Rebecca's Ice Skating Outfits

I made these ice skating outfits for my daughters America Girl doll Rebecca. I was on a roll so a made a few as gifts for my niece and two of my daughters friends.

Santa Ornament

I used Close to My Heart St. Nick stamp set along with Spellbinders Ovals and Fancy Tags dies.

Santa's beard was done with Liquid Applique and his hat was paper pieced. Merry Christmas was embossed with Olive and then colored in with markers. You probably can not tell but the ornament is three sided with the same on each side. The one on the bottom was what I had my club ladies make and thanks to Debbie who suggested adding the scalloped behind it, so the top one is my second one and I like it so much more.

Mistletoe

I used Close to My Heart paper from the Mistletoe collection and Creative Basics. The layout came from Magic and is called Secret. You can place a cd in the pocket, a great place to put your Christmas video. The stamp sets I used where CTMH: All the Best, Adorn-able, Picture Perfect, and Shinning Star. The font used for Christmas was called Christmas Card and I used SCAL to cut it out.

12 Days of Cookies and Candies

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to bake cookies for family, friends. and those who touch our lives throughout the year. I can fondly remember making cookies with my mom and now I make them with my children, though Alec at the age of 9 is not into making cookies anymore, but he still enjoys eating them. I hope as he gets older he will want to start this tradition again. I still have Emily who is great big help to me. I decided this year to post the recipes and pictures for those who received cookies from us, so they would know what each kind was and if they liked them they could make them for themselves. I have a few tried and true ones which I make every year and others come and go.


Peanut butter Bon Bons

Makes about 5 dozen 1 inch balls

1 1/2 sticks of butter or margarine melted
2 cups regular peanut butter
3 cups crushed rice krispies
2 2/3 cup of powdered sugar

Heat top two ingredients together and mix next two ingredients together then mix all ingredients together.

In a double boiler, melt 1 package chocolate chips with 1/2 bar of paraffin. Form balls from peanut butter mixture. Dip balls in chocolate. Place on cookie sheet lined with tin foil. Chill in fridge.


Triple Delicious Cookie Bars

Makes 24 to 36

1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 (14 0z.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12oz.) package semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup of peanut butter chips
3/4 cup of butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 (325 for glass dish). In 13x9 inch pan, melt margarine in oven. Sprinkle crumbs evenly over margarine; pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumbs. Top with chips, press down firmly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until light brown. Cool then cut into bars. store covered at room temperature.


Simply Sensational Mint Truffles

Makes about 2 dozen

1 box (8oz) semi sweet bakers chocolate 8 squares
1 package cream cheese (8oz)
1 package mint chocolate chips ( I used Andes)

Melt semi sweet chocolate. Beat cream cheese until creamy then blend in melted chocolate. Refrigerate until firm. Shape into 1 inch balls then dip into mint chips which are melted in a double boiler. Place on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil, then place in frig til firm.

I double the recipe but did not need to double the mint chips, I also added a fourth of a bar of paraffin to the mint chips.



Chocolate Cherry Khris Kringles

Makes about 2 dozen

1/2 Cups margarine or butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 T. juice from cherries
1 1/2 Cup flour
20-25 cherries pitted patted dry
40-50 chocolate chips and 1 cup chips

Cream sugar and margarine, add vanilla, juice and flour then mix well. Chill 1 hour.
Stuff each cherry with 2 chocolate chips, wrap in 1 tbsp. of dough, and bake at 350 on un-greased sheet for 12-15 minutes. Cool then melt on cup of chocolate chips in double boiler, dip top of cookies.


Peanut Butter Blossoms

Makes about 3 dozen

1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients then chill for 30 minutes. Make 1 inch balls bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Then push kisses on top then return to oven for about 1 minute then remove and cool.


KOLACHKI

Makes about 5 dozen

2 cups flour
1/2 lb. margarine (do not use butter)
9 oz of cream cheese

Mix and chill overnight.

This is my grandmothers recipe and the first time I made them I could not understand how my grandmother got the dough to be so thin, so the cookies would be nice and light and not real thick. My grandmothers tip is to roll on a cold marble stone with a mixture of half powder sugar and flour to roll out on (pictured down below). I do not have a marble board so I use my large Pampered Chef cutting board. Which I place in the freezer for about an hour before. Cut rolled dough into squares about 2x2 size. Place a dollop of filling, I use Solo's apricot and raspberry filling. I also like to have a lot of filling in mine, the turn up two corners and pinch together. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes. On a side note I make a recipe and a half and use two cans of filling for this amount. You can also use preserves as filling. I also call this recipe my mixer killer. See I have killed more than one mixer making this dough since it is very sticky. To no avail I killed one this year though it was not on this one, it is not Christmas if I do not have a hand mixer go out on me making cookies.





White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge and
Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge



For this recipe I used Martha Stewarts Foolproof Holiday Fudge.

The white chocolate fudge I changed on thing, I let the fudge set for about an hour then I put the crushed peppermint candy on top then pushed it in so it would stay on top.

To make the chocolate peanut butter fudge I used 1 1/2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter chips. After the mixture has been heated I placed half of it in a bowl with the peanut butter chips and the chocolate chips in the pot. Then in the pan placed the chocolate then the peanut butter fudge on top.


M and M Cookies


1 cup of butter flavor Crisco
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 1/4 cup flour

mix first 5 ingredients together first then remaining. Add M & M's. Bake at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes.


Russian Teacakes

Makes about 4 dozen

1 cup margarine or butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
1/4 tsp. salt
powdered sugar

Heat oven to 400. Mix margarine, powdered sugar and vanilla. Then add remaining ingredients. Shape into 1 inch balls. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes should not be brown. Roll in powdered sugar while warm, cool. May want to roll in powdered sugar again when cool.


Reese Peanut Butter Cup Brownies


These are real simple I use a brownie mix which I fill a tassie cup 3/4 the way full the stick in a small Reese's peanut butter in the middle. I baked at the temperature the brownies called for and cooked for about 12 minutes.


Peppermint Meltaways

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen

Cookies:
1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter softened
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cornstarch

Glaze:
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp. butter softened
1 to 2 tbsp. milk
1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
2 to 3 drops red food coloring
Hard peppermint candies crushed

Mix sugar, butter and extract. add remaining ingredients. Cover, refrigerate until firm ( 30 to 60 minutes). Heat oven to 350. Make 1 inch balls and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, cool.
For glaze, combine powdered sugar, butter, and extract. Gradually add mild until desired consistency. Stir in food coloring until desired color is reached. Drizzle over cookies, then immediately sprinkle with crushed candy.

Plenty for Twenty

From December 1st - 31st, when you place a $20 order on a MyCTMH website, you'll be rewarded with a popular, retired D-size stamp set for FREE! That's a $22.95 value, plus there is FREE shipping/handling and no tax on your free stamp set. Head on over to www.carriez.myctmh.com for your free set.

Here is Decembers stamp of the month.

Warm Winter Wishes Challenge

Flourishes is having a challenge to create something with shades of blue. The first card I used Close to My Heart Sky color and No Greater Love stamp set. I used Spellbinders dies and Martha Stewarts punch. The next two cards I used CTMH Aspen paper and Twilight cardstock and ink. The stamp set was All Decked Out by CTMH the sentiment on the first snowman card was from an old SU set called snowflakes.

Christmas Tags

I decided to participate in Waltzing Mouse's Tag Your It challenge. All of the stamps I used were Waltzing Mouse's Seasons Of Love. The papers were used were from scraps and for the top two tags I used Versa Mark with Pearls colors Blue Russet and Spring Green from Jacquard Products. The bottom tag was Taffy from Close to My Heart. The top medallion was made from Martha Stewarts Iron Gate corner punch. The rosette at the bottom was from Martha Stewarts infinite loops trim punch which I ran through my paper crimper then did a quick accordion fold from the crimped lines. Much faster then scoring but it does not give you as clean of lines but with the punched image it did not matter.

Birthday Gift

My son a few months ago was invited to a birthday party, and I wanted to make her something, this is what I came up with and I put it in a black frame. I used the Storybook Cricut cartridge for the lettering. The paper is CTMH Cotton Candy and I used Royal Birth stamp set in black for the pattern. For the image I used the crown and stamped a mirror image to get this look. When I put her name on the paper it just did not standout so I added velum underneath it and it did the trick. In the bow is a Pretty Pin also from CTMH and the feather is from my daughters boa.

A Touch of Fall

This is what I made for October Friends of Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Waltz. I used Waltzingmouse Very Vintage Labels No.2 stamp set and the sentiment was from Clear Dollar Stamps. The paper is Barn Red and Sunset from Close to My Heart as well as the leaves. Martha Stewart boarder punch was used as well.

Monsters Anyone?

I love this Merry Monsters set by CTMH. Googly eyes just add that little extra touch to them. I used Pear ink with the waterbrush and the sentiment is stamped in Sunset. The paper is from the Hooligans paper pack.

Flourishes the Details are Sketchy Challenge

I made this card for Flourishes the Details are Sketchy Challenge, check it out here.
I used Flourishes Drummer Boy stamp set and Colorbok paper and ribbon. The border was a Martha Stewert punch and I used Memento's Tuxedo Black ink with Copic Sketch markers: y17, t1, e02, r39, g28, and e37 to color in the image.

Thriller

I used CTMH Septembers stamp of the month Thriller on White Dasiy with CTMH new color Sunset.

To get the two different colors for dracula I first inked it all in sunset then I used a sponge dauber just to apply the black ink.

I drew a grid in pencil, my image was two and a half inches wide so I drew my line every 1.25 inches and the horizontal lines are exact hafth of my image. The first image was started at the edge and the next row started at the 1.25 line. After stamping this image I then used another image to fill in the white space.

When finished I ereased the lines using a white eraser it will not leave marks. Make sure your ink is dry before doing this. Make sure when doing a design like this you pay close attention to deatail. My third and forth lines are lined up the same way instead of off center for the fourth. This did not make a difference since I cut the paper in half.

Here I sponged on some black ink.

Triple Play

I used Close to My Heart's Triple Play which is a special for this month. The kit contains everything to make three mini albums including the stamps and stamp pads. Now I am not one for mini albums so I used them to create this card and layout. The only things I needed to add was a 12x12 piece of Colonial White cardstock and the two pieces I matted my picture with which was Bamboo and Outdoor Denim.

Hats Off

I used CTMH papers for both hat boxes. The paper flower is from the Triple Play stamp set which comes with this months National Stamping month promotion from CTMH. I would like to thank Penny Duncan for the hat cut file which you can download here. Check out Penny's blog she has great ideas and many SVG files for free along with Digi stamps.

Cherries, Cherries, and more Cherries!

If you can not tell I love cherries, Emily has had several outfits with cherries on them and I have found a lot of paper with them on it. The layouts above I used Cosmo Crickets Cherry Pie and below I used Nikki Sivils My Sweet Cherry Pie along with Cosmo Cricket.

After I did these layouts Close to My Heart came out with Cherry O which I just love, but I am sad they have already put it on the retired list so if you like the paper used for the items below order it now because it is while supplies last.

National Stamping Month

Chack out here Close to My Hearts promotion for National Stamping Month and the new Idea Book which I love the new Magnifique paper pack.

Here is the new stamp of the month