Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Spook Day Everyone

Wanted to share my Monster Munch all packaged up in my pretty little popcorn boxes. I made this mix and had a hard time keeping my ds out of it so I promised to make him his own batch.

And the recipe as promised

I used .....

3 bags of pre-made Caramel Corn. If you don't want to use store made I highly recommend this recipe from King Arthur. I was short on time so took the shortcut method.

2 bags of Mini Kit Kats
1 12oz bag of Milk Chocolate Chips
1 12oz bag of White Chocolate Chips
2-3 packages of Googly Eyes

Lay the Caramel Corn out on either parchment paper or a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the kit kats on top. Melt the chocolate (preferably in a dbl broiler) and drizzle on top of the corn, either sprinkle the googly eyes on top or if you like the to be facing up you kind of have to place them on the melted chocolate. Eat and Enjoy!

 Also taking some mini donuts. These are baked and to me they seem more like cake than a donut but hey any excuse to eat cake in the morning is ok with me.

I had some that overfilled so they were missing the "donut hole" so I had the idea to put a googly candy eye for the center. Kind of works.

I also didn't put sprinkles on half because if there is anyone like my dh, who doesn't care for sprinkles I obviously didn't want them to feel left out.

Here is the recipe if you are interested. It is for the large 6 donut pan but I used mini and just reduced the cooking time basically in half or 8-10 min

For The Donuts

Preheat Oven to 325 Degrees F and spray your baking pan.

 

1 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla

 

      In a separate bowl (or in stand mixer) combine buttermilk, sour cream, oil, egg and vanilla. Mix well to combine.

 

     Combine dry ingredients in medium mixing bowl and stir well

 

      Add dry ingredient into wet ingredients and mix well. Do not over mix, just until well combined.

Fill reservoirs in a six count donut pan. It works well to put your donut batter into a large zipper freezer bag, clip off a corner and pipe the batter in. If you do not have a donut pan, you could make these in a muffin pan.

Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in donut comes out clean and they spring back when lightly touched

For Glaze Coating

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4-1/2 cup milk
1 tsp Vanilla


Combine milk, powdered sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and mix well. This glaze should not be thick like frosting, it should be more of a pourable consistency and you may need to adjust your amount of milk accordingly. This is simply to seal the donuts and help keep them fresh and moist. After donuts have come out of the oven, sit them on a cooling rack or baking sheet. Spoon glaze over the donuts. Allow to cool completely (much of the glaze will soak into the donuts).

 

For Colorful Glaze Frosting

 

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp Vanilla
Ass't Food Colors (I used Neon for green and purple and standard orange)


To Make Frosting Glaze

Once donuts have cooled you can frost and decorate them however you wish. Combine sugar, melted butter, milk and vanilla in a medium size bowl. Mix well with a mixer. Adjust with milk or sugar as needed. This glaze should not be as runny as the first glaze, but should not be too thick as you will be spooning it on to the donuts and you want them too ooze a bit outward. Once desired consistency is reached, divide your frosting into separate bowls and add your food coloring. Spoon over tops of donuts and top with sprinkles. Enjoy!

And lastly am also taking these ever so yummy Apple Cider Caramels that I highly recommend. If you do make them just cook to 242 degrees, the 248 is just a little too hard.
 

Image courtesy of King Arthur Flour

 

When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, May luck be yours on Halloween!

Summertime for Marshall

This is the complimentary page to my previous post. I keep a album for each grandbaby and the Monday page will go in Zack's album while this page belongs to Marshall. Same day, same event just different kid.

 

Using lots of leftovers from my stash along with some pp from Simple Stories and wood grain pp from somewhere, don't quite remember the manuf.

 

Summer Fun 2014

I am back from the Expo and while it was a bit exhausting overall I enjoyed having time to devote just to scrapbooking with a huge store at my disposal for most of the time.

I have difficulty focusing while I am there but if I plan some pages and projects those are more likely to get completed or I should say about 90% completed and then they are easy to finish up the next day.

I managed to get at least 3 single and 2 double pages done so up first I am sharing today my middle grandson and some pictures taken over the summer.

Using Simple Stories pp, some silhouette cut files, dies, stickers, wood veneer, enamel dots and thickers.

Watercolor and a Snowman

I really liked the color scheme of my first card and decided to repeat it. I also wanted to see if I could incorporate watercolor somehow, but in order to do that I knew I needed to find the right stamp so I searched my stamp drawers and found this little guy. Perfect!

Then using my Tim Holtz distressed inks I first stamped and then painted my frosty guy. I must say it's fun to see the colors run together but yikes too much and you can end up with a hot color mess.

First Christmas Card

I am heading off to the Expo so I have most of my supplies packed up but still wanted to get a jump start on my Christmas cards. I like to make individual cards as opposed to mass producing, although I imagine it would be much easier to mass produce one card. Maybe next year, until then here is the first of many cards.

Preparing for Halloween Treats

Since I work in an office environment I often bring in home made goodies to share and sometimes I make them something special just because.

Last Halloween I brought in this Spider Cake and these Treat Bags and this year thought I would do something a little different. Up on my list of goodies is Monster Munch, Apple Cider Caramels and Chocolate Sour Cream Donuts.

I figured the Munch mix was needing some sort of cute container and found these adorable chevron popcorn boxes cheap through Rue La La.

As cute as these boxes are on their own I just thought they needed a little more flair. So I stamped a sentiment on to white squares that I die cut and embossed white squares. They were pop dotted onto  scalloped squares that I let the cameo cut out for me.  

 

I then glued those to the boxes; assembly line style. There are 24 altogether.

 

And here they are ready for me to fill with bags of my monster munch which I will do next week sometime. Don't worry I will repost with them filled so you can see the final version and share all the recipes too.



Sympathy Card

One thing I never seem to have enough of are Sympathy cards and probably for the obvious reasons, you really don't want to think about losing a loved one or a friend.

Unfortunately I lost a friend to cancer over the weekend and even though I knew she had cancer her death still comes as a shock to me. Its hard to believe I will never see her again and I wanted to at least send my condolences to her husband to let him know I was thinking of him during this difficult time. Therefore I needed to make a card.

I like to think Sympathy cards should be fairly simple without too much fru fru as my husband says and definitely want to have it exude some sort of elegance so I chose to heat emboss with gold powder.

The stamps used on this card are from Stampin Up and the fine detail gold embossing powder is from Ranger Ink. I stamped the sentiment on vellum than ran it through my xyron tool because the stark white seemed too harsh and I wanted a softer feel to it.

I then added just a few extra details and kept the card fairly flat so it would be easy to mail. Last thing I want is my card coming postage due.

So hug your loved ones and tell your family and friends how much they mean to you because there are no redos, there is no going back and you just never know when the last time you will see them will be.

Sisters

Decided I need a break from all this Halloween madness. It's been awhile since I churned out a layout and after I found some vintage photos I had been wanting to do something with them. My first photo is a picture of my grandmother and her sisters.

I do not know one the names because one sister left the family after she grew up and never returned. They searched for her years later and did find her but apparently she didn't want anything to do with the rest of the family, go figure. So I just need to get the name from my mother. I was thinking of adding a pull out to add more journaling about the whole assorted affair.

Using some Teresa Collins pp, enamel dots, Simon Says die. mists, sequins, the cameo for the title, washi tape and other odds and ends.

Red and Black Halloween Card

Ever since I altered my Wicked letters I really wanted to do something with some deep red roses and the color black. I guess you could say a vampire theme since that's what comes to mind when I think of this color combo.

I went against my beliefs again and did yet another 3D card. I actually dipped these flowers in some red mist ink which I found to be the perfect coloring tool. I was misting them but for whatever reason it dawned on my to unscrew the cap and dip the flowers in using the metal stem to hold them..so much easier and far less messy.

Lots of tid bits here, Memory Box and Simon Says dies, German foil, washi tape, stickles,  mist, Martha Stewart punches and some Jenni Bowlin stickers. I still feel like I want to texture those black leaves, but maybe next time because it's one of those should'a, could'a, would'a moments and they were already fastened to the card before I figured it out.

Window Card

I want you to know I purchased this window die about two years ago and I never ever ever used it until now. Making flower boxes underneath the window was the popular thing to do with it and I decided it would be kind of fun to make it Halloween themed and have some images peeking out behind the frame.

I also took it a bit further and decided it needed a banner, but being lazy I just threw on a sticker that I had from KandCo. Also die cut some mini pumpkins and added in a few flowers. My Stampin Up images were colored using color pencils and I couldn't resist a few googlie eyes on the spider.

I really don't like making bulky cards so this will either be a hand delivered item or left on a co-workers desk.

Monster card

Well I have to admit I am a sucker for these 3D stickers. They are just so darn fun and cute plus I was drawn to the unusual color used and made my card a non orange and black theme to match.

I die cut the spider web and used bits of Making Memories and Echo Park pp. The stickers I purchased last year from KandCo.

Also quickly made these tee-shirts for the two youngest grandbabies to wear this past weekend when we ventured to Gilroy Gardens but alas my dd was ill so we had to reschedule. I love making shirts to for them to wear as a pair.

Little Back Cat

I was digging through my dies and realized I hadn't used my hexagon die from Papetrey Ink in quite awhile so I felt the need to use it and since I was on the path to make Halloween cards I attempted to make it work in a HW theme. I say attempted because I am not sure it really works here.

I think this is one of those projects that seemed better in head than how I executed it, but I gave it the good ol college try. I also used their kitty die along with the sentiment stamp. I cut the label die from spellbinders and felt like it needed something more.

Using my basic grey flourish stamps I stamped along the edge and then felt some toile would be a good add on. It's the perfect ribbon for HW projects.

Having done that I still felt like it need a bit of something else so I started adding sequins. Then that led me to adding sequins to the toile which I really kind of liked, but have to say the card is eh..ok I am just not in love with it but I guess that's the way it is with some projects. On to the next card.

 

Stampin Up Image - HW card

So I haven't played with my copics in awhile and needed to start getting some Halloween cards done so I decided this fun but way old image from Stampin Up would accomplish both needs or rather desires.

I also used my Memory Box Spider frame die to emboss instead of cut to add a nice texture to my background. If you didn't know already you can easily take a die and use it to emboss by replacing your cutting plates with your embossing plates, how much simpler could that be.

I am also using some scrap pieces from my Echo Park HW paper from about 3 years ago. And of course pulled out that trusty drippy goo punch from Martha Stewart. Added in a few bits of bling, stamped sentiment on vellum, wooden embelly misted with some orange coloring and a strip of washi tape. The spider and bat dies are from Judith. Now on to my next card.