Trees and Petit Fours....

There is a reason I insist that my DH and I are home for the holidays...BESIDES being with the kids and grandkids.

I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS! Besides the religious symbolism it has for me, (and I do celebrate that....) I am one of those people who turns to mush during the holidays! Typically my house would be decked to the hilt with lights, greenery (I have boxes of that stuff!) and bows etc....But now that we are flying back to the desert right after, we are doing very little this year. So I am SAVORING what little i have out this year.

But,I get the most excited when our tree goes up. When I purchased this two years ago, my girlfriend and I went to this high end nursery who was having an after Christmas sale. We had to be AT THE DOORS at 6:00 a.m. in order to be first so we could get our choice of tree AND ornaments. We'd heard people grab the good ones up right away. So we had scoped them out the day before and were pretty sure of what we wanted. Next morning, we were sitting in my pick up, engine running at the gate "before they opened" at 5:45 a.m. with Lattes in hand! Didn't matter much tho, by the time they opened the doors, women were lined up behind us ready to push and shove like they were buying the last bras on the shelf!!!

I knew where my tree was, So, I headed back there... Yes, it was still there, with it's "Woodsy" type ornaments, Red Berry Branches, Large Ice covered Twigs, Huge Cork covered balls, Big Birds Nests, and Rustic Pine Cones. All a bit Snow covered. Then they topped it off with some Red, glass snowflake balls and some solid Lime green balls. It was like nothing I'd seen before, but had a way of mixing Rustic with a touch of traditional which is very much me. I LOVED IT! It reminded me of a beautiful Log Cabin in the snow... I wanted this tree. So we set about gathering all our ornaments that we wanted and got our trees all at 60%-70% off! Needless to say, we were happy campers! And I'm still happy with it today...

Here is a close up showing the Red berry branches, Twigs, Cork balls, and one of the types of pine cones....

This one is my favorite picture...(i just think it's composition is nice) but, it shows the red glass balls, twigs, and if you looks close you'll see the nice, rustic pine cones in the back.

Below is one showing the birdsnests and some wooden snowmen and a red birdhouse I put on the living room coffee tables. This is about ALL the decorations I'm managing to put out this year! Boo Hoo!

So, today I finally got to try out my technique of making Petit Fours wrapped in Chocolate. I learned this in Las Vegas when I went for my Cake Camp.

I just LOVE these little desserts! they are so pretty. But, they taste Sooo much better than the original Petit Fours done in that super sweet Fondant glaze. I think I may have to make these my "signature item."

I'm going to have a hard time not pushing these on Brides. Who wouldn't want to serve these instead of cake slices or even cupcakes at a wedding? Or any event for that matter?

Can't you just imagine these in White with a beautiful embellishment on top? I can cover them in white chocolate too. But, I really love how smooth I can make them in the chocolate.

Right now, I don't have too many little molds to make embellishments on top, so what you see is what you get until I get more ordered. But I plan to get lots of pretty ones.

Here is showing the inside with the lemon cake, lemon filling buttercream icing all wrapped up in the chocolate! Yum....

What do you think of these? Don't you think they'd be great for showers and all kind of events?