I got two potted Basil plants from Home Depot for about $3.50 each. I knew I could separate the roots and get about 4 mini plants from each. The little metal buckets are from Target at the $1 Spot:
After we planted them, I felt that they didn't look quite finished. Something was missing but I wasn't sure of what:
Thankfully that same day, I was with a friend who mentioned she got a bag of little pebbles from Home Depot for her flower projects. Yes, I think this was exactly what I needed! This was about $4:
It made a huge difference:
Looks much more polished now, and I'm confidently in giving these as gifts:
Chocolate covered strawberries were so easy to make, believe it or not!
I got a box of strawberries from Costco. The first thing is to wash them and let them dry really good. Then I used toothpicks and stuck them from the top as pictured below. I placed them all on a cookie rack:
Then I took some milk chocolate chips, pour some in a glass bowl with a tablespoon or so of Crisco shortening. I melted it in the microwave in intervals of 10 seconds, taking the bowl out each time and giving it a stir, until completely melted. Don't over heat or it'll burn. Add a little bit of shortening if it's still clumpy. It should be a smooth consistency. Then I took a strawberry by the toothpick and dipped it into the chocolate at an angle. I dipped each maybe 2 to 3 times, and rotating the angle to make sure all sides are covered with chocolate:
I laid the dipped strawberries on wax paper for them to set:
While those are cooling down, I made some melted white chocolate with the same microwave method. I poured the melted white chocolate into a zip lock bag and closed it. I cut a tiny hole at the bottom corner of the bag and piped in a zig zag motion onto the strawberries. It would be less messy if I used a pastry piping bag to do this, but oh well. This was still good and they tasted so good!
After the chocolate harden, I put each into a cupcake wrapper:
I had these clear cupcake containers, and I decided to put the strawberries inside. It worked out great, especially for transporting them:
Good luck and have fun!
=)
