Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Apple Pie Bars

I haven't had much time for "extra fun things" (like crafts) since we started our 3rd grade year of homeschooling...so I haven't had many crafty things to share with you lately.   One thing that still has to be done (homeschooling or not) is cooking......so I thought I'd share these Apple Pie Bars I made recently for week-end guests.
Apple Pie Bars
Crust
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup shortening
4 egg yolks
2 T. lemon juice
8 to 10 T cold water
In large bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.  Cut in shortening till mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks, lemon juice, and water. Gradually stir wet mixture into dry mixture, tossing with fork until dough forms a ball. Divide in half. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
Roll out one portion of dough on floured surface -- big enough to fit your cookie sheet. Transfer 1st portion to an ungreased cookie sheet.
Filling
7 cups finely chopped, peeled apples
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
In bowl, toss apples, sugar, flour and cinnamon.  Spread over crust.  Roll out remaining portion of dough and place over filling. 
Trim edges; cut slits in top.  
Bake @ 375 degrees for 45 - 50 minutes or
until golden brown. 
Cook on wire rack. 
Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 T milk
1 T lemon juice
Combine glaze ingredients - drizzle over bars. 
Cut and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
Yield: About 2 dozen
Enjoy!!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Simple Birthday

Supplies used:
  • Birthday Surprise embossing folder (Sizzix)
  • Snow Cap embossing folder (Sizzix)
  • Chalks
  • Pink ribbon

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Bee Card


Supplies used:
  • Bee digital image from Sew Many Cards (Freebie Friday)
  • Black/White/Yellow cardstock
  • Crayola markers
  • Homemade Rolled Rose

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Ramblings

Yes, I know I've been MIA for a while now --- the end of summer has been very busy around here.  Now I'm in the middle of preparing to homeschool a 3rd grader so not sure how much I'll get in on all the goodies floating around Blog Land. 
Thought I'd share  few misc. projects with you today - and first up is a doily and dishcloth I did earlier this summer.  My mom and dad recently added a bathroom on the main floor of their home and it's done in tan with accents of yellow.  I made the above doily for my mom's new bathroom counter (to go under the 3 wick candle I bought her while I was visiting earlier this year!).
You can find the pattern here --- The Yvestown Blog  
Another crocheted dishcloth:
Here are a few little paper purses I made up using a stamp I saw at the Allentown Rubber Stamp Convention (actually bought it from a Mennonite ladie's shop as it was cheaper there)..... it comes from Too much Fun Rubberstamps
Oh, and remember the baby quilt I made earlier?  I forgot to show you the Big Sister and Big Brother gifts I included in that package!
Just a few fun things from Dollar General that I knew the kids would like.  My sister-in-law (Pam) and I used to get "scolded" from our hubbies at birthday parties because we'd always buy all the "non-birthday" cousins  a little gift too.  They never could quite figure out why all the kids needed "consolation prizes" when it wasn't their  birthday.
One last item:  A birthday envelope (sorry the pic is such poor quality!).  This was my quick fix for a guy in our church whose birthday I nearly missed.  Not only was it fast to make (simply stamp and color), but I haven't met too many teenage guy's that got overly excited over a birthday card.  An envelope with a little cash in it -- well that's a different story! 

Monday, August 15, 2011

Square Cards

I purchased this collage sheet off of Etsy some time back, and just recently enlarged the images and made four of the squares into cards.  With all the free images there are out there, I very rarely purchase anything like this.  But I wanted it for a special project and since $2.50 didn't break the bank I went ahead with it.
The images themselves didn't need a lot done to them -- just some coloring (with colored pencils) and flower soft added to two of them.
Also added some faux stitching around edges with a felt tip pen.
Very simple and easy to make if you need a card in a hurry.  I love how soft and feminine they turned out, and also love that I found some images that fit my flower soft perfectly!
You can click the images of the cards to pull them up big and better see the details.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Spritzer Fun!

A friend of mine recently cleaned out her craft room and graciously donated all the stuff she didn't use anymore to me! I've had so much fun going through it all and discovering new tools and lots of other fun stuff. This spritzer was one of the items in the stash and recently I got it out to "play" with.
I don't own any Stampin' Up markers, but I found that it works just as well with Bic Markers (which I do own!).
I used it to make two backgrounds for my cards -- above and below
A little closer view of the 1st background so you can see better what effect it has
Then I pulled out some embossing folders (one especially that needs to stand alone) and used it to make the some CAS cards.
I spritzed first, embossed second, and then lightly rubbed some coordinating ink over the images to make them "pop."  Not a whole lot more needed on these cards.
Lastly, I used it to distress two masculine cards I made by spritzing lightly over the Tim Holtz stamped  images in this first one -
A little closer view
...And spritzing after I  stamped my Lighthouse stamp (Stamps Happen) onto a piece of my homemade paper (love the effect that gives the image!!!) and after coloring (with colored pencils).  I spritzed both the background and the stamped image.

 In case you can't tell -- I had a lot of fun with it! Thanks so much Christa for sharing your  no-longer-used supplies with me!
Wanted to leave you with a link: Julile Gearinger has some wonderful cards she's made using the Spritzer - if your looking for inspiration - she has it!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Zucchini Cookies


Zucchini Cookies
1 stick butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup grated zucchini
1 cup oats
1 cup flour
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream sugars and butter together. 
Add zucchini, egg, and vanilla - beat.
Combine dry ingredients and add to wet mixture.
Add walnuts and chocolate chips
Drop by teaspoon fulls onto buttered cookie sheet.
Bake @ 350 degrees for 8 minutes - let set on cookie sheet 3 minutes before removing to wire racks -- cool.
ENJOY!

These cookies turn out cake like -- so soft and yummy.  Both my therapist and his receptionist LOVED them!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Baby Gifts

Well I'm not an expert seamstress, and don't consider myself a quilter either -- BUT I wanted to make something special to welcome sweet little Payton to the world.
I found a pack of pre-cut squares at our Wal-mart in pinks and browns and fell in love with it. The above quilt was the project I decided to make with them.
My friend Abby sent me her burp cloth pattern (that she makes from soft flannel) so I made two of those to go along with the quilt. I really like the "dog bone" shape of them as they curve in at the shoulder and fit around your neck well (something like the ones in this tutorial -- except I like Abby's a bit better). I used the zig zag stitch to top-stitch around them once I'd turned them...like the look it gave them.
 Of course no gift is complete without a homemade card...click picture for a closer view.
Supplies used:
  • Pink Cardstock
  • Pink Paint 
  • Scalloped Rolled Rose
  • Homemade notebook edged paper
  • Vellum sentiment (Thanks for the big pack of them Christa!)
  • Glitter strips with Scor Tape (from this tutorial)
  • Silver Rhinestones
  • Lace
    • under the sentiment
  • Large Scalloped Circle 
    • (freebie from a stamp company --  I traced it off to use as a pattern)
  • Faux Stitching around s.circle with felt tip pen
  • Vellum Teddy Bear (Hot Off The Press)
  I love making baby stuff -- and especially like pink and brown together so this gift was a lot of fun to assemble!

Here's the baby card my 8 yr. old made.....she wanted it to be funny.  The background behind this card comes from  a Berenstain Bears book about where brother and sister get a new baby sister.  Sister has to carry the dirty diapers to the trash and frequently says "Pee-yoo!"  She has a bit of a jealousy problem until Papa and Mama bear show her home movies of when she was a baby.
That's why giraffe on this card is carrying the baby giraffes diaper to the trash and saying "Peyou!"
My daughter hand drew all the elements of the card -- the trees, the giraffe etc....... her mother's only "slightly jealous" of her artistic ability - actually she's very "jealous" of it!
This post linked to:
Whatever You Want Wednesday

Monday, August 1, 2011

Making Paper

Last week my daughter and I had so much fun making homemade paper out of scrap paper. You see...I'm one of those people who doesn't throw away my scraps of paper when I'm finished with a paper project....instead I save it all in a bin organized according to color.
You can see in this picture that my bin was overflowing with scraps and once I dumped it all out I realized some of those scraps weren't really all that usable.  Some were extremely wrinkled (from being smashed in the bin), some were little bits of paper with shapes punched out (saved "just in case" I needed a small pink flower or a branch punched out) and still others were pieces of paper I really didn't care for any more.
After sorting  it all out and tearing each "never gonna use" pile into small bits I had this:
The piles on the left of this photo are all cardstock piles organized according to color.  The big pile on the right is my patterned paper scraps -- they'll be used much like you would recycle junk mail with patterns/colors on it.
And look -- I still had two bins of scraps left to use - albeit greatly reduced and a lot more organized!
O.K. now on to the actual paper making.....
I found this kit at a thrift store sometime last year (for $2.99 never been used), and it's been sitting in my craft room (gathering dust) up until now. 
I started out by shredding some junk mail up and adding some dried flowers to it.....that's the paper you see to the far right in the above photo. (All the rest is cardstock)
After it's shredded you add some to your blender -- add water and blend!
You then pour this into a container (I used an under the bed rubber maid type container) and add more water to that.  It takes about 2 to 3 blenders of pulp to get a good thickness to your paper.
I then put my screen in the water - pulled it up and the pulp sticks to the top.
My instructions say I can bake it in the oven for 20 minutes on 250 degrees (right on the screen) to speed up the drying process.  OR you can let it air dry, but that can take up to 6 hours for one piece!
Remove the paper and dip the screen in the vat again for a new piece.
I think we managed about 18 pieces the day we made it -- the four on the right were made the night before. You'll notice that I only have three colors -- cream, blue, and pink!  AND I still have some blue and pink paper scraps left.  You get quite a bit of paper for as little as you put into it. It is a rather time consuming process, but I LOVE the feel of homemade paper and also like it that I'm not wasting all that leftover cardstock!
Here's a little closer view of the paper so you can see the texture of it -- I love it!
Here's a tutorial on making paper -- there seem to be several different ways to do it - I just followed the instructions in my kit.
I wouldn't mind to find another one for cheap just for the screens -- then I could make 4 pieces at once and really get things rolling!
Here's my first project using my homemade paper -- a decoration for the bulletin board for the month of August.

Supplies:
  • Clipart from Scrapbook Studio (Hallmark)
    • a disk I picked up at a thrift store for$1
  • Homemade paper
  • Brown Cardstsock
  • Shells from our local beach

This post linked to:
Made With Love Monday
Craft Catwalk
Making Monday Marvelous
Tip Me Tuesday 
Penny Pinching Party 
T.G.I.F.