Dollar Tree Craft Item and St. Patrick's Day Recipe

Hello Everyone -- My apologies for delays in posting.  Things have been a little crazy around the home front.

Dollar Tree Craft Item Review:

To jump right in, I have a review of a Dollar Tree craft item that I intended to post last week and forgot.  Many people have jumped on to the adult coloring book trend.  People often find coloring relaxing, that it helps them to remove themselves from the hassles of the day and to focus on other things.  Some of the images available in adult coloring books are really beautiful and can be used as art to decorate walls or made into book covers or made into place mats, and more.

Dollar Tree has many adult coloring book choices from floral and garden designs to geometric designs to famous places around the world and more.  It's easy to see what you are getting when you can flip through the books, see the images, and get a feel for the quality of the paper.

But what about the colored pencils for use in coloring those images?  Dollar Tree carries a convenient pack of colored pencils, but you can't really tell how they will work or how the colors will look on paper until you get them home.

I picked up a pack of the Dollar Tree colored pencils.  The brand is Liqui-Mark, and the pack contains 10 pencils.  The colors look very vibrant in the package, and I was pleased to see that they were already sharpened to a fine point.  Colors included are:  dark green, brown, red, orange, yellow, bright green, sky blue, violet purple, black, and navy blue (the black pencil is in the box, did not realize it had not shown up until after I posted the photo).  I thought, "not bad for a buck."

But how do they work and look on paper?  I tried each one by coloring a little swatch of each color on a piece of white paper.  I found them to work smoothly on the paper.  I did NOT press hard with the colors because I have arthritis in my hands and do not want to use art or craft tools where I have to really press hard to get them to work.  Thankfully, that was not an issue as the color went onto the paper well, and the pigment was good without having to go over and over it.

Here is how the colors came out on paper.  If you go to Dollar Tree and wonder about the quality of the Liqui-Mark colored pencils, here is how they look.  I think for a dollar, you can't really beat it.

The black one (because I forgot to use it on the example with the others):

The colors would probably be more vibrant if I chose to go over them a few times or to press hard with the pencil, but for basic colored pencils to keep on hand for your coloring books or journals, this is a great buy, in my opinion.

Now, how about a fun salad or dessert idea for Saint Patrick's Day?

Pear Salad (to get your Green on)

Ingredients:

1 3-ounce package of lime jello

1 cup pear juice

2 3-ounce packages of cream cheese, room temperature

1 16-ounce can of pears, drained (save juice for the 1 cup of juice required)

1 8-ounce carton of Cool Whip

Instructions:

1)  Bring the 1 cup of pear juice gently to a boil.  Remove from heat.  Remove juice from pan and put into a medium size mixing bowl.

2)  Dissolve jello in the hot pear juice.

3)  Beat the cream cheese into the jello mixture.

4)  Crush the drained pears, and add them to the jello mixture.

5)  Chill until the mixture is turning thicker (like syrup).

6)  Fold in Cool Whip, and chill until firm.

Wishing everyone a great weekend coming up!