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)

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Beaded Ankle Bracelet & Sweet Potato Muffins

While we were at the sea just over a week ago, I took with some beading supplies to keep me busy, so after finishing the table cloth weights, I made an ankle bracelet, because the only other one I have has blue beads on it and it doesn't always match my outfits, so I made one with silver & clear beads - much more versatile! :)

Simple enough.  I just used the same 3 beads through out, thought out a sequence for attaching the dangles and that was that.

 

Easy peasy.  When I'm bored again or find myself with nothing to do on a long road trip or something, I'll be making more of these in different colours. :)

And then I wanna share a sweet potato muffin recipe that I found on Mom's Crazy Cooking.  They're so easy to make and I just happened to have a bag of sweet potatoes hanging around, so I tried 'em and they're good!

You can find the recipe at Mom's Crazy Cooking - her recipe calls for pumpkin spice but I didn't have any so I used ordinary baking mixed spice and it worked perfectly.  I made half with chocolate chips and half without, but they're both equally good.  It only makes 12 medium muffins though, so I may have to double this recipe when I make it again. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Crystal's Craft Spot      Truly Lovely
I Heart Nap Time         Under the Table & Dreaming

Table Cloth Weights (& Cous Cous Salad)

Remember to enter my GIVEAWAY before 3 May! :)

I'm back! :D  What.....? You never even noticed I was away?? Hehe...  Well, on Monday afternoon we decided to go to the sea the next day until Friday.  So we drove 6 hours to spend about 2 1/2 days at the sea - but it was so nice to be at the sea again! :D  My dad booked himself in a hotel there (when we were still in school, we used to go there EVERY year around the Easter holidays, it's my favourite hotel at the sea!) - anyway, he went alone this time, so we decided to surpise him with a visit - nobody told him we were coming so he got a good surprise.  Anyway, we got back last night.  It's weird thinking that just yesterday morning I was looking at the sea from my bedroom and listening to the waves, and now we're back here again...*sigh*.  But I'm happy to see my kitty again, hehe! :)

Of course I had to take some crafting stuff with to keep myself busy, so I took with some beading supplies and finally made some table cloth weights that I've been wanting to do for a long time!  Here they are - I made a set of 8 of them:

My little creation at the sea, hehe:

This was the view from our hotel room - I love this place because it's RIGHT on the beach, just the way I like it!

This was the morning that we left - you can (just barely) see my husband & dad being the only ones swimming, hehe.  The current was really strong that day, so nobody was allowed deeper into the sea.

Anyway, we can't wait to go there again! :)

Well, for lunch today I made our favourite cous cous salad.  I got this idea from my sister, so I can't take any credit for inventing this meal.  But it's simple, here's what I use and I think it's enough for 2 people:

1 cup dried cous cous (then cook according to package instructions, with salt to taste)
2 tomatoes, chopped into smallish cubes
1 avocodo, chopped into smallish cubes

Once the cous cous is cooked, just add the tomatoes & avo and mix.  We love it. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Simple Home Life                     I Heart Nap Time
Under the Table & Dreaming     The Tattered Tag
Truly Lovely                             Be Different..Act Normal
A Vision to Remember             Craft Envy
Passionately Artistic                  C.R.A.F.T. 
Making the World Cuter          Sumo's Sweet Stuff 
It's a Blog Party                      Craft-O-Maniac
Mom's Crazy Cooking            The Girl Creative

My goodies were featured at Passionately Artistic! :D

And featured at It's a Blog Party! :D

Old Jewellery Box Before & After, & Yummy Savoury Sauce

First, sorry there was no Who Made What? Weekends! this weekend! We were out of town the whole of Thursday until late at night and I totally forgot to set it up in advance, but it shall be back again next weekend. :)

What I've been working on in the mean time is an old jewellery box that I've had since I was small.  It's just been sitting in the back of my cupboard for years now 'cause I didn't want to throw it away.

 

So I decided to do a before-&-after. :D  And here's the after:

I removed the little windows from the front and everything inside as well:

I still have to find the right fabric to cover the inside with.

Then I decoupaged scrapbook paper all over the box.  After tons of measuring I cut the paper to fit the roof and the sides etc, and decoupaged it on.  Then I took a brown ink pad, dapped a small sponge on it and rubbed the sponge along the corners & edges of the box to give it a more interesting look (you can see it in the pic above).

And then came the decorations.  I added a gold goodie that was recycled from a wedding invitation:

I made little paper flowers too using another patterned scrapbook paper, a small flower punch & gold brads:

And then for a while now (a couple months actually) I've been looking for self adhesive swirly pearl designs, but couldn't find any.  So I finally decided to make my own decorations by drawing (or dotting) freehand swirly patterns with gold glittler glue.  Here's the left side of the roof:

And here's the right side:

I also glued on that pretty butterfly.

And then I wanted to add something to the front of the "house" because it looked a little empty, so I came up with this cute idea - I used teeny glass bottles, removed the corks and added black, red & green glitter (as the soil).  I have little white organza roses that I dabbed onto with a red ink pad to give them some colour, and for their stems I glued on some of that green wiry things that I removed from some bees that I used in a previous craft project (I knew I could still find a use of these!).  So I glued a little rose pot plant on each corner on the front:

Finally done! :D  I've put it in the dining room and we're now using it to store the keys for the patio doors & gates leading out from the dining room.

Lastly I thought I'd share one of my favourite sauces.  We usually eat it with a crumbly maize meal "porridge" that we have when we have a BBQ, but this time I didn't have maize meal so we poured it over cous cous instead, and it was just as good. :)  It's really yummy & tangy with a strong flavour.

250 g     butter
1 tsp      dry mustard powder
30 ml     worcestershire sauce
125 ml   sugar
125 ml   vinegar
250 ml   tomato sauce
1            onion, finely chopped
1            green pepper (what I think some of you call bell peppers?), finely chopped

Cook everything together in a pot for 10 minutes.  This is a large batch, so anything you don't use can be frozen and it lasts for ages.  Just defrost and heat up before serving again.

How simple is that? :D Enjoy. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

I Heart Nap Time                     The Tattered Tag
Under the Table & Dreaming    Scrappy Gifts
Making the World Cuter           Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Between Naps on the Porch       .

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

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)