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.

Free-For-All Friday: Kids Mailbox

I bought this mailbox months ago, it sits on a little bookshelf in our loft.  Every now and again there's a "Special Treat" inside (typically a lollipop) whenever Little Man's behavior has been extra good.  My original idea behind getting it would be to put little notes and treats and things in it, and to decorate it for different seasons/holidays. 

You know what they say about the best laid plans...so I had never gotten around to decorating it.  This morning I decided that I would use the cardstock and some of the scraps left over from Cosmo Cricket Salt Air kit I got from Apron Strings to add a little color and fun to it. 

12x12 paper wasn't long enough to cover the whole thing, which was just as well, because the little mailbox flag was in the way.  So I trimmed a piece to fit right up under it as much as I could.

Next I created a little notch (you can just barely see it in the upper lefthand corner of the paper) to fit around the pin that keeps the flag attached to the mailbox, so that the papers line up flush to one another.

Then, flip the whole mailbox on its front end, and trace the front "door" part on the backside of whatever paper you are using as the base.  Cut that out carefully and adhere to the door.  You can choose to cut a trim piece around the door or not.  I opted not to in this case, as the little hands that are constantly opening and closing this would rip it off in about 5 seconds flat :)

 Lastly, decorate as you see fit!  I created this out of scraps from one of my kits, so I just took that scrap paper and one of my trusty Marvy Uchida circle punches to make as many circles as I could out of the scrap.  Some Thickers for his name (like he had any question as to whose it is!) and a pop-dot under one of the kit stickers for the door.

Keeping things simple, I used Stickles in hues of the colors of whatever circle I was working on, to create some little dots on each one and give it some sparkle.  'Cause who doesn't love things that sparkle?!  That's all there was to it, a simple little mailbox, fit for some "Special Treats".

**Sidenote, after I was finished and had taken photos, Finn wanted to "decorate it too!" so all that lovely yellow paper is now covered in 2 year old marker scribbles.  I mean artwork :)  See you next week with a new Yummy Monday recipe that'll sure to "oohhhh" and "ahhhh" you!

Scraptastic Wednesdays: 4th of July

Well, well, well, look who's Johnny-on-the-Spot and has already scrapped the most recent holiday. 

**Cue applause now**

I'd like to take full credit for being motivated, having a wonderful kit to work with, and a fantastic sketch.  In reality, I can only take credit for the first though.  This layout was made with  one of the fabulous Bigger Than A Breadbox July kits from Apron Strings.  I agreed to be a Guest Designer (when I capitalize it, it makes me feel more important ;) for Lori for the month of July, and thus just HAD to (twist my arm) come up with some things to keep people reading her blog motivated.  Fingers crossed it works!

The stars must have been aligned for me this week, because it just so happened that there was a lovely little 2-sided sketch this week over at Sketchy Thursdays that piqued my interest, so I used that one to give myself the little push I needed to put this together! 

This layout was made using the My Mind's Eye-American Made kit.  Little Man was chowing on some amazing Red, White & Blue cupcakes made by my fellow scrappy friend Melissa (shout-out to Melissa!) which was one of my favorite photos of the day.  The other one which is really meaningful is the photo of Little Man, the Hubs, my FIL and his father.  A 4 Generation photograph can be a hard thing to come by these days, and I love to document as often as I can the fact that we have all for Generations of Siebert Men accounted for :)

I used somr red, silver & blue Stickles to make a faux firework coming out of the top of the layout.  Adds a little sparkle, and makes up for the fact that all my firework photos came out mediocre at best.

I love these banners included in the kit, so I cut the circle one up a little and layered part of it on top of the other on pop-dots for dimension.

I was torn with what to do with the crepe ribbon.  I'm not really very comfortable using crepe (although I bought a metric ton of it at CKC earlier this year!) it's so darn fragile!  I took a piece of the ribbon though, and folded it into a sort of crepe flower, and used the red plastic ribbon embellishments in the center to help stick it all together.  I added a line of silver Stickles along the edge to give it some definition too.

I hope everyone had a wonderful (and safe!) 4th of July this year!  I know we're still cleaning up from the aftermath of our annual party.  My backyard looks like the day after a State Fair...

Yummy Monday (Tuesday): Kai's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, maybe I should call these Betty Crocker's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies, because her recipe is the base of mine.  You can find hers here, but I'll recap it here as well:

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1 cup butter softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

12oz bag of chocolate chips

Mix up the sugars, butter, egg and vanilla together.  Double points if you can do it in a Kitchen Aid mixer, it makes life SOOOO much easier!  One major tip is to be very careful about how soft your butter gets.  Too soft & melty and your cookies will completely flatten when you bake them.  I tend to keep my butter on the firmer side (another reason for the mixer) and keep my cookies nice and thick. 

I add the salt and baking soda next, and while the mixer is going on slow, add the flour a 1/2 cup at a time until it's thoroughly mixed.  Add in the chocolate chips, dig your spoon for a nice big "taste test" and relax!  Funny how whatever the quantities they say it's going to make, it always makes so much less by the time I actually get around to baking them ;) 

Pop them in the oven at 375 degrees for no more than 9 minutes.  They may look a little undercooked when you take them out, but take them out nonetheless.  They'll continue to cook a little on the hot cookie sheet, and once they're cool, they'll be just a tiny bit crunchy on the outside, but soft and gooey on the inside.  Perfection.

Free-For-All Friday: Pencil Vase

I am the homeroom mom for Finn's daycare class, which kind of cracks me up.  My responsibilities were much more lax than I think a normal homeroom mom's would be, but either way, the end of the "school year" snuck up on me (as most things seem to these days!) and about a week before his classroom summer party, I was scrambling to send out letters to the other parents so that they could all chip in on a group gift if they so chose. 

A quick Google Images search of teacher's gifts brought up several versions of the pencil vase, which I thought was really adorable.  Finn has 2 teachers in his class (both named Jessica, coincedentally!) so with my limited timeframe, I thought this would be an easy and fun project to whip together. 

I went to Michael's and bought a couple of these glass jars with lids.  I didn't need the lids obviously, but the vases were the perfect size and shape, so I just discarded the lids when I got home.  I bought some very inexpensive Dixon #2 pencils to wrap them in.  Oh, and pay not attention to the mess on my worktable.  I was multi-projecting.  'Nuff said.

Next I just hot glued the pencils around the vase.  You have to pay pretty close attention to the spacing and to make sure you keep them really straight or else the last pencil in will look weird.

Next I whipped up a couple of apples from my Doodlecharms cartridge, and put a green Thickers "J" in each of them for Jessica(s!)

Some bright green ribbon around them, attach the apples and you're done!  I really meant to get photos of the vases with the sunflowers in them (they looked so pretty) but true to form, I ended up buying them at the 11th hour (literally on my way to the school for the party) so I didn't have time to photograph them before I handed them over to his teachers.  The other thing I added was one of those plastic card holders stuck admist the flowers that had a gift card for each teacher, as well as a little 'Thank You' note from the class.  They were a hit!