The Ultimate Halloween Treat

Hello...my name is Mara and i'm a sweet-o-holic. Seriously. I have such a sweet tooth, it's not even funny. But I think my sweet tooth has met it's match. And it's called Candy Corn Bark.


Here are the details:
-Break up about 1/2 bag of oreos into quarters. Spread out over a cookie sheet.
-Break up a bunch of pretzels and spread over the cookie sheet.
-Throw some Halloween M&M's all over the cookie sheet.
-Melt 3 bags of white chocolate chips in the microwave. Pour over all the goodies on the cookie sheet. Spread it around until it's one big connected blob.
-Sprinkle candy corn over the top. Press into the chocolate.

Patiently...and I mean patiently wait until the white chocolate hardens. Break up the big blob into smaller blobs and try not to get white chocolate all over your shirt as you stuff it in your mouth!!


It's seriously sweet and delicious and over the top. Do I really need this? Probably not but when I saw the recipe online, I HAD to make it. The original recipe called for raisins. People, let me tell you...Raisins DO NOT belong in a dessert!!!!!!!


I love it, my husband loves it, my kids love. I am taking a bunch to work tomorrow and i'm hoping for a raise. You should definitely try this sometime, it's not to be missed!!! Happy Friday everyone!

What a week...already!!

Wow, we've had quite a week. It's been busy with school and work and doctor appointments and soccer and on top of all that...our computer at home died. Just would not turn on yesterday morning. What a pain in the butt!! We had to figure out what was wrong, buy a new computer, recover our old hard drive...blah blah blah. My husband is in charge of the Jogathon on Friday which is a big PTA fundraiser at my kids school. All his files for that were on the computer...it was a mess. BUT we are back in business! We will be eating top ramen for the next month, but we have a new computer and a new monitor. It's kinda scary how dependent we are on this little black box!

I thought I would share this layout I did on my last scrap retreat. Since i've been thinking of my family alot this week, I thought it was appropriate!



We were all together for my mom's birthday (minus my hubbie and our kids) and this is all of us out to dinner! I finally broke into this shaped paper by Making Memories (I think that's who makes it)!! I layered some big Heidi Swapp flowers and finally used some stickpins i've been hoarding!


That's about it for today!! More soccer tomorrow and then the Jogathon Friday. Soccer games on Saturday and Halloween festivities, that should be fun!! Stay tuned for the November Color Me Daisy reveal. You don't want to miss it! Thanks for stopping by...

What a great weekend!!

My sister is moving with her husband to Maine. Yes, Maine. It's pretty far away from California!! This past weekend was her last weekend in California and the kids and I drove up to see her and her hubby one last time. It's about a 7 hour drive from where we are. I wanted to make her a simple little keepsake with photos of just the 2 of us. I had a skinny tin sitting around just waiting to be altered and finally decided to do something with it! Here's the outside of the tin...



I used those WRMK Whiteout/Nonesense papers again because I love them!! Hee hee! I also used some pearl swirls from Basic Grey, those are too cool! I took the swirl apart because it didn't quite fit on the front of my tin and pieced it back together so it fit the space.



The inside album is very simple. Just paper and photos becuase the tin is pretty skinny and there's no way I could have added embellies and closed the lid.


The photos are 4x4 in size and just matted on patterned paper and cardstock. Pretty simple and it kept the focus on the photos. And I just couldn't leave any of the photos out of the album, I had to use them all!! LOL!



I think she liked it!! We had a great weekend with family and friends and while it's painfully tough to say goodbye, I know she and her hubby are going to be very happy in Maine. And we will definitely be visiting and my kids are very excited about visiting a state they've never been to before!! Hope you all had a great weekend...thanks for stopping by!

You MUST try these!

Seriously. You must go buy all the ingredients immediately and make these brownies. They are the best brownies I've ever had. And believe me...i've had alot of brownies in my day!!

Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies. With a swirl of cream cheese frosting and topped with a Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kiss. They are to DIE for!!! You can find the recipe for the brownies HERE. The brownie part is the best homeade brownie i've run across and the addition of the pumpkin was perfect. Not too much, but it's smooth and sweet and pumpkiny. And the swirl of cream cheese frosting just puts the whole thing over the top!! These are seriously amazing. Amazing!!



They disappeared from the break room at work before 9am this morning. They were soooo good. Did I mention they are good?? LOL!! Now GET TO THE STORE and make these! You will not be disappointed!!!

Birthdays!!!

So...Monday was my birthday. Yes, I am getting older and I guess I have to accept that, LOL!! I had to work, but I came home to this...



And these!



Cards from my kids, my mom, and Beth! I also came home to this...


My recent PTI order!! I was so excited! I've been dying to ink up my new stamp sets, but this week has been busy with other things. I am hoping maybe this weekend to break those new stamps out! So...it was a very nice day and all the wonderful birthday wishes from my friends and family made it worth getting one year older!!

Hope you're having a great week!

More Whiteout!!

I can't get enough of this Whiteout/Nonesense collection from We R Memory Keepers paper. It's perfect for spring or summer photos, the colors are so bright and fun. These pics I took on the last day of school in our backyard. I am so proud of my two kiddies!!


I punched circles, crumpled them up, laid them flat again and inked all the edges to make the flowers.



I cut this butterfly with my Cricut and added some stickpins and a button to make it come to life!


The two different fonts are also in the collection. I love it when it all matches, take the guess work out of my layouts!!

Hope you're having a great week so far. Thanks for stopping by!!

Halloween Cookies

Yes, I broke down this weekend and did some baking. Kayla and I made Halloween cutout sugar cookies. Shedid all the rolling out and cutting out of the cookies. I really just sat there, she is getting so good in the kitchen. Then we had friends over yesterday to decorate.


We used M&M's, royal icing, and black and orange piping gel and frosting. We had great fun making these cookies!!

Cats and skeletons...



Spiders in their webs...


And pumpkins!



We had a great afternoon with some new friends. It's so awesome when the kids just click and the adults click and the afternoon just flies by. Yeah for new friends! Hope you all had a great weekend. Thanks for stopping by!!

Boo Baskets

It's the season for booing!!! Have you ever boo'd before? You leave a little treat on your neighbor's doorstep with a Boo Poem and Boo Sign. You can find those HERE. The person you boo'd should put the boo sign on their door and then boo 2 more people. It's fun to see your neighborhood start to fill up with doors with boo signs on them!

Here are the boo baskets we made this year. I used the Fold 'n' Go template from Papertrey Ink. My kids helped me pick out patterned paper to decorate the front. I then cut out spiders and pumpkins on my Cricut and let my kids decorate them. The kids decided who wanted which bag and where to glue on the pumpkins and spiders. We had so much fun making these!!


We filled them with small candies and some fun halloween things from Target, like plastic spiders, erasers, parachute men, etc!!

We then went out after dinner to do a little booing!! The kids loved running up to their friends houses, leaving a gift, and doorbell ditching!! We did get caught at one house, they definitely saw us out the window. But we had a great time. Maybe a tradition to start in your neighborhood???

Thanks for stopping by!!

Fall into Fall at Color Me Daisy!

Hi Everyone! Today is the first day of our Fall Into Fall Challenges at Color Me Daisy. Come on over and join us for 2 weeks of inspiration and creativity. Here is my challenge for today...make a treat bag or box! Big surprise, huh...LOL!!



I made this box using a template from the Scorpal website and the October 2009 CMD kit. I love making little boxes! It really adds something special to anything you are giving. Come check us out over at Color Me Daisy and join in on the fun!!

Transparent Card

I like making unique, fun cards that are just...well fun! LOL!! Here's a quick one I made using clear cardstock and a really great paper collection by We R Memory Keepers. It's great paper because the patterns really lend themselves to being cut out and used as their own embellishments!! I got my paper from Posh Designs and you can see the paper HERE! Beautiful colors for scrapping all those summer memories you have from this year.

So...here's the card!



The fun thing about clear cards is you can leave the front panel a little bit sparse and then decorate the inside as well. Because you can see-through it!!! LOL!



I stamped the sentiment with my white ink from Papertrey Inks. Smudged a bit, i'm still working on stamping with white! But it's a fun little card that was easy to make and definitely NOT something you'll see in the Hallmark store!

So...keep rooting for my Los Angeles Dodgers. They are in the baseball playoffs right now and won their first game. Go BLUE!!
Thanks for stopping by!

Hungry???

Happy Sunday everyone! I've been doing quite a bit of baking lately and wanted to share what i've made. Luckily, it's been for parties and other people...otherwise i'd have gained about 15 pounds just this week!

First up...Black bottomed pumpkin caramel mini cheesecakes topped with a pumpkin spice hershey's kiss!


These were a nightmare!! I was supposed to use a mini cheesecake pan, which has straight sides. But I used a mini muffin tin and I could NOT get the cheesecakes out! Out of the 15 I made, only 4 made it out of the pan! They tasted good after a day in the fridge, but I think I need to use a different pan next time!! The recipe is HERE.

Next up...homeade Whoopie Pies!



Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting in the middle and chocolate chip with vanilla buttercream frosting in the middle. These were sooooooooo good!!! I made them with cake mix, but modified the cake mix by adding no water to the mix and butter instead of oil. And only 1 egg. Rolled the dough into balls and baked them like cookies. These were really good and super easy. You must try them!!

Chocolate dipped chocolate chip cookies...because a girl can't have too much chocolate!


And homeade Samoa girl scout cookie bars (I think they also call them Caramel Delights now)...



These were fantastic! It is my husband's favorite girl scout cookie and he really enjoyed them. At the party I went to Friday night, they disappered first and many people asked me for the recipe. Which you can find HERE!!


That's about all! I think i'm done baking for a bit so I can my butt back into shape. I've been slacking on the workouts, trying to let my achilles tendon heal. But this week i'm back in action and going to try to get my running back on schedule. Hope you are all having a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!!

Season's Change is here!

Yes, the October kit from Color Me Daisy is LIVE!! Check it out!!



The colors are fantastic and there are so many little goodies plus that pumpkin chipboard album!! Here are my first two layouts using all this goodness...

This first one is a layout of my kids reading together. Kevin holds the book while Kayla reads to him. So cute, plus both their reading skills have really improved. Bonus!



I loved cutting and layering all those flowers from the patterned paper!


I thought i'd play around with a bigger photo for a change, this one is 6x9 size and I like how it takes up most of the left side of the layout. I also muted the colors of the photo with photoshop, because I didn't want it completely black and white.


The little chipboard birdie is one of my favorite embellies!!



I have two more half finished projects on my scrap table. I am really loving working with this kit! Make sure you check out the Daisy Girl Gallery over at CMD for even more inspiration! Thanks for stopping by...

Baby Shower Cake

I made a baby shower cake for a friend at work last week and I was so nervous!! It was the first time i've made a cake for somebody else and I was freaking out. She said she'd like chocolate, so I decided on a chocolate sheet cake with whipped cream + chocolate chip filling. And seriously, so many things to worry about! Would the cake dry out? Would everybody like it? Would it be too soggy with the filling? Would it feed everyone? Would it fit in the fridge at work? Would it fall over in the car on the drive over there? AHHH!!! But...I made it through and here's the cake!!



And it fit in the fridge at work AND it didn't fall over in the car! Hee hee!! I did a spray of sweet peas in the corner...

And a shell top and bottom border with added decorative dots...



And a sleeping baby!! My kids were looking at my Hello Cupcake book when I told them I was making a cake and found these super cute little babies. I had to include one!


My daughter even pulled out the Teddy Grahams from the pantry and told me I had to give the baby a teddy bear!! The blanket is a few Starburst candies rolled out and stretched over a marshmallow. The head is a vanilla wafer laying on half a marshmallow. Thankfully the cake was a big hit. It was moist without being soggy and the frosting was perfect. Yeah!! But I do think I have a few more grey hairs because of it...hee hee!!

Thanks for stopping by! Tomorrow will be my projects from Color Me Daisy!!