Ever Notice

That you have tons of stuff but never seem to remember you have it? That seems to be what I have noticed lately. I was looking for a stamp and opening and going through all my stamp drawers I realized I have a ton of stamps that I never use hardly. So I pulled out 3 sets. I told myself I will put these on my desk and force myself to use them. And once those three sets have been used, I will locate and find three more abandoned stamps to highlight in a project.

So today I have one of those sets. These cute fish caught my eye and since my dh is a fisherman I thought I would use this stamp more..I am ashamed to say, I bought it, stamped one image started to color it and then it got put away..but not today. Today it was used.

Giftcard Set

Ever look for a simple but elegant gift to give a friend, co-worker or family member, or even as a gift to a new bride? These blank note cards are so easy to make but look like they took a lot of time.

Basically I choose my color theme, cut my base cards into 4x6 from white cardstock, then die cut the bottom edge of my pattern paper (or embossed cardstock), trimmed the other edges slightly smaller than the card, and matted onto the base card.

I then made oval circles (added an outline in coordinating colors) using Microsoft Word and then layered text boxes with my text inside and printed them out on white cardstock. Then using my Spellbinder I cut both scallop and regular ovals.

I assembled the oval tag my matting the MS Word ovals onto the plain ovals, popped dotted that on top of the scallop circle, then matted that onto the base card. Then put the whole pkg into a clear box with some envelopes and wrapped it with some pretty white ribbon. There were 4 cards of each of the 3 designs for a total of 12 cards. You could swap out Thank You instead of using a Monogram as I did.

Halloween Necklace

So using my Little Windows resin and a ArtChix Studio image that I also added a confetti black bat, copic colored orange star and three sliver pearls to I made a pendant and of course back to Nina Designs for some tiny charms..gotta love little charms and then of course made my own jewel and viola, a necklace I can wear in Oct or I guess anytime if I wanted.

A Gift Box for my Little Windows Necklace

So if you remember a few posts back I made the cute little necklace for my dd, well I decided I need something for it to go in just as equally as nice so grabbing some older pp, a box sitting in my closet, some dried flowers, dies and perfect pearl radiant mists and some tiny pearls I proceeded to make this. I did stuff some nice soft flannel into the box for the necklace to be cradled in, I think she'll love this.

TGF - Sketch Challenge

I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs and stopped by TGF and noticed they had a sketch challenge so who can resist some coloring time and a challenge to boot!.

Here is there sketch

And here is my card (or at least my take on it.)

I also decided to add a bit of dimension to the flower and beach ball by stamping a second image and pop dotting it on top.

Is it too early for Halloween?

Can you believe I was in Michaels the other day and they already had started putting out Halloween items?

I just bought these cute little pumpkins from Memory Box dies and they arrived in the mail yesterday and of course I just had to make something with them and figured a Halloween card was as good as anything. And what goes better with cute little pumpkins then a cute TGF girl. I love the sassiness of Thursday...she has always been one of my favorites. Most everything on this card is very old product with the exception of those new little pumpkins.

2 Cute Guys

As you might know, I make scrapbook pages of my grandkids and those pages go into their albums but I decided it was time I made one for me. 

Using some of the last photos I gathered up some older and a few newer supplies and proceeded to make this page. I had down loaded those cute Hot Air Balloons from the Silhouette site when they had clearance on all their shapes intending that some day I would use them, and today was that day. I hadn't really journaled on this but I think it's just one of those pages where you look at the photos and say how cute! I did capture their ages at a minimum because it's always nice to know how old people are in the photos especially kids.

 

Work Sign

Saw this quip on the web the other day while browsing pintrest and decided I needed it to hang outside my cube next to my Altered Canvas

Nothing fancy but just some clean office humor.

Little Windows Necklace

Well I confess I am a scrapbook hoarder. I will buy products and never use them our touch them for years and this is one of those products. I was at an Expo and was intrigued, bought a starter kit and thought I would make a necklace for my dd..at that time she only had 2 sons, and now has 3 so maybe subconsciously I knew that and that's why I waited so long...yeah that must be it because the fact that I held onto this for 2 years before I even opened the package doesn't sound nearly as interesting.

Any hoo I finally got around to making these and for the most part it was fairly simple. I bought the little charms online from Nina's Designs and I made my own bead jewel to give it a punch of color.

Here is everything you get with your starter kit. There is enough supplies to make 3 necklaces. I did buy the optional software which resizes your photos into various shapes, otherwise you can do it yourself or they do give you the large square one for free. I also didn't use the casting blocks but choose to "dome" the resin on to the top.

And here is the end product, I plan on giving it to her for her birthday which is end of September.

Cuddly Single White Male Seeks

Ok, poor grandbaby...grandma is at it again. I couldn't resist the messy chocolate face after grandpa fed him some of his chocolate birthday cake and the term Loves Chocolate Cake came to my mind and from there my terrible sense of humor took over. Of course it wasn't all me, dh helped me and we decided to make a single's ad as a layout for this adorable photo of our youngest grandbaby.

Using some old product (SEI pp) mixed with some newer product (MME) and added a few thickers, Basic Grey chipboard stickers and some enamel dots, found some canvas hearts on clearance at Michaels so I sewed some orange embroidery thread and added an older Jenni Bowlin sticker with a date stamp.

Happy Birthday to my Dear Husband

Today is my hubby's birthday, and I will be nice to him and won't tell you how old he is..and they say men aren't vain.

Traditionally we travel up north to Oregon to spend time with his family, but this year we weren't able to and we also usually mix both the fourth and his birthday together. I asked him once if he minded because I know my brother who's birthday is close to Christmas always felt cheated, but my hubby said he didn't mind..but he's that kind of guy...roll with the punches.

So today we are having a small family get together and of course I actually wanted to separate the two days and choose non red, white and blue colors for his card..keeping the days two entirely different days because after all aren't they really? So here is the card I made him on the fly yesterday. Mixing old and new products. The stamped star and sentiment was using Papertrey's stamp and ink, the die stars are from Memory box and the pp was from the Splash line from Echo Park.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

I realize it's been awhile since I last share with you some tasty treats. So here is a recipe I tired that was rather yummy or at least my co-workers sure seemed happy with them.

Bake 350 for 17 minutes - yields ~16 cupcakes

Prep Bananas

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 3 whole peeled bananas on a baking sheet and roast 15 minutes. Remove bananas from oven and let cool, reduce oven temperature to 350F

Nilla Wafer Crust

4 C Nilla Wafers, crushed finely

1/2 C (1 stick) butter, melted

Vanilla Bean Banana Pastry Cream

2 C milk

6 egg yolks

2/3 C sugar

1 Vanilla Bean

2 T flour

2 tsp banana flavoring

Roasted Banana Cake

3 Ripe Bananas, roasted (see above)

2 C Cake Flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 C (1 stick) butter, room temp

1/2 Sugar

3 eggs, seperated

1/2 C sour cream

Chantilly Cream Frosting

2 C Heavy Whipping Cream

4 T powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Vanilla

Mix Nilla crumbs with melted butter and blend together thoroughly, either using a food processor or your hands. The mixture should stick when you pinch the crumbs but still stay light a fluffy when broken apart. Place one tablespoon of cookie crumbs in each cupcake liner and press down, forming a compact crust. Bake for 4-6 minutes until the crust turns a slight golden brown.

Bring the milk to a boil. Set aside.

Place the yolks, sugar in a bowl and whip with wire whisk for 3 to 4 minutes, slowly add flour and continue mixing for 1-2 more minutes or until well combined. 

Place the milk in a medium saucepan; scrape seeds from the vanilla bean and add to milk along with the pod. Bring the milk to a low boil, remove from heat and in a slow steady stream add half the milk to the egg yolk mixuture whisking the entire time. Pour the egg yolk mixture back iton pot with the remaining milk, whisking to combine and bring to a boil on medium heat, stirring constantly with the whisk. The sauce will thicken as soon as it reaches the boiling point. Reduce heat and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid scorching. Remove from heat add pour through a strainer into a large bowl. Add banana extract and allow to cool to room temperature

Meanwhile, sift together cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until each one is fully incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add roasted bananas and beat to combine. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of sour cream, and beating until just combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

In another mixing bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, whisk egg whites to soft peaks;  fold one-third whites into batter to lighten. Gently fold in remaining whites in two batches.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake for 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely.

In a large bowl place 2 cups of heavy cream and using a whisk or hand blender, whip until you see tracks or soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually as the cream begins to stiffen. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To assemble cupcakes, using a small spoon or 1" circle cooking cutter or apple corer cut out the centers of the cupcakes for the custard filling and set the tops aside. Fill each cupcake to the top with custard and place the tops back on. The top will be a little higher than the rest of the cupcake but that will help hold the height when you add the whipped cream.Place chantilly cream into a pastry bag fitted with a medium French-star tip. Generously pipe whipped cream on top of cupcakes, making sure you cover the tops completely. Garnish with a vanilla wafer. (Don't forget because these have a whipped cream topping it's best to store in fridge and let come to room temp before serving)

NOTE - If you've read this far and seemed overwhelmed you could easily shortcut this by using boxed banana pudding mix and skipping the Nilla Wafer crust and just crushing the cookie and either sprinkle on top or adorn around the edges. (I would only do this right before serving as over time the cookie will soften against the whipped topping)

Enjoy!

Card Sewing

We have been having a bit of a heat wave around here, and basically this weekend involved trying to stay cool as possible. I talked dh into going out for a date night Friday night and we saw the movie Heat..so funny..a must see.

Then Saturday was mostly a play day for me and I was able to get a little crafty and Sunday I went to my deep water aerobics class followed by a cruise on the motorbike with a much needed stop at Sonic for a tasty Cherry slushy and then home where I jumped into a cold shower. I am sure I sweated away 10lbs if not more..it was very hot.

Anyhoo, I have had this idea in my head for awhile that involved both quilt making and the sunrise pattern that I keep seeing here and there on layouts and cards. So I finally decided to sit down and attempt this. It was a little more involved that I usually like to be cutting out the various shapes but I did like the look the sewing gave it, it really pulled it together.