you want a pointed  tip (I didn't do because I hadn't thought of it), use a little chocolate to "glue" a chocolate chip on the end of one pretzel before you dip them in the colored chocolate. I BELIEVE this will give you a pointed tip, but I haven't tried it yet. 



Then all that's left is stuffing your boxes. I just turned mine on their sides, 10 at a time, and quickly stuffed them. Just make sure that you put the end of the crayon wrapper to the back of the box.

I forgot to take a picture of the back of the boxes, so I borrowed this picture from my sister's blog.
You can personalize them however you want!!

So that's how to make these adorable crayons! They were the best seller at my son's school today!