Fait a la Main

Chers Amis,

Handmade gifts hold a special place in my heart. Inspired by my Mama and Papa, I am making more gifts this year. Nothing as intricate and splendid as their work, but simple and from the heart. If you are on my Christmas list and want to be surprised (oui, je te parle Mme. O:-), please stop reading now . . . cliquez on another link, please, go check your e-mail. Au Revoir, a bientot . Farewell. . . Okay. Where was I? . . . Homemade gifts. In years past I have mostly used needle and thread - quilting & applique work. This year les cadeux faits a la main from my moulin are much simpler and are mostly edible. (So far.) I love to cook and everyone loves to eat, so this week I have been concocting and packaging batches of three tasty spice rubs to include in various themed gift baskets as well as a few special holiday crunchables. I picked a trio of spirce rubs that we have personally used and enjoyed: Cajun, Mediterranean and Cocoa-Cumin-Allspice. Each marries well with at least one of several meats - chicken, fish, lamb or steak. Last night we had tilapia with the Cajun rub - yum!

1. First, I wrote down the recipes for each of the rubs, scanned the pantry and the spice rack and purchased the necessary ingredients. (I can't post the full recipes here do to copyright laws :-( but you can find many excellent recipes online.
2. I found these small bottles at at a craft store that would hold 1/3 to 1/2 cup. The perfect amount. Wash and dry well
3. Mix up the various rubs and pour in prepared bottles. Make sure you know which rub is in which bottle!
4. I had great fun making holiday lables using MSWord, scrapbooking supplies and Avery full sheet lables. After I formatted my shape and added the text in the font that I liked (that fit) , I found a nice scroll clip art image here and pasted it into my design. Then I printed the lables on some lovely two-tone paper, cut it out, glued it to a holiday paper with a holly motif, cut it out with "torn-edge" scissors to add a frame, color copied it onto the lable sheets, cut out and voila! I saved my master copies in a special envelope so I can use them again. Appy lables and a bit of ribbon and they look quite nice.

Using the same fonts and motifs, I made a card describing the rubs and how to use them. I used this same technique to lable spiced pumpkin bread mix, mixed nuts, holiday biscotti, double chocolate biscotti . I still have a few more additions up my sleeve, but I don't want to give it all away yet, lest some people are still reading :-) Well, my kitchen is chocolate-cumin-cajun-sprinkle encrusted, and we are going out of town for Turkey day, so I had better get cleaning. Bon Appetit!

-- Marjorie