The Winter that Never Ends....

 It goes on and on and on.  The days are longer, but the snow remains.  It's starting to warm up 'slightly', so +3C and a little bit of sunshine feels like heaven.  The front page of the local paper today talks about the possible delay of the outdoor soccer season (which traditionally starts the end of April/beginning of May)because there is oodles of snow to melt, then the ground has to dry enough to be in reasonable shape to play on.  Seriously?  Yeesh.

Just a few snapshots of my yard on March 31.  I wonder when I will be able to use my gas barbeque again.  It's on the north side of the house, and it is just starting to emerge from it's snowdrift.   The swing is more promising, less snow on that side of the house.  It's a good thing the Easter Bunny didn't have to hide eggs outdoors this month.  ;-)

Recipe for the Best Gingersnaps

For the last little while, I have been trying to bake something on Sundays so that my kids have something yummy and homemade in their lunchbags during the week.  I just don't feel right sending Oreos or other store bought cookies day after day, so I try to make a batch of oatmeal cookies, or puffed wheat squares, or something I know isn't full of trans fats and various preservatives.  Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I don't.  Depends how crazy the weekend is, but my boys and husband usually pitch in to help bake.

Sometimes this is a good thing, but it can also be a chemistry lesson.  My oldest son was helping me measure dry ingredients a couple of weeks ago, and didn't bother adding the baking soda because he didn't know where it was.  The cookies were oddly shaped, hard as hockey pucks and didn't crackle at all.  They tasted all right, but the texture just wasn't there, so it was a good learning experience regarding the power of a teaspoon of a leavening agent.  ;-)

I found this recipe for gingersnaps at http://www.allrecipes.com/, and it is absolutely delicious.  We make them over and over, and I can't tell you how many kids have come through my house and said "Mrs. Nichol, these are the best cookies ever".  So if you have an hour or two, make these.  So soft and delicious, you can't eat just one.  Theoretically this should yield about 5 dozen cookies, but they sure don't last long.

Soft Gingersnaps

1 1/2 cups butter (no substitutes), softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I usually replace one cup of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour;  nobody notices and it adds a little extra nutrition)
3 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Additional sugar

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in molasses. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and nutmeg; gradually add to creamed mixture. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until dough is easy to handle.

Roll into 1-in. balls; roll in sugar. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8-12 minutes or until puffy and lightly browned. Cool for 1 minute before removing to wire racks.
Don't overbake.  I find ten minutes is perfect for my oven.

My Stamp Box

Have you ever found a set of stamps that you keep very handy because they seem to be useful for everything?  I am just loving this set of acrylic stamps from mystamp Box!  So very versatile for adding the looking of machine stitching and lines of texture to cards and scrapbook layouts without dragging out the sewing machine and notions box.  I'm looking forward to doing some projects in the very near future with the barbed wire and zipper stamps.

I used them to add 'stitching' to the Ben place card in the previous blog post, and had some fun with the cheesecloth stamp on this card. 

Isn't it cool?  I stamped the cheesecloth stamp using TopBoss embossing ink onto a piece of ancient patterned vellum, and embossed with detail white embossing powder.  Looks just like real cheesecloth, with none of the bulk which is important because I'm mailing this particular card to an aunt in Germany.  I find any increase in the weight or thickness of the envelope substantially increases my postage cost.  Anyway, I've been storing that particular piece of vellum for at least 7 or 8 years.  Patterned vellums were really 'hot' when I started scrapbooking, and were almost too beautiful to use.  LOL  The flamingo and flowers are cut with my Cricut Expression - I'm having lots of fun playing around with my new toy. 

If you are a stamper, be sure to check out some of the other great stamp sets at their website here mystamp Box.  They have some wonderful butterfly and pennant stamps, alphabet stamps, word stamps.... and a great design team and idea gallery.  You can buy directly from their online store, and shipping is inexpensive.  The owner, the lovely Bettina von Gross, is based in Toronto and was just featured in the 2011 spring issue of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.  Here's a couple pictures from the Craft and Hobby Association trade show in Los Angeles earlier this year...

me and Bettina - as you can see by peering over our shoulders, lots of acrylic stamps to choose from, packaged in handy clear cd cases.  I store mystamp Box stamps in a small revolving cd holder I salvaged from Salvation Army.  I reckon that as compact discs fade away, cd holders will become increasingly easy to find in thrift stores

Jackie (Vanna) Ludlage holding one of the stamped projects.  Love those cloud stamps!

Wine Cork Place Cards

This was in Canadian Scrapbooker a few issues back, but I just wanted to show it again because it is so cute, and so easy!  This would work wonderfully for weddings.  No weddings in my future, but I've started saving wine corks so I can decorate up my table at Easter.  The real cork corks are getting harder to come by (at least in wine in my price range) but the fake composite corks work really well for this technique too.  Actually better, because they don't crumble like dried out cork does.

 

Take any kind of wine cork, stand it on its edge and with a sharp exacto knife, make a small slice off of the bottom so that it sits flat and does not roll. 

Place the cork flat side down, and make a slit through the cork that you can slide a piece of cardstock into.  Be careful not to cut all the way through - cutting about 3/4 of the way down to the flattened edge is good.  Take a smallish piece of cardstock, roughly 3.5  x 5" or smaller, decorate as desired and insert into the cork slit.  Just don't put too much stuff on your cardstock.  Wine corks are light, and a heavily embellished place card will just tip right over.

Quick and simple Easter place card - Rusty Pickle paper and alpha stickers, Stampin Up ink, MyStampBox stamps and the Cricut expressin to cut the bunny and the basket

The Cricut Expression

oh my, I've slid over to the dark side.  Much to the surprise of my friends, who know how much I love my Making Memories Slice, I am now the proud owner of a red Cricut Expression.  And I love it, much to my surprise.  The original Cricut and I never did get along.  When the cricut first came out, I picked one up on a great sale and it never lived up to my expectations.  It was probably the operator, but I always had problems getting it to work right no matter how I fiddled with the dials and depths.  It just never seemed to cut all the way through my cardstock, or it ripped the more detailed designs.  Frustrating all the way around and a big waste of paper, so my baby cricut just sat here collecting dust while I stamped or hand-cut or sliced designs and letters.  If you want a really great deal on a rarely used original cricut, stop on by.  ;-)

But this Cricut Expression, whoohee.  A lot of improvements have been made since the first generation cricut, and it works beautifully.  My absolute favourite feature is the multi-cut button.  Genius.   With this button, I know that my designs will always cut all the way through my thick cardstock and I won't need to be cursing under my breath and digging out the fine-tipped scissors to finish the job.  Besides using the "E' for scrapbooking, I have been cutting large title letters for my son's teacher to decorate her bulletin boards at school.  The teacher has actually just purchased a Cricut Expression for her very own, since they are the handiest machine ever for a teacher, and I found a really good deal at the Fort Saskatchewan Walmart.  They were clearing the Expression for $229, and it comes with two cartridges.  The regular price was $349, so that is quite a discount.  There was one left in the store yesterday, but some other walmart's might be clearing them too.

I look forward to playing with Expression.  Oh, the possibilities...........  I've ordered a couple of extra cartridges, Graphically Speaking and Mini Monsters, but holy cow, there sure are a lot out there to choose from.  If you have a favourite, let me know. 

Nikki Sivils contest

just found another great contest!  Head over to the Nikki Sivils blog here and sign up in the upper left corner for the Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker newsletter. It is going out in the next couple of days and Nikki is giving away a Cricut Expression.....but ONLY to newsletter subscribers!!!!

Nikki's got some great scrapbooking products and an amazing design team!  I am always totally wowed by the projects they come up with.  Here's a couple of the adorable cards that I found on her blog today made by Erika Taylor and Sarah Eclavea...  so cute!!!

Ninabrook Designs contest

If you've got a few seconds, enter to win this prize package from Ninabrook Designs!  Fifty prize packages are up for grabs!

Here's what you have to do: 

• pop on over to the Ninabrook Designs website here and quickly sign up for their newsletter by typing in your email address.
• then go to the Facebook page of Canadian Scrapbooker magazine here and leave a comment under the Ninabrook post

That's it!  Contest closes on Friday, March 25.  Good luck!

About the (red) hair...

Just wanted to share this layout that I did a few months ago, wanting to capture some of the story about having a solitary red-headed child.   I never realized how much interest strangers and non-strangers alike would have regarding a hair colour and where it came from, but Ben was quite the attention magnet when he was younger.
Patterned papers are all from Stampin Up.  If you click on the layout, you should be able to read the journalling.

Gauze Flowers and a Giveaway!

Head over to the most recent Canadian Scrapbooker webisode here and have a look at how to make gorgeous flowers out of a strip of gauze scavenged from your medicine chest.  You will love it!  So creative and fun!  It goes right to the frugal scrapbooker's heart.   I'm thinking that you could also give those white gauze flowers a shot or two with Smooch Spritz or a Tattered Angels glimmer mist for a quick way to add some variegated color and shimmer.  I have been on a shimmery spray blitz for the last couple of weeks, and my surroundings were paying the price until I remembered that I had bought one of those cardboard colour catcher you can purchase from Colorbox or Stampin Up.  It works wonders at containing the mess.

Anyway, after you watch the webisode, just enter a comment by pressing the reddish box to the right of the webisode window, and be entered for this wonderful prize pack from Quick Quotes.  Love their products!  Deadline is March 27. 

Corrugation

oh, how I love working with bits of corrugated cardboard.  It makes me so happy to go rustling through the recycle bin and turn something with no value into a gorgeous page element.  My favourite cardboard pieces are from the book mailers that Chapters online uses.  They are a nice size.  There's just something about the texture of corrugation that adds a lot to a project, and the cardboard is so sturdy it is easy to dress up with all sorts of glimmer sprays, paints, inks, beads, you name it.   I'm gratified to see that several scrapbooker manufacturers have now come out with a variety of corrugated products for those of us that don't have the time or desire to start from scratch.  Peeling the paper covering off of the corrugations can be a bit of a pain with some cardboard.  Among others,  Magenta has lovely corrugated 12x12 sheets of paper and page elements and JilliBean Soup has some great corrugated letters and shapes.   I've also recently purchased some pastel colored, finely corrugated 12x12 sheets made by Creative Imaginations.  Here's a couple  of the layouts that were just published in the spring 2011 Canadian Scrapbooker:

Magenta corrugated paper, Jillibean Soup corrugated alphabet letters, Maya Road bird and journalling tag, black Sharpie, Prima felt stem, Tim Holtz rosette die (although if you have some patience, you can make these yourself by hand by folding strips of paper accordian style)

BoBunny Mamarazzi paper and stickers - aren't they gorgeous!  And cardboard boxes, Sizzix dies, Smooch Spritz and WeRMemoryKeepers and Stampin Up brads

Endless Winter

or so it seems..........  since we got back from Mexico almost a month ago, it has been one loooong cold snap.  At least the days are getting longer, but daytime highs of -18 and lows in the minus thirties Celsius are starting to get to me.  My car was parked outside for the weekend and almost didn't start yesterday morning.  What a nasty surprise that was - lesson learned, on a cold weekend, start the car every day to warm it up and charge the battery.   My friend Sue's truck didn't start at all, and it was not a quick and simple process to find a pair of booster cables.  :-(

Dreaming of warm sunshine, slushy puddles and new growth.