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30/01/2015

Caramel Apple Cookies

Good morning! Today I'm sharing a recipe that I stumbled upon over Christmas. I made these cookies for my family, and they were a huge hit! Everyone loved them, and Jon happily taste tested a few, and decided they were unfit to be served to my family (he wanted to keep them for himself).



Cookies:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon apple pie spice *
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup apple juice or milk
1/4 cup whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 large tart apple, peeled and coarsely shredded (about 1 cup)

Icing:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons apple juice
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted

Directions:

  • Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, set aside
  • In a mixing bowl beat the 1/2 cup butter with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add the 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, the baking soda, apple pie spice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bow. Beat in egg until combined. Add the 1/2 cup apple juice and the whole wheat flour, beating on low speed until combined. Beat in as much of the all-purpose flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and the shredded apple.
  • Drop dough by slightly rounded teaspoon 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake about 10 minutes or until tops are light brown. Cool on cookie sheer for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack; cool.
  • In a small saucepan cook and stir the 1/2 cup brown sugar, the 3 tablespoons of butter and the 3 tablespoons of apple juice over medium heat until brown sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in powdered sugar until combined. Spread cookies with frosting and sprinkle with pecans. If frosting begins to harden, stir in a small amount of apple juice to reach spreading consistency.
Makes about 36 cookies
To Store: layer unfrosted cookies between sheets of waxed paper in an airtight container; cover. Store in refrigerator for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months. To serve, thaw cookies, if frozen. Spread with frosting and sprinkle with pecans.


*Apple Pie Spice Recipe
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Instructions:
In a small bowl stir together cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cardamom until well combined. Store in an airtight container

Creates 1/4 cup of spice.

The recipe for the cookies and the icing came from Better Homes and Gardens | Best Cookies Special Issue. It was out around Christmas time, and is full of delicious looking cookie recipes!

Thanks for coming by to check out this recipe! Have a great weekend!
-Alexandria

28/01/2015

Studio Calcio: Underground Card Kit

Good morning! Today I'm finally sharing the cards I made using the Studio Calico Underground card kit. I'll admit that I had planned to do this a lot sooner than now (the kit came out in October), but I would pull out the card kit, and look at the stamp and think to myself "What am I supposed to do with this?" I browsed the member gallery for inspiration, and usually came up empty handed. I don't make cards for Halloween, I wanted to use only the main card kit to make at least 9 cards before I used the add-ons. It definitely didn't work out that way. With the addition of the add-ons I was able to make 9 cards. I could have used the add-on stamps to create more, but I felt that just 9 that I could hopefully use, was better than 15 that will just sit their collecting dust.



The two photos above are from the same card. These little tags were the perfect size to hold a gift card, or some money, so I put a gift card into the top one. I stamped a sentiment above the opening so that when you remove the gift card you can see it.


When I first saw the compass wood veneer, I was thinking to myself "what would I ever use this for?" The member gallery had something similar to this, but I wanted to make a band around the bottom, so I stamped the sentiment in black and green ink.


I made this card using just the stamps. The circle looks like it was supposed to be the outline for the pumpkin, or maybe just an imperfect circle. I had fun creating this card.

 

I have a container full of flair on my desk, and I try to use as much of the extra embellishments as I can. Originally I had stamped "Darling" directly onto the background, but it didn't turn out so I covered it with a piece of white, and realized the whole thing was a little too close to the bottom, but worked with it anyways.


When I saw the patterned paper I used for this card, I immediately thought of bow ties. Hello Handsome seemed an obvious choice. I used a bit of the copper paper for the sentiment.


I wanted the thanks sentiment to look like it was part of the chevron pattern. The middle one was the one I did first, and it didn't turn out, but I'm pleased with the rest of it. On the top of the tag I stamped "I made this especially for you".
 

I had been browsing Instagram before I made this card and someone made a PL card by repeating a stamp. I love that Darling and one of the I miss you's stand out from the rest.


One of the add-on stamps, was this tea set. It's cute. I love the tea cup and the little teabag. I found a doily in my stash and three tries later, got the tea cup to turn out.


I wanted to quickly use the snowman stamp set as well. So I made a simple two-ball snowman and rubbed a blue ink pad along the bottom.

Does it make me a horrible person that I'm happy to just be finished with this kit? I don't use a kit until I run out of supplies (except once with an earlier kit that I just loved!), so most of the papers ended up in my stash. I can see a paper purge coming shortly.

Thanks for coming by to see these cards. My hope is to make a few cards using my stash. I miss just using my stash to make cards, but if I'm buying the card kit, I'm going to try and make a few cards with it instead of just letting it collect dust on my shelf.

Have a great day!
-Alexandria

26/01/2015

Project Life: Week Fifty-One

Good morning! Today I'm sharing week 51 of my Project Life. I can't believe I'm almost to the end of sharing my spreads from 2014. It was such a crazy year, and I know 2015 hasn't been much slower! I'm finally branching out of my comfort zone and doing more custom cards. I have one set of wedding invites and save the dates for a wedding this August (Jon's sister). I know of a few people getting married next year, and I've considered reaching out to them, but I'm not sure. I understand this year is about DOING, however I don't want something I love to become work and something I no longer enjoy.


Enough about that. Here's my spread for Week 51. In the summer I was working on catching up on 2011-2013 and used most of my Christmas cards on those pages, so I decided to keep these pages not-so-Christmas-y. Next year I plan to try out December Daily, and just choose one thing about Christmas to document each day in December in a separate album, and keep my pages in my main album, also a little less Christmas-y. This week I used cards from the Jade Edition.


Here's the left side. Have I told you how much I hate socks. Sorry about my toes. I thought I cropped those out. The little Groot one is a photo I found on Instagram and just cropped to fit in the pocket using the PicFrame app.


Here's the right side. I don't know why, but when I have a group of photos from an event, I usually put them on one half of the pocket page, usually stacked. I don't know why, but I do. At the end of this week, we went to my cousins house, and we had never been to her place, so we had to Google Map her address because we got a little lost in the very small town. Apparently they have 50 houses with the same number, but the street they're on are all different. It was confusing, but thank God for smart phones.



Thanks for coming by to see my spreads. Don't forget to add your link to Karen's link party. Just click the above photo to be taken to her blog. Make sure you check out the other links!
Have a great day!
-Alexandria

23/01/2015

Vintage Book Turned Mini Album


 Good morning! Today I'm sharing the base of an album I've made, using the cover from an old book. I used the pages to make my Vintage Book Page Wreath that I shared last week. I didn't want to just throw out the cover, and I had taken Celine Navarro's mini book workshop at Studio Calico, so I had information I needed to turn the book cover into a mini album.

A couple weeks ago on Instagram, I shared this photo with the caption "Either my parents lied to me, and I'm secretly related to The Hulk, or I have one amazing project in the works. Either way, I have to work in 10 minutes and this isn't coming off". I washed my hands four times and it only faded slightly. When I got to work, Jon gave me some lemon wedges to get more of it off. It didn't all come off until a couple days later, but it was absolutely worth it! Next time  though, I think I'll wear gloves, or do it when I don't have to work immediately after.


 
Here's my album. It's nothing fancy, and since it doesn't currently have a use, I haven't done anything with the front cover yet, or made any pages for the inside. I'm thinking I'll just cut some patterned paper in colours that match the outside, and add photos, or remove the pages when I decide what I want to include in this. I used two layers of fabric over my vintage book cover. The first layer was plain white cotton fabric, (I tore up some old pillow cases) torn to be just a little larger than the book cover so I could wrap the edges around to the inside. The second layer was a little larger than the first so I could overlap the strips, and it was torn randomly into 6 strips. No real reason, I just decided to tear it into 6 strips.

 

In the class, Celine used ink refills to dye the fabric from one of the Studio Calico add-ons. I don't have any ink refills, so I used blue and green food colouring. I love that the way I did it (squirt the food colouring onto a plastic bag, add a bit of water, wet the strip of fabric and mash it into the color until the whole piece is coloured), made the colours uneven and almost tie-dye. The only thing I didn't like, was how little control I had over the color the fabric turned. All I knew was that it would be some shade of blue or green or blue-green. 


Here's how the whole cover looks. I accidentally put two of the strips a little close together while they were drying, and the blue from the very top strip bled into the fourth strip from the top. I love that the colors aren't perfect, and given that it was my first attempt at dying fabric with food coloring, I think it went pretty well.

 

Here's the inside. You'd never know that it started out as an old book. I added Tim Holtz rings to the spine so I could add or remove pages. I wrapped the dyed fabric around the the inside as well.


I didn't care that the edges were uneven. I had planned to stitch them down, and then cover the inside cover with some patterned paper, but the cover was too thick for my sewing machine, so I just left it. Maybe later I'll find a way to ensure it doesn't come off, but for now, it's being held down by some glue.


I used some teal coloured fabric tape to cover the masking tape I used to secure the spine. I didn't want the back of the brad to go through all the layers of the spine, so I separated the cardboard from the right side and punched holes for the brads to go through, then used masking tape to secure it down again and then the fabric tape.

Thanks for coming by to see this mini album! I'm so excited to make a few more this year, and share them with all of you!

Have a great weekend!
-Alexandria

21/01/2015

100 Happy Days - Part Two

Good morning! I'm slowly working on finishing my 100 Happy Days album. I'll be honest, it's kind of just a hodge podge of photos, and moments/memories that made me happy throughout the 100 days. I struggled a little bit with keeping a cohesive color scheme throughout the album,but I'm still pleased with how it's turning out. I made notes for each day and have printed all my photos for the last few days I need to finish, I just need to put them into pockets and journal.

I'm not going to type under every spread, so if you have any questions, just leave a comment, or send me an e-mail and I'll answer any questions you have! Enjoy!

























Thanks for coming by to see more of my 100 Happy Days album! It's been nice to focus on some things that make me happy! Have a great day!
-Alexandria

19/01/2015

Project Life: Week Fifty

Good morning! I still hate Monday's, but at least I can share my Project Life with all of you. I don't live a super exciting, or glamorous life, but it's my life, and I'm having fun documenting it, in this way. I wish I took more photos, so I could make more mini albums, but given that this year I want to keep everything in one album, I suppose I'll have a few extra pictures that don't make it into each spread, and I can make mini albums with those.


Here's my spread for Week 50. I used the Blush Edition for this spread. I'm trying to use up some of my stash, and use older kits that I have just sitting there. I'm considering taking 1/3 of each kit and setting it aside to donate to the Seniors Lodge. They've been looking for different crafts to make with the seniors, and what's better than helping them to document the wonderful lives they've lived. I'm sure it's something that their families would like. I'll look into getting something started, and if anyone wants to donate any extra cards they have laying around, I'll be sure to get some more information to share.


Here's the left side. I missed my Niece's birthday at the end of last week because I had to work, so I made up for it by going to see her Christmas play at church. She was so excited that I came. I pulled out my two Christmas cups, and made some tea in one. It took me three tries that day to get a hot cup of tea. My niece and I made a lego Christmas tree, and she was so excited about it.


Here's the right side. We added our Christmas tree to our lego train. The lodge had Birthday Bingo for the families of the seniors with Birthday's in December (they do this once every month). We had some unseasonably warm weather, my niece and my cat cuddled on the couch, and a very rare selfie.


This week, we have another Project Life Monday Link Up. Just head over to Karen's blog (here), check out her pages and add your link to the bottom of the post. Don't forget to check out some of the other wonderful spreads being shared, and spread some love.

Thanks for coming to check out my pages!
Have a great day!
-Alexandria