Mexican Meatloaf

My momma could make a meatloaf to die for; my meatloaf just pretty much sucks!  I use the same ingredients she always did but mine just doesn't taste as good.

One of my all time favorite meals as a kid was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and English peas.  And once in a while I do attempt to cook a meatloaf just so I can have that menu, it just never works out very well!

Since I love to cook, I read cookbooks like a vampire fan reads the Twilight series.  I can't wait for a new cookbook to show up on the book aisle at the grocery store or Wal Mart.  Once I find one that looks interesting, I bring it home and read it front to back.

Fred used to tell people that he was afraid to come home for dinner when he saw me with a new cookbook because he never knew what to expect!

This recipe is based on one I found in a recent Taste of Home magazine.  It turned out really delicious, very moist (in fact, next time I won't use so much tomato sauce in the mix).  The addition of the Greek yogurt, which I forgot to tell Fred was in it, must be what contributes to the unique flavor.

I like it well enough that there will be a recipe layout done and included in my Cooking with the Cricut recipe album.

MEXICAN MEATLOAF

1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 tsp. Olive oil
2 garlic gloves, minced

Saute onion and pepper in olive oil until tender.
Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer.

Transfer to a large bowl and add:

¾ cup Panko bread crumbs
¾ cup grated cheddar cheese
½ cup tomato sauce
¼ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 T. minced parsley
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. Chili powder
1 lb.  Ground beef

Mix thoroughly.  Place in 8” square pan and bake at
350° about 25 minutes or until center tests at 165°.

Top with:
¼ cup tomato sauce
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. Chili powder
¼ cup grated cheddar cheese

Return to oven and bake about 15 minutes longer.

Here's the layout I threw together!

Masculine Card

Here I go again, trying to come up with some sort of masculine themed card.  This one could be used for an adult or a child, I believe.  I'm leaving them blank inside so the sender can write whatever they want.

It would work for Father's Day, birthday, or congratulations since an upright horseshoe is for luck!

The rope frame and horseshoe are on Old West.  I resized them with Design Studio to fit onto the A2 sized card.

A Tip for Today

When you plug your cell phone into the charger at home, lay your car keys across the cord.  That way you won't leave home without taking your phone! 

Easel Birthday Card

A Child's Year has this sentiment on it.  I cut it out at  2 5/8" to fit onto an A2 sized card and added some dots onto the letters with some old Martha Stewart markers I ran across the other day when I was re-arranging some things.   I don't like these markers because they take longer to dry than Stickles! LOL!


The paper is from Paper Studio Birthday Extravaganza stack from Hobby Lobby and I think the brads I used were picked up at the Dollar Tree.  The sentiment stamp is from SU.

I've often wondered, when making an easel card, if the recipient will know how to display it.  There's a good printable diagram showing how it's supposed to work available online.  The link I found to it is on the Splitcoast Stampers website or you can access it here: 

http://cardsngreetings.blogspot.com/2009/11/easel-card-instructions_09.html
I printed the diagram out and am including one inside each of the cards.

Another Mystery Blog Candy Today!

flamenco92627 is the winner of today's blog candy!    Please contact me with your mailing information so I can get this sent out to you!  Hope you enjoy using it on your layouts and cards!

Card Making Software

I use Hallmark card making software that I found at Staples several years ago to print the sentiments in most of my cards.

The software isn't terribly expensive and it will print many different sizes of cards as well as stickers and other projects.  It includes hundreds of sentiments and a good selection of clip art also.  

You can select a card they've already composed and just print it out or use it like I do to enhance the cards you want to make.

The actual name of the software is Hallmark Card Studio.

Today's Cards

The flower card is one that I saw on Facebook..  I used an 1.5 inch scallop punch for the flowers and a 1 inch punch for the flower centers.  The edges are inked and there are black dots on the center.  The leaves are made with a SU Blossom punch.  Each of the yellow scallops is cut with scissors toward the center to make flower petals.

This Father's Day card was made with Old West cartridge.  I added a little inking and some doodledots.

The background paper looks like tooled leather.  I printed the sentiment with my cardmaker software.

Colorbok Scrapbook Kit Winner

Congratulations to Crystal aka Caitlynsmommy!  You won the latest of my mystery blog candy prizes!  I hope you enjoy using it and putting some of those cool scrapbook pages you show on your blog inside!

Please contact me with your mailing information and I'll send it right out to you.

Thank you for leaving so many nice comments on my blog. I appreciate and read them all!

Storing Promarkers--my $4.97 solution!

Up until last Saturday I only had a few basic colors of Promarkers.  Then Okie was kind enough to share her duplicate markers with me.  She and I had purchased quite a few and then she received the entire set of 148 markers as a gift!

Once I got the markers home and added them to my color chart I started trying to find a good solution for storing them.  I have a lot of containers they'd fit into but the colors kept getting mixed up.

Yesterday, Fred tried to make a marker holder for me but didn't have the correct sized bit to drill a hole that the marker would fit into.  Today while I was at Wal Mart I walked up and down every aisle trying to find something suitable.  I know the clerks and store security had to be wondering what in the world I was doing! I kept picking up different containers and racks, turning them over, measuring the openings and then putting them back on the shelf.   LOL!

I checked in sporting goods for a tackle box or bullet case that might work, automotive for some kind of screwdriver rack, housewares for any type of plastic container and finally found a three tiered chrome rack over in the plumbing department that the markers would fit into--if Fred could break a spot-weld off where the racks were attached to the side bars.  So, I picked it up to bring home and experiment with.

Then I had an idea---what about one of those metal racks you use on a barbeque grill to roast peppers!  It's just a metal box with round holes drilled in it.  So, off to the garden center I go in search of the pepper roaster.  Our WM doesn't carry them, of course, so that idea was trashed.

Then I happened to see a suet cake holder beside the bird feeders and VOILA! the rack for my markers was found! LOL!  It even had just the right number of openings in it (48) to hold all my Promarkers!

Since the color name is only written in one spot on the barrel of the marker, I punched little shapes with one of my Bitty Punches from SU and colored them with the marker ink.  Then I stuck them on the end of the marker cap.    Thanks Enfys for sharing that hint!

It fits perfectly right behind the cutting mat I work on to make cards, I can see the colored dots on the ends of the markers and they're in order by color so it's going to be simple to pick out the right one to shade with.

The only downside to my solution is that it's not portable.  That problem may be resolved soon as I plan to ask Fred if he can make a light weight box to slide the wire rack into.  That way the markers won't slide out the back when I pick them up to go to stamp club.

 The rack I bought is made by Pennington and it's named a Premium Feeder Station, specially designed to hold Pennington Cakes and Suet.   And, it only cost $4.97!

Lacy Label Card With Bridal Flowers

Michael's sells a clear canister of different colors of flowers in their bridal section.  I picked up a canister of white (and wish I'd bought 2 or 3!) and from time to time I take them out and color them with my markers for a particular project.

Lacy Labels cartridge was used to cut the scalloped ovals.  The paper I used is Chloe's Closet from Making Memories.  The sentiment is a SU stamp done in chocolate chip ink.  I colored the white flowers gold and green using Promarkers.  Then I added a little bit of doodling and the card was finished.

Blog Candy #2

My next blog candy is a scrapbook kit  from Colorbok.  The kit includes a 12 x 12 scrapbook, 24 sheets of paper, lots of punch outs, stickers and chipboard.  You should be able to do a great book with this!

The colors on the scrapbook and the paper make me think of summer since it's got a lot of pink, green and blue on them.

Winner will be notified through their name they used to leave comments on my blog.

Mystery comment blog candy

Without telling anyone, I've been tallying the comments left on my blog.  The comments I get on here really are important to me and I wanted to say "thank you" to the people who take time to leave a comment.

Today's blog candy is a collection of baker's twine.  There are five different colors and the winner gets 10 yards of each color.

Carrie K of Mason City, Iowa is the winner of my first blog candy giveaway!  Carrie has been leaving comments on here ever since I began posting last September.

Carrie, thank you so much for all your kind remarks!  Please contact me with your mailing information and I'll get the baker's twine out to you as soon as possible.

Punch Bunny Information

Here's a photo showing the actual sizes of the ovals used to make the punch bunny.  My instructions confused some people and I thought this might explain the sizes better.

You don't have to use ovals exactly this size.  These are made the dimensions of the SU punches used to do the original bunny.  If you are cutting the ovals with your Expression, just pick a size that you like and you can adjust the size of the circles used for the body to work with your size,

My Expression never gets used without Design Studio so I had no problems adjusting the width of the oval to match the SU punches.

Hope this helps!

Butterfly Card with Baker's Twine

I didn't want to use any of the baker's twine from the share until everyone else's was in the mail to them.

Of all things, I found some butterfly print paper that I could punch out using an old MS punch.  So, I quickly assembled a few cards just so I could say I used part of the twine! LOL!

The background for the butterflies was cut using Lacy Labels cartridge.

Jewish Apple Bread

Ddscrafts –Debbie Wilson mentioned this cake on Facebook yesterday.  It sounded so good that I ran to the store and bought the apples to make it myself.  It's a dense, moist cake and tastes better after it sits overnight. 

As soon as it came out of the oven I tried a slice and it was really good.  After sitting overnight, the flavors developed more from the cinnamon and the apples.  Delicious with a cup of good coffee!

Since the recipe calls for so much sugar, I was afraid the cake would be too sweet but the tartness of the apples takes care of that. 

Jewish Apple Cake

Mix together and set aside:
1/2 cup of sugar
2 tsp. of cinnamon

Mix together:
3 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of veg. oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup of orange pineapple juice (I just used plain orange)
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 tsp. baking powder
4 large apples, peeled and sliced (I used Granny Smith)

Mix flour, sugar and baking powder in large bowl
Beat eggs.  Add oil, juice and vanilla and beat until smooth;
Add to flour mixture and beat until smooth.

Pour ½ of the batter into a greased tube pan, lay ½ of the apple
Slices on top of batter and sprinkle with ½ of the cinnamon-sugar
Mixture.

Repeat layers, cake batter, apples then cinnamon-sugar.

Bake @ 350 for 1hr and 25mins

 Thank you Debbie for sharing this.  It's going to become one of the recipes in my recipe layout book.                                                         

Punch Bunny

The internet is such a great source of ideas to try out!  Last night while checking out some different blogs, I ran across this simple little bunny.

All you need is an 1 3/4" circle punch, a 1/2" circle punch, and two sizes of ovals to make the body parts.  You can use a regular hole punch to do the black circles for the eyes and the pink for the nose. 

Just add a little shading around each of the white pieces, some dots on the eyes and cheeks, and lines for whiskers and toes and you're done. You can give him a little "attitude" by folding down one of his ears about half way if you want.

These little guys can multiply quickly if you need a lot of them for your grandchildren or Sunday school class, too!

Since the George cartridge has these basic shapes on it, you could make a bunch of bunnies in no time with your Expression.

Here's what you'll cut using George:
     2 circles 1.75 inches
     2 circles .5 inches for cheeks
     4 ovals 1.75 x 1.375 inches for foot pads
     4 ovals 1.375 x 2 inches for feet and ears

     hole punch circles for eyes and nose

The twine is done!

 

 Baker's twine is popular right now on cards and layouts.  I wanted some but didn't see any sense in paying over $10 to get just a few yards shipped to me.  So, I went on Facebook and asked if anyone was interested in splitting some of the large cones of twine with me since each cone has 3,400 yards.

It took me a while, but I got 65 shares of the twine measured, bundled and ready to mail.   Fred made a device to use for the measuring or I'd still be standing here looking at 5 cones of twine trying to figure out the best way to do that!

There were 13 of us who went together to share the twine.We each got 230 yards of five colors.  I think I have enough twine now to last me a lifetime!  LOL! 

Now that I have this little project finished, I'm going to go make some cards and USE some of mine!

The "grouchy neighbor" in me came out this morning!

This morning I woke up to hear a pump running close to our house.  The reason I knew it was a pump is because we live in oil country.  It's not unusual to hear a vacuum truck or other type of oilfield equipment running since there are three producing oil wells within a few hundred yards of our house.

After getting dressed, I asked my husband where the pump was running and he told me the neighbor was emptying their swimming pool.  The water was being dumped, by a pool service company,  into the ditch that runs alongside the road in front of our houses and drains into a lake across the road from our property.
 
He had walked outside earlier and realized the water was backing up out of the ditch and flooding the west side of our property.

I pretty much went ballistic.  Over ten years ago we planted a beautiful Bald Cypress tree right where the water is standing.  Now, I'm afraid that all the nasty chemicals in the pool water will cause it to die!  Who knows what it could do to the lake, too!

We walked over and told the pool service crew what was happening and they pretty much just blew us off.  By the time we got over there the pool was emptied so the damage had been done.  The crew manager didn't even offer an apology!  He told me there were "no chemicals" in the water since the pool had been sitting all winter. 

As soon as I got home I tried to contact the owner of the company but no one answered so I've written them a letter telling the owner of the company what has happened and if my tree dies I will expect them to replace it with another tree the same size.

Grrrrr!  I'm so angry I could just spit nails!  And a big part of the reason I am is because of the attitude of the crew's manager when we spoke to him.  Guess they just don't care where their waste water winds up.  I feel like it's really negligent of them to just start pumping that volume of water without checking to see where it's going to wind up!  It's illegal in most cities to pump pool water into the CITY SEWER because of the chemical content, but I suppose it's okay to just dump it where it can contaminate the soil and a lake!

Promarker Practice

After taking a lot of painting classes over the years, I still struggle with contrast and shading.  Whenever I'm applying a shadow, it always appears to be too dark or just right until I walk away from the image and then look back and I see that it's too faint.

Promarkers make it super simple to shade images but I still need a lot of practice to get enough contrast.  This simple card was my practice project for this afternoon.

Letraset, the company that makes the Promarkers, is coming out with a sets of markers they've named Blending Sets.  They should be available this month at retailers.  I need to order a couple of those sets since they've selected colors that go together well.

The outer shadow surrounding the leaves doesn't even show up in the photo.  I wanted it to be subtle, but visible.

Old West Card

This background paper has been in my stash for quite a while and I finally came up with a good use for it.  Making cards suitable for children or young boys is a struggle for me.  It's much easier to make more feminine ones, in my opinion.

I used the Old West cartridge for all the cuts on this one.  The slits in the images were all shaded using a Promarker and instead of fighting with the little black pieces for the hay bale, I colored them too.  Added a few stickles onto the word "Howdy" and was done.

Bright Colors and a Spring Flower

Large patterned paper and I don't play well together.  To me, it always seems to be just too far off scale for an A2 sized card.  Today I decided to put a large pattern paper on a card front, even if it killed me!  LOL!

The pattern on this was just overpowering but I like the bright springlike colors.  Trying to decide how to cut the triangles made me wish I'd paid just a little more attention in math class as a kid!  So, I cheated and just measured the card surface I wanted to cover. :)

Thanks again to Karen Y. for sending me the Prima flowers.  I've used quite a few of them and still have a good supply on hand!

My day got away from me....

This morning I left home about 8:30 to go to the Social Security office in Shawnee to drop off a form.  Then I headed to the local stores to search for some simple sheer curtains for my bedroom.  Since the stores are widespread, I kept ducking into different places (since I was there) to look around. 

By the time I'd checked out The Dollar Tree, Ross, and Big Lots my day just got away from me.  There are still tons of boxes out in Fred's shop to bring back into the house and put away the contents.  The garage is not going to clean and re-organize itself either!

Since the day was shot, I decided to treat myself to a nap in my comfy recliner.  Naps are not something that I do very often.  I tend to wake up cranky and sort of disoriented since I've just lost that amount of time from my day.

Honestly, since I've retired, there are days that go by and our phone NEVER rings.  But, as soon as I drift off to take a nap I'll get calls from people I haven't spoken to since gradeschool!  Sure enough, I just dozed off when the phone rang.  Not only did I get that call, the phone rang a total of  FIVE FREAKING TIMES.   No nap for Linda this afternoon!

I looked at the clock and realized there was only an hour until the One Hour Challenge post on the Cricut MB so I rushed back here and tossed this card together so I'd have something new to post.

I cut the background shape using Lacy labels, punched the butterflies and inked them, computer generated the sentiment and punched it with a SU punch.

Fun Flower Card

Carla Bazenhow has a tutorial on how to make this card on her blog:      http://www.carlas-scraps.com/2011/03/ppa-84-spring-blossoms.html

The Spring Blossoms punch was one I ordered during the Sale-a-bration and really didn't have any good ideas on how to use it.  If you don't have this punch and think you want it, let me warn you...it makes a humongous mess!  Since there are 4 shapes on a single punch, it's extremely difficult to punch the shapes toward the back of the punch without flipping paper shards from the other shapes everywhere!

The card turned out quite well, but it's a little more complicated than I care to use to make multiples, so it's going into my card stash for personal use.

This must be Simple Card Sunday!

I dusted off this layout from a while back, and made these to use up scraps from another batch of cards.  The little Prima flowers and Stickles dress it up just a little bit.

It doesn't show up really well in the photo; I inked the white cardstock with a matching purple ink so it wouldn't be so stark against the dark border punched piece.

Another of Renee Wayland's Cards

Cute, simple and great spring colors!  Renee had posted a card like this for a blog hop she participated in a few weeks ago.  I chose to scraplift it because it will go through the mail easily.  The flower from Plantin Schoolbook gives it some dimension but it's not thick enough to damage the envelope when going through postal machines.

I used the technique from Youtube to make the ric-rac shape with a SU scalloped edge punch.

One Hour Challenge Recipe Layout

 The Old West cartridge was used to do this recipe.  I just thought it was appropriate for "Ranch" deviled eggs!

The only shape that I had to modify using Design Studio is the frame.  It got stretched a little bit to accommodate the size of the recipe.

I really do wish that there was a shadow feature for the words on this cartridge.  It's sometimes difficult to get a shadow cut even with Design Studio!  The images were shaded using Promarkers and Color Box Chalk inks.

Ranch Deviled Eggs

While sitting in the doctor's office waiting room I saw this recipe in a magazine and jotted it down. 

I tried to char the peppers in a skillet but found that it worked better for me to just hold them over a gas burner with a pair of tongs.  Charring peppers is something I'd never done before so I was surprised when they began to sizzle and pop!

The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of olive oil but I cut it down to just 1 tablespoon.  I also didn't have the garlic stuffed olives so I used some pickled garlic that I had in the fridge and just some regular green salad olives for the garnish.

These turned out to be something we really like!  The combination of the acidity in the yogurt and the ranch dressing gives it a totally different taste than a traditional deviled egg.  Fred is eating the stuffed jalapenos, they're too hot for my taste.

If you're using these as an appetizer, I'd cut the tomatoes across rather than lengthwise so they can just be popped into your mouth for a single bite.  The tomatoes don't keep too well after they're stuffed.  This morning I got one out and it tasted just fine but a lot of the juice had accumulated under the filling.



RANCH DEVILED EGGS

4 jalapeno peppers
4 roma tomatoes
8 boiled eggs
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 oz. pkg. Ranch dressing mix
1 T. Olive oil
4 garlic stuffed olives, sliced

Char skin on peppers in skillet.  When cool, cut in half
Lengthways and scoop out seeds.

Cut tomatoes in half and scoop out pulp.

Boil 8 eggs.  Cut in half and remove yolks.
Mash 4 of the egg whites with the yolks and set aside
the remaining whites to be stuffed.

Mix yogurt, dressing mix and oil with egg mixture.
Spoon mixture into hollowed out peppers, tomatoes
and eggs.  Top with olive slices.  Chill before serving.





I'm putting this recipe into my recipe album, it's a keeper!

Owl Card by Renee Wayland

Renee Wayland has the cutest owl card on her blog:   http://www.paperrenee.com/

She had posted it on Facebook so I sent her a comment and told her I'd be scraplifting it for sure since I had the same paper she'd used.  Of course, when I looked for the owl printed paper, it's nowhere to be found! 

So, I took her concept and used my SU owl punch to make my interpretation of her card.

The brown ric-rack shape that I used for the branch was done with a SU scalloped edge punch using a technique I saw on Youtube.  It's super simple to do, once you get the hang of it!

Thanks, Renee for sharing your card layout!  Keep them coming, I need inspiration!  LOL!

New Photo

I promised when this blog was started that I'd put a current photo of myself on the sidebar.  After having some severe hair issues this winter, trying to let it grow out,  perm, etc., etc. I decided this was as good as it's going to get!

Guess the photo didn't turn out too bad since it was taken in front of the bathroom mirror.  That was the only way I could figure out how to get my face inside the view finder!   I just held the camera facing myself and looked at the view finder in the mirror to be sure I wasn't just taking a shot of the bathroom ceiling.  LOL!

It took a few tries but it worked.  I could have asked Fred to snap one but he was outside spraying the yard and had blue dye all over himself.  So, if you're wondering why it's such a close-up photo, now you know! 

Thank you for your compliments on the photo!

Before and After

Photography definitely is not one of my strong points.  I snapped some photos before and after our remodeling project so I could see what we'd changed.

Since our home was built in the late 1960's, we have very few windows and it tends to be dark.  We've installed Solatubes in the kitchen and living room to bring in some much needed sunlight.  Before they were installed, you needed a lamp to read, even during a sunny summer day!  We even have a motorized "baffle" inside the Solatube so that we can adjust the amount of light that comes in to the room.  (which is really nice if you want to take a nap! lol!)

Before the desk and entertainment center were painted, the entire east wall of our living room was brown and it just sucked all the light out of the room.  My original plan was to remove all the wood on that wall and just have the sheetrock textured and painted but I needed the storage for books and our movie collection.

After discussion, it was decided to paint the wood and convert the "knee hole" in the desk to a storage cabinet and add doors onto the top of the entertainment center.   I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.

The popcorn ceiling was removed and textured in the living room, hallway and main bath; a half-wall was removed from the entry way to open up the living area, a new front door was installed,  new carpet and floor tile was installed throughout the house.  I opted to put commercial tile in my craft room/office so it's a lot easier to care for than the carpet.  We updated the bathroom too by removing the HUGE wall mirror over the vanity and replacing it with a smaller one,  putting up sconce lights beside the mirror, a new top on the vanity, and had the vanity painted white to match the wood in the living room.

Typing this, it sure doesn't sound like we did much! LOL!  But, our house was turned upside down for over a month!  Now, I'm slowly bringing boxes back into the house from Fred's shop and unloading them.  All the stuff I thought I had to have has been out there about 6 weeks now and I haven't missed much of it at all.  Hmmm....maybe it's time to toss some of it!

Lacy Labels Cards

Yesterday I picked up Lacy Labels and today had a struggle trying to come up with some ideas to use it!  Nothing seemed to look good together when I was picking out paper, etc.  LOL!

So, I put Lacy Label aside for another time and started looking through the Cricut Magazine and got inspired to do this card.  I used George to do the scallops, the leaves are from Accent Essentials.  I found the sentiment stamp at the LSS garage sale last Saturday.  There's Glossy Accents in the center of the little Prima flower.  It looks dull because it's not dry yet!  LOL!  I added a few dots with my Signo pen and was finished for today!

I get myself into so much trouble!

Tonight I decided to do a group buy/share on some baker's twine.

I went online and found a bakery supply selling 3400 yard cones of it at a really good price.   They have it in five different colors.

It didn't make sense to even buy a single cone since it has almost 2 FREAKIN' MILES of twine on it unless someone wanted to share it with me.  And I wanted more than one color, of course, which compounded my problem.

Facebook and the Cricut MB seemed like a good place to ask if anyone wanted to do a share so I did some fast calculations and posted the offer.

Within an hour I had the twelve people needed to do the share.

The twine has been ordered and should be here in about a week.

That gives me about seven days to figure out how the heck I'm going to measure five cones of twine, each holding 3400 yards, into 260 yard lengths.  And, I get to repeat it 65 times!

I get myself into so much trouble!  LOL!

Yellow Cake Mix Cinnamon Rolls

Yellow Cake Mix Cinnamon Rolls


2 ½ cups lukewarm water
2 pkg. Quick rise yeast
1 yellow cake mix
1 cup flour
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
3 ¼ cups flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 stick margarine, softened
sugar and cinnamon

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water (3 minutes). Add dry cake mix, 1 cup flour, 3 eggs, oil and salt. Beat with mixer until bubbles appear. Slowly add about 3 ¼ cups flour. Add more flour if dough is too sticky to work with – about 2 more cups may be needed to be added to make a soft dough.

Turn dough out onto floured board and knead for about 5 minutes. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. Separate dough into 3 pieces and roll out to about ¼” thick.

Spread with margarine. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Roll up jelly roll style and slice approximately 1 inch thick. Place each slice into greased baking pan and let rise until doubled in bulk. Bake at 350° for 20 – 30 minutes.
Ice with powdered sugar glaze while still hot.

Powdered Sugar Glaze

2 cups sifted powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk

Place sifted sugar into a small deep bowl. Gradually add milk until glaze is formed.  Drizzle over hot cinnamon rolls.

This makes a really, really large batch of rolls.  It was given to me by an aunt years ago and it's become one of my favorites to make cinnamon rolls with.  The rolls are very fluffy, like a bakery, rather than having the texture of bread like most homemade cinnamon roll recipes.

Whew! Got it done!

It took longer to make the layout than it does to make the rolls!  LOL!  I just threw this together since my kids will be here soon for dinner.  Cartridges used:  From My Kitchen, Preserves, Pooh Font, Ashylyn's Alphabet.

The corner bracket stamp is one that I picked up at the LSS garage sale on Saturday.  It's one I'm going to get a lot of use out of!

30 Minute Rolls

30 MINUTE ROLLS

1 ¾ cups warm water
½ cup oil
¼ cup honey or sugar
3 pkgs. Dry yeast
1 ½ tsp. Salt
2 eggs, beaten
5 to 6 cups flour

Combine water, oil and honey.  Add yeast;
let rise 15 minutes.  Add egg and salt; mix
well.  Stir in flour and knead until smooth.
Shape into rolls or cinnamon rolls.

Let rise 10 to 20 minutes.  Bake at 400° for
10-15 minutes.  Makes 2 ½ dozen rolls.


I'm posting my recipe this afternoon while I have time.  My kids will be here in a few minutes to go to the range and shoot for a while then we're having dinner together.  Since my son travels with his job, we don't get to have them all here very often so I'm looking forward to cooking a good meal for us all.  These rolls will be on the table tonight, for sure!

Bride Card

Dawn Griffith shared a card she made today using a template by Jan Tink.  It's very simple to make and turns out really cute.

Using Jan's template, I cut the skirt and the torso out of cardstock.  The heart shaped bodice is from Doodlecharms and I tweaked the shape using Design Studio.  The Brocade Cuttlebug folder is the one I used to do the embossing.  The base of the bouquet is  the 1 3/4" SU scalloped circle punch, the flowers are the Bitty Punch.  I added some stick on pearls for the necklace and some Liquid Pearls for the flower centers.

This card can literally be completed in about 10 minutes.  I whipped mine out to post for the One Hour Challenge on the Cricut MB this evening.

Just think how special this would be if you used the bride's wedding colors!

When I make the next card using Jan's idea, I plan to use Liquid Pearls for the necklace also.  Those tiny sticky back pearls are a booger to hang onto and get applied evenly spaced! LOL!

If you want the instructions for making the card, go to Dawn's website.  Just Google Dawn Griffith, then scroll down to the photo of the card.  She has a link there to Jan's website with the template and information.

Cards From A Kit

During the shopping expedition yesterday I noticed a card kit in And Bear Makes 3 with a sentiment that I really wanted.  Since I make tons of cards, and they're all A2 size, I really didn't need the kit, just the sentiment stamp. 

The only stamps they had were included in the kit and I didn't want to wait on ordering one so I just bought the kit.  Their cards are 5 x 7 size so I'll keep them for personal use and adapt their design for A2 cards now that I have the stamp.

And Bear Makes 3 puts together great kits!  Quality paper and embellishments with color photos and instructions.  Each kit makes six cards, two each of three designs.

The star shaped opening was cut in the blue cardstock and the kit included a star shaped stencil to shade in on the paper using a blending tool, as well as the ribbon and the punched and embossed star shapes.

Here are the designs in the kit I bought.  If you can't read the sentiment it says, " Twinkle, twinkle, birthday cake.  Forget the years, for goodness sake and think of all the people who have brighter lives because of you."

As you can see in the photo of the last one, I took these pictures before the glue was dry! LOL!

Made it home in one piece...again!

Shirley and I left Seminole about 9 a.m. heading for Whole Lotta Scrap's garage sale in Norman.  Renee Wayland met us there and we bought a ton of bargains.

I was searching for sentiment stamps to add to my collection.  Most of my cards wind up with computer printed sentiments since my selection is pretty limited.  It seems like I use the same wording over and over! 

Looking through the tables with stamps spread out on them I found four sets of SU stamps and the most I paid for a set was $4.00.  Then there was a total of 36 individual stamps I picked out and still wound up only spending about $29 for them all.  Now, to get them off the mounting blocks and into my stamp cases so I'll have enough room for them will be next on my to do list.

On Main Street  in Norman there's a little bar/restaurant named Bison Witches.  I know, it's an odd name but they really do have a bison and a witch hat on their signs.  We decided to go there for lunch and Shirley got to try one of their Reuben sandwiches that I like so much. 

These photos were taken after lunch so we were all full and smiling!  Did you notice that Shirley and I are wearing identical shirts?  They were purchased at the Arlington convention last summer.  There's a big peace sign on the front with the words "Peace out! I'm goin' scrapping!".

After lunch we hopped into my van and drove to Moore to And Bear Makes 3.  It's a cute little store that sells stamps and scrapbooking supplies.  I picked up the cutest card kit for making birthday cards and will post photos as soon as I get them assembled.  They also had a set of little fat cat stamps by Penny Black that had to come to my house.

Renee was expecting company at her house so she left us and we went on to Hobby Lobby,  Tuesday Morning and Michael's.  Shirley loves to sit on the floor in Tuesday Morning to sort through their scrapbook paper and she dug out 10 packs of paper that we decided to buy and split.  Each pack has 25 sheets of the same patterned paper in it so it's going to last a long time.  Hey, it was cheap, what can I say?

Michael's was kind of confusing.  The clerks didn't seem to know what was on sale and what wasn't.  One side of the store had signs up saying 40% off paper packs, the other side didn't.  When I asked which ones were on sale, I was told it was only the new DCWV.  Then while walking around, I saw the 40% sign on other pack displays.  The only paper I purchased was some kraft cardstock, which wasn't marked as being on sale but rang up for about $1 less than it was marked. 


Since there was an Office Max close to Michael's we checked in there for a new printer.  My Epson just quit working  a couple of days ago.  I have a Lexmark that I've been using and it just won't handle the white Georgia Pacific cardstock I use all the time.  The manager helped me pick out one that he felt would do a good job.  Maybe tomorrow I'll unpack it and get it all set up and do a test run with it.

Tonight I learned something about printers.  The manager says they're designed to use paper up to 65 lb. weight.  The GP cardstock is 110 lb. so it was suggested that I buy the replacement warranty and just get a new one if it stops working!  For $14.99 I can get a refund of my purchase price if it messes up within two years.  Of course I bought the warranty because 99% of what I print is on cardstock!

We stopped at a local barbeque restaurant and had pulled pork for dinner.  By the time we got back to my house and had unloaded the van and divided up our paper packs, Shirley decided she better head back home to check on poor Lucy since she's been there all day by herself. So, another fun day out with friends has come to an end.  I'm pooped!  LOL!  But we had a good time!

Round Card

Round cards are not generally something that I make.  However, there was one posted on the One Hour Challenge this week that was so cute I had to give it a try.

I think the Peachy Keen stamps are so cute!  This is just an A2 sized card so it's only 4 1/4" in diameter.  It would make a wonderful gift card or invitation!  The card base was cut using Wild Card.  I did use a white gel pen on the eyes and a Q-tip with chalk to put blush on the cheeks.

Look out Norman!

Shirley, aka Okieladybug, and I need a day out.  She's coming up tomorrow and we're heading over to Norman for the garage sale at the LSS.  Renee Wayland is going to meet us and we'll go somewhere yummy for lunch and have some time to catch up on each of our busy lives!

Shirley and I have never taken a trip that we haven't had a lot of fun and laughs.  And that's something we both definitely need right now.  Between my being exhausted from trying to finish up the renovations on our house and her getting hit with a ton of bad news about family and friends we feel that a day of "retail therapy" is just what we need.

I've spent today putting some finishing touches on our living room so I can show the place off when she gets here tomorrow.  I already know what her comment will be "It's still blue and brown!".  She and I have a running discussion about the color of the couch I bought.

She says it's brown, I say it's "paprika" because that's the name the salesman gave me (after I specifically told her I would not buy anything brown!)  LOL!

Interior decorating is not something I am interested in, care about learning, or have any talent for doing.  So, when I find something that looks good to me and is comfortable, it stays until it wears out.

Fifteen years ago when we bought this house, I had sort of oatmeal colored carpet installed, the walls painted tennish white and put my country blue furniture in the living room.  With all the wood in the room, it was just blue and brown.

Getting ready to update and do the renovations, I wound up purchasing a little darker shade of berber carpet pretty much like what I was replacing.  Then I got wild and decided to pick out some new drapes for the room too.  The ones I chose are nice but as soon as they were hung and all the furniture was put back into place I told my husband "IT'S STILL BLUE AND BROWN!".   *****BIG SIGH!****     Something tells me that Okie's really going to give me a hard time tomorrow!  LOL!

Mother's Day Card

A Child's year was used to cut the sillouette.  The sentiment inside " Some days, the boy inside me still holds my mother's hand.  Happy Mother's Day.

Inside sentiment on this one "Loving me like no other...my caring, kind, and gentle mother.  Happy Mother's Day".

3 X 3 Note Card

Renee Wayland sent me a roll of ATG tape to try out.  It's one that has heavier adhesive on it than the kind that I use.  This darling little 3 x 3 note card was inside the package with the tape.  Don't you think the color combination is just great? 

To me, this is an excellent example of "less being more".  The colors and patterns on the paper must make this card special!  I sent Renee a message and told her I was going to post her card on here since I think it's just too cute not to share!

Thanks, Renee!  Not only for being nice enough to send me the tape to try out, but for this cute card too!  It's going into my "ideas" folder so I can reference back to it when I'm looking for inspiration!

April Issue of Cards Magazine

The past 5 days have not gone well around my house! On Friday the tile was installed in my craft room so I had to wait until Saturday to put my furniture back.  When DH re-connected my computer,  it wouldn't boot up. 

No computer---no card making as far as I'm concerned!  I got the computer repaired and my Epson 3 in 1 printer just decided it was not going to work any longer.  The little Lexmark printer that I had available to use doesn't like cardstock.  So, it looks like I'll be shopping for a printer in the next few days too!

I'm tired, can't find my scrapping supplies easily, and my imagination has decided to go the way of the printer...it just quit working!

So, it's another card totally scraplifted from the April issue of Cards magazine!  LOL! 

The tag was printed by forcing the SU cardstock through my cheap azz Lexmark printer, the end was shaped using a MS punch, I stamped a button on the other end of the tag shape and threaded some cotton twine through it to make the bow. It's pop-dotted to stand up off the surface of the card.   The butterflies are also a MS punch.  A few dashes added with my gel pen and I was through.

I really like the concept of the card so it's one I'll duplicate using different colors of paper.

Card for Teenager

Sometimes I forget when I'm assembling a card front to put the brads in BEFORE I adhere the paper!

An easy solution, that I used on this card, is to take a black gel pen and my mat stack from SU,  color in however many circles you want for mock brads.  Then, using Glossy Accents, just put a drop on each of the black circles you've colored.  When the GA dries, voila! you have some "brads".

Since the Glossy Accents dries totally clear it can be used with any color permanent marker to make faux brads.

Cards for this week

The strawberry is a SU stamp from the Tart & Tangy set, the sentiment is from a set I bought a long time ago at Hobby Lobby.  The layout was inspired by one I saw in a stamping magazine.

   

Well, this one seemed like a good idea at the time! LOL!  It sure turned out to be plain though. 

There's a little more work in this one than what appears in the photo.  I tore a page from an old encyclopedia, stamped the flower image on it, mounted it on a piece of cardstock, inked the edges and used brads and pop dots to put it on the card front.  Doesn't look like much in the photo, it's one of those that you need to see in person.

These may be the only ones I post for this week.  I made these over the weekend while waiting for the carpet to be installed on Monday.  What a mess that was!  Now, we're both exhausted from moving furniture and cleaning up after the job was finished.