Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

I love Betty Crocker's Cinnamon Streusel muffin mix but I don't always have a box of it laying around when I am hungry for some. So I found a recipe for cinnamon muffins and tweaked it a bit to suit my tastes. They aren't quite up there with Betty Crocker's yet but they are yummy and I always have the ingredients on hand.

Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

adapted from Taste of Home

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Shortening

1/2 cup Sugar, divided

1 Egg

1-1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour

1-1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1/2 cup Milk

Topping:

1/4 cup Sugar

3/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1. In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk until well combined.

2. Grease twelve muffin cups and fill each equally with batter. For the topping, in a small bowl combine remaining sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over tops of muffin batter.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 1 Dozen

Envelope Organizer

I found the idea for this handy organizer on Martha Stewart's website. You can use it as a stylish way to organize coupons or to separate your cash if you are into the envelope budgeting system!

Supplies: fabric, ribbon, thread, needle, ruler, pen, scissors, cardstock, cardboard, masking tape (or binding tape), paint brush, glue, disposible dish, and of course envelopes.

Cut the cardboard down you have two pieces that are about a quarter of an inch larger than the envelope on all sides.

Pour glue into the dish and use a paint brush to evenly apply glue to one side of the cardboard. Press it onto the fabric, glue-side down. Leave a gap between the two pieces to accommodate however many envelopes you plan to use.

Cut down the fabric, leaving about an inch all around. Glue down each corner.

Fold fabric flaps over and glue them down.

Cut down your cardstock so that it is slightly smaller all around than your fabric covered cardboard.

Tape two envelopes together with masking tape or binding tape. Make sure that the envelope's flap is on the outside and all of the flaps are facing the same way.

Continue doing this until you have as many envelopes as you need.

Close your finished "book" and use one last piece of tape to bind them all together.

Fold ribbon in half to find the middle. Place in the center of your fabric. Thead the needle and push it through the ribbon and barely poking through fabric and cardstock. Line up your envelope book so it is in place open up so you have an equal number of envelopes on each side. Push the needle through the tape.

Wrap the other end of the thread all the way around the book. Thread this end through needle and push it through the same hole as before. You will now have two thread ends on the inside. Tie them in a knot and then trim off the excess thread.

And you're done! Now just write labels on each envelope and fill them up!

Candy Boxes

As I said before, we still have two more Christmas get togethers left so I am still working on some gifts. For a few people I am making White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge (for the recipe check out this post) and I need some pretty boxes to put it in.

I found this pattern and used the basic design to make my own pattern. I just changed the dimensions a bit and added the additional flap on the far left and right to keep the lid from caving in. It took a few minutes to measure out the exact dimensions I wanted but once I had one done it was easy to cut it out and just trace around that template for the remaining boxes. I used white posterboard and traced the pattern onto the dull side so that the shiny side is on the outside of the box.

I then used the scoring attachment on my paper cutter to make it easier to fold.

A few pieces of double sided tape (or glue stick or hot glue) and I have a 5 1/2" wide x 2 1/2" deep x 1 3/4" tall candy box! I just added some ribbon and a label and its good to go.

The nice thing about making your own is that you can make at least six for the same price as one premade box. You can also get the exact dimensions that you want and you can make them in a variety of colors instead of just white.