Pinterest Group: Love Photo Cubes

I mentioned early this week that one of my friends started a Pinterest group and this week was our first project. Not only was it nice to get together with friends, but it was great to leave with a finished Valentine decoration.

This was a simple and fun project that we based on this tutorial that was discovered through Pinterest.

Project Supplies
4 Square Wood Blocks cut to 3.5 inches
13 Black and White Photos
Patterned Paper
LOVE letters (I cut mine from Silhouette black fuzzy vinyl)
Embellishments
Mod Podge
Distress Ink
Sandpaper
(All paper and embellishments came from the Be Mine Kit.)

1. Cut paper and photos to 3.5 inches.
2. Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge to block and attach paper/photos.
3. Sand the edges of the photos if you want a distressed look.
4. Use distress ink along the edges.
5. After the glue and ink have dried, apply a thin layer of Mod Podge over the photos and paper to seal them.
6. Add desired embellishments.

The black and white photos with the colored paper and embellishments creates a nice contrast.

I'm happy with how this turned out. Looking forward to next month's Pinterest group!

Be Mine, Valentine

This past week I spent a little time making Valentines.

I only used the Scrapbook Circle Be Mine Kit for these Valentines. No other supplies were needed.

The kit comes with eight glassine envelopes and I wanted to make good use of those. For the first two Valentines, I made cards that could slip in and out of the envelopes. The back of the card is plain white so that there is space for a message to be written.  I put embellishments on both the card and the front of the envelope.

The rest of the Valentines include candy. The red/pink/white twine was perfect for tying the envelopes shut so that the candy wouldn't fall out. Plus it adds a pretty touch to the cards.

I slipped a piece of colored paper into the envelopes to give it some stability and add to the color of the project.

I loved using the Crate Paper Heart border stickers on these Valentines. They were a quick way to add embellishment with nice results.

Will you be making Valentines this year?

Busy, Crafting Week

This week has been filled with lots of craft projects.

This Saturday is a baby shower for my sister in law at my house so I have been busy cleaning and doing some decorating. I'm not doing a lot of decorating, but here's a look at what I've done so far.

I attempted my first sewing project this week and thanks to this tutorial, it turned out really well.  Here's a look at the fabrics I used. I'll have to post the finished product after the shower. I never knew choosing fabrics could be as fun as choosing paper!

With the scraps of fabric, I decided to embellish some onesies. I used the my Silhouette to cut out the shapes. Love that it cuts fabric. Tonight I'm going to hand stitch around the fabric elements to make sure they are secure.

My friend Hillary started a Pinterest group and today was our first meeting. The plan for the group is to meet once a month and make a craft that we've found on Pinterest. Today our project was based on this tutorial. Hopefully I will share the finished project tomorrow.

We met around lunchtime and can brought food to share that we made with recipes found on Pinterest. I made this Pesto Cream Cheese Bake.

Hope your week is going well!

Project Life: Week Two

Two weeks into the the Project Life album and I'm excited to share my pages today.

I've decided to use the upper left pocket of the album each week to mark the date for the week. This will allow some continuity each week without using matching or coordinating products throughout the album.

I've been mostly focusing on the filling my pages with photos and adding little bits of journaling. This week I'm letting the photos tell the stories. In some future weeks, I may want to focus more on journaling.

In addition to photos, I also included the cover of a take out menu plus some photo booth photos mounted to a card about birthday parties at Smeeks. I didn't want to include the birthday party info, but I did like the title and the little elf guy, so I let that peek out from under the photos.

A few Elle's Studio tags and Scrapbook Circle printables were prefect for sticking to photos and doing bits of journaling. I like having small tags that I can quickly grab and fit on the photos.

I also used an American Crafts Slick Writer to journal directly onto a couple of the photos. This works great on photos with some white space.

Both this week and last week I used one of the smaller journaling cards to list out a few highlights from the week. These things don't necessarily have a photo, but they are a few fun facts about the week.

I'm determined to keep this project simple without many embellishments so that I can stay motivated and excited about the project.


Week 2 Project Life Supplies: Patterned paper from variety of Scrapbook Circle Kits, Design A Page Protectors, Journaling Tag and Arrow Stickers from Clementine Core Kit, January and Circle Tag from Elle's Studio, Journalng Pen and Slick Writer from American Crafts.

Giant Ginger Cookies

I really like cookies. Tonight my sister and I we discussing that cookies really could be the perfect dessert.

Here are a few reasons cookie could be considered the best dessert:

* They are more dense than cake and you can really sink your teeth into them.
* Perfect combination of sugar and butter.
* They usually involve chocolate. (At least the cookies I make usually involve chocolate.)
* You eat them with your hands.
* They come in many varieties.

Today I tried out a new recipe for Giant Ginger Cookies and they were really delicious.The recipe came from my friend Desiree and I pretty much followed her recipe except I swapped the shortening for butter. 

The recipe didn't call for dipping them in chocolate, but as you can see from the above list, my cookies usually need to include chocolate.

These were large, thick and perfectly soft.

Want to make these?  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
4 1/2 cup flour
4 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
sugar for rolling dough balls

Directions:
1. Stir together flour, ginger, soda, cloves and salt and set aside.

2. Using a mixer, beat butter until softened and then gradually add 2 cups of sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs and molasses and mix until combined.

3. Add 1/2 of the flour mixture and mix until combined. Stir in remaining flour with a wooden spoon.

4. Use a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop to shape 2" dough balls. Roll in sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Allow space between cookies because these will grow quite a bit while baking. Press flat with your hand or a cup.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 - 14 minutes or until cookies are light brown and puffed. Let stand for 2 minutes on cookie sheet after removing them from the oven and then place on a wire rack to cool.

If you want to dip in chocolate, allow cookies to cool completely. (I cooled the cookies in the fridge because I was short on time.)

Melt 1 cup of chocolate chips in a bowl in the microwave for one minute intervals until melted. Dip cookies in chocolate and use a spoon to help spread the chocolate.

Place dipped cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and allow chocolate to cool. You can place them in the fridge to help the chocolate firm up more quickly.

Let me know if you give these a try. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

New Year Weekend + Valentine Kit

Happy Friday to you. This week just flew by. My to do list is still pretty long, but I'm happy with the progress made each day.

This week I did finish up one layout. Not too much creating this week since I was working on finishing up the accounting books and figuring out 1099's for my husband's business. Hopefully more creative time will be found next week!

Layout supplies: You + Me Kit, Making Memories Sky Paint

I used a mix of Instagram photos plus other photos cropped into squares.

When all of the paper and photos were attached to the page, the layout still didn't feel finished. So I decided to paint a few circles on the page with some paint and an Ikea kid's cup. The circles added a fun touch. I probably would have added more, but since all of my photos were already attached to the page I didn't want to risk covering them in paint.

Today we just added a Be Mine Valentine mini kit to the Scrapbook Circle shop.

It's a fun mix of 6 x 6 inch paper, embellishments and white glassine bags. I'm thinking up some fun valentines to create with this kit!

Tonight we're trying this recipe I found on Pinterest.  The roast I found at Sam's Club was 9 pounds (huge!) so I invited two families over tonight to help us eat it. Hope it's good. We're also hoping to fire up our hardly used fire pit tonight for some s'mores. We like to make s'mores with PB Cups instead of plain chocolate. Should be a fun night.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Take Twelve: January 2012

Ella Publishing issued a challenge to take 12 photos on the 12th of each month this year and I thought it would be fun to join in.

My photos today were very random, but it gives a little peek into some of what I was up to today.

Without this challenge I doubt that any of these photos would be taken, so I'm grateful for the challenge!

I'm thinking next month I might try to take one photo every hour of the day for 12 hours. Are you joining in on the challenge?