The Holidays are Here!

Can you believe it??  We’ve been counting the days around here!  Why am I so excited?  I am so excited because my sister-in-law has moved back here and she loves being (or in my case, attempting at being) crafty as much as I do…so we have been busy, busy, busy making lots of fun plans and dreaming big!  Plus Glenn and I love that we have a new couple to hang out with…   And Harper LOVES her Auntie Erin – and Glenn is having a ball hanging out with his oldest nephew.  So while Glenn and Christian were out fishing yesterday, Erin and I were busy cooking up some fun.  Literally cooking…well, we were baking!  Check it out…

We’ve been talking about joining forces to work on some fun projects, and what we’re starting with is (what else??) an Etsy shop!  Actually, it started with discussing having a booth at the local Christmas Bazaar, and I, of course, thought of my beloved Etsy.    Erin pulled out one of her many, many cookbooks (she is an amazing cook!) and the ideas just started flowing.  What we decided to start with were “Gifts in a Jar.”  You know, layer all of the ingredients for some goodies in a jar, and of course we had to make it look pretty!  It made me think of this Bakerella post that I saw a while back – she made ‘Cowgirl Cookies!‘ Aren’t they cute?

If you don’t know of Bakerella, then be sure to visit.  She.  Is.  Amazing.  We plan on making our own version of Cowgirl Cookies for the Christmas Bazaar – yee haw!! {Image via Bakerella}

Anyway, what was next?  We had to think of a cute name for our Etsy shop, right?  After throwing around a few ideas, and checking to see if they were already taken on Etsy, what we came up with was Lillie + James.  It comes from our kids – Harper Lillie and Christian James.  And we liked the way it sounded, and I liked the “+” sign.  We also bought some business cards and set up a Twitter account, ha!  Come visit us over at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LillieandJames

Here is what we made this weekend for our first test run – and yes, we tested the recipe and they are delicious – we made our own jars of “Peanut Butter Cup Bar Mix!”

Yum. You can check out the listing here.  And I think that our favorite part was the satisfaction of putting together something so cute!!  I already had the fabric (Holiday Magic Floral in Red by Studio E!) – we like that it is a holiday print, but not super-Christmas-y.  We’re planning on putting together 5 more recipes, so that means 5 more cute fabric prints!!  My favorite!!

And because I love you all, I photographed the process of putting them together.  Well, as much as I remembered to because we were having so much fun! Enjoy!!

Here is Erin tying the ribbons onto the tops of the jars. The thing about having a partner is they are the yin to your yang. I am not good at tying ribbon, wrapping packages, etc. I am a computer girl. I can set it up, design it, print it, punch it out and stick it on. She’s about the handmade skills. Go girl.

I did bake the test batch, though. And they were GOOD! Go me!

Yep, I just included a photo of my trash can. But each jar takes 8 peanut butter cups. Thank goodness for Halloween sales!

We both layered the ingredients in the jars, and while she was prettying up the top, I was printing and punching.

And whipping out my trusty hot glue gun to stick the labels on. Bakerella used double-stick tape, but she was also smart and bought smooth jars. We bought the only ones we saw where we happened to be shopping at the time. And they weren’t smooth, but we made it work!

I love my hot glue gun. I became attached when creating color/material boards in design school.

Is it straight??

Then we set up a cute little photo shoot…which took a few tries to get a good pic because it was dark by this time (ugh – Daylight Savings Time!). But we think it turned out pretty cute and we had a ball working together!!

Have a good week, and don’t forget to visit us over at Lillie + James! xo, L. (& E.)