Progress!

Well my new project to switch rooms w/ Kaylee went well last night! lol.. i took a nap and then popped up when Kaylee got up from her's and went at it. I finally finished around 9:30, when I finally put the kiddo to bed.

I was able to accomplish all the major furniture moved, the closet except the top of her's. i'm going to borrow some of her closet top though ha ha! I never really even used the top of her's when it was in this smaller room. I have some scraggling left overs in the floor, and a few things that flew out of my hands once I moved it, but.. here's what i have so far by way of progress on the office portion:

Today I plan after I run errands, to fine tune the closet, and the clean up the rest of the stuff on the floor, and organize and make it homey in here. I plan to do the same in K's room as well. :)

Well there you have it! My next project!!!!

hmm.. what's next?!

So I haven't updated my site since August?! wow, that's crazy. Maybe I should stick to this one instead of starting another at word press (though I do like word press better, oh well!) Today's project is going to be getting the Christmas decorations down and put away and setting up things in our new home. We've been here almost a month, but I still have so much to do. Christmas added some extra clutter, and I'm ready to have it DONE, settled- el fin! Today's project?!?!?!?! I'm switching room's with Kaylee. My office is quite a bit bigger than her bedroom, and the darn kid doesn't fit! ;) So I'm going to do my best to switch closet for closet, furniture for furniture- etc. Her toys are leaking out into the living room, and it's quite unpleasant! I'll have to take pictures of the transition for sure :-) But for now!!! I made these really yum spritz cookies from all recipes- they turned out super tasty. I thought I'd share the recipe!

I never do leave a recipe alone though lol! I omitted the cinnamon (not a cinnamon flavored cookie fan) added quite a bit of extra zest- and it was delish!

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup butter
• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon orange zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, salt, and cinnamon; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and egg yolk; beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the vanilla and orange zest. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Fill a cookie press or pastry bag with dough, and form cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the cookies are golden brown on the peaks and on the bottoms. Remove from cookie sheets at once to cool on wire racks.

And here's a picture of my lil' helper. She loves to crack the eggs ;) and then take a break once the first batch comes out lol

I don't just craft w/ paper ;-)

So, I'm wanting to do a new blog "rotation". i won't make this one long, because I have written another blog today, and I can't blog every day in every blog LOL.. if that makes sense :-)

It's that time of year for me though, where I don't just "craft" w/paper and photos- but also w/ food. this last few days has commenced my seasonal baking, cooking obsession. LOL.. I tend to just skate by in the summer, it's an uninspiring season for me in that arena. Except, I do a lot w/ berries, but I didn't make jam this year. It was an odd fruit year w/ the crazy weather we had!

Anyway! ;-) Last night, I got a huge blessing from my husband. A CAR! for anyone that knows me and my situation this past couple of years, this is one of the biggest things EVER in my world. Next- will be to find a new home to live in, b/c w/in the next few months they are selling this one. until then!!!!! LOL.... i was inspired to make Flan.

I've heard it "can" be challenging, measurements have to be exact in order for the custard to set correctly. Don't over mix, or it won't set, the sugar that gets on the bottom has to be perfect- etc. I followed the recipe exact except I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the top of the custard before baking it- and I used my min- convection oven which I haven't really done before. Figured it would be better than firing up my regular 1970's oven that heats uneven, and the temp seems to be off- and anyway, yeah.... ha ha!!!!

Well, this is the end result- and let me say it's NOT difficult if you follow the recipe- I used better homes and gardens. i cooked it JUST until the knife came clean, the custard was still jiggily- i just trusted my gut and the end result was yummy! :)

Need some new pages!

ahh! things were a whirlwind this past week. I feel like it's been ages since I've scrapped, even if it's only been a week and a half! My sister will be here until Thursday or Saturday depending on a few things, and I may be out of town this weekend, so not sure when I'll be able to scrap again! We did get the entire house cleaned for my daughter's 2nd birthday and for the realtors, so that's fabulous. I'm hoping for a new car by the end of this week, so I can drive to Eugene w/ my daughter for a big family get together w/my husband's family. woop! Anyway, just thought I'd say I haven't given up this blog adventure, just haven't had time for anything new! :-)

see ya soon!

Final two lift-off challenges :-)

So the last two challenges I pulled out of the lift-off liftateer weekend on fiskateers.com was a little tag I lifted, and a cute layout i made and brian helped out w/by flicking brown markers onto the paper to look like pudding. :-)

the next challenge was to lift a tag. Challenge #11

I did win two challenges, so that's fun and exciting! ;-) I'm sure once this week is over, and we've gotten the things we ant to accomplished done, I can do something else soon. I DO need to make a wedding card for my cousin amanda, and maybe an anniversary card for my sister and brother in law. :-) I'll need to have them sent very soon, so not sure how I"ll handle the Ann card. we'll see ;)

k that's it for now- now it's time to get back to work before my daughter gets up!

Oh so many projects and challenges- i love being a fiskateer! ;-)

So I just did another several of the fiskateers' challenges for the lift-off crop weekend. They had a total of 17 challenges, so far I've done 8 of them. some are closed, some still open. w/all the craziness of getting ready for Kaylee's 2nd birthday party and having to have the house cleaned up for the realtors- this will probably be the bulk of what I'm able to scrap this week anyway. I did want to get as many pages done as possible, for family to see. So I'm very grateful for these challenges which inspire you. It's so awesome. The whole point of me being a fiskateer and being interested was to "scraplift" ideas, and gain inspiration. isn't that the point anyway, of having people look at your layouts, and you browsing others, and participating in challenges? I think so! :-)

If you're interested in being a fiskateer- you can go to fiskateers.com and " get to know" one of the leaders, and they'll send you a link-invite. It's fairly easy if you're into paper crafts, sewing and love fiskars products! ;) They often have challenges w/prizes for the winners. It's super exciting! I hope I win at least one challenge this weekend- I definitely worked hard!

anyway, I was super excited to show off my current projects!

These first few I actually did a few days ago- I just haven't done anything w/them yet on a blog :-) this is one of my layouts, i didn't do a challenge for these next couple.

I used the fiskars woodland tree stencil, and then one of the alphabet stencils for the title.

This is a simpler one that I got from inspired blueprints- as one of their sketches. I LOVE inspired blueprints! :-) I still need to do their august challenge! ;)

Kaylee's first Easter layout: I actually found it here from the web.

These are all from the fiskateers lift off challenges- I did leave credit where credit was due on the blog, I'm not sure if i am supposed to leave the love in my blog as links- if so I'll definitely will ! :-) someone that reads this let me know!

this was lift a topic: the topic was splash, pool party, water, lake, beach theme.

The next one was lift something from one of the fiskateers of the year. I lifted her cupcake card idea (from Meghan 1358)

challenge #5- was lift and turn I lifted the layout ideas, and moved all the elements around, or flipped em where I wanted them.

The last one was to lift an idea, (layout, craft project, tag, card, technique) from someone w/the same first name as you. This was challenge #2. Here is the layout I lifted. And here was my version: It was actually a really fabulous sketch! I love sketches- it lets the sky be the limit!

There you have it so far! :-) My house is a mess LOL! but at least i got some crafting I wanted done!

I also didn't have a book to put all of the pages I have done past kaylee's first 3 weeks of life. I was also using a chewed up helix mat to cut on that was only 8x11- and things kept getting stuck in the deep grooves. now I have a LOVELY! Fiskars rotating self healing mat, 14x14 so I can page border edges, and rotate it around. it was on sale at joanns, for 40% off, yay!! AND! I'm LOVING! the 3 ring style scrapbook to hold all the pages in. no more screw posts, yippee! and no more having to have 10 books just to house your pages! These bad boys hold up to 300 pages, it's 2 1/2 inches thick.I'm anxious to get then organized! I'll have to take photos of the progress of my organizing my book... Super excited that i have found something I think I'm fairly good at. I have had to try sooooo hard ALL my life for anything crafty. I LOVED crafts, drawing, etc. I just as honestly- NO good at it.

i needed something besides the couch and tv!

Challenge fiskateers for liftateers #7 :-) 2 pager-

I really loved this layout but was intimadated by it. I really liked the photo angles, and thanks to my shapecutter express, it once again made it a lot easier than i thought it would be! :-) I really do love Fiskars. i'm excited to be on the fiskateers project boards- gets me movin! i have like several hundered photos I'm behind since i didn't start scrapping ANY of my daughter's life until oh I dunno, June of THIS year. LOL- and I LOVE photography, so that's a lot of moments! :-)

Anyway, this was the liftateers challenge #7 for the liftateer anniversary- they call it scraplifting from other members. Basically using their layouts, or techniques on your own pages.

Here is the original "lift" photo-

Here is the layout I created, using this method of the angles, and layout design-

New directions- and a fiskars craft challenge :-)

So I'm going to move my craftiness to this accnt. I have my other blog, a journey unknown for life's updates, but felt i needed to attached the two. i was informed that my opera blog you have to have an account in order to see everything, and I've always used and loved blogger, so I might as well stick w/what I know, right??!!

well here's my first post. lol- I'm going to eventually move my current layout designs and blogs over here, but I'm going to dinner tonight and don't feel like it LOL :-P I need to shower and clean the house ha ha-

anyway- the purpose was to create a craft item, by alterting something into something else. I save all my cards, b/c often i cut the graphics out and recycle them into scrap book layouts. then I write in tiny letters where it came from and what occasion. Like kaylee's baby book has a few papers that were from cards from my baby shower-

this was a beautiful and sweet simple card from my husband's dad and step mom. It's a cute card, but it has no other purpose in my card drawer- until now! :) I transformed it into a home "tweet" home card for my husband's aunt- who I guess is moving home at the end of the month. I used my fiskars ( of course!) stencil- woodland tree, and made the bird and the tree branch, used the existing liner i took out and cut side borders- and cut off the top sentiment- and shortened the card. I like how it turned out! :-)

anyway- here's the before and after of what I submitted for the crop lift off challenge.

The other one that I was challenged w/ was using materials other than paper to create a layout design. I used eyelast yarn, plastic conffetti, and foam raised hearts... I really like this one :-)