‘Good Things’ Winners Chosen

I’ve always known that you, the readers, are a creative, enterprising group of people, and the entries I received for the “Good Things” Holiday Contest proved it without a doubt.

We asked for simple, holidayrelated “Good Things” projects, ideas or techniques that might make a big difference in your life. We received entries from all over the United States.

From looking at your ideas, it is clear that you put a lot of effort into making this time of year special in your home. You made beautiful wreaths, ornaments, candle holders, stockings and other decorations, as well as inventive, delicious holiday dishes.

You also came up with some ingenious organizing solutions. Many of you used local resources to create a decoration that celebrates your part of the country.

You transformed old, everyday objects - things that might otherwise be thrown away - into new, useful ones. You recycled paper and gift cards into pretty wrapping paper, made decorative boxes out of old, plain ones and turned paper bags into festive holiday gift bags.

Thank you all for your enthusiasm, and congratulations to all of our talented local newspaper prizewinners. Choosing the top three national prizewinners certainly wasn’t easy! I would like to share their ideas with you.

Grand prize winner

Congratulations to Grand Prize winner Kathleen Gasta, of Newark, Calif., who sent her entry to the Argus newspaper. I love her idea for making white-chocolate poinsettias to top holiday cakes, pies and tarts.

Kathleen’s creation really looks like a poinsettia; it is an edible decoration in the best of taste, beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. White chocolate is easy to tint, so you can make the flowers in all the colors found in nature’s poinsettias - red, yellow, pink, peach and, of course, white.

Kathleen says she has been making these for years, as a way of making holiday desserts special. Here are instructions:

White-Chocolate Poinsettia

Various-size leaves from citrus trees or camellia plants

1 package of white chocolate for candy making

Food-safe paraffin (optional)

Paste or powdered food coloring (optional)

7 small green or yellow jelly beans, such as Jelly Bellies

Wash and dry leaves thoroughly.

Melt white chocolate as directed for making candy molds. It may be helpful to add food-safe paraffin shavings (available where candy-making supplies are sold) to thin the chocolate.

Chocolate can remain white or be dyed with paste or powdered food coloring (do not use liquid dyes, as they harden the chocolate). Add color sparingly at first; you can always add more. A light marbleizing of red gives a variegated pink flower, for example.

Brush the melted chocolate on the back of the leaves, being careful not to go over the edges. Use small, medium and large leaves. Place on a cookie sheet and let harden. (You can place the leaves in the refrigerator or freezer to speed this up.)

Gently peel the leaf from the chocolate. Do not handle too long, as the heat of your hands will melt the chocolate.

Use the leaves to garnish any cake or other dessert that has a flat surface. Start with the larger leaves and place them in a circle, determining the size of the flower you wish to create. Work toward the center, staggering the leaves and using leaves that decrease in size. Place the smallest in the center, leaving a small hole in the middle.

Cut the jelly beans in half. Place them, rounded side up, in the hole to create the center of the flower.

First prize winner

Joan Lindermuth of Linglestown, Pa., who sent her idea into the Harrisburg Patriot News, caught my attention with the first sentence of her entry letter:

“This original holiday ‘Good Thing’ was the creative answer to extreme homesickness for the Northeast while living in California.”

I turned immediately to look at the photo, and was delighted to see a snowman made of tumbleweeds! “This little fellow stopped a lot of traffic,” Joan wrote. I’m sure he did - the snowman is an adorable twist on tradition. Here is how to create it:

Collect tumbleweeds in three sizes. Stack them (wire them together if necessary) and spray-paint them white. Joan used a rock inside the back of the bottom tumbleweed to weight it, and she ran heavy wire from the center tumbleweed to the house to anchor him.

Glue on eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth of black felt. Tie a red ribbon around his neck and wedge black boots under him. As a finishing touch, Joan gave her snowman a little aluminum-foil hat.

Second prize winner

In a tie for second prize, two people presented a brilliant solution for a problem faced by everyone who celebrates Christmas: how to store strings of holiday lights without a tangled mess.

Both Camille Rogers, of Norcross, Ga., who sent her entry to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and Felice Janelle, of Manchester, N.H., who sent hers to the Union Leader, came up with the simple, clever idea of storing Christmas lights on a garden-hose storage wheel.

Wheels for storing garden hoses, rope and other cords are available at hardware stores. Connect your lights together to form one long string. Place the end of the string on the wheel, turn the handle and wind the lights around it. Do this slowly to distribute the lights evenly and prevent crushing or losing any bulbs.

“When it’s time to decorate your tree again,” Camille adds, “your lights are ready to go, with no hours wasted untangling them.” And that is truly a good thing.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Martha Stewart New York Times Syndicate