Homemade Christmas

Once again it was time to celebrate Christmas with my best girlfriends with our annual exchange of homemade presents. I scored the necklace (above) from my friend Rebecca. I also got a dozen tamales and some lip gloss, but don't have photos of either because they were immediately pressed into service. The necklace is made from sculpey, stamped and baked and glossed. I love it. the pattern on it reminds me of something from nature, and fairly African in look. I have got to learn how to do this!

My friend Stephenie P. made me a homemade pillow. I love this, it will match great on our guest bed. It is very fun and funky and has a great style to it.

My friend Stephanie B made felted items for us. I really had no idea what i would get from her, because we were together when we saw felted items we loved. I knew she was working with felt this year, but had no idea what she would come up with. This is already on my table.

A friend of Rebecca's knew we had a homemade exchange and contributed carved wooden pieces for all of us. I got a door stopper but have it on my bookshelves right now. It looks like a beautiful piece of sculptural art to me.

What did I give? Well, of course I don't have a photo to share! I went with an office theme and made everyone a lunch bag made from oil cloth, monogrammed notecards and a frame with flowers on them. I used felt and card making type flowers for decorations on the frame. Next year I'll have to take photos of my own gifts, too.

As for the Lemon Cookie recipe:

1 box Lemon Cake Mix

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs.

Mix together and drop cookies onto a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes. Cooking time varies based on the size of the dough balls. Mine were fairly big so I baked them for 13 minutes. I added a bag of white choc chips to stretch the dough and made a double batch. You can use this recipe with any kind of cake mix. Imagine Red Velvet cookies rolled in powdered sugar before baking. Next for me will be chocolate fudge cookies with butterscotch chips. It is not an original recipe, but one found on the internet. God Bless the internet. I do love it.