Cookbook Scrapbook from the Heart

Hi Friends ~

As always, life took over the end of this past week - but I'm finally here to share the little cookbook scrapbook I recently completed . I'm still an avid scrapbooker and it's one of my favorite hobbies. Besides working on my own family scrapbooks, through the years I have also made several scrapbook gifts and keepsakes for family or friends. I have done completed kinds of scrapbooks; like the heritage scrapbooks I made for my Grandma several years ago. Those scrapbooks contained family photos and journaling already completed in the books.

But a more common scrapbook I have often made (for a baby gift or wedding gift) is the pre-decorated kind. One that is ready-to-go (so to speak) and is decorated for someone else to add their own photos and do their own journaling. I think any gift like this is nice to give because it feels like it comes right from the heart.  Not only is it a handmade gift, but it's also often times personalized specific to the person I was giving it to; where I would include something related to their specific likes or personality on the decorated page.

I was going through my craft room the other day and I had some recipe cards on hand and a blank 8x8 album and I thought it would be neat to use both and create a little scrapbook. 

First of all I decided to embellish the plain burlap cover with some lace and a burlap flower. 

Then I often like to have a dedication page - or something similar. I often have even made this kind of spot hold a folded piece of paper in a full sized envelope that a person can open and pull out to write their message. Like a love letter of sorts.  I think it's so nice to have a place to personalize a sweet message for the recipient of the gift. Part of the "from the heart" stuff, right? ;)  On this dedication page I embellished with  a tiny little envelope I made and added a little message sticking out as a cute nod to that page being a spot to write a note for the recipient. 

Then I proceeded to make pages decorated with the cards - so someone could write down favorite treasured recipes to give as a gift to someone.  For some pages I included just the front of the recipe card - for shorter recipes. Each page is in a plastic sleeve so it's protected from getting anything splattered on it. 

Other pages I included the front and back of the recipe card for longer recipes.

Since the pages weren't very big, the recipe cards took up the majority of the room. So I just added some fun small embellisments, most often cooking related. Some also floral to go with the floral recipe cards.

The full book includes more pages then these, obviously, but I figured you would get the idea. ;) I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with this album. I already have a cookbook scrapbook for Annie to give her one day. I am either going to save this as a gift to give someone after I add actual recipes in it. Or I am still thinking of setting up an Etsy store that would include items like this for sale to buy.  Full sized and smaller albums like this that are already decorated and ready to be a gift from the heart. I would do several different themes as well. I also have other paper crafting kinds of items like jewelry with  papercraft items on them, pre-decorated individual 12x12 scrapbook pages, potentially some homemade cards?, and also little pieces of canvas art that would include vintage jewelry on them. I will let you know if I get this store going!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend. xo

I'm linking with Scrapality for Scraptastic Saturday.

Triple Chocolate Poke Cake

Hello Friends! 

I hope you've been having a great week! It's been a busy one here, but I'm finally popping in to wish  you a happy Friday and share this yummy cake recipe...just in time for Valentine's Day. ;)  

Last weekend my friend had to work and we weren't able to have our usual super bowl party together as families. So Hubby and I enjoyed the game together at home and I made some yummy snacks and this cake. It was SO good! My kiddos were especially crazy for it. And it was easy because I used a cake mix at the base - which is quick and perfect on a relaxing super bowl Sunday, right? It was so good and rich  and would also be a perfect romantic Valentine's cake as well. 

Look at all of those delicious and rich chocolatey layers.  It sure hits the spot if you're craving some chocolate. 

I made the cake by using a chocolate cake mix and following the directions for a 9x13 pan. When the cake was cooked through I poked holes all along the top and set it aside. I then took a can of sweetened condensed milk and heated it on the stove to about  boiling and then poured that over a cup of semi sweet chocolate chips in a heat proof bowl. I mixed it together until it was blended and all of the chocolate chips melted into a sauce. I poured that mixture over the top of the cake making sure it got down into all of the holes. I made a fluffy chocolate pudding frosting for the top by taking a box of instant chocolate pudding and mixing it in a bowl with 1/4 c. of powdered sugar and added 1 c. of cold milk. I whisked that for about 2 minutes until it was thickened. I then added in 1 tub of cool whip and folded it in until it was all blended and fluffy.  I frosted the cake with that and garnished with some mini chocolate chips (so almost 4 layers really?). I then put the cake into the fridge until it was time to serve. Keep any leftovers in the refrigerator. 

Rich and delicious chocolate cake with gooey chocolate goodness in the center and light fluffy chocolate frosting on top. Yep....it is a  perfect Super Bowl,  Valentine's Day -  or really any day - dessert. :) 

I hope you enjoy! xoxo

I'll be sharing this with Andrea of Scrapality for Scraptastic Saturday.

Upcycled Key Jewelry

Hello and Happy Friday Friends! It's a beautiful day in the northwoods with the sun shining on the bay. And it looks to be a promising weekend too! Before I go run errands I wanted to share more about the key jewelry I've been working on and show you some of them. 

I found a bag of old hotel keys (remember the days when you actually had to carry around a big key??) and I cleaned them up knowing I wanted to upcycle them in some way. I started playing around with some paper crafting materials, lace, fabric etc that I had lying around. 

And using some modgepodge and some jewelry glue - I went to my creative happy place and several necklaces have now emerged. ;) I liked doing layering of different kinds of materials on top of each other.  A lace backdrop with a paper crafting word.  Bits of fabric with bird stickers in front.  Whatever seemed to work with the materials I was choosing at the time. I love that when creating something new there is no right or wrong - just doing and imagination.  I attached some different colors of cording to make them a necklace and voila.  Here are some that I'd like to show you. 

I love how this one looks like the little yellow bird and flowers on the left are in front of a forest made from lace. 

Here are more I'd like to share. These next few seem especially Spring-like and Summer-like to me. 

You can never go wrong with polka dots and flowers, right??

Little chickadee over some fabric.

Pretty as a summer wish. 

I love that not only are these keys being reused and not gone to waste in the garbage, but I think they make some really funky and unique jewelry! It is my hope and plan to have my own Etsy store up and running next month. I will keep you posted on details when things are all set up.

Stay cool Friends xoxo

I'm sharing this with 

Tricky's Five on Friday

Kerryanne's Create, Bake, Grow and Gather

Cooking and Crafting with J & J

scrapality for scraptastic saturday

Pretty February Love Lunch

Since my sweet little Annie has still been on break...and also has been working on her cooking skills - we decided to plan a fun cooking and baking lunch. Today was the day! So we put together a menu that Annie felt good about helping to execute. Then we called Nana and told her we were planning a luncheon for the end of the week and wanted her to be part of it. ;) Finally, we set to work! So here are the 5 parts of a girlie luncheon:

ONE

The first step we did was to pick out a theme and make the table and everything look pretty. We had a beautiful bit of Valentine goodies we had received from my dear blogging friend Patsy - so we knew we wanted to use some of those items. We thought red, Valentine-ish, and "love" would be our main theme. We put down the pretty red runner and sparkly jewels from Patsy. As well as the pretty ribbon around some fresh flowers I had picked up at the grocery store.  We then used a valentine sign I already had about how much we love family. And finished the centerpiece off with some flameless red tealights I had. WE set the table with our every day dishes as they're already a pretty cranberry kind of red. 

TWO

Next, we got to work on our menu. Annie has gotten pretty good at making pasta (with supervision yet) - so we made lasagna pasta, salad boats, and garlic bread. We all drank peach iced tea with our meal. I usually make lasagna pasta with farfalle (bow tie) pasta as they have the ruffley edge like a lasagna noodle. But didn't have those on hand so we went with elbow macaroni. Lasagna pasta is basically pasta in a red sauce (with meat or without depending what you want), but with a bit of sour cream and shredded mozzarella mixed in to make it a little cheesy and a little creamy. I have the recipe for this under my recipe tab above. We had easy garlic bread in the freezer so just baked that up. And then we used strips of romaine filled with veggies as our salad. Just add dressing of choice, sunflower seeds, croutons etc. They're fun to eat as you can just pick up your "boat" and nibble. It was yummy and the pasta was a pretty blush red to fit our theme. 

THREE

No girlie lunch is complete without dessert of course! So for our next luncheon step we made a cherry cola poke cake. Which is basically a vanilla cake mix made according to its 13x9 directions. Once baked let it cool for 15 minutes. Then take a 6 oz cherry jello packet and empty it into a bowl. Add a 12 oz can of coca cola and 1/2 cup of cold water.  Mix together for a couple of minutes. Poke holes all over top of the cake. Pour the cherry jello/cola mixture all over cake to soak into the holes. Chill in the fridge for 1/2 and hour. Then take it out and make frosting. Take a 3.5 oz instant vanilla pudding mix and put in a bowl. Add one cup of milk and a dash of vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. Then stir in an 8 oz tub of cool whip. Frost cake and chill at least 3 hrs or overnight. To serve: cut a piece, top with chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry. 

FOUR

For our next step - we decided to spend the rest of our girlie day visiting, listening to music and coloring. Nana liked coloring in the pretty flower coloring books. Annie and I decided to color in a sticker coloring book we had  -and used the stickers we colored to help make her some cards that she could bring home as her takeaway for being our guest (even if she is just Nana). ;) So we used the coloring book stickers, doilies to glue on, washi tape, lace etc and had a creative blast! Nana was thrilled with her "gifts" - as well as leftovers to take home. 

FIVE

And the final step of a fun girlie lunch is talking about and planning the next one!! So we discussed plans for maybe a St. Patty's Day girlie lunch next time. It's fun to dream and think about what we want to come up with - almost more fun than the lunch itself! Lol  Pinterest is a favorite inspiration and all of these above ideas can be found on pinterest.  I hope you can get together with the special Girls/People in your life for a treasured afternoon sometime soon!  

I'm sharing this with:

cooking and crafting with J&J

five on friday

pink saturday

scraptastic saturday