Brookies

Ok, so I was doing my daily reading of Bakerella and she was posting about Pillow Cookies and how she had looked so long for a recipe for them. Basically a pillow cookie is a brownie inside of a cookie- yes, i know heavenly, so i couldn't wait to try them out. My favorite cookie recipie right now is for Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Oatmeal cookies, which I found around Christmas Time at My Recipes.com.
I baked up the brownies from scratch, but for those of you in a developed country, just save the time and buy a boxed mix- really... Once the brownies are cooled off, cut them into 1 inch squares and then the fun begins. Bakerella said to use 1/2 a cup of cookie dough per cookie- now that is a huge cookie even for me, so i sized them down and used 1/4 of a cup and that was pretty big as you can see from the pics below.



All in all, I say the "Brookies" are a pretty great way to waste my time in the kitchen- even my son who doesn't like chocolate (yes, he really is MY son) was asking for them. Now, i just can't wait for school to start so I can bake these up to welcome my little angels home on the first day- as well as a little "pick-me-up" for their teachers the second day!

Star Wars Lego Birthday Party

My son decided that for his 8th birthday he wanted to celebrate in Lego Star Wars Style. I did lot of blog searching and google searching and this is what we came up with- lots and lots of blue.

Thanks to the Lego website I was able to download lots of great SW figures and then hand, stick and print onto almost everything in our house. We even had "Jedi Juice Jolts" to add to the Jedi Juice (aka Crystal Light). The Jolts were courtesy of Kool- Aid Fizzes and were a lot of fun and made the juice a nice strange color.


Thanks to the wonderful food writers a friend brought me a few months ago, I was able to write on cookies and marshmallows. I was a little nervous about my "art-work" (using the term very loosly) on the marshmallows, but when the boys started naming off the characters (Commander Cody, Captain Rex etc) I felt a lot better. The gift bags were finished off with Star Wars Tags thanks to Living Locurto- check out all of her Star Wars Lego things.

The Star Wars plates are a fun little thing I started with my daughters Tea Party in February. They are just clear acrylic plates that I can change out by simply gluing different patterns onto the back of the plate. I start by cutting out a simple circle with my Cricut and then add embellishments. I am realizing as I am writing this that I never went back and posted pictures from Bella's party- stay tuned.

I hate to admit it, but I am just now starting to get into decorated sugar cookies- really it has been over taking me lately, so this party had to have some. Please don't judge too harshly, this was my first attempt at piping decorations. In the past I have always, just painted the royal icing on. The lettering is thanks to the wonderful food markers and a little stencil I made with help of the Jedi font and my cricut- it worked wonderfully and made the cookies more uniform.

Anyway, hope you liked our party- my son did and in the end that is all that matters!

I'm Back..... (Poltergist like)

Well, yes I am back. After a long summer with lots and lots of visitors I have plenty of pictures of things to share, now I just need time to post. So, here we go.



I wanted to show you the end of year/kindergarten graduation party I did for my son's school. I have to say the internet was almost essential for the ideas behind this party, not to mention some downloads that made it much faster to put together.

I decided on a beach theme and "Fun in the Sun" so the Soak Up the Sun graphics from Lettering Delights was great and at just $4 for the whole thing it was worth the time and effort I would have put in cutting and pasting other graphics. Check it out! Right now the set is on sale for only $2. Plus they have a Friday Freebie every week if you friend them on Face Book. You can see their "Fun in the Sun" graphics on all of the cupcake toppers as well as the larger signs and banners hanging in the room.

We used beach towels for table clothes and the great balls hanging from the ceiling I found on Hello My Name is Heather. Heather Bailey is one amazing designer- I would love to get my hands on some of fabrics. Anyway, look here for these amazing globes and a pattern that makes it very easy. These globes were cut out by an art class at the school and then because of time constraints assembled by a few adults. I think these globes in a different pattern would be amazing for a baby shower or tea party.

The Graduation Cupcakes were an idea stolen from the amazing Bakerella. If you need inspiration or want to just stand in awe of an amazingly talented baker, check out her site. Fortunately I had enough time to get a few things brought from the states to assemble the mortar boards, but had to make due with the tassels (marshmallows).

The straw umbrellas are simply printed circles with a little detail that can be printed out on any paper that fits your event. Just cut out the circles, fold in half a few times, snip out the center to fit your straws and voila! Custom Umbrella Straws. They can be found here.

Childrens Homework, Calender and Information Board

We have a very long hallway in our house and I thought it would be the perfect place to display artwork, good grades, and such. I started off by marking off the space and painting the area a shade lighter than the wall. I then put a vinyl boarder surrounding the area. I cut the boarder with my Creative Memories wavy trimmer ( I dont' think they make it any more.) I then added a calender which is just some great 12x12 scrapbook paper I found a few years ago at Hobby Lobby. I covered the calender in clear contact paper to make a dry-erase surface. I left a small boarder of contact paper around the calender to adhere it to the wall. Every month I just print out a Month title and use my trusty glue stick to put it on.
Underneath I ran some jute rope and hang important artwork, amazing tests and other essential items that need to be on display


On my son's side, I used chalkboard vinyl (from Oh My Crafts- great site!) for him to write his Spelling Words and Bible Verse each week. On my daughter side are chalk board flowers (a gift from my SIL who sells Uppercase Living Products.)

Booking IT!

I was wasting time the other day looking around on the internet (yes, I know, its a horrible habit and you would never do such a thing) and saw an amazing deal on a book binding tool- I'm sure you probably know which one I am talking about- you buy their cover, their machine and voila! you have a book. Well, as I started reading reviews and Must HAVE product lists, I started thinking, "I can do this"- a phrase that send fear through the heart of my husband. So, here it is, you too can bind a book, make it personal, and I bet it won't even cost you anything. I am certain you already have all of these supplies.

Start off with some paper. Any paper you like will do. I have used plain printer paper that I have printed cute initials on, but for this book I used some paper that was left over from homeschooling last year. It has a vintage feel. Cut it in half-or to whatever size you would like your book. For these directions you paper will need to end up about 8 inches by 4 1/4.
Now you will need a sheet of 12X12 lightweight chipboard. Measure about 1/4 over the width of your paper and score. Measure and score again for the debth of your stack of paper- ie if your stack of paper to put inside is 1 cm- measure and score 1cm after the last score line. Now all you have to do is make 2 final cuts so the total width and height is about 1/4 inch longer than your paper. This allows for a good lip around the paper.
Now pick out the paper you would like for the outer cover. If you are using a pattern, make sure you take a good look before starting so that you have exactly the perfect placement for the front of your book.
Generously cover one side of your cover with glue- I love just a trusty glue stick. Make sure to ONLY do the front of back cover first. You need to do one side, then crease the paper (especially if you are using a thick paper) before appling glue to the other side.
Now, make a few cuts so that you can wrap the remainig paper around to finish the cover.
At this point (if I am not using flocked or glittered paper) I like to add a good layer of Mod Podge - well because everything is better with Mod Podge. I like to use the Matte finish for this type of project. It gives the book a little extra protection from 5 year olds also.

Then apply a generous amount of silicon glue to the edge of the paper you cut earlier- be careful for paper cuts-ouch! Place the paper inside the cover, close and wait for the glue to dry. After the glue has dried, flip through the book just to make sure every page is secure. You may need to apply a little more glue between a few pages.
The last step is just to embellish however your little heart desires, and then either enjoy or enjoying giving as a wonderful gift! I'm sure the book binding machine works really well, but anything that requires specific items is a bit of a problem where I live, so this is an anywhere, anytime option. let me know how it works for you!

Comments

Ok, so I have heard from a few of you that the comments section is not working so well. With all of my vast computer knowledge I have attempted to fix this (ie, I changed a few things and then changed them back and then... well, you get the picture). If you wouldn't mind trying to leave a comment here that would be great, just so I know if it is working. I tried from this end, but that doesn't always mean something.

thanks,
Tracy

The Big Countdown!

My daughter LOVES, needs to, has a passion for counting things down. She like to know "how many days until....." fill in the blank. It can be days until someone is coming to visit, days until we are going somewhere, days since we last went somewhere.... well, you get the picture. I have to admit I stole this idea from an UpperCase Living catalog for a Birthday Countdown. This countdown board, however, is very versatile and can be used for whatever fits her fancy that day.
I used a metal tray I bought at a Dollar Tree before we left (yes, I actually planned ahead and brought a few supplies). I covered the inner surface with paper and then cut out these super cute numbers- both from a Love Elsie paper pack. The numbers took a while to cut out by hand, but I think they really fit the project well. I used some Chalkboard Vinyl just under the title board so we can fill in the theme for that particular countdown. I glued a magnet to a large button for her to use to mark off each day. The button gets moved from number to number. Make sure you use a fairly strong magnet especially if you have more than one layer of paper!
This particular countdown was for my husbands (her Papai's return from the states. He was just recently there for 2 1/2 weeks at a training course.