Product Review

I've been really good lately at not going into craft stores and buying an insane number of things that I really don't need. But when I saw these brads by American Crafts, I couldn't resist. To justify the purchase I came home and made a card.



They add just the right amount of dimension and are very subtle. The only thing I didn't like was the extra-pointy prongs. I don't store my products in their original packaging so removing all of the brads was quite a painful process.



The patterned paper is also by American Crafts and the cardstock is by Bazzill.

Easter Dress

I decided very last minute to make my daughter an easter dress. It's not really what I would consider a classic easter dress, but I already had the pattern and I had bought the fabric before my daughter was even born. It took me less than a week which is far better than the last one!



It is a pretty simple pattern. The pattern was from Butterick and is probably older than I am. I was looking through some old patterns of my moms and I really liked this one. It's hard to tell in this picture but there are ties that tie on each side.

I bought the cardigan at Target so she could wear it through the spring and then she can just wear it as a jumper in the summer.

It's really hard to get a picture where my daughter is standing still...

Easter Treat

I always have grandiose plans when it comes to holidays. However, this year I was smart enough to realize that I didn't have time for grandiose and therefore wasn't disappointed when I didn't get around to what I had planned on doing.

I did still want to make a little treat for a few special people.



I found these Snicker's eggs on sale (plus I had a coupon--bonus!) I had my daughter choose a sheet of paper at the scrapbook store. You can't see it here, but it is a pastel blue with yellow flowers. Then I stamped on the other side with this cute chick stamp that I already had and handwrote the sentiment. I gave them to her to color again but only a few were colored before she lost interest. Bakers twine seems to be super popular in the crafting corner of the world (and at 6 cents a yard I got a bunch!) So I used it to complete the project.

I asked my daughter to hand the eggs out and in most cases she ripped off the tag and handed the candy to the recipient. Oh well, it would have been ripped off eventually anyway!

Birthday Cards

We've had several birthdays in our family lately. So I've made some cards to help celebrate!

Tree Card

I swore that I had a tree stamp when I started this card but I couldn't find one anywhere! I guess I'd better put that on my list to buy. In this case I improvised and cut out one of the leaves from the background paper. The ink around the edge looks really purple in this picture! It didn't look so purple in real life...

Celebrate Card

All of the patterned paper came from one sheet of double sided paper. I love that stuff! You are guaranteed that it will coordinate. I found the birthday cake rub-on first and matched my paper from there. I've found it is much easier to find paper to match embellishments than it is to find embellishments to match paper. I really like how this card turned out.

Sweet Birthday Wishes card

This card is very special! It is my 20-m old daughter's card to her daddy for his birthday. She actually helped me stamp the image (in dye ink--if stamping can be suitable for the toddler crowd then this is the ink you should use!) She is quite the expert when it comes to coloring. I handed her the card when the ink had dried and she knew exactly what to do.

Lunch boxes repurposed

We do take out lunches at work. One of my favorite places to go is Skool Lunch. Not only is their food yummy, but they send your lunches in these cute little boxes. I couldn't just throw mine away. So I decided to turn a few of them into boxes for storing craft supplies.

*I thought they chose an interesting way to spell my name. Twice. Although Skool isn't exactly spelled correctly.*

I entirely used supplies I had on hand. And most of them were in my to file basket so I didn't even have to look that hard! I cut the new labels just slightly bigger than the existing labels so I didn't have to struggle to get them off. Emeli still exists somewhere under there...

The flowers on the label are flowers from the cardstock used on the main portion. I found a small piece that I would have just thrown away. If you look closely you can see the the majority of the flowers aren't even whole. Another case of making the most out of your supplies!

I think this one is my favorite. I had no idea where I was going with it when I started. Sometimes those end up being the very best projects. Other times they completely flop. But in this case I think it turned out.

This was a great lesson for me on thinking outside the box (pun intended.) It definately makes me think twice before throwing anything away!

Ricotta Mini Cakes

I don't really like ricotta. I grew up with cottage cheese as the substitute in ricotta recipes. However, I caved and bought ricotta for a recent meal I made. It didn't use much so I was left with a lot of leftover ricotta. I tried to trick my daughter into thinking it was cottage cheese. She didn't fall for it.

I was sifting through some older recipes I had collected when I found this recipe for these cookies. I figured it was good way to use up that extra ricotta but didn't expect that THEY WOULD BE SO GOOD!

Ingredients

2-1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/8 t salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1 c granulated sugar
1 egg
1 c ricotta
1 t vanilla extract
2 c confectioners sugar
3 T milk

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two baking sheets with nonstick spray. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together; set aside
Beat butter and granulated sugar together until blended. Add egg, ricotta and vanilla, beating until combined.
On low speed and dry ingredients and beat until blended. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto prepared pans. Bake until lightly browned around edges (my oven took 15 min.) Let cool 3 minutes on sheets then remove to rack to cool completely.
Beat confectioners sugar and milk together until well blended. Dip tops of cooled cookies into glaze and set aside until glaze is hardened.

These cookies only have a shelf life of about 2 days and then they start to dry out a little bit. My solution for this is to take them to a firestation for your husband and his hungry coworkers to polish off.