Blonde Brownies

So I'm finally sharing my brownie recipe with you. These are the brownies I planned to make to put in my little tucked away boxes I shared with you here. I was really bummed that they didn't turn out. They were thick and cakey, not moist and gooey, like I like them! So I tried again. Now that I have my cool Kitchenaid Mixer, I don't usually worry about softening butter when a recipe tells me to, since my mixer just blends everything right up. Well, this recipe doesn't just tell you to soften the butter, you are supposed to melt it. MELT IT! It makes a big difference in the finished product. Oh, you can also add nuts to these. My mom always did, and has that listed on her recipe card. Since my husband and my son are allergic to nuts, I never add them to anything, or even put them on the recipe card.
Moving on to other fun digital news. This Saturday is the September release of Digiments. To answer some questions people have had on changing colors of Digiments, etc., Morgaine, who is a Digiments designer, made 3 videos showing you how to change the colors on Digiments, how to work with gradients, and how to work with different backgrounds. Also on the Digiments site, are 2 free challenge Digiments available. So head over there to check out what is going on. I can't wait to show you the projects I made using this month's releases.

Oatmeal Bread

Here is a recipe that is a favorite at our house. I LOVE homemade bread. For as long back as I can remember, if it was Wednesday, my mom was in the kitchen making homemade bread. To this day that is one of my favorite smells and tastes. This recipe is a modification of one I found in an old church cookbook. The original had the oats soaking in water, and a lot of "extra" steps. I love to cook, but don't love to spend all day doing it, and I'll combine as many steps into one as I can. If you are not a fan of wheat flour, you can definitely use all white flour, and it's super yummy that way, too. Also, I have made this by hand, before my KitchenAid mixer days, as well as used a bread maker. Pretty much any way will work, and the end result is so good. This recipe only makes one loaf, so if you want more homemade goodness to enjoy, definitely double the recipe.

Cookie Dough Truffles

Over at Laurie's blog, she posted the most delicious recipe for cookie dough truffles. You can find her post here. She titled her post: "Do you snitch cookie dough?" It totally caught my eye, and that day it even got me giggling. Raw eggs freak me out, and so I don't let anyone at my house snitch raw cookie dough. Well, she has the perfect solution. This delicious recipe. It is heavenly! I had a cookie exchange to go to last week, and these were the cookies I took. I think my husband thought I was crazy to share all these good cookies with other people. If he'd have had his way I would have left these home and taken some oreos to exchange! So thank you Laurie for sharing your wonderful tasty treat with us! She has pictures of the finished product, too, which really make me hungry. These are the cards I made to accompany my cookies at the exchange. The blues really look better all together in real life. Something about fuzzy cameras or crazy computer screens!

Side Dish Recipe Swap

This is one of my final recipe swaps before Christmas. I have so much fun making these recipe cards. But the best part is all of the wonderful recipe cards I've received. There are so many talented people that participate. I always love a day when I get my swaps in the mail. For this card I used this cheery paper from doodlebug designs. The cardstock is Bazzill. I printed the recipe on vellum, and attached that with eyelets. Stamping was optional, and I decided to stamp a few flowers on the vellum. I used a flower from Stampin' Up Big Pieces as well as Little Flowers. Then in the center of the flowers I added a little pink sparkle. Now, I'm off to let my daughter do all the stamping today, since for her birthday she said she wants to "stamp all day long and be in charge." Great 5-year old wishes!

Chimichanga Recipe

Tomorrow is our kids' Halloween party. Which means today is full of rushing around getting ready. But first I had to complete a recipe card for one of my swaps that must be mailed out today. The swap is for simple, easy, or make ahead type recipes for a new mom. I signed up because I thought it would be fun to get some easy recipes that maybe my kids will eat. Who knows? Anyway, I found this Basic Grey paper shortly after signing up for this swap, and it really caught my eye. I liked the colors of it a lot. I used my Stampin' Up Wash Day Jumbo roller across the top, and then put some ribbon across the middle. It was a simple recipe card to do, but I really like the way it looks. I originally found some blue, red, and yellow mini safety pins that I was going to use as an embellishment in addition to the ribbon, but I like the card just the way it was, and decided to leave the safety pins off.

Turkey Pot Pie

I've been signed up for recipe swaps since July of this year, so for the past few months I've been crafting away. Some of the swaps have finally ended, so I've started getting packages back in the mail. And it has been so fun! I loved making all the recipe cards, and now that I am getting so many back, I know I am really hooked on these swaps. I love seeing what other people create, both for a recipe, and for a card to share that recipe. This card is for the swap I'm in called "Gobble, gobble, left over turkey recipes." I was so excited when I was in Robert's one day, and saw this Thanksgiving set by Hero Arts. I knew that turkey would be perfect! So I snagged it while I could. The paper is from Chatterbox, inc. and is called Sky Rodeo Paisley. I got a new idea for ribbon in a swap I received yesterday, and was really excited to try it. And of course that's the one thing that doesn't show up very well in the picture. After taking about 25 pictures to try to show the ribbon, I decided this one would have to do. Anyway, the lady in the other swap had tied brown ribbon around the recipe card and then tied blue ribbon around the brown. I loved the way it looked, and did that on this card. I love all the inspiration I receive from so many talented crafters! And thank you to my sister-in-law for sharing her yummy recipe with our family.
Well, today is our day for flu shots, so we have to put the stamps and glue away for now, but we'll see how everyone is feeling later today!

Happy Meal!

This is for a recipe swap on Split Coast Stampers. My friend is hostessing, and she wanted people's favorite meal, or the meal that makes them happy! I love chicken enchiladas, and they are one of my favorite dishes. When I was pregnant with our daughter, our oven decided not to work. So for a few months I wasn't able to make my favorite dish. When our daughter was finally born, my family was coming out to celebrate, and my husband bought a little roaster oven that I was finally able to cook chicken enchiladas in. The enchiladas had never tasted so good. When I signed up for this swap, I knew this would be the recipe I would submit. When I found this paper shopping one day, I loved the look of it. I loved the colors and the shimmery sparkle. I used the circle stamps from my Stampin' Up Riveting set, and clear embossed them to give them some sparkle like the paper.

Pumpkin Pie

This is my recipe card for my friend's "From the Garden" recipe swap on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com. She had slots for fruits and vegetables. I took two slots in the vegetable swap and did a squash casserole and zucchini parmesan soup. Then the more I thought about it, I decided to do a fruit selection also. I have lots of yummy recipes, and couldn't quite decide which one to use. I finally settled on Pumpkin Pie. I know that this recipe is on the back of every Libby's can of pumpkin sold in America, probably the whole world. But until this day I've never taken the time to ever write it down in my recipe collection. I'm hoping that other people haven't either, so that this might be useful to my fellow garden swappers. The cardstock is Bazzill and the designer paper is from the Die Cuts With a View Fall Stack. The stamp is from a new Hero Arts Thanksgiving stamp set.

Happy Pie Day!

At our house, we've started a tradition of having pie on Friday. So we call it Pie Day. The only thing better than Friday, is Pie Day! To share something creative today, it's a pie recipe card. I'm in a pie recipe swap, and love my mom's "Blushing Peach Pie." To make this card, I used my Stampin' Up Friendship Blooms set. It's a very versatile set that I love to use. I stamped a gazillion of the flowers, using Rose Red ink from Stampin' Up (my favorite color!) then cut them out. The designer paper is from Daisy Bucket Designs. And the background is Bazzill cardstock, and it was Strawberry Creme, or Strawberry Shortcake. I know it was strawberry, and then a food. I added an American Crafts brad in the middle of each flower, and had a fun finished product.

Recipe Card Swaps

Over at www.splitcoaststampers.com (a website I highly recommend if you love stamping or crafting), I've joined numerous recipe swaps. The basic idea is you make 6 or 8 or any designated number of recipe cards, then send them to a hostess who swaps out with all the other people, and you end up getting back cool recipes that other crafters have made. It's a fun way to be creative! When I saw a swap listed that was titled, "Tailgating for your favorite college," I knew I had to join. Then the swap expanded to include NFL teams. Woo-hoo! So here are the recipe cards I made for that swap. Each hostess in a swap decides what the requirements will be. For example, how many embellishments are required, and if stamping is required. This swap had stamping as "optional." So I tried and tried on the BYU recipe card to include a stamp, and I couldn't make it work. I really wanted to. But I liked the end result anyway. The Bengals recipe used my Stampin' Up Loads of Love set. How fun to have a cute little pickup truck! I put a Bengals flag in the back of the truck, because we are tailgating for our favorite team.