cheese balls and peppermint bark

When my daughter told me on the way home from school yesterday that she needed to go shopping again. . .because she wanted to give presents to fourteen friends, I had to hold tightly the steering wheel to prevent a serious swerve.  I thought nearly all the presents were complete.  After I dropped her at a basketball game, I quickly hit my inexpensive go-to stores: Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart.  This wouldn't have been her tactic, but gifts weren't coming from her wallet either.  I hoped that with the nice things she had already and with some things I hoped to pick up, we could put together 14 great presents.

At the Dollar Tree, I found three surprisingly pretty picture frames. When I got home, I took them out of their cheap wrappers and discarded the stock photo with which each came.  From the computer, I found and printed in black and white several pictures of her friends on photo paper which I already had.  Also at the Dollar Tree I found little packs of lotion and body spray that were from a nice store.  After I took them out of the cheap wrapper and tied with lovely ribbon and a candy cane, they looked appealing.  I also found a hat that looked nearly identical to some I had seen at a nice department store and at least two pairs of gloves that I knew my own kids would like.  Then at Wal-Mart, I found packs of fuzzy socks and picked up some bags of dark and white chocolate and candy canes.

As soon as I got home, I melted the dark chocolate and poured it on a couple of cookie trays lined with parchment paper--how great is the stuff!  While it cooled, I tied the gloves, socks, and hats up with pretty ribbon and candy canes.  Next, I crushed several candy canes and then melted some white chocolate.  I poured the white chocolate in a pattern over the dark chocolate and sprinkled the crushed candy canes in it before it hardened.  After it cooled, I broke it into chunks and then wrapped and tied it into little packages.  By the time she came home from the game, I had created a display of presents on the dining room table.  She gathered up the things she had earlier purchased and was able to put together the presents--fourteen of them-- in a fairly reasonable amount of time.  No shopping trip and less than $20 spent!

Here's one of the bags of peppermint bark.

Next, I needed to put presents together for several of my friends.  I had picked up crackers when I had good coupons.  Out came the cream cheese and ingredients and by tripling the recipe below, I made 6 cheese balls. 
(the recipe was hard to read; I'll make it better)

By the end of the night, I had made 6 adult presents and helped the kid to make 14 packages. . .not bad for one day.