My Time Made Easy...exciting stuff!!

Hi Everyone! I am so super excited to announce that I now part of the design team at My Time Made Easy!!! Lauren Meader is the creative brains behind MTME and I have followed her work for a long time. She previously designed templates and projects for Papertrey Ink. She has since started her own company and offers amazing templates, digital cut files, patterned paper, stamps and more. I was beyond thrilled to be asked to be part of the design team. And today I am previewing a new template called Round and Round.

With spring and easter right around the corner, this template can be modified to create this great basket. The template also comes with a lid (which I will be showing later this week) but for the preview I decided to create a basket. You can fit lots of goodies inside!

I used one of the digital paper packs this month called Spreading Spring Cheer and new cut file accents called Fine Finish Tags.

The paper on the card is so pretty, again from the new Spreading Spring Cheer paper pack. I chose to let it stand alone and added a label to match the basket.

The stamps are from the new Round Off stamp set which coordinates perfectly with the Fine Finish Tags.

There you have it, my first project for MTME!! I am just so excited to be part of this amazing team. Please check out the other team members and their preview projects today.

Lauren

Debbie

Linda

Farida
Katie
Lori

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Please come back all week for more projects and more details on the March MTME release!!

CAS-ual Friday challenge #41

I had just enough time this weekend to sneak in the Cas-ual Friday challenge this week. I spent all day Saturday at a local scrapbooking expo with my scrappy girlfriends. And I don't know what was more fun...getting great scrapbooking deals or spending time with my scrappy girlfriends. So so much fun.

Okay...on to the good stuff. Here was challenge #41. We had to use a sentiment in a silly way to create a joke on our card.

And here is my card:

The stamps are from the Tiny Treat Valentine set from Papertrey Ink. I thought the sentiment was kinda punny and I used my super limited coloring skills to fill in those lovely lemons. And I used some new bling from the scrapbooking expo. It's from Queen and Company and they call it Twinkle Goosebumps. I am a fan.

I hope you all had a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by today...

Sugar Cookie Bars with Marshmallow Fluff Frosting

I have a sweet post for you today, Sugar Cookie Bars. Sometimes i'm just too lazy to make cookies. You know the drill...make the batter, fill up the cookie sheet, bake for 12 minutes, repeat. Over and over. Call me crazy, but sometimes I just want to put the pan in the oven, set the timer for 25 minutes and be done with it. And this is exactly the recipe for doing that.

These are delicious sugar cookie bars with an equally delicious marshmallow fluff frosting. I may never go back to traditional buttercream again. Marshmallow fluff frosting (with rainbow sprinkles!) is where it's at. And will probably be responsible for an extra pants size. Or two.

You can color the frosting whatever color your heart desires. These are the perfect take anywhere cookie bar!

Here are the recipes for both the bars and the frosting. I hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Sugar Cookie Bars
recipe from Cookies and Cups

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spray lightly with cooking spray.
3. In your mixer cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together. Add in egg and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
4. With mixer on low, add in your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and baking soda.
5. Mix until just combined.
6. Press dough evenly into your prepared pan. This is a tough step, the dough will be super sticky!!
7. Bake for 20 minutes until edges begin to golden.
8. Cool completely before frosting.

Marshmallow Fluff Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter room temp
• 1/2 cup Marshmallow Fluff
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1-2 Tbsp milk or water

1. Mix butter and Fluff until smooth on medium speed until smooth.
2. Slowly add in powdered sugar with mixer on low.
3. Add in milk and turn speed up to medium and mix until all combined and smooth.
4. Color frosting if desired. I typically use the Wilton gel color (bought at Michael's) because it doesn't dilute the frosting like liquid food coloring.

Happy Friday!

Oh, Happy Friday! I have a quick ankle update today. After a few weeks of seemingly no-progress physical therapy I finally feel like i'm making some headway. And I reached a big milestone this week...I get to ditch my walking boot! Wednesday was my first full day without wearing the boot and I'm telling you, my legs are tired. I'm using muscles I haven't used in months and it's been a tiring adjustment. BUT I am boot free and moving forward and feeling good about it.

I would also like to just say thanks to all of you! You always leave me such nice comments here and I read every single one of them. Whether it's crafting related or ankle related or baked good related, I appreciate you all coming to visit me here in my little corner of the blog world. Thank you!

And here's a little thank you card just to say...You're A Peach!

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday!!! Thanks for stopping by today!

She's Crafty!!!

Oh yes, my daughter is crafty. She loves crafts. Any kind of crafts. She loves those craft kits you buy at Michael's, she loves coloring on anything she can get her hands on and she loves digging through my scrap stash. This past weekend she wanted to look through my magazines to get some new ideas for making cards. She found two cards that she wanted to replicate and she got to work.

A card with cute band-aid stamps immediately caught her eye. Since I didn't own the stamp, she drew her own band-aids, colored them and cut them out. And created this card! Isn't it cute?

She then saw me making rolled paper flowers and insisted that I show her how. She rolled quite a few and then put together this card. She had fun digging through all my baker's twine to make that bow. I think I have another baker's twine addict in the family. Don't blame me, the stuff is addicting.

I printed out the sentiments on the computer for her. She was really proud of herself and I was too! I love crafting with her.

I hope you are having a great week so far. Thanks for stopping by!

Thank You Card. Yes, Another One.

I think Thank You cards are my very favorite to make. Because I always have a need for them. And there are so many fun 'thank you' sentiments, no two thank you cards are ever the same. I recently found this pack of prima flowers in my stash and thought...why haven't I used these? They are so pretty?? So, I did. And guess what I made?

Really, all this card needed was that flower. Oh, and some baker's twine. It's been at least 12 hours since I used baker's twine on a project and I was starting to get twitchy. And I think my border punch at the bottom took 2 inches off my card so it looks short and stubby. But look at that flower, isn't it pretty???

I need to look through my stash more often. There seems to be a whole lot of goodies hiding in there. Have you looked through your stash lately? What did you find?

Happy Tuesday, friends!

Card Kit Club

I am lucky enough to be in a really fun card kit club with 3 other scrappy blogging friends. This month it was my turn to put together a kit and send it out. It was harder than I thought it would be!! But today is the big card reveal and I can't wait to see everybody's cards. Here are mine...

I included three different stamps from the PSA Essentials Happy Hour stamp set. I matted it and added it to an embellished tag for my main focal point. Isn't she cute? And happy after that glass of wine?

And I used some scraps to make a second card. I have been seeing this design everywhere...the 4 squares together with rounded corners (there has got to be a more official name for this design, anyone??) and wanted to try it out myself.

And next time I will tuck in that hanging piece of twine, ha ha!! I can't wait to see what all my scrappy friends came up with. Go visit their blogs and leave them some love...

Beth
Joni
Mary

Thanks for stopping by today!

Friends with Prima

Happy Saturday!! I have one more layout I would like to share that I created using my February 'Thank You, Kindly' Citrus Tree Studios kit. I had one more photo of my daughter and her friends from a vintage dress up birthday party they attended and it once again went perfectly with the Prima papers in the kit.

There were so many pretty flowers and pretty flower centers in this kit. There were Doodlebug gems and Prima Pebbles to create dimension. I really loved this pebble, it matched the friend theme perfectly!

I layered lots of paper and flowers and journaling spots down in the corner. And added some punched butterflies. Please excuse the sideways butterfly, I think he drank a little too much nectar.

When all is said and done, I really loved this kit. I forced me to work outside my regular comfort zone of scrapping and I really like the layouts and cards I created. Yeah for great kit!!

Now, i'm off to my son's basketball game this morning. What are your plans for this weekend? I hope you have a good one. Thanks for stopping by!

Cake Batter Blondies

As much as I love to experiment in the kitchen, sometimes I just don't have time. But sometimes I really want cake. I mean, really want cake. I recently checked out some of my favorite food blogs, checked the pantry for a box of cake mix and marshmallow fluff and ended up making these...Cake Batter Blondies.

Now if you seriously honestly want to impress your neighbors and make new friends, make them a batch of these. The base is vanilla cake mix with white chocolate chips and marshmallows mixed in. And then you top it with a marshmallow fluff frosting.

Here on the West Coast, marshmallow fluff is not easy to find. You can find marshmallow creme, but it's not the same. Trust me on that. I am lucky enough to have family on the east coast and they sent me a 6-pack of marshmallow fluff for Christmas. Yes, a 6-pack. That's the way to my heart!

I took a pan of these to a party and they got rave reviews. It just reminded me that complicated doesn't always mean good. You can stay simple and still get rave reviews!

If you want some rave reviews, please check out the recipe at Cookies and Cups: Cake Batter Blondies.

Happy Friday friends!! Thanks for stopping by today!

40 Sucks

A good friend of mine turned 40 a little while ago and I wanted to gift her with something fun. You know, something other than old lady reading glasses, Depends, and an over-the-hill sweatshirt. After searching around pinterest for a little bit I ran across this craft. And then I ran out to get everything I needed to make it.

Being the crafting hoarder that I am, I already had quite a few of those tin buckets in my stash. I just knew they would come in handy someday. I used the Free To Be Me paper pad from Momenta to make the tag. I cut the big scallop with my Cricut and then layered papers and added Momenta puffy letters and numbers. And I tied it on the bucket with my BFF, baker's twine.

Inside the bucket is a piece of floral foam. I cut and shaved it down to fit all the way inside the bucket and then covered the top with patterned paper so the foam wouldn't show.

I also made a matching card. I am addicted to paper piecing with these Hero Arts cupcake stamps. And I absolutely love the vellum stickers from Momenta. They are available for all occasions. Even old lady 40th birthdays.

It was a fun gift to make and give!! Yes, there are 40 sucks in the bucket. I had to count them repeatedly because my kids kept stealing them from the bucket. I think they might have been testing my cognitive abilities, because I'm past the 40 mark myself. Luckily, I got a pair of those reading glasses for MY 40th birthday. There is no foolin' me!!

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

Momenta and Twinery Blog Hop!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the Momenta and Twinery blog hop today!

If you are hopping along, you should have arrived here from Monika's blog. If not, you will want to start at The Twinery's blog so you get in on all the wonderful inspiration and chances to win great prizes. You will need to leave a comment on each blog along the way and also on the Momenta blog and Twinery blog. For an extra chance to win, please leave a comment on Momenta's facebook page. You will have until Friday, February 17th to hop along all the blogs and leave comments. Please see The Twinery blog for all the details.

Now...on to the good stuff!! When I found out The Twinery and Momenta were having a joint blog hop, you can imagine my excitement. I absolutely love The Twinery's baker twine and all their colors are great matches for Momenta product. I really wanted to try to incorporate many colors of twine on my project. So this is what I came up with.

The Momenta paper is from the Kaleidoscope 12x12 Pyramid Paper Pack. The colors from this paper pack are just perfect with the twine. I used Mandarin, Caribbean, and Blossom twine.

I cut the Momenta paper with my Cricut and layered all the balloons with 3-D foam dots to create some dimension.

I was so happy how this turned out, I made another card using the same basic design. But this time I cut a diamond shape on my Cricut with Momenta paper and created a big kite.

This time I used Caribbean, Mandarin, Honeydew, Cappuccino and Pink Sorbet twine. I also created a little banner for the sentiment and used Momenta gems for a little bit of sparkle.

I love both Momenta and The Twinery and pairing the two products was quite easy. They look great together!

Your next stop on the blog hop is Jen Carter. Enjoy!!

Prima Cards

Happy Saturday friends! Today I want to share some cards I created using the Thank You Kindly February kit from Citrus Tree Studio.

Everything is from the kit except the stamped sentiment and the baker's twine. Aren't those flowers pretty???!!

I've got one more card...

I was again stumped with the fancy papers but I eventually just started layering stuff. Stuff...that's a technical scrapbooking term. The doily and baker's twine is from my stash, everything else from the kit.

Don't forget all of Citrus Tree Studio's kits are 25-40% off. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend!

Citrus Tree Studio February Kit

The kit at Citrus Tree Studio this month is gorgeous and packed full of Prima papers, flowers, and embellishments. It's called Thank You, Kindly and it's definitely worth a look.

The flowers and the paper are just so darn pretty in this kit. It's not my usual style and to be honest, I was a little bit stumped when I first saw it. But this layout really came together when I found these black and white photos of my daughter at a vintage dress up party. I was so happy to match up this photo and this kit! I love the glittery letters and butterflies.

And I loved layering the flowers!! There are so many fun gems and pebbles in this kit to create flower centers.

This is such a lovely kit, have I mentioned that yet? Ha ha! And please check out all the other Citrus Tree Studio kits...they are all 25-40% off. Time to stock up!

I hope you're having a great week so far...thanks for stopping by!

Warmin' Up with Momenta

I have a layout to share today that was on the Momenta blog yesterday. Momenta carries these great 5x7 patterned papers pads and they are perfect for cards and also for layouts. This layout, with the exception of the background cardstock, was created using just that 5x7 paper pad.

I cut lots and lots of paper strips using different patterns. I then border punched some, added flags to the ends of some and layered them all behind my photo. I also created some stick pin flags with random stick pins I had in my stash.

I used the Black and White DieCut pad for the title frame and black puffy stickers for the title. I like how they matched up so well! I also threw twine all over the layout because twine is my BEST FRIEND FOREVER!!!

This might be the last softball layout I make. Kayla wasn't all that thrilled with playing last season and opted not to play this spring. Which is fine by me, she's interested in other things. Thankfully they are other things where I can still take photos. This mom has her priorities. Hee hee!!

Thanks for stopping by today, friends!!

Chocolate Chip Caramel Cookie Bars

Do you know what is better than a tasty chocolate chip cookie? Well...maybe nothing. But chocolate chip cookie bars run a very close second. Add a layer of caramel in the middle and these cookie bars might overtake first place.

A layer of chocolate chip cookie...a layer of caramel...another layer of chocolate chip cookie. These are so good that I made a pan of them twice last week. For Super Bowl Sunday we had these with a big scoop of ice cream and whipped cream for dessert. So freakin' good!!

Please make these for your next party or girl's night or book club or JUST BECAUSE. They are that good.

Chocolate Chip Caramel Cookie Bars...recipe HERE at Two Peas In Their Pod. I omitted the sea salt only because I didn't have any. If you like salty and sweet, you might want to try the sea salt.

Thanks for stopping by today!

CAS-ual Friday challenge #38

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! What are you up to today? We usually attend a neighborhood party but our neighbors are out of town this weekend. So we are laying low with family today. I've got some money in a football pool so as long as I win the pool, I don't really care who wins the game. Ha ha!!

I have another CAS-ual Friday challenge today, I am on a roll with these challenges. I loved this one...clean and simple movie inspiration!

I immediately thought of my favorite movie, The Princess Bride. I was inspired by Wesley's way of telling Buttercup that he loves her...As You Wish. Remember when he defeated Vizzini and Buttercup thinks he's the Dread Pirate Roberts and she pushes him down the hill and he says As You Wish as he's tumbling down? Such a great scene!!

I used some patterned My Mind's Eye for the hearts and popped them up with pop dots. I added some baker's twine, gems, and alpha stickers and was finished!

What a fun inspiration this week! What's your favorite movie? Could you translate it into a card?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Coffee Gift Set

Happy Friday!! Today I want to share a coffee gift set I made for a very close girlfriend of mine. I bought a template from My Time Made Easy for a coffee cup take out holder and to-go coffee cups. I fell in love the first time I saw these templates!! And I love they are available in svg format because I can cut them with my Cricut. I used the Free To Be Me 12x12 super paper pad from My Momenta for embellishing.

I was drawn to this peace sign patterned paper and the matching embossed peace sign cardstock. The bright fun colors are perfect for a birthday gift. The embossed cardstock looks great when sanded. I took my nail file to the paper and just sanded slightly.

I used my Cricut to cut all the flowers and added lots of buttons and fun baker's twine!

The coffee cups are made using the template and I snagged 2 lids from my local coffee shop to finish them off. I found some single serve coffee packs at Target and added those, plus some chocolate, to the cups. Some caramel coffee syrup and a Starbucks gift card round out the gift.

And I had to make a matching card! I paper pieced the cupcake using matching Momenta paper. And added a birthday vellum sparkly sentiment.

I really enjoyed making this gift. It took some time but it's so satisfying when the whole project comes together. I hope my girlfriend liked it! I will be making more of these for my coffee loving friends in the future!

Thanks for stopping by today and hope you're having a great Friday!