Peppermint Cream Cheese Mints

I made 200-something of these Peppermint Cream Cheese Mints yesterday for our upcoming MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Tea coming up next week, and will make each mom a favor consisting of three mints, and a mint teabag. I found cute favor boxes at the dollar store, and will attach a silk flower on the top of each one.

The mints remind of what my mom used to make when I was a little girl.

The mini-rose mold is just a candy mold from Michaels. I got three of them and just kept rotating them in & out of the freezer as I made them. Even Raina, my four-year old daughter could help me make these! These are SO MUCH EASIER to make than chocolate favors! I always seem to scorch chocolate, and it is so messy. However, if you are good with chocolate then you can dip these minty babies into chocolate and make them like York patties!

So try these for favors the next time you have a tea, shower or party! Copy and paste the above image, it is sized for 3½ x 5 for your recipe box. Enjoy!

Women are like tea bags...

"Women are like tea bags, they don't know how strong they are until they get into hot water."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

This is one of my favorite quotes. Not only because it is about tea, but it envelopes the tenacity of women.

I have had several blog followers email me to express how they have missed my posts. Thank you to everyone who comes to visit me from time to time. I know I have been a terrible blogger and not very interesting, but sometimes life gets in the way of getting to do what we love.

The past couple of months have been challenging. I have been having problems with my left arm since last May. My pinkie & ring finger have been numb, my grip weakened to the point where I could not hold onto fingernail clippers to clip my right hand fingernails, or open up packages and I was losing muscle in the hand. But as most of us moms will do, we put our own health on the back burner until it gets so bad that you are forced to deal with it.

So finally after many doctor visits, tests, MRI's, hand therapy, and more tests, the assessment is I needed to have surgery on my ulnar nerve for "cubital tunnel syndrome" which means the unlar nerve (your funny bone, even though it isn't a bone) was pinched and the doctor needed to move it. I did not want the surgery and tried alternaive methods such as accupuncture and chiropractic care, but it was just not going to relieve the symptoms.

I had the surgery a couple of weeks ago and am still recovering. The feeling is coming back in my fingers and I can actually type better now and gradually getting the strength back. I now have a 5" scar down the back of my arm and elbow! Be glad I don't post photos of it here, even though I did on Facebook, it's kinda gross.

But the teabag quote got me thinking after I saw this really cute craft. I will be providing my teacups and teapots for our upcoming "Tea & Testimony" at my M.O.P.S. group in a couple of weeks. I wanted to find a cute rubber stamp set, and in my Google search efforts came across this cute craft tute to make a mini album from tea bags (click on link for tute):

Turtorial Tea Bag Mini Album

Thank you to Paper Blessings for posting this very creative craft!