Saturday, December 4, 2010

Holiday Notebooks

Happy Saturday!! As you are reading this, I am with my favorite girlfriends at our favorite scrapping retreat house, drinking our favorite drinks, listening to our favorite music and scrapping our hearts out! Yeah for scrapping retreats!!

I want to show you some holiday notebooks that I made for everyone this weekend. I think these will be super cute to keep your wish list in, holiday shopping list, to-do lists...all those lists you need this time of year. All the supplies (except the ric rac and bling) are from Papertrey Ink. I bought these little unaltered notebooks last year and i'm finally getting around to using them for something.

I made snowmen notebooks...


Ornament notebooks...


Present notebooks...


And gingerbread men notebooks!


What do you think? Which color combination is your favorite? I am partial to all things blue, so I just love the snowmen notebooks. Such a pretty blue...but I do like them all! I hope you are having a great weekend. I gotta get back to my scrapping...

Thanks for stopping by!!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Christmas Gift Bazaar Day 2

Hi Everyone! Today for the Croppin' Paradise Gift Bazaar I have a set of gift tags that are super easy to create. Because everybody needs gift tags, no matter what you are giving. And why not give your gift that special touch with a homeade gift tag?

Here is what you need:
Kraft cardstock (or some other neutral color)
Background stamp and white ink
Christmas Paper (I'm using the Everybody Loves Christmas line from Echo Park)
Ribbon or twine
buttons

First, using your kraft or neutral cardstock, cut out some tags. Use your Cricut or other cutting machine or just cut some rectangles all the same size and round the corners.


Using your background stamp and white ink, stamp the background all over the tags. Ink the edges.


Cut two strips of patterned paper, one a bit smaller than the other. Layer them and adhere to the lower half of your tag.


Wrap your ribbon or twine around the bottom half of the tag. Add a button to one side. Threading ribbon or twine through the button is optional!


Add coordinating stickers or diecuts to one side of the tag. Cut small squares from white/neutral cardstock for the other side, for the To and From sentiments.


Add some pretty twine/ribbon/fiber to the top of your tags. You are now done!!


This is an easy way to create a bunch of tags, assembly line style. I only have three here, but I could have easily created 10 tags in the time it took to complete these. After deciding which papers and supplies to use, the rest is easy!


Taking just a little bit of time to organize your supplies, you can crank out a bunch of these cute gift tags for all your gifts this year. Make sure you come over to Croppin' Paradise for Day 3...we have so much more to show you all!

Thanks for stopping by...

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Christmas is Coming!!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Can you believe that tomorrow is December 1st??? What I can't believe is that we actually have all our holiday decorations up AND I ordered our Christmas cards last night. I make photo cards and i'm NEVER this early. I guess it just feels like this year is barreling ahead and i'm just trying to keep up. Or try to not get run over!

There are some fun scrapping holidays things coming up. You will want to check out the PSA Stamp Camp blog for some really great holiday cards and gift ideas all month. Today there is a Christmas card kickoff on the blog. Go become a follower and you will be happy you did! Lots of great stuff coming up in December!

Also, over at Croppin' Paradise, starting December 1st we are having the 12 Days of Christmas Gift Bazaar. The design team has come up with a whole bunch of great gift and holiday crafty ideas. For 12 days, we will be posting a new idea each day. We also have a new sketch posted for this week. Lots of fun holiday ideas coming up to get you in the holiday spirit!!

And because I can't leave you without a photo, here are a few pics from our recent trip to the Long Beach Aquarium. It was raining and overcast, but we still had some fun!

Feeding the bat rays...


Touching the big rays and sharks...


And feeding the beautiful Lorikeets...



Thanks for stopping by today!!!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Apple Cinnamon Rolls

This is a recipe i've had in my head for a while. I love cinnamon rolls and make them frequently. But for some reason, i've had apples on the brain. My favorite breakfast right now is to chop up an apple, add some cinnamon and microwave for 2-3 minutes. Then add vanilla greek yogurt and chopped almonds. Sooo good!! So I decided to translate that into a cinnamon roll. Because carbs are yummy.


It's just a basic dough recipe that I started with. This is a recipe from my mom and it's my go-to dough recipe for everything, bread, rolls, etc.

2.5 tsp yeast
3 tbsp sugar
1.5 tsp salt
3.5 cups bread flour
1/4 cup powdered milk (optional, I only add this when I have it...which isn't often)
2 tbsp butter, cut
1 cup plus 2 tbsp warm water

Add the yeast to the warm water. Let it sit for a little bit. Add the flour, sugar, salt, powdered milk, and butter into the mixer bowl. Fit the mixer with the dough hook. Mix all the dry ingredients, then add the water/yeast mixture. Mix this and knead with the dough hook for 6-7 minutes. Cover bowl with a clean towel and let it rise until it's at least doubled in size.

Now for the apples. I took 2 granny smith apples, peeled, chored and chopped them up. I added 2 tbsp butter to a pan and turned on medium heat. After butter is melted, throw in the apples. Add some brown sugar and cinnamon (I was winging it at this point) and cook until the apples looked cooked enough.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface into a rough rectangle shape. Paint the dough with melted butter. Add the baked apples and cinnamon and sugar (if you want). Roll the dough into a log, cut into slices and place in a baking pan. Let the rolls rise for about 15-20 minutes. Then cook at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. When they are golden brown, take out of oven and cool in the pan on a cooling rack.


When it comes to frosting, I like the basic powdered sugar frosting on my rolls. I have tried cream cheese frosting on top, but for me it's over the top. I made a powdered sugar frosting for these.

1/2 -3/4 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp soy milk

Add the soy milk, 1 tbsp at a time, to the powdered sugar. Mix until your desired consistency is reached. I drizzled the frosting on the warm rolls and let all the sweet goodness soak right in. So yummy!!

I kept these overnight in the fridge and we heated them for a bit in the microwave for breakfast today. And they were fabulous. Of course, they would be fabulous right out of the oven but I made them the night before. And I'm not that motivated in the morning to make cinnamon rolls. I would much rather have them already done and ready to eat!

These were delicious and exactly how I wanted them. It was a fun change from regular rolls! They fueled us all enough to do a 2-hour hike today and score some geocaches. It's beautiful outside and we took full advantage of it. Hope you are having a great weekend!! Thanks for stopping by...

Friday, November 26, 2010

Happy Black Friday!

So...how was your Thanksgiving?? Ours was great, filled with family and good food. My crazy husband was up early early this morning to get some of those great deals that were available only at 4am. Ha ha!! Me, not so much. I slept in a bit and then took my kids to boot camp with me. I worked out, they played at the park and then at the end of boot camp my kids did all the abdominal work with us and my son had to race me up the hill we were working out on. He had to tackle me to beat me. Hee hee, yes I'm competitve with my 8 year old son. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

All of us Croppin' Paradise girls created a thankful layout this month and here is mine. I am thankful for my two little munchkins...who really aren't that little anymore.


Hmmm...Jillibean Soup again!! I just love the Pasta Fagioli papers!! The journaling sprouts are pretty cool, too.


If you are looking for some great Black Friday deals, look no further than Croppin' Paradise! Go check out all they are offering this weekend and grab yourself something good! Thanks for stopping by today...

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I Love Soup

Jillibean Soup, that is!!! I got my hands on one of their newer paper lines called Pasta Fagioli and I just love the colors. I've had this photo of us at Disneyland from last year that I have been hanging on to...just waiting for the perfect papers to use. And I think I found them. Pasta Fagioli...


The colors are perfect for this fall photo of Disneyland. We went last year for my daughter's birthday and it was all decorated for Halloween. Very cool! I also love Jillibean's journaling sprouts, I used a bunch of them on this layout.



You can find all things Jillibean Soup at Croppin' Paradise. They even have the new holiday papers called Chestnut Soup, so super cute with all the snowmen.

Hope you're having a great week so far. I have one more day of work this week and then I need to get busy makies pies and cheesecakes and cranberry sauce for the big dinner on Thursday. I can't wait to pig out! Thanks for stopping by today!!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Pumpkin Pecan Butter Dessert Squares

A while ago, my MIL gave me this...


And i've been wondering what to do with it. I look at it everytime I open the pantry, and then I close the pantry on it. Just not quite sure what to use it for. And then I saw a post on Bakerella's blog about Pecan-Pumpkin dessert squares she has been enjoying at her book signings at Williams-Sonoma. And I was wondering why the recipe sounded familiar...and it's because I have a jar of this stuff staring at me from my pantry! And it's from Williams-Sonoma! And now I have something to bake with it!

Williams-Sonoma Pecan Pumpkin Butter Dessert Squares

recipe from Bakerella

18.25 oz. package yellow cake mix, set aside one cup
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 large eggs
13.5 oz. jar of Muirhead Pecan Pumpkin Butter
2 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 tsp cinnamon

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Grease and flour a 9 X 13 pan.
  • Divide cake mix, placing all but one cup in a mixing bowl.
  • Stir the melted butter and one egg into the cake mix until combined.
  • Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan.
  • In another bowl, mix pumpkin butter with two eggs and milk until combined.
  • Spread pumpkin mixture over pressed cake mix.
  • Stir the reserved 1 cup of cake mix with the flour, sugar, and cinnamon.
  • Then add the softened butter and mix together until crumbly.
  • Sprinkle over the top of the pumpkin layer.
  • Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Cool and cut into 2 ” squares. Serves 24.
It starts with a box of yellow cake mix, this could not get any easier. These mixed up fast and baked up delicious. Like a moist yellow cake on the bottom and pumpkin pie on the top.


But to be honest, this picture is pretty uninspiring. Ho-hum. Do you really want to eat this? Or serve it to fancy company on Thanksgiving? I needed to dress it up a bit..how about this?


Okay, it's looking better. But it still needs something more...


Oh yeah! Looking better!!!


Now with the ice cream and caramel sauce, now you have yourself a dessert!! Or an afternoon snack eaten by myself in my bedroom with the door closed so the kids can't find me. I'm just saying...

It was a quick, easy dessert. I bet you could substitute pumpkin for the Williams-Sonoma ingredient because all it was was pumpkin and pecans. Hope you are having a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!