Day 2: 12 Days of Christmas

I'm still catching up from the holidays and trying to complete my 12 Days of Christmas class. I'm not going to give up even if it means I finish in July.

Here is Day 2! The challenge was to highlight your Christmas tree. I tend to always use the same font for titles, but one way to jazz up a layout is to mix and match. I need to remember this more often!

Day 1: 12 Days of Christmas

I am in the process of finishing up 12 Christmas layouts using the fabulous handouts from the latest Big Picture Class I am taking - the 12 Days of Christmas. So I am a few days behind.... I am inspired to finish it up soon because my scraproom is a Christmas explosion and you can't even walk into it. You will find me sitting on the floor in the hallways scrapping!

Day 1 was to take a family photo.

Here is my finished layout.

Day 8 Camp Scrap Christmas: Making Cookies

Today over at Camp Scrap, May is all about making cookies. I had a holiday party on Thursday that I needed to make a dessert for so I went with my go-to recipe, Mint Chocolate Truffle Cookies! The hardest part for me has always been crushing the candy canes. In a moment of inspiration I loaded them into a zip block bag and went out to my front door step with a hammer. Concrete+hammer+candy canes=crushed goodness! Worked like a charm!

Here is the recipe:

Mint Chocolate Truffle Cookies
6 squares of Baker's semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup of butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup flous
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cup chopped candy canes

Preheat oven @ 350. Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwavable bowl on high 2 min or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Add eggs 2 at a time mixing until well blended after each addition. Add combined flour and baking powder. Mix well. (dough will be very soft). Cover and fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Roll heaping teaspoonfuls of dough into 1 inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 min or until tops are set. Do not over bake. Immediately sprinkle with chopped candy canes. Cool 1 min on baking sheet. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 44 cookies.

and here is the finished product:

I'm Back! And Camp Scrap Christmas Day #1

It has been 2 months since my last blog post - but I have a pretty darn good excuse.

This happy little bundle of love has been keeping me pretty busy. I haven't seen the inside of my scrap room let alone cut a piece of paper. I still keep up reading my favorite blogs though. That is how I discovered that May Flaum was offering Camp Scrap: Christmas. I really really want to take advantage of this. Somehow I found a few minutes today to do some basic Christmas tags. Make the most of 30 min and that is what I did. It felt soooooo good to do something creative. Still a lot of cobwebs I need to dust off, but here are my 3 tags.

The first one is my new favorite Santa stamp.
The second one is kind of funny - my mother-in-law wraps our gifts in vintage 70's wrapping paper. This was a very cute kitty paper that made me laugh. The third one I used my Martha branch punch.
I can't guarantee I'll get another 30 min this week, but I am sure going to try.

Kit-Tastic with May Flaum: Week 1

It is time for another fabulous class at Big Picture Classes with the wonderful May Flaum! Her new class is called Kit-tastic and it is all about helping you create with kits and getting the most from your stash. I always get drawn in to the beauty and one-stop-shopping of page kits, but the reality is, I am horrible at using them. There are many unopened kits taking up valuable shelf space and collecting dust in my room. With this class I am hoping to finally dive into some of them and create some fun pages.

Today, I decided to break into an old Basic Grey Kit from a CKC class that I ran out of time and never finished. I am currently working on a baby girl album and want to make a bunch of pre-made pages that I can use once baby arrives. For this page, I swapped out the recommended blue patterned paper for a pink design. These pictures are placeholder (and are actually my nephew!), but I bet we get similar pictures when baby is born.

 I also decided to hand stitch my title. This was a new technique for me. I had purchased May's Scrapbook Workshop technique book when it came out and then I never did anything with it. This class has inspired me to try new things to enhance my kits. There is an easy tutorial for how to hand stitch. I will say this title took me 2 hours to complete!! But hopefully I'll get faster the more I do.

Big Idea Festival Day 8: Joy

I've been doing my best to keep up with the Big Idea Festival over at Big Picture Classes. I don't have a photo printer at home so I have to work with the photos I have available until I can order more. They don't always map to the daily challenge so I either get creative or have to skip some days. Day 8 was to scrap something that has happened to your recently that brings you joy. I happen to be working on pages for my baby shower album and had some fun photos for this page.

Big Idea Festival Day 5: Happy Challenge

If you haven't had the chance to experience the Big Ideal Festival at Big Picture Classes I cannot encourage you enough to go check it out. It is 14 days of guest designers, challenges and prizes and all of it is FREE! It is a great place to find inspiration and to learn about the different teachers and classes they offer. This is my third year participating and each year I am more amazed at the event that they create.

For Day 5 of the challenge, May Flaum's Big Idea was to play with your supplies and create a layout in a way that makes you happy. What makes me happy are simple scrapbook pages with lots of white space that highlight an important photo. This is my favorite photo from the summer (and maybe ever) so I thought it was perfect for this challenge.