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 :)