Jaden's Grizzly Pretzels...

Jaden is Kendra's (my daughter-in-law) youngest brother and he plays football for the Logan High Grizzlies!  We were making Halloween pretzels when I thought it would be fun to make some special ones just for Jaden.  We pulled out the red and gold as well as the black candy melts and Kendra decorated away. I made the tag with my Quickutz football die... then cut the letters for his name and #... put the pretzels in a plain cellophane bag, punched a hole in the tag and tied it with red ~ yellow and black ribbons... he loved it and we love him!

Chocolate Covered Christmas Pretzels

Bagged and ready for delivery...

Warming the chocolate...

Note the jar Josh is pulling the pretzels from

Getting their chocolate coating...

Some had sprinkles...

Some had more chocolate...

The production line...

They were stacked everywhere...

In keeping with the Johnson family tradition of chocolate covered pretzels... we bought 2 of the big containers from Sams Club that had cute stars, trees and bell shapes (see top picture) for about $8.00 each plus about 8 pounds of white chocolate and in a matter of about 90 minutes we had over 1,200 of those bad boys completed and ready for delivery!

We are getting better with the "production" each and every time we make them. This time we decided to melt the chocolate (we bought 2 pound blocks instead of the chips) in the microwave first and then put the melted chocolate into the frying pan (it was on low) we found that this makes the chocolate stay warmer and the pretzel don't end up "swimming" in the chocolate because most of it will drip off and back into the pan... and we didn't have to keep re-heating the chocolate on the stove in the double boiler.  After they were dipped we put them on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet and moved over to the "decorating" section of the kitchen.

Our next big ah-ha moment was with the decorating bags. I had previously bought bottles (they looked like smaller ketchup bottles you use at a ballgame). Kendra would put several Wilton Candy Melts into the bottle and would microwave them until melted... stirring them constantly and sometimes they would burn a little because it was taking forever to get them to melt completely. This time I bought the Wilton Decorating Bags (I think there were 10 of them for $4.00)... these worked like a charm.  Kendra put several Candy Melts in the bag... zapped them for the time called for and then would "massage" the bag until all of the Melts were melted completely... then she snipped a very small piece off of the bottom and voila... the perfect decorating tool! (it's better to take just a little snip off ~ you can always snip off more if you want later).

Josh thought it was taking to long to just decorate each individual pretzel and decided they should just sweep across the whole tray with several passes back and forth with each of the colors. With this new idea they were much faster decorating than we were dipping and honestly... they looked just as good as when each one was done on its own!  Some of the pans Josh and Kendra used just the sugar sprinkles and others they did just the Candy Melts and on some they did both... they all looked so festive and tasted so good!

The pretzels would have set up a lot faster had my mom not cranked up the temperature to 86* in my house. Apparently when my mom and dad first arrived (Kendra and I were both running late at work and Josh was in the shower) my mom decided that it was a little "chilly" so she proceeded to crank up the heat to 86*... She claims she didn't hear the furnace kick on... so she just keep pressing the "up" button.  Josh was the one who noticed how hot it was getting and discovered that it was 86*. He first accused me of cranking it up and then my mom started laughing... she knew she was busted! Needless to say it gave us all a great laugh for the evening!

I hope that you and your family have at least one "fun" thing to do in the kitchen that everyone can do together... oh and don't forget to have your favorite Christmas carols playing in the background... you will be making memories for years to come!

Merry Christmas!

 

Dallas Cowboy Clothes Pins...

The front of the holders...

The back of the holders...

Dallas Cowboy chocolate covered pretzels...

My dad and his brothers have been Dallas Cowboy fans since their very first game. My cousins and I all have the strong Cowboys ties as well. At our Johnson Reunion this summer I asked my dad and uncles, Darrell and Ace, to bring their Cowboy jerseys for a "photo shoot". I thought it would be cool ~ and being the awesome uncles they are... they humored me! You can see the complete photo shoot here.  I wanted to make them something fun to display the pictures... and this is what I came up with. 

I painted the cloths pin two coats of silver... I traced the special Cowboy star paper and used Mod Podge to adhere it to the wood. The white paper was added to the top (I'll never admit this... but you can have too many stars) and the white was the perfect pop he needed.  I wished the picture showed the sparkles on the papers better... then I added a blue jute-like material for the final touch. I attached two pictures of them together ~ a front and a back... just like they are posed (top and middle picture ~ right pin). You can soo tell they are brothers! I have different pictures in mine (top and middle picture ~ left pin). Since we had the Sunday night game... I thought it would be fun to give them each a bag of Cowboy pretzels to enjoy for treat time during the game.

 

Cowboy and Halloween Pretzels...

 The cute bag filled with treats...

 Halloween Pretzels...

 Dallas Cowboy Pretzels...

My dad and the cool Cowboy Pretzels...

In keeping with holiday tradition we made our super tasty pretzels. One of the girls at work found these cute football pretzels and thought that I should have them. Mom and I dipped with dad and Kendra were the decorators... Josh even joined in on the fun after he got home from work.  We put the pretzels in these cute bags and I made a cute pumpkin tag by cutting two of the pumpkins and sticking them together (the eyes and mouth would have fallen out... by putting tape over the back of the eyes and mouth and putting the two together you couldn't see the tape... OCD I know... but it looked cuter!) a little chalking to add some depth and they were ready to go.

Patriotic Pretzels...

All netted up ~ ready for delivery!

 The sticks...

 Mass production... almost 2 full bags dipped!

Mom and dad decided that since Kendra and I had so much fun decorating the pretzels... they wanted to help too! The plan was for mom and I to dip... and Dad and Kendra to decorate.  Kendra decorated all of the twists... but my dad has a lot of talent too so I moved over to the table so that he could decorate the sticks... I think he did a great job! The cute bowls I found at Hobby Lobby and with some netting in a "+" way then tied with a cute polka dot ribbon.  What a fun neighbor/family gift for the 4th of July holiday! Guess which holiday is next... Halloween... and I can decorate using my favorite color ... purple!

Pink Easter Bucket...

I finally finished 1 of the buckets I was planning on doing for Easter.  I had bought pink and yellow buckets and was planning on using them to put Kendra and I's Easter Chocolate Covered Pretzels in for gifts... my mom and dad and Aunt Peggy received theirs in a baggie.  (I really need to work on my procrastination issues...).  This bucket I finished just in time for Josh to deliver to Kendra's Family for Easter.  Looking at the picture now I wish I had used green Stickles in the middle of the flower... it would have matched the pink ribbon with the flower on it perfect... maybe next year!  I used my Silhouette and cut out the vinyl... and added cute pink and white ribbons to the handle.  The pretzels were placed into a large cellophane bag and tied with a matching ribbon and... Voila...

Easter Chocolate Covered Pretzels

 The spread...

 Up close... pretty huh

 The row of "sticks"

 The sticks... up close

Kendra made these cute Easter designs with molds

Kendra and I have been planning since Valentines on doing these cute Easter chocolate covered pretzels... 1 went through one whole bag of the bite size pretzels and a bag of the sticks.  We both love the colors and thought they turned out super cute.  I had big plans of making several buckets to put these cute treats in... procrastination... seems to be my way of life lately...

Valentine Chocolate Covered Pretzels...

 

Kendra and I decided to try our hand at making chocolate covered pretzels... I did the dipping and she was the decorator extraordinaire!

 We made a ton of them... we knew they would make great treats for our Valentine party!

 Kendra...my someday daughter-in-law!

We even tried the chocolate in a few molds.. I didn't get pics of all of them... but they turned out great too!

We even did a few pretzel sticks too!  For the white chocolate I used white Ghirardelli  Cholocate...and for the pink and red... we used Wilton Candy Melts ... melted and put into small squeeze bottles. It made the decorating so much easier. I think we make a pretty good team.  Kendra even thought these would be great for a wedding... just change the colors of the chocolate to match your wedding colors! Thanks Kendra for a fun afternoon!

Kendra and I were featured here...