Macy's Heart of Haiti

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, an earthquake with a 7.0 magnitude struck Haiti. By January 24 at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. The Haitian government reported that an estimated 230,000 people died, 300,000 were injured and 1,000,000 made homeless.

The devastating earthquake of January 2010 has made it virtually impossible for Haitians to make a living. Raw materials have been wiped out, there are a lack of secure and sanitary conditions and little funding to support economic relief.

I know as someone who is always moved to help others who experience a tragic event, I am always looking for ways I can help those who are effected.

Macy's is featuring Heart of Haiti, a project where artists from Haiti are selling items they have made out of recycled items. Purchasing one of these handcrafted masterpieces directly benefits Haitian artisans by allowing them to support their families with dignity and purpose. This initiative offers the first sustainable income since the earthquake, enabling artisans to repair homes, pay school fees and feed and clothe their families. With steady income comes better nutrition, improved education and access to healthcare.

Heart of Haiti also offers new opportunities for artists to collaborate with US designers, strengthening artisan associations and inspiring and energizing their communities. Men and women are working together, gaining confidence and hope for the future. Master artisans who planned to leave the country are now staying behind to train the next generation.

Here are some of my favorite items from the Heart of Haiti Shop at Macy's:


This beautiful frame made from recycled barrels is only $25


Pendants starting at only $10



Heart of Haiti Tray $25

See all the projects for sale here: Heart of Haiti ~ Shop for a Better World

If you click HERE, you can meet the artists behind this amazing project!

Where can you find these in a Macy's by you? Check HERE for locations!

More information on the the Heart of Haiti founder and Fairwinds Trading CEO Willa Shalit can be found here.
You may also include information about a special blogger tour of Haiti with Willa Shalit. Details can be found here.

I was selected for this very special “CleverHaiti” opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity. All opinions are my own.

Bake it Forward ~ Baking Party!

As some of you know, I have chosen to use my baking abilities to give to others this year. I was asked to do an opportunity with #FamilyMeals from Collective Bias, Hamilton Beach and Conagra Foods and I was so excited. We were asked to do a baking party and share the cookies with others. I knew my grandmother was getting ready to visit the Vets so I wanted to do this so she could share some baked goods. I also made some cookies to share with neighbors and our church community.

When I planned this party, I wanted to do cookies that others would love but cookies that were easy to bake! At our party we made Peanut Butter Kisses cookies, Gingerbread Trees and Sugar Cookies. I also made Peanut Butter fudge, look for my recipes below!

First at our party, refreshments!

M&M's

Hot Cocoa!

I also made Chilled Cocoa!
Ingredients:
4 packs of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate
2 cups of ice
6 cups of water
Reddi-Wip

Blend in the blender for about 30 seconds and you are done! I love the Wave Crusher blender by Hamilton Beach! It blended the drink easily with no leftover ice chunks and poured it out smoothly! If you are in the market for a new blender, it's available at Walmart for under $30!

For the hot and cold cocoa, I had a condiment bar set up so people could add a little more flavor to their drinks if they wanted to!

Let's Bake!

That's my mom starting the cookies!

Sister n'law Jocelyn helps!

First up is the Peanut Butter Kisses Cookies!
*See recipe below


I loved working with Peter Pan peanut butter because it's so smooth and soft.

Gingerbread Trees for decorating

Brian gets a treat since he is the official assistant, helping with unwrapping candies and going to the store for last minute items needed!

Recipes:

Peanut Butter Kisses

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons Parkay butter spread
• 1/4 cup Wesson Vegetable Oil
  
• 1/2 cup Peter Pan peanut butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Unwrapped Chocolate Kisses Candies
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, peanut butter, 1/2 cup white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, oil and then stir in vanilla. Gradually blend in the sifted ingredients. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake at for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool slightly, and remove from pan then insert unwrapped kisses into the middle of the cookies.

Tiger Butter Fudge ~ A cooking video!

Ingredients

• 12 ounces of white chocolate candy bark melted
  
• 20-22 ounces milk chocolate chips (2 bags), melted
• 1 1/2 cups Peter Pan peanut butter

Directions

1. Spray 8X8 pan with Pam, set aside.
2. In Microwave, melt the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl for about 1 minute, 30 seconds.
3. In Microwave, melt the white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl for about a minute.
   
4. Stir together milk chocolate and peanut butter until well blended. I like to use my Hamilton Beach Hand Blender to speed up the process!
5. Pour melted milk chocolate in pan.
6. Take the white chocolate and pour over the chocolate. Stir slightly with a spoon or knife to create a swirl/marble effect.
7. Chill until firm. Cut into 1 /2 x 1" pieces.

The party goers got some treats to take home:

I was compensated for my time from Collective Bias, all opinions are my own. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Pay it Forward: Cookies for the Troops with Kenmore!

Make the season a little sweeter for our troops! Simply click on the button on the Facebook app and Kenmore will send a dozen cookies to a soldier away from home with your personal message of support.

Even sweeter—by helping reach the goal of sending a quarter million cookies to the troops, Kenmore will donate $50,000 to Heroes at Home Wish Registry to assist military families in need.

Send the cookies through the Facebook app here: http://www.facebook.com/kenmore?v=app_155844884458429

Pay it Forward: Quick Vote w/ Dove Brush with Greatness!

How cool would it be to go to Radio City to perform? Well there are 4 groups competing right now in the Dove Brush with Greatness campaign! Why not brighten someone's holiday with a quick vote to send one lucky group to NYC!

The winners will get to sign in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular on December 28th! It's up to you to vote them there! Click on any of the finalist video thumbnails to view and then click on the "Vote" button in the upper right hand corner of the video to submit your vote.

It is on Facebook, takes only a few seconds and does not require a registration!

You can vote here:
http://apps.facebook.com/dovehaircare/

Since we're talking about Dove, why not print a coupon for $1.50 off 2 Dove Deodorants or mists? http://www.dove.us/#/insider/coupons.aspx

P.S. I am going for the Underdog ;-)

Paying it Forward with MORE Cookies!

This week I was asked to participate in a Pay it Forward Baking Swap. We were asked to bake some holiday goodies for someone along with giving them the supplies to make the items themselves. I love baking for others so I was very excited to participate in this baking swap.


When I was asked to participate, I automatically knew I wanted my neighbor to receive a treat. She's been going through a hard time personally and health wise with being in and out of the hospital. I actually had a hard time catching her at home and the picture below of her is me seeing her right before she went back in to the hospital for a few days.

What I made for my Pay it Forward was Peppermint Chocolate Cookies.

I started with the cookie mix from Smart and Final. I love this large mix, it makes at least 4 batches of cookies of different varieties!



Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Ingredients:

Cookie Mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Peppermint candies

Directions:
Prepare sugar cookies as per instructions on package.
Chop up little peppermint candy canes or peppermint mints with potato masher.
Sprinkle candies in the mix and add a 1/2 tsp of Peppermint Oil.
Place in oven as per instructions.

While cookies cook then cool, melt chocolate chips in bowl in microwave for about 30-45 seconds. Once the chips are mostly melted, quickly whisk the melted chocolate with a spoon to smooth. Once cookies are cooled, spoon chocolate lightly in either a zigzag or in the middle of the cookie. Allow to harden, about 10 minutes (you can speed up the process by placing cookies in the fridge for a few minutes).

In my Pay it Forward Giftbag, I am including a large bag of First Street Cookie Mix with a bag of chocolate chips.

I also included these chocolate covered marshmallows and peppermint bark! These are great for a quick and tastey gift for others and did I mention they are super easy?

Chocolate Covered Marshmallows

Ingredients:

Large Marshmallows
Chocolate Bark Coating
Sprinkles for decor
Lollipop sticks or skewers

Melt coating in microwave for about 45 seconds.

Place skewers or sticks in the marshmallows then swirl them in the chocolate. Let dry on wax paper for about 15 minutes, wrap in cellophane with curling ribbon for a cute little treat! This is great for friends with kids.

Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:
White Chocolate Coating
Crushed peppermint candies (about 15 candies)
Peppermint oil

Melt chocolate coating in microwave for about 45 seconds until smooth. Once melted, mix the candies and oil in the melted chocolate. Spread melted mix out on a large peice of wax paper.

Let harden for about an hour, then break into pieces! This recipe only takes about 5 minutes to prepare and it just melts in your mouth!

Theresa was very appreciative of the cookies and other treats, I definitely think she needed a pick me up.

*I was compensated for my time by Collecitve Bias, all opinions and yummyness are my own.

Send a Thank You To The Troops for FREE!

This is super easy and such a great cause! It's free and it only takes less than a minute to complete! Please send some encouragement to our troops by sending a free card.

Click Here to send a card to the troops!

Supporting Our Troops w/ Stockings, Cookies and more!

Ever since my cousin spent a Christmas serving with the Marines in Iraq, my grandmother has been on a quest. Her quest is to make sure that she can do her best to send out as many Christmas boxes for the troops each year. She was really surprised by the number of items these troops don't have and how greatly they appreciated even the smallest item from home.


Even though she personally doesn't know any of them, she seeks out friends and sometimes complete strangers who have loved ones overseas so she can send them boxes.


She literally works all year round collecting donations of items and funds to help ship these items. Even with donations thought, most of these items are bought with her own money. She buys socks, shirts, toiletries, snacks and more. This year she sent 75 boxes to the troops and she bundled over 30 blankets for Vets to give to the Veterans Hospital. Her generosity always amazes me.

All of the stockings above consist of candy and other goodies. Every year I buy my children's Halloween Candy from them so we can donate them to the troops. I also found bulk candy on special at Smart and Final for 80% off. I believe we gathered over 30 pounds of candy!

Since she started this, I have been baking hundreds of cookies for the troops. This year was no different!

My Baking assistants:

7 hours of baking and hundreds of cookies later, mission is accomplished and we are ready to start boxing our items!

I have to give a special thanks to Smart and Final for donating a giftcard so I could get everything I needed to bake these cookies and buy the extra things we needed for these boxes.

Elmer's Virtual Bag it Forward

I have been tagged! Sara at Saving for Someday has invited me to participate in the Elmer's Virtual Bag it Forward program.

My first Virtual Bag It Forward is going to Brenda at Peek At My Paper

Brenda, you can participate in the Elmer’s Virtual Bag It Forward by giving away a virtual bag of school supplies and creating a blog post with specific rules described below.

Elmer’s will donate up to $10,000 to Adopt-A-Classroom

You can give as many virtual bags as you want in your post, but only one post per URL is counted toward the donation. You can post at multiple URLs.

The Elmer’s Virtual Bag It Forward will officially begin at 12 AM EST on July 22, 2010 and end at 12 PM EST on August 12, 2010. Blog posts submitted to us before or after that time period will not be counted for.

The blog post link has to be submitted in the comment section in the ELMER'S VIRTUAL BAG IT FORWARD comment section.

In addition copy and paste the following text in your blog post:

ELMER’S VIRTUAL BAG IT FORWARD RULES

Create a blog post giving a “virtual bag of school supplies” to other bloggers or write about your Back to School shopping trip at Walmart.

Link back to person who gave you a bag of school supplies.

Let each person you are giving a virtual bag of school supplies know you have given them a bag.

Leave your link in the Elmer’s Virtual Bag It Forward comment section HERE. You can also find the official rules of this virtual #bagitforward program there.