4th of July cookies

I love holidays! All of them. I love the chance to create crafts and foods for special celebrations; even if it is just for my kids. (hey, they are an easy audience to please) I recently found an awesome M&M cookie recipe that I love. They are thick, chewy and loaded with chocolate. Yum!

With Independence Day quickly approaching I decided to make some red, white and blue cookies to bring to the lake with us. I already had a bag of M&M's on hand, so instead of paying the big bucks for single color M&M's I just took all the red and blue ones out of the bag I had. I ended up with 1 cup of M&M's then I added 1 cup of white chocolate chips to get the 2 cups of chocolate that I needed for the cookies.
A couple of things that make these cookies so delicious:
1. corn starch; yep I was skeptical at first, but it makes the cookies thick and chewy. (just a quick note: if you like to eat raw dough, and honestly who doesn't, the corn starch will leave a bitter taste in the dough. It all cooks out though I promise!)
2. Use real vanilla if you can. Seriously, it smells amazing and is so good. My grandma gets me a bottle of vanilla every year when she goes to Mexico, it is a small indulgence that I really enjoy. I know that vanilla can be pretty expensive so if you have vanilla extract feel free to use that.

The recipe:

Chewy M&M cookies - makes approximately 3 dozen cookies

1 cup butter - softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg + 1 yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 ounce package of M&M chocolates*
1/2 cup chocolate chips*
*or some combination that equals about 2 cups of chocolate (more or less to your taste)

Beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Slowly add flour, corn starch, baking soda and salt and mix just until combined. Add chocolate chips and M&
M's (reserve some for tops of cookies). Refrigerate dough overnight or at least 1 hour. (seriously! it really makes the texture of the cookie perfect)

Preheat oven to 375*. Roll dough into balls and place on cookie sheets. Bake for 7-10 minutes. Press reserved M&M's on top of cookies while still warm. Enjoy, and I would love to hear if you try them.

Loads of cheer

got a few more Christmas cards done. I knew I wouldn't be able to stick with the same design for all my cardes. lol It sure would make the whole card making process easier though.
This one uses the Stampin' Up Loads of Love set. I got this stamp set at a garage sale this summer. love it!

time for Christmas cards

So, now that the calendar has flipped to December, I have finally decided to start my Christmas cards. A little late, but oh well.

I finished these 1st few using PTI's make it monday video. I lifted the idea from one of the previous submissions, and I just love it. I may use this as my 1 design for Christmas cards this year. That is if I can stick to just one design. :)

dresser

I love it when you set out to make something and it turns out just exactly as you intended it to. This was one of those times. :)

I saw a card just like this on pinterest. (you've got to join the pinterest craze if you haven't already; it is so much fun) I loved it, pinned it, and THEN I actually created my own the next day. wow!

 I can't wait to have some more time to create. I plan on trying a dresser with a distressed paint job. Oh, and maybe one with scrolls painted on the drawer fonts. Of course I need one in black and one in white, and maybe some with colorful drawer knobs. ;)

I lined the inside of the card with white since it was a dark colored card base. Next time I will remember to do that before I diecut the bottom.

Here is a link to the original card:

http://www.stampthat.com/blog/baby-boy-handmade-dresser-card/

bake sales

Today is our school's annual craft sale. This is one of our biggest fundraisers for the school. We make and sell apple pies and dumplings, pig in the blankets, turkey rollups, and bonquet. We also have families donate homemade soups, jams and jellies, breads and cookies. As I was baking all my goodies for the sale I decided I wanted to make them pretty, but I didn't want to have to spend too much time or money on it. Here is what I came up with.

I wrapped my breads ( and batches of cookies as well) in plastic wrap and tied with pretty ribbon. I jsut dug in my scrap ribbon jar and pulled out a few that were long enough to wrap around. Then I slipped in a tag with the name of the baked goodies handwritten on it.

In order to make my tags quick, easy and cute I just used journaling cards from this sheet of cards by Jillibean soup.

Well I am off to go work my shift at the sale. I want to wish my Mom a very happy birthday today as well. It is a big one this year, and we will be celebrating with friends and family in my parents barn tonight.

Angry Birds party

My son recently turned 8 years old. He requested an Angry Birds themed birthday party and I was more than happy to oblige. There are no Angry Bird party decorations available in stores yet. (there are however a lot of really wonderful things available on etsy.com if you are interested) So being the crafty Mom that I am I went to the internet for inspiration, and I was able to find so many fun ideas and helpful printables. I thought I would share some of the things I did for the party. 

I made a fun bunch of angry bird balloons using the free face printables from:

http://www.thepartyanimal-blog.org/ The kids were able to take home a balloon after the party and what is better than that?

Next I made these cute little bird and pig boxes. I made these using the free printable from:

 http://littleplasticman.blogspot.com/2011/03/dont-mess-with-these-birds.html While I think these are adorable they were a LOT smaller that I originally envisioned. They didn't make much of a statement in the decorations so I probably wouldn't waste the ink and time on them next time.

 I made party horns using graphics found online that I just print and cut out. There were just adhered on cardstock circles over party horns left over from a past birthday party. I then covered some plain bubbles from the Target dollar spot. I used the angry birds font to attach a birthday message on them.

 I had a lot of fun cutting the watermelon and using a sharpie to draw a pigs face on it. I then used it to serve the cut up watermelon.

 I made a papermache pinata and decorated it using the same printables as the balloons.

 Finally I made an Angry Birds scene on the cake. The cake is nothing fancy, just a box mix and chocolate frosting from a can. I saved all my energy for the decorations. I made birds and pigs from oreo truffles coated in colored candy melts. The eyes and feathers were made from more candy melts. The beaks and pig snouts were made from candy pumpkins that I jsut cut to shape. I made a slingshot out of snacksize Twix bars held together with melted chocolate. The structure that the pigs were on was made from kitkats also "glued" together with melted chocolate.

The party was a big success. Besides the pinata we had 2 more Angry Bird themed games. We used cardboard bricks to build a real life Angry Birds game and used the boys stuffed angry birds to throw at the structure and knock down the pigs made from green play balls. We also saved the eggs from the pigs in an egg hunt using plastic easter eggs.

It takes more time and effort to make all your own party supplies, but it is always worth it when you see the pure joy on the birthday boys face.

more baby bibs

With my SIL expecting I've had a few baby showers to go to recently. I love making baby things. This shower was for my SIL and her friend who are both due near Christmas this year.

I made this bib with a scrap of the wrapping paper so that it matched the gift. I've had the adorable hippo embellishment for a long time so I decided it was time to put it to use.  I made the bow for the present from crepe paper for a soft, flowy look.

My SIL's gift was a giraffe crate (I need to get some pics of it... forgot to get pics before we gave it to her oops). I wanted to make a card that matched.

The stamp on front says "Babies are such sweet beginnings". I love the quote and the mixed fonts are fun.