Dollar Find Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! Join us tonight at 7 PM Pacific time for our Friday Night Chat. It's a great time to relax and chat with friends after a long week and we love having new people join us :) That chat has been started here so feel free to stop in at any time to say hello! Enjoy the following DFF tutorial brought to us by our Trendsetter of the week, Gretchen!

It's dollar find Friday and I've got a cute little project for you that will set you back $1 and a few cents! I am always on the look out for cute, yet inexpensive, little gifts to give to my friends at Holiday time. I belong to 2 different book clubs and like to give each of the members a little "somethin' somethin'". I found this small rectangular paper mache box at my local craft store for $0.99. Plus, I had a 4o% off coupon! (Everything else I was buying was on sale so why not use it on this!) Here's what my box looked like when I started.

Now that's not such a cute little gifty, so I bought a piece of Bo-Bunny paper for $0.79 too. (Even though I have loads of DP at home to choose from!!) I took my box home and put a quick coat of white acrylic paint on it. I was going to be covering it with paper so I wasn't really careful, I just wanted to cover up the brown craft color.

Then I set to work measuring and cutting my paper to cover the box. Again, I wasn't really precise- I wanted to give it a shabby feel so after I adhered my paper, I sanded the edges too. I also made a gift tag to match the box. I used some scraps of card stock, the leftover DP and some border punches. My sentiment is from Penguin Love and I added some fancy paper piercing and brads to complete it. Now isn't that a cute little box and tag combo?

Well, sure it is but what makes it a little "somethin' somethin' " is what's inside! I found a quick and easy recipe for homemade truffles so I whipped up a batch and put 6 of them inside! Yummy!

Here's the recipe so you can make your own little gifty with the yummy truffles inside! (Recipe courtesy of Baker's chocolate and Kraft Food and Family Holiday 2009 issue)

Simply Sensational Truffles

2-1/2 packages (20 squares) Baker's semi sweet chocolate, divided
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

decorations of your choice (I used sprinkles and crushed star peppermints)

Melt 8 chocolate squares. Beat cream cheese with mixer until creamy. Blend in melted chocolate. Refrigerate until firm.

Shape into 36 balls. Place on waxed paper-covered baking sheet.

Melt remaining chocolate. Use fork to dip truffles; return to baking sheet. Decorate, then refrigerate 1 hour.

Store in refrigerator.

Happy crafting! Don't forget to join us in the Forum tonight for the Friday Night Chat!