Cookies Packaged in Paper CD Envelopes (& cookie recipe)

Xmas is long gone but I still have an Xmas gift idea to post. :)  I made spiced sugar cookies for everyone and wrapped them in paper CD envelopes:

I had to wrap the cookies in plastic wrap so that they wouldn't make the envelope oily, so that's my least favourite part of this gift, but I thought the rest turned out really cute. :D
I used the MyMemories Digital Scrapbooking Software to make little Xmas tags for each envelope:

Just to show again that this software can be used for so much more than just the usual scrapbooking!

P.S. If you use my special discount code in my side bar here somewhere ----->, you'll get $10 off your purchase of the MyMemories Digital Software program! :)

As for the cookies, they're one of my absolute favourite cookies in the whole wide world!  I used my Xmas cookie cutters for the first time and made some cute Xmassy shapes:

Of course, with my kitchen luck, this is what happened to my first batch:

I wasn't complaining TOO much though, 'cause I got to munch all these yummy flops. :)
I did from the next batch onward get most of them done perfectly:

 So here's the recipe....ENJOY! :D

Sugar Spice Cookies

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs cream

• mix together 1 cup flour, baking powde, salt & all the spices.
• cream butter, beat in sugar.  Beat in egg, vanilla & cream.
• stir in flour mixture, then add enough of the remaining 1 cup flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll.
• wrap in plastic wrap and chill several hours.  
• preheat oven to 180 degree C / 375 degree F.
• place dough on adequately floured surface and roll to about 1/8" thickness - these cookies must be quite thin.  Cut into shapes, placed on ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 8-10 minutes. (mine came out perfect at 10 mins) (Note: when I used an ungreased sheet as suggested, my cookies stuck to it and broke! So I greased it with spray on grease and that worked much better)

.

My First Painting (& Easy Chocolate Fudge!)

So I tried making my first painting, and here's how it turned out.  I chose cute kittens. :D

AND without any art lessons either...

What?  "It can't be that your first ever attempt at painting turned out so good!" I hear you say?? 
You don't think that these PERFECTLY shaped and real-looking kitty whiskers is the work of a naturally talented artists like me??

Ok fine! I'll say it!.......................................I CHEATED!

 

I did learn something about myself though.....I don't think I like painting....I hated mixing colours (plus the cover's mixing instruction were totally inaccurate, so I had to figure the ratios out myself, that's why my colours aren't all quite right), I hated painting with a soft "flimsy" brush that didn't always go precicely where I needed it to go (the one that was supplied in the package), I hated trying to paint such teeny tiny details, and I've got a stiff neck from leaning over this picture for about 2 days while working on it.  I was glad to get it finished.
But I'm glad I tried it, it initially looked like fun and now I've got my own little piece of artwork, hehe. :)

And now for my favourite chocolate fudge recipe.  This fudge is smooth & chocolaty and perfect for satisfying those uber sweet-cravings.  And it's easy to make!

100 g butter
50 ml milk
5 ml vanilla
500 g icing sugar (that ultra fine powdery sugar)
2 ml salt
125 ml cocoa powder
125 ml raisins (optional, but I don't put 'em in)

1. Microwave butter, milk & vanilla for 2 mins. 
2. Add icing sugar, salt & cocoa to butter mixture, mix well with a fork to combine, & microwave for 2 mins.
3. Add raisins here if you wish, pour into battered dish and cool in fridge, then cut.

Enjoy! :D

Wedding Photo Framed Scrapbook Style (And a Delicious Cake!)

I've framed another one of our wedding photos! I was going to decorate the frame as well, but I thought it would be overkill, so I left it as is...which is nice because I like the dark frame.

I used a lovely purple butterfly and petal themed scrapbook paper for the background, and glued the photo on off-centre as I wanted the butterfly from the paper to be visible as well (since our wedding was butterfly themed after all).

 I hot glued some purple roses onto the glass (I used these roses to decorate at the wedding too), and added some pretty photo corner stickers onto the photo:

I put it on the table in our entrance hall:

And then....to end this post off on a delicious sweet note....

Behold the Tres Leches cake....This photo doesn't do it justice - it looks quite ordinary, but with ingredients like condensed milk, evaporated milk and cream, this cake is anything but ordinary. :D  Mine should probably have looked a tad more moist, but for some inexplicable reason I only added 1 cup cream to the sauce instead of 2 as the recipe requires.... :0

Here's the recipe:

Cake
1 1/2 cups     flour
1 tsp             baking powder
1/2 cup         butter (recipe says unsalted, but it's just fine with salted butter which I used!)
1 cup            white sugar
5                   eggs
1/2 tsp          vanille essence

Sauce
2 cups           whole milk (of course I substituted this for CREAM)
1 can             condensed milk
1 can             evaporated milk

Topping
1 cup             white sugar
1 1/2 cups      heavy cream
1 tsp              vanilla essence

(this cake is yummy as is so I didn't bother with the topping....it really doesn't need it!  It's the sauce that makes this cake)

*   Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.  Grease and flour 1 cake tin.
*   Mix flour & baking powder together & set aside.
*   Cream butter & sugar.  Add eggs and 1/2 tsp vanilla & beat well.
*   Add flour mix 2 tbs at a time & mix well until blended.
*   Pour batter into cake tin and bake for about 30 mins or until ready.  Poke cake many times with fork.
*   Sauce - combine milk (um, CREAM), condensed milk & evaporated milk. Pour over top of cooled cake and let absorb.
*   Topping - whip cream, sugar & vanilla until thick. Spread over top of cake & keep refrigerated.

Note - you'll have place this cake in a container with a high rim (at least 2 inches high to be safe), otherwise the sauce is going to overflow and we don't want to waste all that sauce, do we???

Enjoy! :D

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Momnivore's Dilemma                 Someday Crafts
Trendy Treehouse                        All Things Heart & Home
Sew Much Ado                           Blue Cricket Design
Nikki's Nifty Knacks                   Night Owl Crafting
Scrappy Gifts                               Fireflies & Jellybeans
Somewhat Simple                       The Shabby Chic Cottage
Beyond The Picket Fence           Tales From Bloggeritaville
Paisley Passions                          It's A Hodgepodge Life
Finding Fabulous                         A Little Lovely Blog
I Heart Nap Time                       Saturday Mornings
Just A Girl                                  C.R.A.F.T.
Sumo's Sweet Stuff                    Mom's Crazy Cooking
Memories by Christine                .

Green & Purple Rose Card (& Chocolatey Yumminess)

I made this card for Card Patterns, Challenge # 98!
Here's what I came up with:

 

The challenge for this card was this sketch:

A cute card with little "doors".  I glued the embellishment onto the right door only.
I used purple vellum paper underneath, with green flowery paper on top (I love this green one!), and decorated it with a strip of dark metallic purple paper, and an embellishment that I made.

I stamped a pretty rose frame with black onto white card stock, cut it out and 3D mounted it onto a circle that I cut out of white card also (and smudged all over with purple pencil tip shavings and inked the edges - you can see the smudged colour better in the first photo above).  Then I glued a little rose in the middle and added a little butterfly to the circle (instead of a flower as the sketch suggested).

Inside I stamped a flower and leaves using 2 separate stamps:

And the inside of the doors I smudged with green pencil shavings (it's not so clear, but here it is anyway):

And finally I added some blings that you saw in the first pics. :)

Then I just had to post something else that I made last night.....

The most delicious chocolatey-coconut oatmeal cookie-fudge-brownie goodies. :D
And the good thing about these (besides their obvious yumminess of course) is that it only takes about 10 minutes to make!
So here's the recipe if you want to try it (which I strongly recommend).   :)

2 cups          sugar
1/2 cup         milk
125g            butter
1/2 cup        cocoa powder
3 cups          oats
1 cup            desiccated coconut
5ml               vanilla essence

Boil first 4 ingredients together for 5 minutes.  Remove from stove, add last 3 ingredients and mix well.
Pour into greased glass dish and set in fridge (it doesn't take too long, I don't have a time on this recipe). Cut into squares when hardened.  Best eaten within 2 days (they tend to get a little dryer and crumbly if left longer).

The original recipe says you must drop spoon-fulls onto a greased dish and allow to cool in fridge, to make little chocolate clusters....but I prefer them in blocks. :)  Needless to say, these make super gifts! :D

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Sugar Bee Craft Edition                         Vintage Wanna Bee
This And That                                        Today's Creative Blog
C.R.A.F.T.                                            Sumo's Sweet Stuff 
Texas Monkey                                       Krafty Kat 
Sew Can Do                                          All Thingz Related
Free Pretty Things For You                    Someday Crafts
The Trendy Treehouse                            All Things Heart And Home
Blue Cricket Design                                I Heart Nap Time
Creations By Kara                                  I'm Topsy Turvy
Momnivore's Dilemma                             Mom's Crazy Cooking
All Thingz Related                                   Extreme Personal Measures
Sugar Bananas                                       . 

ENTERED into:

Card Patterns (Challenge #98)                             Crystal's Craft Spot (Pattern Paper Challenge)

Christmas Gifts 2010 - Part 5 (Goodie Bag Gifts)

I love giving goodie bags, because it's always fun seeing all the goodies you get.  SO! This year (in addition to their other gifts) I'm giving every couple a Christmas goodie bag, just for fun:

In it is a cracker that I made for each person (I personalized them with their names).  I also filled little bottles with coffee for the guys and hot chocolate for the ladies (I attached some mini marshmallows to the hot chocolate bottles):

For the ladies I decorated a matchbox and tied it to a tea-light candle:

Here are these matchboxes I posted about previously, showing how I decorated them.  And for the guys I just gave a mini slab of chocolate.  Each gift in the bag was labelled with a name tag so that everybody knows who gets what.

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

These Creative Juices                                       Sugar Bee - Craft Edition
The Trendy Treehouse                                     All Things Heart And Home
Blue Cricket Design                                         We Are That Family
Nikki's Nifty Knacks                                       Sew Woodsy
Today's Creative Blog                                      *

Snowman Poop

I got this "Snowman poop" idea somewhere on the net (oops...dunno where!), and I thought it was so cute, so I had to make my own version of it!
I used plastic cream containers that I've stocked up on - I just can't throw them away, they're firm and good quality, too cute and can come in SO handy!
I filled these with mini marshmallows:

 

Then printed out "Snowman Poop", cut them out with fancy scissors, put them through my sticker machine and stuck 'em on. I used a glue pen to add some glue and blue glitter along the borders. I cut out circles out of velvety material that I had left over from Christmas presents that I made a few years back, secured them with an elastic band, and covered the band with ribbon.  And stuck a snowman on top! Cute! Hehe.

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Craft-O-Maniac                                       Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Texas Monkey                                        Sew Chatty
Sew Can Do                                            *

Totally Handmade Gifts

Once you start making gifts and things, it's just too boring to always buy something for someone...at least for me, I have to make at least part of it, otherwise the gift giving feels kinda...empty. :)  So anyway! My friend's wedding is this coming Saturday, and aside from the box of chocolates I'm still going to buy her, I've made everything that I'm going to gift to her.
I've posted the first 2 parts of her gift already, the card and the candle.  I'm making a little goodie bag for them as their gift, so I decided to give them one of my favourite rice dishes - so in this gift I included the spices that they'll need to make the dish, as well as the recipe, and this is how it turned out:

I wrapped up the spices in papers and then wrapped it with left over cream coloured curtain material - I just took a big square of the material, place the gift in the centre, brought all the sides up and tied a double knot.  I think it's cute! :)
Then I printed out the recipe on ordinary paper, cut it out with fancy scissors, inked the edges and glued it to patterned card stock:

 

I punched 4 little leaves and dabbed them with the same ink pad, and glued them to the recipe.

And then I tied the recipe to the material wrapping with brown metallic ribbon:

So here are the handmade gifts that I'm going put in the goodie bag:

I actually still want to make each of them matching bookmarks, but I'll have to see if I have time for that!

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Ain't She Crazy! 
It's A Hodgepodge Life
A Few Of My Favorite Things 
Crystal's Craft Spot 
Saturday Mornings

Cake in a Jar Gift

My gran invited us over for dinner tomorrow night, so instead of buying the usual flowers or chocolates, I made this cute little cake in a jar gift:

It's a jar that we had left over from our wedding favours (I still have a few of these left).  I have this 5 minute chocolate cake recipe that I love, so that's what's inside the bottle - I layered the dry ingredients, and she'll just have to add the wet ingredients.
I decorated the bottle with a rose and some leaves (also what I've kept from the wrapping of a wedding gift we received):

I printed the recipe instructions on plain paper, cut it out, coloured the edges with an ink pad, and stuck it onto patterned card stock, which I cut out with fancy scissors:

And tied it to the jar with a ribbon from my scrap ribbon stash:

Cute, huh?! :D

And for those who want this quick and easy single serving microwave chocolate cake recipe, here it is:
4 tbs cake flour
4 tbs sugar
2 tbs cocoa powder
1 egg
3tbs milk
3tbs oil
Mix well and microwave for 3 minutes on high.

YUM!! :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Making The World Cuter
Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Truly Lovely
Mom's Crazy Cooking
A Vision To Remember 
I'm Topsy Turvy                                                      .