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.