new cards, old cards

as promised, i have some cards i made a month or two ago, to share with you. these are cards that i made for my sister for her Christmas gift. when she got them, she LOVED THEM! so i guess i'm doing something right. i'm still working on my photography skills. close ups are not my forte.

this is a simple friendship card i made. easy peasy.

the word hi on this card is chipboard and adding the button for the dot tickles me every time i see this card.

this is one of my favs, as my 11 yr old son loves baseball and this little guy reminds me of him. i made this one on a 5 1/2 square card which is a new to me format. i'm really liking the extra room a square card gives.

i was in a purple mood when i made up her cards. can you see the glitter on the snowflake?

these colors are more to my sisters liking. she's a natural brown and beige kind of gal. (tho she does love purple too)

this is probably my all time fav of all the ones i did. i love the golfer with his baggy shorts and grumpy look contrasted with the happy green and purple colors and sweet sentiment. my sis has lots of men in her life so i'm sure she'll find someone to give this to.

hope you enjoyed the cards i created. i always love to see what others create. i'd love to see what you have done. leave a link in the comments and i'll come visit!

100 tutorials of 2008

did you see this blog yet? the long thread has the best tutorials of 2008. 100 in all! and she has divided them into categories--how cool is that?!! i can't wait to go thru them and find the ones i missed.

and, i do actually have pics of cards i made this month and last month. they have actually been uploaded and are ready for me to blog about. soon, peeps, soon!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

i made some chocolate chip pumpkin muffins awhile back and decided to blog about it. of course, it took me awhile to upload the photo. but boy were they good. mmm! are these just the best things since pumpkin pie? between my son and i, i think we have devoured half the batch in 2 days. i got smart tho, and put several muffins in the freezer for later consumption. and those disappeared in a week or so.

i got the recipe from allrecipes.com and it was terribly easy. my son loves muffins so i may need to bake some more. of course, blueberry muffins are pretty delish too. lets just say i'm in a baking mood.

i think i'm in LOVE

found this great website the other day. its called Simply Recipes, and as you can see that's exactly what she delivers. tho, don't confuse simply with simple. her posts are packed with great info about the recipes, ingredients, and other great info. and did i mention her pics? her photographs are gorgeous! i wish i could take photos of food the way she does.

in her own words, she explains how her blog started:

Simply Recipes is a blog or a personal website, created and maintained by me, Elise Bauer. Unlike most of the large recipe sites that you might find on the Internet with tens of thousands of recipes, Simply Recipes is my personal website, with only a few hundred recipes, all tested by me, my family or my friends.

A few years ago I started writing down the recipes I had grown up with and posting them to my website. I had just turned 40, and had spent most of my adult life working as a hectic Silicon Valley consultant with little time to cook, let alone learn how to cook beyond what I had learned growing up. I come from a big family - six kids - and thought what a terrific family project, to document our family recipes! Both my mother and father are excellent home cooks, mom by necessity to raise us all, and dad because he loves to eat well and enjoys the experimentation of trying out new recipes.

she has some guest bloggers post occasionally. and she also has a great index on her sidebar so you can find recipes according to ingredient, menu/course, and she even includes budget friendly, vegetarian, low carb and wheat free. isnt' that great?

simply recipes was voted best food blog in the 2006 food blog awards and i can see why. her blog was noted in Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites of 2006 as being a "great resource for cooks". cool, huh?

so now that i've found it, i'm putting simply recipes on my sidebar of food blogs to follow. i hope to make something from her blog soon. i'm sure it'll be delish!

my word for 09

i don't think i let in on the word i chose for this year to all of you. i wrote about it here, but i'll just give you the nutshell version. i chose the word contentment. i really need contentment in my life in a million different areas. i need to embrace where i am and focus in on the moment in this life.

so i found a rectangle frame: its probably 8-10 inches tall and about 4-5 inches wide. love its shape. i want to do something with the word contentment going down vertically and then have some embellishments on the side. i'm still brainstorming ... i'm leaning towards pink, cuz that is a happy color for me, tho i could go in a total different direction. you just never know with me. sage/celery green might be nice ... or maybe a buttery yellow?? as you can see, i'm not married to the color scheme yet.

i tend to take my time when i'm in the mulling over process, but look for the finished product sometime this month --hopefully!

my bad!

well, the week is already half over and i haven't even thot about what my weekly project is going to be for this week----acckkk! and i haven't baked any bread for my weekly one good loaf i'm joining. still gotta get a flickr acct. am i the last blogger to get on flickr?

but i have a good excuse. i've been crafting cards all week. i've been able to get into my craft room every day this week! woohoo!!! that is good stuff, to be sure. i have also been twittering---oh boy! i think i could waste alot of time just following others tweets. and last nite i did some stumbling, which is always great fun.

in between all those fun things, i have been getting my house back in order and clean. i've gone grocery shopping, and i've been keeping my family well fed and clothed. i can actually see the bottom of the laundry pile!

but i do hope to have some projects and photos to share with you in a day or two.

til then, happy crafting, cooking and twittering folks.

January is National Hobby Month

while perusing the web tonite, i came across the fact that this month is nat'l hobby month. wow--who knew? i tried to find out more, but the websites were kind of lame. a couple talked about hobbies, like stamp collecting or collecting disney stuff. boring!

when i think of hobbies, i think of knitting, or sewing, or x-stitch, or painting, or scrapbooking, or beading, or .....

and because #1 son went back to school today, i had time to dive into my craft room. i got 2 whole hours to myself to play with my papers, chipboard, stamps and other fun stuff. it was so fun, and went by way too fast. i'm thinking i can cocoon in there again on wed afternoon.

i'm also finishing up a quick scarf for a friend who doesn't knit. i need to send it off to her this week before winter is over and she doesn't need it.

how bout you? what hobbies are you tackling this month? do you craft with your kiddos? with a group? or by yourself?

Weekly Bread Baking Challenge

yesterday i found a great blog. its written by molly and one of the things that caught my interest is her weekly bread making/baking challenge. i love what she calls it: One Good Loaf. here are her words to explain it.

One good loaf is weekly bread baking project for home bakers. We each choose our own recipes, convenient baking time, and then share photos, tips and ideas in our flickr group pool. This site provides resources and information to participants, and serves as a project diary for Molly Irwin, group founder.

isn't that great? so i'm diving in. i'm signing up. since i make bread in my breadmaker anyway, i thot this would be a good way for me to experiment with new recipes, have some folks to talk bread baking with, and add some interest to my blog here. if you want to join in, go visit molly's blog. and even if you don't want to join in the baking challenge, go visit. she has other crafty things on her blog as well as baking.

i'll be posting my weekly bread baking results and recipes here at handmade blessings. and if you have any favorite, or just interesting bread recipes, please share.