Scraptastic Wednesdays: Let it Snow

I almost forgot to post again today.  I seriously don't know where my head is.  That's actually a lie, I know where it is.  It's buried in Kite Tails stuff, as I feverishly prepare to get our new collections out to the manufacturer.  It's exciting and nerve-wrecking and exhausting and fun, and I can't wait for Janurary when we roll the fruits of a years worth of labor out for everyone to see.

Enough about that though, today it's about scrapbooking layouts, and I do have a layout I finished up a week or so ago, and have been meaning to post.  This past winter was a doozy for snowfall, which was ok by Little Man!  He loved being out playing in it, helping daddy shovel the driveway, building snowmen. 

Yummy Monday: Rhubarb Cake

I'm a week late, I am aware.  I'd like to think I had some excuse as to why that is, like I was vacationing somewhere exotic, my kitchen was under renovation, or I was trapped under something heavy. 

Truth is, I pretty much just forgot.  All week.  Actually, I remembered each night, but it was so darn late by the time I remembered, I could barely function long enough to shut my computer down for the night, much less try and type up the post.  So here goes.

My friend gave me a whole pile of wonderful end-of-season rhubarb from her garden last week, so I whipped up a delicious rhubarb cake with it.  The recipe was from my parents neighbor, and it might just be one of my favorite things.  It's perfect for breakfast, a snack or dessert.

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

2 cups rhubarb, chopped

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup packed brown sugar

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla.
2. In another bowl, sift together 2 cups flour, soda, and salt. Add sifted ingredients alternately with buttermilk to creamed mixture.
3. Toss rhubarb with 1 tablespoon flour, and stir into batter. Spoon batter into buttered 9 x 13 inch pan, and smooth the surface.
4. Blend together 1/4 cup butter or margarine, cinnamon, and brown sugar; sprinkle evenly over batter.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

No photos because well, I forgot to take some.  Geez, I'm forgetting everything lately.  I'm off to go find my brain. 

Free-For-All Friday: Teacher's Basket

We're switching Finn to a new daycare in a couple of weeks, and in anticipation, I put together a little gift basket for his new teacher.  I aspire (as so many do) to get all of these fun, crafty projects done ahead of time so that I'm not up until 1am the night before "school" starts, desperately trying to recall and properly spell the name of his new teacher. 

Thankfully, he doesn't start for another 2 weeks, and his teacher's name is Liz.  Whew, dodged a bullet with that one.

So today we went shopping for a little basket, and a couple of fun things to put inside.  Nothing extravagent or costly, just a couple of odds and ends that say "hey, I appreciate what you do"  I thought a couple of things for the kids, and a couple of things for her would be a nice balance, so we hunted around for a few tokens that I thought any teacher might appreciate.  

Here's the breakdown of what we picked up:  The first catergory was all about cold season; we got a box of tissues, a package of Wet Ones antibacterial wipes, and a bottle of lavender scented antibacterial hand gel.  Next up was for the kids, we picked up a box of nice, thick, and theoretically unbreakable crayons, and a big book of stickers (super helpful for a classroom full of toddlers in the midst of potty training)  The last few things were just for her random pleasure, a magnetic notepad, a nice homemade card (which will have a $5 Dunkin Donuts giftcard inside) and a bottle of Advil.  She'll want to kiss me for that last one, I can tell.

An up-close on the little tag I made to wrap around the basket.  I found some cute brown and white holiday ribbon (which is random because when I think of the holidays, brown and white don't really come to mind) but it was nice ribbon with the wire in the edges of it, so it holds nicely to the basket.  I used my Doodlecharms Cricut cartridge to cut out the apple, added some green glitter for the leaf, brown for the stem, and then used some Studio Calico alpha stickers (traced over withe more Stickles for "oopf") for her name. 

There you have it!  A cute little basket full of thoughtful things to brighten up your children's teachers day.  Total cost was right around $20 for everything, including the basket. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, and see you back on Monday!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Love

My little Valentine.  I bought this "Mama's Boy" t-shirt for him when he was just 11 months old, in a size 3T, because it was the only size they had.  He swam in it that first year, so when I put it on him just shy of his 2nd birthday, I was excited that it fit pretty well! 

I rarely have the opportunity to use pinks in my layouts, having only a little guy, so I can't resist the temptation to pile on the "feminine" colors, and even a little lace doily for Valentine's Day!

 Little heart pin details, and a homemade misted Love "stamp"

Hope you're feeling the love, and I'll see you on Friday!

Yummy Monday: Sweet Potato Cassarole

Yum-Town.  Finn is a bit obessed with the sweet potatos at Boston Market.  Seeing as they are amazingly delicious, and the base of them is a Super Food, I try to overlook the fact that I'm pretty sure they are the worst thing to possibly order on their menu. 

So this weekend I tried my hand at making a somewhat healthier version of them, and much to my delight, they were awesome!  Sorry for the no photos, I took 1 as we were lining up marshmallows, but it's on my phone, which is dead on the charger right now.  So here's the breakdown, and it made enough for the 3 of us to eat all we could, with some leftovers today: 

2 large sweet potatoes

1/4 cup milk

3 tablespoons of butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

salt to taste

3 tablespoons brown sugar (topping)

1 cup mini marshmallows

Peel & cut up the sweet potatoes, and boil until they are soft.  Put them in a glass bowl and add milk and butter.  Beat with an electric mixer, adding in the 1/2 cup of brown sugar and the salt until smooth.  It took me about 5 minutes, 1 or 2 of those on a pretty high mixing speed to get them nice and soft.  Add a little more milk if you feel as though they aren't getting smooth enough. 

Once they're done, dump them into a dark metal pan (I used a cake pan, as it was randomly the easiest clean dish available and it worked perfectly!) and smooth out the top.  Sprinkle the extra 3 tablespoons of brown sugar on top, and then add the marshmallows. 

Bake it at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes, until the marshmallows are nice and brown on top, and soft and gooey underneath.  The tops of ours were a little crunchy, like that fresh-from-the-campfire taste and were DELICIOUS.  When we cracked out the leftovers however, the tops had softened, so beware the texture will be a little different. 

These are a great side dish for just about anything on the grill.  We ate them with pork chops, however they'd be great with turkey (obviously!) or grilled chicken as well.  I'm thinking these may become a Fall meal staple around our house in the coming months...

Thanks for checking in, sorry about the bi-week last week, but I should be back on the bandwagon this week, so check back Wednesday for another Scraptastic layout.

Family Ties

I've been remiss these last few days in not posting.  Some tough times in my family right now, and what's that old saying "when the going gets tough, the tough get going"  In my family, when the going gets tough, the tough gang together in the hospital waiting room in support of our own. 

Not to get too sentimental, but I am absolutely floored by how amazing my family is.  If it takes a village to raise a child (many days my family feels as big as a village!) it takes a village to band together and keep the faith.  In the surgical waiting room today I saw mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, sons, daughters all there to support each other, patiently awaiting some news.  I looked around and saw a group of people who's undying love for one another was unmatched by anything I've ever seen before, and I teared up thinking about how lucky we all were to have each other.  I wouldn't wish our heartache on anyone, but I'd wish our love on everyone. 

I'll hopefully be back later on in the week to catch up and get some new things posted, but no promises.  Have a wonderful week and I'll check back as soon as I can.

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Build-A-Bear

Finn's Aunt Julie brought him to Build-A-Bear for his 2nd birthday.  This layout was started as part of one of my CKC classes this past April (using some fantastic Studio Calico papers!) and I only just recently got around to finishing it. 

We used these Studio Calico star wood veneers, which I loved.  I misted them with Mr. Huey first, and used the largest to frame Little Man's face. 

The title was made by using stickers as a mask, misting on them, and then removing the stickers.  I used the some Crackle Accents over the reveal, to "puff" up the title a little more.

A little close-up on the wood veneers.

Yummy Monday: Zucchini Bread w/Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my co-workers gave me a beautiful zucchini a few days ago from her garden.  As someone who kills plants almost instantaneously, I envy those whose green thumbs provide them with wonderful produce all summer long. 

I found both the recipes on the AllRecipes website, for the zucchini bread go here and the cream cheese frosting recipe go here.

Fresh out of the oven.  I cooked 1 loaf in this recipe for almost 50 minutes and it came out perfectly, nice and moist.  With the remaining batter, I filled 6 regular sized muffins, and cooked them for 20 minutes.  I tend to slightly undercook when I'm baking, to ensure I don't dry things out, so the muffins could probably have used another 2-5 minutes. 

I cut the recipe online in half, and still had more than I needed to frost both the bread and the muffins.  I had originally planned on only frosting the muffins, but Little Man decided to take a spatual full of frosting to the loaf, so I finished it off.

What? I had to test one out and make sure it was ok before I posted this :)

Free-For-All Friday: Baby Elf Hat

I'm totally making this.  It's ridiculously adorable.  I've been in search of some really cute baby hat patterns lately, trying to find something to make for my co-workers baby.  I'm thinking this one will do just the trick!

I found this pattern here, and I'm excited to not only make it, but leave her a little blog love if it comes out 1/2 as cute as this photo shows!

I'm off to find some yarn to whip this up, see you all on Monday!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Birthday Boy

Finn turned 2 in March, and we had a wonderful (small) Curious George birthday party for him.  In April, I found some great Imaginence birthday papers at CKC-Manchester, that were perfect for these photos.  I can't believe he's already 2 (almost 2 1/2 by the time I got around to scrapping his birthday!) but it was so much fun creating these layouts!

The overall, 2-pager

Some red rick-rack screams birthday to me.  I also loved using this "bling string" but made it into a curly-Q. 

How awesome are these name filmstrips?!  I bought a set (came with 4) at CKC on a Friday, and was so nervous I would be too scared to use them, so I bought a second set of 4 on Saturday :)

"Memories" was a purchased title I found at Michaels, "birthday" was made with some red foam Thickers.

The only single-page layouts I ever do are the front and back covers of every album.  This was the last page of Finn's 1 year old album.  Another thing I rarely do is use patterned paper as the background, but hey, I get a little crazy when doing single-page layouts :)  I used some journaling cards I got from Boxer Scrapbooks, rick-rack, fun dollar bin ribbon and Thickers to finish this layout off.  I just love my little Birthday Boy!

Yummy Monday: Crepes

I have no pictures.  It was such a busy evening, that by the time I got home and got these a cookin', I could hear the grumbling tummies of both the Y Chromosomes in my house.  In the spirit of keeping a happy husband & toddler, I chose to forgo the photos and feed the hungry men.  Anyone out there with husbands and/or sons, I'm sure you'll understand.

My best friend from college was Eastern European, and she used to make the most WONDERFUL crepes.  It didn't matter if we filled them with sweet or savory, they were amazing.   I got this recipe from Allrecipes and it's as close as I've ever tasted to her own. 

1 cup flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp melted butter

For sweet crepes, add a tsp of vanilla and a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Mix the flour and eggs together until well blended, then add in the milk and water.  Add the salt and butter and beat until smooth.  

Heat a small skillet over medium high heat and lightly oil.  Pour in 1/4 cup of batter and swirl it around the pan until it's coated thoroughly.  Cook for no more than 2 minutes, loosen the edges and flip.  Cook another 1 minute, and enjoy! 

Topping Suggestions:

Ham & cheese

Cream cheese

Scrambled eggs

Nutella

Fresh fruit (bananas, strawberries, mangos)

Whipped cream

Peanut butter

Free-For-All Friday: Just For You Card

"Just for you"  The perfect sentiment for a plethora of occasions. 

"Just for you" because you're sick or have been feeling down
"Just for you" because of no reason whatsoever
"Just for you" because it's your birthday, so it's all about you
"Just for you" because it's Mother's or Father's Day

I could go on.  Without further ado, a couple of quick photos of a simple card made with all the scraps from the one of the July Bigger Than A Breadbox kits from Apron Strings.

Studio Calico mist on the pail, covered with Crackle Accents, Stickles & some Salt Air embellishments. 

Just For You :)

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Christmases (In July)

I was majorly productive this past weekend.  And by majorly productive, I mean I got a whole bunch of scrapbooking done.  Prepping meals for the week?  Nope.  Laundry?  Not so much.  I did however get 6 or 7 great layouts done, which for me (the double-page layout scrapbooker) was huge. 

I could bombard you with all of them tonight, however, I like having a bunch in my back pocket for those busy summer weeks where I just run out of time to create something, but still need stuff to post on those Wednesdays. 

The popular vote (meaning the vote from my 1 friend) was to do Christmas in July, so here are the 2 Christmas layouts I got done this weekend:

This one is Christmas morning.  We open presents under the "Kid's Tree" in our loft, essentially the fun Christmas tree that has all the colorful, mismatched, meaningful ornaments on it. The papers are Fancy Pants Tradition.

I used one of the patterns and just cut the tree part out of it.  The "Believe" is actually printed on the paper, I just used my Glossy Accents over the printing to make it look like they were epoxy stickers.  I am loving that stuff.

These photos are from Chrismas Eve at our family tradition:  The Red Lion Inn.  30 years and counting, we've never missed a Christmas Eve brunch there, so it's a wonderful tradition to keep going!  I used the "scraps" from the same Fancy Pants line as the other layout, so that there was some consistancy between the 4 pages.

Close(r) up of the title area.  I used my new(ish) I-Rock tool for all the little cream-colored dots around the circle. 

I kind of like this Christmas in July stuff.  It's fun to look back on all of the festivities, the cool winter photos, the beautiful holiday clothes, without actually re-living the stress of the holidays :)

I will be back on Friday with a pretty rare thing for me:  A card.  Yup, you heard it here first folks. 

 

Yummy Monday: Oatmeal Banana Cranberry Bars

Another set of old bananas has found me in need of a a recipe that was NOT plain old banana bread.  An thus I found one here.  My modifications of this are below though:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup of applesauce

1 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats

1 cup dried cranberries

Mix up the dry ingredients, save the oats and cranberries.  Set aside and mix together applesauce, sugar, egg, vanilla & bananas.  Stir in dry ingredients, after thoroughly mixed, add in oats and cranberries. 

Mix well.  Double points if your mixer is this cute :)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Grease 9x13 pan and add mixture.  Bake for 20-22 minutes, until top is golden brown. 

This is healthy enough to justify eating for breakfast, although it'll be good just about any time of day.  Enjoy!

Free-For-All Friday: Anchor Applique

I'm in search of a crochet applique pattern for an anchor.  A co-worker of mine divulged yesterday that they were expecting a gender-to-remain-unknown bundle of joy next winter, so I wanted to whip up an adorable crocheted baby hat for them, with a little anchor on it, since the anchor is, well, let's say it's kind of their thing. 

In my stumbling around to find a pattern, I did come across this site, Monster Crochet that had the most adorable crochet bag that I could see making and gifting to one of my fellow Cape Cod loving relatives.  So during this brief lunch hour (I'm at work on a Friday, which I haven't done since Finn was born *insert super whine-y face and worlds smallest violin, etc. etc. etc) I have been re-bitten (pretty sure that's not even a word) by the yarn bug, and even though I'm neck-deep in scrapbooking & paper crafting projects, I have a feeling I may be busting out the crochet hooks in the near future and whipping something soft and snuggly. 

I've got a productive scrappy weekend ahead of me, I'm going to a crop tonight and all day tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have some fun things to post next week to share!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: Cape Cod

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of vacationing on the Cape.  The smell of the salt air, the taste of fresh clam chowder, the sounds of the waves.  We spent our summers playing mini golf, eating saltwater taffy, swimming in the ocean and reading books in the hammock.  I love that we have a place out there to call our own, where we can go to get away from it all, and I especially love that we will be able to show Finn the same types of summers I grew up having. 

I created this layout as part of my guest design stint over at  Apron Strings.  For this one, I used the papers in their Bigger Than a Breadbox July kit from Cosmo Cricket's Salt Air line, which I've had my eye on for MONTHS!  So glad to finally be able to get my hands on these papers because I just love them. 

How amazing are the colors in these papers?!

I added some glitter to the raw chipboard starfish from the kit, and used a brad to attach it.  All of the other embellishments were part of the Apron Strings kit as well.

I added a journaling tag from the Salt Air line to jot down a quick note.

Last but not least, I used this Page Maps sketch as inspiration for the entire layout!  It utilizes all those wallet-sized photos I'm so obsessed with printing :) 

See you on Friday for at least a progress shot of my next kids craft!

Yummy Monday (Tuesday): Lemon Cream Cheese Pie

I know, I know.  A day late again on the Yummy Monday post again.  If you had any idea of the couple of weeks I've had, you'd buy me a drink, and tell me to throw my feet up.  Speaking of throwing my feet up, I'm on strict orders to lay low for today and tomorrow, so I'm catching up now with the post. 

I love lemon-y things.  I don't know what it is about lemons that makes me go ga-ga, but I love lemon in my water, lemon bars, my aunts AMAZING lemonade cake with raspberries (I'll have to steal the recipe one of these days and post it for you!) pretty much anything you can think of with lemons.  Lemons just taste like summer to me too, so today I've got a simple recipe for a lemon-y cream cheese pie that could not be any easier.  I'll post "healthy" substitutions in italics too, for those of you who are trying to behave yourselves.

1 package of instant lemon pudding mix

1 package of lemon geletin mix

1 lemon

1 3/4 cups of milk (skim)

1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened (lowfat)

1 prepared graham cracker crust (lowfat)

I bought a crust this time (slacker!) but you can make your own homemade graham cracker crust very easily.  All you  need are:

1 1/2 cups of crushed graham crackers

6 tablespoons of melted butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

Mix everything together and press into a 9" pie plate.  Bake at 375 degrees for 6-7 minutes.  Cool thoroughly before adding fillings.

Back to the Lemon Cream Cheese Pie though:

Mix the pudding and milk as per the directions on the package.  Slowly add in the geletin mix, using the electic beaters.  Add in softened cream cheese (I find it's easier to beat in smoothly if you add it in about 1/4 at a time) and finally, beat in the juice from 1/2 the lemon.  Pour the mixture into your crust and let it set for at least 3 hours prior to cutting.

Clearly by the looks of this slice, I didn't let it chill long enough.  I should have waited overnight for it to firm up properly, but I really wanted a slice!  I garnished this one with a little whipped cream and a strawberry, but this pie is also amazing with raspberries on top!  You can also take the lemon rind leftover from juicing the lemon, and gently peel a couple of rind curls off of it to garnish with, although that kind of garnish is best done just prior to serving.

Enjoy!

Oh, and since I'm late in posting this, I'll be back tomorrow with a fantastic layout I created for Apron Strings showcasing some photos from our recent Cape Cod vacation.