Bake it, Make it & Take it.....Cookies in a see-through box!

Wow......the week in between last week's Bake it, Make it & Take it post and this week's seemed to fly by! I certainly don't mind baking another round of sweet goodies in my kitchen, though. You'll never hear me complain about that!

For this week's BIMITI post, my mom (Donna, from Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases) gave me her fabulous recipe for White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies.

Now, before I begin telling you all about this project, I'm going to admit (confess??) a couple of things.

1) I've never been a fan of white chocolate. I know a lot of people LOVE white chocolate, but I have tried and tried, since I was a kid, to like it but I just can't. It's like a food item that wants so badly to be chocolate, it strives to be like chocolate, it even calls itself "chocolate" but it will never be chocolate. I feel like a traitor to real chocolate if I eat white chocolate.  But besides that, I've never really "acquired the taste" for white chocolate.

2) I love my mom's recipe, but seeing that I don't care much for white chocolate, I tweaked the recipe to suit my tastes. First off, I cut the recipe in half. As much as I love cookies and as much as I thought I would lose weight with my mom living on her boat 5 hours away and not giving me tons of yummy treats to eat, I STILL find myself getting a bit tight in the waistband. I knew that if I made a WHOLE batch, I'd eat all of them! haha! Instead of doing white chocolate, I poured an entire bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the batch and I substituted chopped pecans for the macadamia nuts. I've had a hankering for pecans (I only like them in baked goods, never raw.....wow, I'm picky!) so I threw in a whole bag of those, as well.

So, now that I've gotten my confessions out of the way, it's on to telling you all about my snazzy little see-through box that I made for these cookies.

By the way, my mom's recipe is one of the butteriest tasting cookie recipes you'll ever try! They just melt in your mouth!

On Tuesday night, one of the girls in my downline (*waves to Susan*) brought me a box of transparency sheets that her company was throwing out. A WHOLE BOX! Since Stampin' Up stopped carrying their Window Sheets, I've been voraciously hoarding my little bits, pieces and scraps of window sheets. Now, I have a whole box of 100 sheets that I can use and they're thick, sturdy and clear! Well, make that 98 sheets because I used two for this project. But.....who's counting, eh? *wink*

Now, the wheels in my head are turning a mile a minute coming up with all sorts of fascinating and brilliant ideas on how to use these sheets. A small part of me feels that "hoarding instinct" kick in and makes me want to put the box away under lock and key, but I'm breaking free from that! haha!

For this box, I used a basic origami box design. One of the things that I do differently with my boxes is that I don't fold corner to corner like it shows in the directions. When you do that, you get two cross-ways creases on the flat part of the box. What I do is find the center point of the paper with a rule and draw an "X" in the center. I use that as my center point to fold my corners in to. With a transparency, you can't really do that, so I used a marker that would wipe off of the transparency and put a dot in the center point (which I found with a ruler) and used that dot to fold my corners into. This way, you avoid having creases on your box top. You especially don't want them on a transparency box top because it would really show and "peak" up on the creases.

I cut my box bottom at 8 x 8 inches and my box top was cut just a bit larger, at 8 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches.

I know that the Apple Cider Designer Series paper is retired, but I just can't help myself from using it when it comes to packages with cookies in them. The colors seem to go so well with chocolate chips.

I cut a strip at 12 inches long and adhered it around the sides of the box top. It was just long enough to reach all the way around and overlap slightly at the ends.

Because I used double-sided paper, I didn't end up with a boring white border showing through the inside of the box. I got a second pattern on the inside! How cool is that? Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting paper if I'm covering up an equally awesome pattern when I adhere it to a card. At least with this little box, I get to see BOTH sides of the paper! Yes, I'm easily amused! *wink* Honestly, it doesn't really take much.

I didn't go overboard with decorating my box because I didn't want to cover up those beautiful cookies inside. I was able to fit two cookies in the box, though you could start with a larger sized piece of paper if you wanted to fit a few more cookies in there.

I tied a length of Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon around the box and crossed over it on the bottom and then tied a big bow on top. I trimmed the ends of my ribbon on an angle for a nice, clean look.

I made a tag to go on top of my box.....and in the top picture of this post, the angle of the picture makes the tag look HUGE, but it's not really that huge!

I stamped the words "I made this just for you," (from the What's in your Tin 1 set from GinaK Designs) on to a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock. To get the different colored words, I colored directly onto the rubber stamp with Chocolate Chip and Really Rust Stampin' Write Markers (from Stampin' UP). Those brush tip markers work fantastically on rubber!

I rounded opposite corners with a corner rounder punch and did the same thing with a larger piece of patterned paper from the Apple Cider pack. I used my paper piercing tool, template and mat (from the Crafters' Tool Kit) to pierce some holes in the corners of the cardstock for some visual interest. I then mounted the greeting on top of the patterned paper, then punched a hole in the top left corner with my 1/8 inch hole punch. I threaded a piece of the new Chocolate Chip (see? that color was MEANT for projects with cookies!) Poly-Twill ribbon (found in the Occasions Mini Catalog) through the hole and then tied that in a double knot over the center of the knot on the Very Vanilla grosgrain bow.

Don't those cookies look amazing? Yes, I had one for breakfast, complete with a cup of chai to wash it down. Like my dad would call it, "The breakfast of champions!" Champion of what, I'm not sure, but it sure was YUMMY!

And just to tempt you even more, here's a picture of some of those yummy cookies on a plate:

You can find my mom's recipe for these cookies here:

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Now, I'm hankering for some Hot cross buns......I might actually get up the courage to make some of those today. I don't do well with bread doughs (unless it's a quick bread recipe), so we'll see how they turn out. If they don't turn out so well, I can see why they'd be totally cross. :)

Happy Creating and Baking!

-Stampin' Mama

 

Comments

[Dee]

Hi Erika...
Your mom's recipe sounds delicious...
and the way you tweaked it sounds good too!
Your clear cookie box is Beautiful!!
I love the way you made it..and added the
patterned paper around the middle.
Tag and ribbon really dresses it up :)
Wonderfully packaged!
What a Fabulous Gift!!!
Thanks for sharing...
Dee
*I checked out your mom's blog
and subscribed...
"I love to Bake"...she has a nice blog!

[Erin Glee]

How did you stop at only ONE cookie with your Chai tea for breakfast? Those cookies look so good I would have needed at least a few more than that! I love how you packaged them up, too...and if the box is 8x8, those are generously sized cookies! Thanks for all the details!

[LuvLee]

Ohhhh.........another yummmmmmmmmy recipe!!! I LOVE that box......I've never tried making one before...they're adorable!!! I definitely will have to put this on my list of projects to try!! Thank you so much for sharing your creativity and your mom's recipes!

[Mary C. Anderson]

I love the box that you made to give a cookie in as a gift Erika. I used to like White chocolate but since I found out that it really wasn't chocolaate and how it is not very good for you I stopped eating it. I eat only 70-72% chocolate now. However, if I were to have chocolate cake,cookies or cupcakes well then that is another whole story. YUM! You and your Mom make a great team.

Hugs,
Mary

[rae clevett]

What a great gift idea! The box and the cookies look delish!

[Tina Suzan]

Erika,
WELL, yet another great gift item filled with TOTALLY delicious, scrumptious, How can you eat only one or two????? :} item!!! Girl you never cease to amaze me! Tell your mom I said "THANKS" for all her goody recipes and of course....FOR YOU!!!
Hugs,
Tina Suzan Frankfort

[Kendall]

I've been enjoying visiting your blog for some time now and have just beagn baking you Mum's delish white chocolate cookie recipe. They are heavenly. So far the first ( and second) batch have only just made it out of the oven before my family have swooped in to devour them! I love the way you've packaged them and think I will have a go at the box tommorrow to share some with our neighbours! Thanks, once again.

[Kristin]

They look delicious - I might have to give them a try!
And I'm with you on the white chocolate thing - I've tried and tried to like it, but it's just not going to happen!!

[Carol]

*drooling* Yum-oh! These cookies look so delicious and I love the way you packaged them. It's all good! pass me a cookie please? (or 12) LOL

[christina fischer]

There's no way I could have stopped at one cookie!! I agree with you -- semisweet chocolate and pecans is the perfect combination! :)

The packaging is just perfect -- what a great way to use those window sheets!

[Shawn Kreig]

Yummy! Yummy! Yummy! Not like white chocolate? That's crazy girl! :) But then I'm not really a fan of regular chocolate so I guess we are both a bit odd! Can't wait to try this recipe. Your box is tooo cute!

Shawn K

[Carol]

I just noticed the new picture you posted of yourself! How you can keep reinventing your look is amazing! You look great with your hair pulled back! Love it!

[Dee]

Man Erika, you kill me with these yummy cookies every week!!!:) I luv to bake and use to make cookies every week for my family, now that the girls are grown and gone I no longer do it. I'm diabetic and can't stand the no sugar recipes!!! So no more baked goods every week. I know if I baked for just me and dh I'd eat myself into a coma while he was at work!!!!!!:) I luv to see all your awesome packaging ideas!
Dee Jackson

[Joliane Ratelle]

HUMmmm....COOKIES!!

Érika, go to see my blog, you have the TAG! ;)

[Melanie Muenchinger]

I love the way you've been getting so much use out of the tin set for your make it bake it take it, fun with food!!!! That tag is so cute, I would die to get this cookie(keep the tag forever, devour the cookie in 2 seconds... :) hugs,
Melanie