Holiday Happenings, Part 3

I mentioned in July that I was starting a Christmas puzzle. It's a tradition we do each year in our family and I thought it'd be fun to slowly get my own collection of puzzles started.  I did finish it during the summer, but since it was meant to be glued and displayed for the holidays, I thought it'd be appropriate to show it off now. And of course, it wasn't as simple as put puzzle together, glue puzzle, and frame it, so here's the run-down of what happened.

Before many of the pieces found their mate, the sprawled out puzzle had a tough time fitting on my little table. I feared then that the puppies would quickly devour any piece that fell on the floor since they're used to tasty food crumbs falling in that general area, and sadly, I was correct.  By the end of the puzzle, two pieces were quite obviously missing.

I found some teeth marks on one piece I rescued from the floor, so I'm positive the puppies enjoyed chewing on them and pretty certain they were the culprits behind the two missing pieces.  Since the spots were in such obvious places, I knew if I wanted to keep it, I'd have to try and create my own pieces to disguise the holes, or order a new puzzle and sort through each piece until I'd found these two.  As a family, we have done this before, and I was not looking forward to doing it once again. 

So as I was cleaning one day, I picked up the puzzle box, and noticed the front did not show the entire picture, rather it was zoomed in on a spot. And not just any spot, it happened to be zoomed in on the area where my two pieces were missing!  I brought it near the puzzle to see how the sizing was, and you can see by looking, they were pretty exact.

I decided to cut the top of the box so I could flatten it and see how the colors would look if I somehow used them to fill in the missing pieces -- lucky for me, the missing pieces were hardly visible!

With the top positioned under the puzzle holes, I started to trace the missing shapes.

I cut out each piece slightly larger than I traced so it'd be snug fit -- as if it were a real puzzle piece -- and then used a wet cloth to wipe away the trace lines.  The pieces were cardboard, thanks to the box, but not quite as thick as the other pieces. I contemplated backing them with something, but figured once it was glued, they'd stay in place like all the rest.

Here they are filling the missing holes and wouldn't even be detected without those circles highlighting their spot!

Once I was happy with how they looked, I started gluing it together. I placed it on a white poster board and applied two layers of Mod Podge and let it dry completely.  With the white poster board on the back, it'll be easy for everyone who helped put it together to sign their names -- which has always been part of our tradition.  It's always fun to go back and see how handwriting has changed and what the little messages are each year. To keep them in order, we always date the front as well. 

I didn't have a chance to frame it before the holidays, so next up is looking for a frame sale so I can get it completed.  For now though, I am content knowing I have officially started a Christmas puzzle tradition of my own! Hopefully I can keep it going year after year like I did growing up :)

Christmas Cookies

This week, the boy and I spent a night baking and decorating Christmas cookies. Although I try to make this a yearly tradition, I don't have special recipes for the cookies or icing that I use each time. I usually just look around the web until I find one that sounds interesting. This year, I stumbled upon this recipe for the cookies and decided to try it because of the almond extract -- which I LOVE. Before even baking the cookies, we were in smitten! This recipe will definitely be saved and most likely become part of a yearly tradition.

For the icing, I was going to try the recipe on the same site as the cookies, but couldn't find meringue powder so I searched for a different royal icing recipe.  I found this one from Alton Brown and picked it mainly because I had all the ingredients on hand. It was so-so and probably won't be a repeat, but was really easy to throw together and definitely has not kept me from having a cookie -- or two, or three -- each night.

So, after we baked up our cookies and whipped up the icing, we chose to color a third of the icing red, a third green, and leave a third white.  Although our red looked red while mixing, it quickly turned into a very bright, hot pink!  Still looks cute on the cookies, just a little less traditional :) We put the three colors in Ziploc bags and cut a small opening in the corner so we could pipe them onto each cookie.

Boyfriend has not done this in many many years and was fascinated by the Ziploc bag trick. 

We just kept on going until we had plates full of cookies! Along the way, we 'tested' the broken or deformed ones and approved of their quality :)

To top off the Christmas-y, fun-filled night, we took the puppies and drove around looking at Christmas lights.  It was one of the most fun ways to spend a weeknight! 

Hope everyone else is getting their fill of holiday activities before they fly by!

Christmas in July

I had the urge to start a puzzle last night -- strange, I know. I’m not sure if it’s because Netflix had delivered a girly movie and I needed an activity to go with it, or was having puzzle withdrawal -- I’ll explain in a minute -- or because I have a newly rearranged apartment with a full size table just begging to be covered with stuff.  Whatever the reason, I put in “Eat, Pray, Love” and dug through my puzzle stash. 'Stash' may be exaggerating a bit. I actually only own two puzzles at the moment and both are Christmas themed. But, I figured a puzzle is a puzzle so why not?

Me and Christmas puzzles actually go way back.  Since 1991, my family has put together at least one Christmas puzzle during the holidays -- at a minimum, that's 20 puzzles so far! Some years we felt ambitious and did more than one.  We would then add the date to the front of the puzzle, glue it together, have it framed or mounted, sign the back and hang them up each Christmas.  It’s so nostalgic to see them all over the house during the holidays and marvel at how the collection has grown over the years.  So, despite the fact that it is 100+ degrees outside and we’re still in the month of July, busting out a Christmas puzzle felt all too familiar.

Once I decided on a puzzle, I started the slow process of laying out each piece and dividing them into the edge or middle piles. I highly recommend a movie, music or some sort of entertainment during this part -- going through a 1,000 pieces can become a pretty mundane task without a great movie playing.

I did begin to worry if all 1,000 pieces would fit on my table. Although it's larger than it has been, it is by no means a big table. Luckily the box was emptied just before I ran out of space.

I even managed to get the border put together so I'm confident the whole puzzle will fit just perfectly. And, with those pieces pushed so close to the edge, I have more motivation to get them put together. I must have dropped at least five pieces last night and both dogs ran for them like steak just hit the floor. It'd be terrible if I got to the end and discovered they'd eaten one fallen piece!  

Oh, and apparently I decided wine would be the perfect complement to a movie and puzzling -- that part is completely optional  J 

Although it's still summer and a somewhat nontraditional start, I'm excited to begin my very own Christmas puzzle collection.  I didn’t get too much further last night, but I’d love for my 'Christmas in July' puzzle to be finished before August.  Hopefully I can con some weekend visitors and my sweet boyfriend into helping me  J