Christmas biscuits, festively boxed up

I adore Christmas biscuits! They're quick to bake and decorate, fill the house with an excitingly Christmassy smell and make lovely gifts when they're attractively packaged.

I like to cut my dough with a star shaped cookie cutter and, when the biscuits are baked and cooled, decorate them with zig zags of white icing and soft gold or silver balls and just a dusting of icing sugar.

The wonderful kraft boxes on p.161 of the annual catalogue are perfect for presenting these little biscuits, but don't forget to line them with greaseproof paper first.  They're great for all sorts of other goodies too and at £2.75 for a pack of four, they don't break the bank either!

For Christmas, I like to tie mine up with the stitched grosgrain ribbon in real red - oh, this ribbon is divine and comes in loads of the Stampin' Up colours!

I used a fun tag from Tags til Christmas for this box. I stamped it in Real Red ink, cut the centre out with the new 1" square punch and mounted it onto a scalloped square punched out of Early Espresso Core'dinations card stock. I love how you get the sanded edges look when you punch this gorgeous textured card stock.

Of course I had to design a card to go with my box of Christmas biscuits and Merry Minis was the perfect stamp set for it! I used Real Red to stamp some stars and ornaments, punched them out with the coordinating punch and attached them with dimensionals to a string drawn with an Early Espresso marker (using an oval pie dish as a guide!)

The marker came in handy for doodling bows at the tops of the decorations too! Doesn't this make a sweet banner?!

I chose to use the wonderfully swirly Merry Christmas from Sassy Salutations, stamped again in Real Red ink.

And here they are together, all ready to go!

Here's the recipe I use for my biscuits (adapted from various other recipes I've tried over the years!)
5oz plain flour
5oz SR flour
4 tsp cinnamon
2oz dark muscovado sugar
2oz granulated sugar
4oz butter
1 large free range egg, beaten
A little milk if needed
Method
Cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy and add the beaten egg. Sieve in the dry ingredients and mix into a dough with a little milk if needed. Roll out to 1/2cm thickness, cut out star shapes and bake on floured baking trays in an oven pre-heated to 150 degrees C for 10-15 minutes until browned.

Here's what you'll need to box the biscuits up
Stamps: Tags til Christmas
Ink: Real Red
Card stock: Whisper White, Core'dinations in Early Espresso
Other: Kraft boxes, Real Red stitched grosgrain ribbon, Scallop Square punch, 1" square punch, white bakers twine.

Here's what you'll need for the coordinating card
Stamps: Merry Minis, Sassy Salutations
Ink: Real Red classic ink plus an Early Espresso marker
Card stock: Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Real Red
Other: Merry Minis punch pack, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593.

This has turned into a very long post hasn't it... but still, I'm sure some of you could do with a bit of a nap! Our lovely cat Tuppence is napping away as I type and she's taken to making noises as she dreams - just like a dog! You can tell that she's being Warrior Tuppence, Defender of the Territories from the noises she's making (although in real life she's a complete wimp!)

I shall be back tomorrow with a really fun project. Hope to see you then.