My Old Stuff Kit #5

Technically it IS still February, the month of love!  So this next kit up for grabs is a love themed kit put together from my “old” papers and embellishments.  It’s all unused and just waiting for you to turn it into something beautiful! 

There are two ways to enter:
1. Leave a comment on this post.
2. Become a follower or already be one!  Please let me know if you are a follower in your comment and I will give you a second entry into the drawing. 

It’s that easy!  I will give you all till Tuesday evening to enter and then I will draw a random winner.  Continental US entries only, please!

Muffins for a Crop Morning

Ahhh… crop weekend at A Cherry On Top. You’re happily cropping along, enjoying your “you time” and blissfully unaware of the needs of the rest of the household.

Until you hear the dreaded “Moooooommmmm!” or feel the eyes of hungry people boring into the back of your skull.

That’s where these muffins come in. This recipe for Anytime Muffins is super fast to whip up and will trick remind your family that you still care about them, after all. They’ll marvel at what a great wife and mom you are… just look at you baking from scratch and creating works of art all at the same time!

Anytime Muffins are not the “bang you over the head with flavor” kind of muffins. They are subtle and don’t leave you with a heavy feeling. They go great with a glass of OJ or your morning coffee. Or your afternoon tea. Or, well… pretty much any drink/time combination.

Anytime Muffins

- Stir together:
1 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/4 C. sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

- In a separate bowl combine:
1 beaten egg
3/4 C. milk
1/3 C. cooking oil

- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and combine just till moist.
- Add in choice of fruit. Berries are great. I like to make mine with a drained 8oz. can of crushed pineapple. You can also make these savory by adding in 1/2 C. of shredded cheese and some herbs, instead of fruit. Awesome for dinner!
- Grease/spray 12 muffin cups or line them with paper liners.
- Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 17-20 minutes or until your tester comes out clean and the tops are golden.
- Wait till the muffins are still warm but cool enough to handle and dip the tops in melted butter and then sugar. This is optional but oh so good!!

These come together in a flash and will have you back at your scrap desk before you know it! Happy cropping, everyone!

Hurry up! It’s starting!

The ACOT crop, that is!  An entire weekend of fun, games, challenges, prizes and points!  There’s a great site-wide sale going on and the usual laughs, of course.  Please join us in the festivities!

Restoration Part II

Check out the rest of my Crate Paper layouts over at Right at Home Scrapbooking! I had some fun with Glimmer Mist on this page:

I Just Call You Mine

I loved creating with Restoration! Thanks Right at Home!

Studs and Duds

I’m so tempted to write this post about ex-boyfriends. 

But no… I’ll play nice and stick with talking about scrappy stuff! 

Five Things I Can’t Believe I Scrapped Without:

1. The ATG gun.  I love, love, love never having to run out and buy adhesive.  I love how it adheres *everything*.  I love that it doesn’t get lost on my desk.  I love pretty much everything about it!

2. American Crafts 12 x 12 D-Ring albums.  I switched to these from post bound cheapies and I wish I had done it sooner.  Yes, you have a gap between pages but I never scrap two-pagers anyway.  And the ability to switch the pages around without taking apart the entire album… it’s a good thing!

3. The Making Memories trimmer.  It’s heavy but this baby works sooooo well.  I always have straight cuts and I never have to change the blade because it is self sharpening.  I also love that it folds in half so it doesn’t take up all of my desk.

4. Photoshop.  I use Photoshop CS4.  I’ve never really used Elements much because I don’t like being limited… I want all the bells and whistles and that is exactly what Photoshop gives me!  There is a reason why they are the clear leader in the industry. 

5. The Uniball Signo white pen.  There is NO better white pen.  I have tried eleventy billion of them and none have the opacity and glide of this one! 

 

Five Things I Can’t Believe I Spent My Money On

1. The Fiskars texture plates.  You know when you’re in the early stages of a hobby and you just buy everything that’s on sale? Yeah.  Lesson learned!  These were horrible. 

2. The Epic 6.  It looked so promising.  And honestly it worked just great… until it completely broke and their customer service refused to do anything about it.  FAIL!  It is now a ridiculously heavy paper weight. 

3. The Sew Mini.  I know, I know… they were basically giving these things away and you get what you pay for, right?  Talk about a piece of junk.  I am embarrassed I fell for this one.

4. Stacks of paper.  It took me a long time to learn this one.  No matter how much I love a particular line of paper there is NO WAY I will use an entire stack/pad of it!  Just say no.  Back away from the stacks!

5. Printed ribbons.  It’s not that these are awful or anything… they’re just not my bag, baby.  Somehow I ended up with tons of ribbons printed on one side with patterns or words and I never, ever use them.  If I use patterned ribbons they have to be double sided.  Oh well, live and learn!

 

So those are my lists.  What about you?  What do you think every scrapper  NEEDS to have?  What would you suggest we run far, far away from??

You think I could paper my house in Crate Paper?

Because that’s how much I love their Restoration line.  I have always loved Crate’s stuff but Restoration is probably my favorite line of theirs, ever. 

So I was stoked when Right at Home Scrapbooking sent me some gorgeous Restoration for my first Design Team assignment.  Here is one of my layouts from yesterday’s blog post but check out the rest of it to see and read more about what I created! 

I will admit… I’m kinda in love with this page!

That’s So Sketchy!

Today is my reveal day over at A Cherry on Top and this week four of us are showing you different interpretations of different sketches.  I chose this PageMaps sketch for us to work with:

And here is my take on it:

To see what I had to say about this sketch and to check out what my fellow CTers created see the full ACOT article!

Happy (late) Valentine’s Day!

We had a very busy Valentine’s Day here!  Pretty much ALL of my scrap assignments were due on the 15th and there has been one (or twelve) too many things on the plate, as they say.  Although it is late I wanted to wish you all out there in blog land a happy love day!

I made Owen’s robot shirt there from the template on The Boy Trifecta.  Nothing says “I love you” like a robot with a felt heart!  He pretty much looked ridiculously adorable in it.

I gave Ryan a few little gifties and this card and candy bar with a wrapper downloaded from Jeanne Winters.  It’s a “Udaman” chocolate bar… teehee! The card heart collage was also an internet printable that I dressed up. 

Tonight we went out for an AMAZING dinner at our favorite Tapas restaurant, Solea.  We “double dated” with our best friends and left the babies at their house in good hands.  Tapas, a LOT of sangria, champagne flights… then why not follow it up with a dessert sampler and wine at the best Italian place in town?  Don’t mind if I do!  It is so rare that we make it out sans little one… this was so worth the wait!

Ryan and Owen wrote me some super sweet cards and got me a perfectly purple orchid! 

I hope all you lovebirds had a wonderful day and evening! 

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

Are you ready for Valentine’s Day? NO!?!

Good thing I have come to your rescue with this amazing, crowd pleasing recipe for red velvet cupcakes!  There’s still time to whip up a batch of these succulent snacks and seduce your sweetheart.

This qualifies as a go-to recipe for Red Velvet cake.  They are moist, super rich in that gorgeous red color, and best of all you CAN NOT taste the dye in these!  cue angels singing

And despite what certain (WRONG) areas of the country believe I know that a true red velvet cupcake must ONLY be topped with cream cheese frosting.  Light, whipped, finger-lickin’ cream cheese frosting! 

Go on… whatcha waiting for? Get bakin’!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

* 2 1/2 cups flour (don't pack it down!)
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 cups sugar
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/2 cup milk (buttermilk is best but any will do)
* 1 (1 ounce) bottle Red Food Color
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. My oven takes 21 minutes… do not overbake!  Cool in pans on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Beat together:
6 ozs. softened cream cheese (no low fat BS!)
1/2 cup softened butter
2 teaspoons vanilla

Then gradually add:
4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups powdered sugar, depending on the consistency you want. If it gets too thick add a tiny amount of milk to thin it a bit.

I’m feeling Right at Home!

I am so thrilled to announce that I have joined the fabulously talented Design Team at Right at Home Scrapbooking in North Attleboro, MA!  This is an amazing store with a fantastic blog that you have to check out! 

I can’t wait to get rolling and add some inspiration of my own!

And now for something completely different…

Not really.  I just wanted to see how many of you are Monty Python fans! 

The past week has been a bit of a blur, I’ll admit.  We’ve had some “shake-ups” at home… nothing bad or particularly good, just different… more snow (and ice dams!), Owen’s molars causing major issues, and FOUR new gals joining the Creative Team at A Cherry on Top!

I am already having more fun than should be legal with Mandi, Carrie, Christina, and Rachel.  These ladies will rock your socks!  There’s already been plenty of shenanigans behind the scenes… just the way we like it. 

Amidst the general chaos of the week the teams at ACOT and Scrap That Baby generously gave us some reliable (but inspiring!) challenges.  Check out the February set at ACOT and the new Funny Faces prompt at Scrap That Baby!

The Weather Forecast

Yup, looks like we’re in the “shit load” section again!  ::eyeroll::

If you don’t hear from me for a few days it’s probably because we’ve been plowed in.  Seriously, I can barely see the mail box poking through the snow banks!

I’ve already baked bread and cookies today and I am about to rustle up some Potato Leek Soup for dinner.  Is all this snow actually going to force me to CLEAN!?  The horror!!

I hope everyone is staying warm… and sane!