Merry Christmas to me!

This is what my sweet husband got me for Christmas! I finally got it today and I can't wait to play with it!
So many exclamations marks in one short post!!!

This is one of the craft things I kept telling myself I didn't need...just like the Cricut and the Martha Stewart Scoreboard...and then I get anyways. Hopefully I'll end up loving it as much as I do my other "do not need" items on my desk!

Bake Sale!

I mentioned in my last post that I organized a Bake Sale earlier this month at my work to help raise money for our Christmas family (and we raised quite a bit!! YAY!). I wanted to share the bake sale signs that I made using my Cricut because, well, I'm pretty sure they were the cutest Bake Sale signs EVER. By the time I finished them it was something like 11:30pm, so my picture is a little dark, sorry!

The font is from the Elegant Cakes cartridge (and it's not even the prettiest font on there!), the cup of cocoa is from the Holiday Cakes cartridge and the happy cupcake is from Simply Charmed.
And here are the goodies I made and packaged up. I'd never made either Rice Krispie Treats or Peanut Butter Blossoms before, but both turned out really well and sold quickly.

Peppermint Nutella blossoms

A while back I asked my imaginary friends on a message board what to make for a bake sale, and Sarah said I needed to make peanut butter blossoms. I used her recipe and whipped up a batch. They seemed to be a pretty big hit and I've made them three times since then (and the bakesale was only a few weeks ago!)
Well, I bought a two pack of nutella at Costco a few weeks ago, and with DH trying to lose 10 lbs, it was not a good combo. One of them had to go. So I decided to try to substitute Nutella in the Peanut butter blossom recipe. Nutella is softer than pb, so I added at 1/8 cup of cocoa powder for good measure, and omitted the vanilla.
They spread out a lot more than traditional pb blossoms, but with a candy cane kiss on top and their chocolately goodness: omg om nom nom. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, so I'll check the interwebs and see if I can find a recipe that holds it's traditional blossom shape a little better before I make these again.

Nutella Blossoms

2 cups Bisquick
3.4 cup Nutella
1.8 cup cocoa powder
1 can sweetened condensed milk
white sugar
kisses of your choice

mix ingredients, roll into balls and roll balls in white sugar. Bake for 10 minutes at 350. Remove from oven, let sit for 1 minute, then press unwrapped kisses into top of cookies. Remove from cookie sheet and cool.
Makes 4 dozen

Tomorrow these will be off to a friend who asked me to make her Christmas cookies. How could I say no? :)

11th hour Christmas Cards

I didn't think I had Christmas Cards in me this year, but at the last second (meaning this morning before I left for work and tonight when I got home) I pumped out these:

yeah, so I've only made 6. And so they're going to be reciprocal cards (I'm sending them to people who've already sent us cards!) and so, they may not be there by Christmas. BUT I made them, and they're done and they'll be in the mail tomorrow!
This is one of my favorite designs from when I was making cards earlier this year, most of which I sent to Card Cupids, so I decided to re-create it. The lovely wreath is cut from the Holiday Cakes cartridge, and to save time I skipped cutting the berries and used glitter glue instead.

And, it's only 7:40 right now, so I have a few hours to make more. So I may even get to making reciprocal cards from last year, when I didn't send out cards at all.

I feel so alive! (not really.)

Hobby Hopping Contest

My friend Christy over at Hobby Hopping is having a pretty awesome blog contest! If she gets to 50 followers by Christmas, she'll draw a name and give the winner their choice of 5 Copics, 10 Spicas, a Glitter Ritz/Peel Off starter kit, a set of hand-made cards, or a big box of candy.
Any of those would be amazing to win! She's only 14 followers away, so, go, follow and if you haven't seen her blog yet, you're in for a treat!

Christmas Boxes

With only a few days left until Christmas, I think it's safe to say I've given up on making my Christmas cards this year. I just don't have the time.
BUT I did make these adorable boxes to fill with homemade candy for my coworkers! I used this box tutorial, and cut the reindeer from Create a Critter. I used the fill page feature to cut as many from a page as I could at 5 inches, and I had 10 boxes done in no time (less than an hour). I used my paper cutter to score the boxes, which worked okay, but I bought a Martha Stewart Scoreboard a few days later. If I ever make these boxes again, the scoreboard will make it a much faster process!

I made them while the peanut butter button cookies were baking and cooling and it worked out really well. I forgot to take a picture after I added the gift tags, but I cut small tags with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and tucked them near the Reindeer's head with a sentiment and the recipients name. They really turned out cute.I added peppermint bark to these after the picture too! I almost forgot to put it in there.

So, if I don't post again before Saturday, have a Merry Christmas!

Use Your Stash: Card Cupids Challenge #2

This weeks Card Cupid challenge is so super easy, it's a use your stash challenge! The only requirement is that you can't buy anything new for this card.
We're sponsored by Heather Ellis Co. this week, so we each chose one of her adorable digi stamps to use. I chose this girl in the bathtub stamp, and then remembered that I had bubble print paper in my stash. From 8th grade. Yeah, this stuff is OLD.

The pink stickers are also really old, I've had them for about 7 or 8 years. The pink and the blue card stock and the corner rounder have been in my stash since this summer. I was a little mad at myself for forgetting to round the bubble paper before sticking it down with my very unforgiving ATG gun, but it doesn't look that bad.

What did you come up with? You have until Sunday to enter and win three Heather Ellis digis!

Cheesecake

For Thanksgiving dessert I decided to try to make a cheesecake. It's on my 25 before 25 list, and my mother in law doesn't eat much gluten, so I thought it would be the perfect dessert (to go along with the traditional walnut, apple and pumpkin pies that we had!).

I found my recipe on Tasty Kitchen, and it was very simple and easy to make. I added a chocolate ganache on top to make it richer, and I used chocolate Graham crackers for the crust.

Also, I didn't have a springform pan and I didn't want to invest in one until I knew if this was something I was willing to attempt again, so I used a tart pan. It meant the cheesecake was very thin, but with the ganache topping it was the perfect size because it was so rich!

I'll definitely be investing in a springform pan, because this cheesecake was awesome!

Christmas Cards

A few weeks ago, before I joined the Card Cupids design team, I made a generic back ground to use for all of my Christmas cards. Then, after I joined Card Cupids I learned that we would be sending Christmas Cards to 200 kids at the Children's Hospital at Legacy Emmanuel. Now, I work full time and have an additional part time job, so I thought about it for about a second, then decided to use my backgrounds for Card Cupids cards instead. My family wont notice if they don't receive another piece of mail, but that piece of mail could make some kids day. Easiest decision ever!

So, here is the batch of cards I sent off to Card Cupids last week. I love them all! I know I should be mass producing them, but I can't help but make each one different. It's a sickness.

The Rub-ons are by American Crafts, and I found them at Ross (package of 10 for $3!!)

New Card Cupid Recipients

Happy Monday Morning! Actually, i despise Monday mornings. I'm like this guy:



But, regardless of my feelings of this day, we have some new children needing some cheering up over at Card Cupids, please go over and read their stories, and consider sending in a card to cheer them up! These three stories really tugged at my heart strings. I can't wait to make them something special.

Thanksgiving

Looking for the Card Cupids Blog Hop?! Go HERE.
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This has been an amazing year, and I have a lot to be Thankful for! We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, and it was a ton of fun. I spent two days in the kitchen baking pies, a cheesecake (crossing one more thing off of my 25 before 25 list) , the biggest Turkey my kitchen has ever seen (24 lbs!) and tons of potatoes.


I wanted to share this recipe for Cranberry sauce with you, because my lands it was Delicious! It's from Epicurious and has 1/3 cup vodka in it, if that helps interest you ;)

I predict it will make a re-appearance at Christmas dinner too.

Cosmopolitan Cranberry Sauce

• 1 (12-ounce) bag fresh cranberries, rinsed, drained, and picked through
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup vodka
• 3 tablespoons orange-flavored liqueur, such as Grand Marnier or Triple Sec (I omitted the liqueur and used mandarin juice-we have a mandarin tree)
  

In heavy medium saucepan over moderate heat, combine cranberries, sugar, and 1/2 cup water. Bring to boil, stirring often to dissolve sugar, then reduce heat to moderately low and simmer, stirring often, until thickened and reduced to about 3 cups, about 15 minutes.

Transfer to medium bowl and cool, stirring often, until tepid, about 30 minutes. Stir in vodka and liqueur. Transfer to serving bowl, cover, and refrigerate until chilled and set, at least 2 hours. (Sauce can be made up to 2 weeks ahead and refrigerated.) Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cosmopolitan-Cranberry-Sauce-240449#ixzz16iygCXUy

Card Cupid Christmas Blog Hop!

Welcome to the first ever Card Cupids Blog Hop! I'm so excited to be a part of this, and to have you join me. You should have arrived from Janel's Blog, if so, you're on the right path! If you are reading my blog in a reader or are just stopping by, be sure to start at www.cardcupids.org so you don't miss out on any of the fun (and prizes!)


Card Cupids is a brand new organization with the mission to provide encouragement and joy by sending Card Cuddle Care Packages to children who are facing difficult challenges in their young lives regardless of their economic background. Each package contains cards lovingly handmade by our Design Team and anyone else that wants to participate, as well as a stuffed animal donated by Card Cupids. It's so easy to make cards and I feel like I'm giving back by sharing them with children and putting a smile on their faces!

We're currently collecting Christmas cards to send to the children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland, Oregon. Here is a Christmas card I made to send in:

The best part? The hat jiggles! I love it. If you would like to see how I made the card (and the jiggle in action!) I made this short video for you.




And now for the part you've been waiting for: The CANDY! Each of the Design Team members is donating a piece to the grand prize. I chose to donate this iRock.
I've never used one, but I really want one and thought you might too!

Here's how you can enter to win:

1. Comment on every blog in the hop.
2. Follow CardCupids.
3. for a second entry, mention the hop on your blog and leave a separate comment with a link on the card cupids site.

Winner will be announced on Card Cupids on Wednesday.

So now you're ready to move on to the next blog in the hop, my friend Heather! Have fun!

In case you got lost, here is the blog hop order:

Card Cupids
Stephanie
Christy
Jade
Luisa
Janel
Angela <-- YOU ARE HERE! Heather
Janet
Radwa
Card Cupids again!

Thanks so much for joining us, and good luck with the prize!

Cricut Cartridge Deal PSA

Michaels has the Cricut Cake and all that comes with it on major clearance, so last night I got these three cartridges


for $9.99 each! They can be used with any Cricut machine and each cartridge comes with a font and tons of images. I'm beyond excited to use them and that they were so cheap! Go get you some, quick!

My Cricut cartridge collection is growing :)

This time next week

I will be part of the first ever Card Cupids blog hop! (also, my first blog hop of any sort). There's going to be a big prize to enter for that the entire design team is contributing to, so be sure to come back and hop along for a chance to win! It will be a fun time and we'll all be sharing a Christmas card creation.

Here's a sneak peek at what I've contributed to the big grand prize:See you next Friday!

Adventures in Quilling

After having this tutorial by Reese Dixon bookmarked for a year, I finally decided to take the plunge and attempt quilling. I'm in a ornament exchange, and that snowflake is just the thing I was looking for to wow my recipient.
Unfortunately, none of the (two) craft stores in my area had quilling tools. So, I took a large sewing needle and clipped off the ends with a wire cutter. You'll see in my snowflake that it didn't work all that well and the ends of my spirals are wrinkled...but that being said, I LOVE my snowflake! I plan to spray adhesive on it and glitter it up like Reese did.
I plan to make many many more of these. It really didn't take me very long (after the initial cutting of the paper strips) and it was surprisingly fun. And you really can't beat the wow factor of quilling.
And you'll be pleased to know I ordered some quilling tools from amazon.com, and they should be here by this weekend, so my exchange recipient will be getting some unwrinkled snowflakes :)

Card for Nina

Nina is an 10 year old foster child with a birthday coming up. I made this happy little pig card to send to her.

I'll be mailing off Nina's card tomorrow, along with these, all for the Children's Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland Oregon.
Want to be a Card Cupid too? Send your handmade cards to

Card Cupids
C/O Stephanie

13203 Overcup Oak Court, Apt 201

Herndon, VA 20171

We're have an ongoing deal with the Legacy Emanuel Children's hospital, and they need cards for any event, so if you have more than you know what to do with, please consider clearing out your stash and making a child's day!

Adding to my stash

I was so excited to pick up my package of cuttlebug folders from the post office yesterday, but unfortunately it was a crazy day at work and I didn't get to play with them. Today after work, they were the first thing I reached for!


I plan to send in a stack of plain Christmas cards to Card Cupids for the hospital, so I made this little card using the snowflake cuttlebug folder, my texture boutique, sandpaper, glitter glue, and paper embellishments.
The little trees came in a jar of paper embellishments that my mom bought me to use for the Card Cupid project :) Thanks Mama, I'm sure I'll find lots of uses for them!

Card Cupids announcement

I'm so very proud to announce that I'm now a member of the Card Cupids Design Team! Card Cupids is a brand new organization that sends bundles of cards to needy children who can use some cheering up, how sweet is that?!

Please be sure to go over to the Card Cupids blog and check out the other talented ladies that make up our design team, and I hope you'll play along with our challenges and participate in any way you can!

Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Have you tried the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolates at Starbucks yet? If not, you should probably go get one right now. I'll wait.
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If you're like me, you're now addicted to these tasty treats. I don't know why they're SO stinking good!!
Last weekend we were having friends over for a horror movie marathon, and I knew I wanted to make salted caramel something. I settled on mini cupcakes after finding the beautiful TasteSpotting and sorting the recipes by the "salted caramel" tag.
I made the salted caramel buttercream from this recipe, and I highly recommend! For one, it was really, really easy. For two, it was so good!
For the cupcakes, I cheated. I used a box milk chocolate cake mix, and substituted strong brewed coffee for the water. They don't taste like coffee, but for some reason I felt that it would be more of a hot chocolate tasting cupcake, and I was happy with the result.

Cards for Christina and Riley

These are two more cards for Card Cupids, for 3 year old Christina and 10 year old Riley.



If you look closely, you'll see that the Dog's tag even has a teeny little "R" on it :)




I hope these bring a smile to their faces! I'll be dropping my three cards in the mail, but if you're interested in submitting a card you have until November 10 for Ashlie and Christina and November 17 for Riley.

one card, three purposes

First and foremost, this card is for Ashlie. If you haven't heard of Card Cupids yet, you should check out their blog. It's a very sweet project designed to brighten sick childrens' hospital stays, and I think it's just wonderful. Normally I'd use some glitter glue on a card like this, but since I'm not sure if it would be allowed, I left it off this time.

Second, I'm entering this card in Momo's Tuesday challenge! This week's challenge was to use some sort of embossing, so I used my Sizzix texture boutique and the Sizzix tropical paisley embossing folder to add texture to my purple square.

Third, and finally, I'm entering this card into the MAG challenge! This week's challenge was to use page 45 of the Create a Critter Cartridge, and page 45 only. I was excited to see this challenge as Create a Critter is one of only 3 cartridges I own, so I could actually participate this week! YAY!

While Ashlie was the inspiration to make a card, the two challenges made me use cuts and techniques I may not have. This was a really fun way to create a card, and I really hope it does make Ashlie smile ;)

Two things

1. I just discovered the most beautiful...blog? community? I'm not sure what it is, but I am in love. It's called Taste Spotting. It's very visually beautiful, but the recipes, oh the recipes! I haven't tried any yet, but you better believe I'm starting a list. And it will be long.

2. I have to laugh at the kind of google hits that my blog gets around Halloween. The combination of "pumpkin" and "butts" makes me pop up on some funny searches. A few from the last couple of days:
Fat Pumpkin Butts
Pumpkin Carvings of Butts
Pumpkins shaped like Butts
Pumpkins with Butts
Pictures of pumpkin butts
pumpkin pie with butt


Maybe I'm the only one that finds that funny, and I'm sure that this post will result in more weird search results, but that's part of the fun in having a blog hit tracker :)

Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving Card

I made this simple little card for the Cricut Cardz Challenge, #48 which is to make a card for Thanksgiving. I have very few sentiment stamps, so I covered up part of a stamp that said "Thanks you're sweet" so that I could just have it say Thanks. Ideally, I'd have liked it to say "Give Thanks"...but I do what I can :)

The cardbase is from Plantin Schoolbook (I don't know that it's a card "feature", but a card was one of my button options. Is that the same thing?), leaves are cut from the Create a Critter at 2 3/4 inches, the brown craft paper is from my stash, the rest is from Stampin' Up. The brads are from JoAnns.

I embossed the orange leaf with my new toy:


Sizzix Texture Boutique! I love it! I only have two folders right now (8 more are in the mail!). It's not funny how quickly I'm outgrowing my craft space. There are just so many fun things out there right now.

The winniest weekend ever!

Winniest is not a word, but I think it needs to be! Last week, I entered into several blog hop contests and contests to win Pink ATG guns, and, much to my surprise I won THREE of the contests (not three ATG's :)! I haven't won anything since April, so to win three in a week was a thrill to say the least :)

The first contest was held by Scotch ATG, and I won this pink ATG gun. I've been using it for a few days, and I can't say enough good things about it. I adore it. It seems like it would be bulky, but it's really not once you get the hang of it. And you don't have to press down to release the adhesive at all (which you have to with tombo mono rollers-and it often left lines in my paper). Love.

The second contest was by Helen, over at craftingcricutmom <--click for her blog! The contest was also to win a Pink ATG, but then she decided to draw a name for a bonus gift, and that was me! I received her package today and this is what it contained: Thank you so much, Helen! Everything is so fun, and I couldn't wait to use the Christmas stamps, so today I made my first Christmas card:


I love that my stash is getting to the point where I have everything I need to make my ideas come to life, it's so fun.

The third contest was over at Scrapping Sweets By Abby <-- click for her blog! The contest was to win a Brown and pink Cricut apron, and I won! We also learned that we only live 40 minutes from each other, and Abby had taken a trip to my middle of nowhere town just a few days before the contest. What are the chances?! I'll add a picture of my apron as soon as it arrives.

so that concludes my winnigest week ever! I hope you all get a chance to check out Helen and Abby's blogs, they are both really creative ladies full of good ideas. Have a great week! (I hope it's winny too.)

Something other than a card

I've been trying to think of ways to use my cricut to make something other than cards. (I'm addicted to card making right now, though!)
Since Halloween is coming, I've been focusing on that. I decided I wanted to make some luminaries to line my sidewalk up to my door step for Halloween night (assuming it doesn't rain!). These are what I came up with:And the best part? They won me an ATG gun! I'll have to tell you about that in a another post, though, because this has been the winniest week ever for me and I can't wait to share my prizes.


I also have these mirrors from Ikea in my entryway, and I cut a bunch of shapes from Pumpkin Carvings at 3" to go in each mirror. I love them! I think I'll be changing out the cuts for each holiday this season, because I love the effect. It's very hard to take a picture of a mirror, so you'll have to trust me that it looks much cuter in real life.


And then I used the leftover face cuts from my mirror cutouts to decorate my mini pumpkins for Halloween. I always keep my mini pumpkins up through Thanksgiving, so I didn't want to permanently alter them, and I think this works perfectly.

So, that's what I've been up to!

ETA: sorry for the horrid pictures! It's dark by the time I get home, so with that comes terrible pictures until Spring :)

3 year old birthday card

I made this sweet little card for my nephew PJ, who will be three next month. Where the heck does time go?! It seems like just yesterday I was hogging all his baby cuddles and listening to him grunt and try to figure out the world.

Everything except for the 3 is from Create a critter, the 3 is from Plantin Schoolbook. Since there was so much going on with the train I had a hard time coming up with a background, so I settled for plain blue stripes. The bear and the 3 are pop-dotted from the page.

Since PJ is only 3, I guess this card is more for his mama (my sister), who also just got her first cricut a few days before I did! They live 500 miles away but someday maybe we'll be able to have a crafty get together! A girl can dream.

I've discovered so many new wonderful blogs this week that I haven't taken the time to post on my own. I just love the cricut community I've stumbled upon, everyone is so creative and supportive. It's just so much fun.

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!

Create a Critter!

Yesterday the mailman arrived bearing gifts:


Just in time for World Card Making Day! I'm so excited about this cartridge. To say I love it would be an understatement, I'm obsessed! It really does have a cutesy critter for every holiday and event. Love!

I made the two purple and pink cards yesterday, and the turkey today. If my Cricut mat hadn't lost all of it's sticky I'd still be holed up in my room today, but alas, I'm waiting for it to dry now (and crossing my fingers it gets sticky again!)

This is the last cartridge I'll be buying for awhile, at least until 2011. I have four now and I don't think I'll ever get to use all of the images I have!

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! I tried to send this post using my phone, but it failed. Pretty sure someone in my area code with a phone number that spells out "BLOGGER" is going to be very annoyed with me :)

Two Tier Cake

This is the first thing I get to cross off of my 25 before 25 list! and, I can safely say that I am not good at this, and have no desire to attempt it again, and this is good to know!

The top smaller cake is lemon cake, using this recipe. (just the cake, not the ganache) I put a layer of plain chocolate ganache in the middle and on the top of the cake and frosted it with my favorite chocolate mousse frosting (which is a BAD idea for a cake you're going to cover with fondant! The frosting slipped out the bottom of the fondant and made it lumpy and wrinkly).

The bottom layer is my black magic cake, also with a layer of ganache in the middle and on top and with the chocolate mousse frosting. It was divine! It was moist and rich and so delicious. I was happy with that.

I also didn't flatten the top of my bottom tier, so when I stacked the smaller tier on top there was a big fat gap between the two cakes! That's why my pink "ribbon" is folded around the middle of the cake.

So my first (and most likely ONLY) two tier cake was a little lumpy and lopsided, but it was tasty and a good experience. One I will NOT be attempting again!


Chocolate Ganache (adapted from several recipes)
1 c. heavy cream
12 oz bag semi sweet chocolate chips
2 tbs unsalted butter

Bring cream and butter to a boil, remove from heat, pour in chocolate chips and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth and cool to room temperature. So easy!

Z fold Halloween Card

a few nights ago I was trying to figure out how to make a z-fold card. I cut out my cardstock, folded it, and then got distracted by something shiny.
This morning I saw that the Cricut Cardz Challenge was to make a Halloween card in a Zfold shape, so there was motivation to finish my card.

I don't have any Halloween papers, but I did just buy the pumpkin carving cartridge, so I decided to use that, and green and purple for my colors. It's a little plain, but I think it's pretty cute and I love the non traditional Halloween colors!
Web and Trick or Treat are from Pumpkin Carvings Cartridge
Spider is from Potpourri Basket Cartridge
Ribbon is from Michaels 2 for $1 bin
Striped paper is from DCWV Summer Dream Stack (which is on major sale right now at JoAnn's! 180 sheets of cuteness for $7.97)
Purple glitter glue G company from JoAnns dollar spot

Bridal shower Card

I made this little card for D, whose shower was Saturday. I also made the cake, but realized too late that I forgot to take a picture of it! I'm waiting on the hostess-with-the-mostest, my friend Kimberly, to send me a picture she took at the party.

Anyways, I originally made this card larger, but didn't have an envelope for it, so I whipped up this one, in a A2 size, in just a few minutes using the same design. I love the veil! It's cut from a heart printed vellum paper that I've had forever and had never found a good use for.

I learned at the shower that the bride to be hates the color pink. Oops!

My Pink Stamper Challenge

Today My Pink Stamper issued a challenge: Make something with a bird in it.

Since I had no cartridge with a bird in it, I had to improvise. This little birdie is made from a pear! I cut off the leaves of the pear to make the wings, beak and feet. You can find this pear on the Potpourri basket cartridge.

What do you think, not bad, right? :)

Bird paper-Recollections "Garage Sale" line from Michaels-bird cut at 4"
Bird shadow-random cardstock cut at 4 and 1/4"
Leaves & shadow-Random cardstock cut at 2 and 3/4"
Sparkles for wings-dollar bin glitter glue from JoAnn's (Love this stuff!)
"Chirp" rub-on- miniMarks via Ross (10 packages for $3!!)