Pass It On - Card 2

Good morning everyone and I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend! We had a good one here. It was busy, a little stressful, but good! The best part of my weekend, well second best part.... watching my little one play in the leaves yesterday was the highlight of my weekend....so the second best part of my weekend was working on the next card that I'm offering for the Pass It On Ministry.

The inside says:
You make each day a little brighter!

This card could be yours! All that you need to do is make a comment here and on Friday, I will pick a random winner. Then the fun part is up to you! You get to Pass It On to someone who needs a little TLC. That's the beauty of this ministry. Surprising someone with a handmade card. Someone who is in need of some uplifting words, well wishes, thanks......or just to say "Hi!". Be sure to read Kathy's vision of this ministry here. And spread the word! Be sure to check back here on Friday afternoon to see if you're the lucky winner of this card! I hope you all have a wonderful week and thank you for helping me Pass It On!

Colorful - layout - Tri-Blog Challenge @ Practical Scrappers

Wow. What a weekend. It wasn't super busy. Just stressful for some reason. Maybe it was because I just wasn't able to do anything creative until late Sunday night...... I can't tell you how much it helps my stress-levels if I am able to create a little bit each day!

This layout was lots of fun to do! Practical Scrappers is having their first Tri-Blog Challenge! You could make one layout using the challenge from each of the three blogs or you could make a layout for each challenge. I chose to do one layout and use all three challenges. The challenge at Practical Scrappers this week is to use at least three ribbons. The other two challenges are to use the provided sketch at Stuck on U Sketches and from Frosted Designs to use an owl on your layout. I was a little worried about the owl, because I wasn't sure if I had any, besides some little stickers. But then I remembered that I had saved the tag from this super-cute tote bag that I had picked up from Borders awhile ago. The tote is covered with these darling owls! And, the tag was one of the owls and worked perfect for this layout. Especially since he's a little colorful himself! I think that this is probably the most busy layout I've ever done. lol But, I think it works......I hope so!
I added a little red brad and some ribbon to the owl, so he didn't have hole in his head anymore. lol Then I looked through my drawer of magnet words and found "unique". I think it's fitting!

Journaling says:

Little Miss Gracie,
You look so darn cute in these tights! They are so big and baggy and then you insisted on wearing my bunny socks, too! You are such a COLORFUL little girl and a sweetie pie, too!
Jan 2009

Pass It on Card Ministry - First Give Away!

From Country Life in the Big City

I want to first thank all of you sweet ladies who said such wonderful things about the card that I made. Thank you so much! I am really feeling the blessings of this ministry already and this is my first card give away! I also want to thank Kathy again for letting me be apart of her Pass It On ministry. Plus, I have wonderful news! Kathy has had another person come forward asking to join the ranks! Please be sure to visit Janet's blog at Janet Creations and also the founder Kathy's blog at Pass It On.

Now for the fun part! I used the Random Number Generator at random.org and the random number that it picked from 1-7 was 3!!!! (I'm sorry, I don't know how to copy the generator graphic to show it to you here....) The third person to comment was Erika! Congratulations! I'll be contacting you soon to get your address and then I'll get your card in the mail to you. Then you get to do the fun part.....you get to Pass It On to someone who needs some TLC!

Thank you again, ladies, for visiting my blog, for your wonderful comments and for helping me to Pass It On!

I will be posting the next card soon, so be sure check back and to tell your friends. Be sure to visit Kathy and Janet's blogs, too!

Home Sweet Home - layout

I love to surf around and get inspiration from all of the amazing blogs out there. Here is where I found the idea for my latest layout. I thought that this was the neatest idea ever and even better because the challenge this week at Practical Scrappers was to use your punches! I had also saved the fabric sample that was attached to the package that the play house came in. When I saw that tag, I knew that I had to save it and use it on a layout! I added some blue/gray ribbon to to look like smoke coming from the houses chimney. This layout also meets one of the October assignments at the Yahoo! group ScrapFromYourStash to use brads, flowers and handwritten journaling.

I'm hoping to get more scrapping done this afternoon! I hope you are able to craft today, too!

Bake Sale Madness - part 2 - Salted Nut Roll Bars

Okay, so how yummy does this look? Oh wow. These are SO GOOD!!!!!! You have to totally forget about your eating-well plan when you look at these.....they are oozing with butter. lol This is the second thing that I made for my churches bake sale tomorrow. I packaged them the same way as I did the Sweet Trail Mix, except I placed each square on top of a food-safe doily to pretty it up a little bit more. This is another easy recipe and makes a lot. I usually don't cut them into pieces this big, but since it was for a bake sale, I made them larger squares. I usually cut them half this size and that's plenty because they are so rich!

Salted Nut Roll Bars-

1 package yellow cake mix
2/3 cup or 11 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
1 bag miniature marshmallows
2/3 cup corn syrup
12 oz. peanut butter chips
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cups dry roasted peanuts

Crust-
Mix dry cake mix with the 2/3 cup of melted butter and the egg. Put into a greased jelly roll pan. ( I line my pan with parchment paper). Use your hands/fingers to press the mixture to the edges and to make as even as you can. Bake at 350F degrees for 14 minutes. It will NOT be done. Sprinkle crust with marshmallows, covering evenly. Return to the oven, bake for 8 minutes. Cool.

Combine the corn syrup, peanut butter chips, peanut butter, 1/4 cup butter and vanilla in a saucepan and cook on low/medium until melted and mixed well. Stir often. Do not over cook. Pour this mixture over the marshmallow layer evenly. Sprinkle with peanuts. Let cool and cut into bars.

Yum.

Here's how mine turned out and are all ready to go to the bake sale!

Bake Sale Madness - part 1 - Sweet Trail Mix

Do you remember my talking about frantically searching for 2 recipes yesterday? Well, here's why. I wanted to make them for a bake sale at our church tomorrow. It is during a craft boutique, so I thought that this Sweet Trail Mix would be easy to snack on while walking around and looking at all of the beautiful items for sale. I put 1 1/4 cups of mix each cello-bag and I got about 22 bags per recipe. I did make two batches of this and for two reasones: 1- It is SOOO good! 2- It is SOOO easy! lol Here's the recipe:

Sweet Trail Mix-

2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 box of Crispix cereal - or generic brand - either is fine
2 cups peanuts
1 bag of M&M's - the big bags in the candy aisle - not the little ones you find by the cash register

Before starting, tear off a couple of big sheets of wax paper or aluminum foil and place them on your counter to make one big sheet. You will need this to pour the hot mixture onto so that it can cool.

1. Empty the box of Crispix and peanuts into a brown paper grocery bag. Give it a good shake to mix.

2. In a medium sauce pan, bring the first three ingredients to a boil. Boil for three minutes. Remove the pan from heat and then add the vanilla and baking soda. Stir well.

3. Pour the mixture over the cereal. fold over the bag several times and give it a good shake. Be careful, because the syrup is VERY HOT and the bag will get hot in your hands. I try to hold it by the top where its rolled up and then use my other hand to help flip the bag from side to side and upside down and back.

4. Place the bag in the microwave. Cook on high for 2 1/2 minutes.

5. Remove the bag from the microwave and shake well again.

6. Place the bag back into the microwave and cook on high for 2 1/2 minutes.

7. Remove the bag from the microwave and shake well again. Pour the mixture out onto waxed paper or foil. Use a metal spatula to spread the mixture out as much as you can and to help break it up a bit. Once it is cooled, break apart clumps with your hands. Pour into a big bowl and add the M&M's.

8. Put into an air-tight container or big Zip-loc bag. Enjoy!!!

Here is how I packaged them for the bake sale!

It's a sickness.......

......it really is. I am totally addicted to collecting recipes. I admit it and here's the proof. A tub full of them, 3 binders and a file box. All of them are full of recipes. The sad thing is this.....I have thrown a lot of them away. And I do mean A LOT! And, even worse. This doesn't include any cookbooks. Those are tucked all over my house and when we moved recently, I was forced to face the fact that I had way too many of them and I ended up purging out several hundred cookbooks from my collection. It's amazing what moving into a smaller house does to your collections of "stuff". lol If you're wondering why they are all sitting on top of my table....it's because I was desperately searching for a recipe this morning. Well over an hour worth of searching, too! I was trying to find two recipes that I've had forever. I knew exactly what they looked like, what type of paper they were on and how they were printed out. Every detail. Excpet the most important one. Where they were! I am happy to report that I did finally find them. But, this has made me see that I really, really need to do something about this mess. So, this is what I'll be doing for awhile. Organizing my recipes. I have a few ideas that I'm working on and I will be sure to share.

I hope that I'm not the only person who's addicted to collecting recipes. And the crazy thing is that there is no possible way that I will ever be able to make them all. lol It sure is nice to know that I just might have that perfect recipe filed away and waiting for me to make it.....as long as I can find it first!