Sisterhood of Scrap Saturday Sketch

Still using my Zany Zinnia kit
[quote sticker, white paint, and ribbon from my stash]:

Once a Month [old stuff] Give Away

Okay - so I have bunch of stuff that needs to GO - and I'm really tired of seeing the OMG abbreviation everywhere [I try hard to make my mind read 'oh my goodness!] so am hoping that we might also come to think of it as 'Once a Month [old stuff] Giveaway! I plan to randomly draw a name from the comments each month and send that person a little bag of goodies that hopefully they can use [new to them and all, you know...] So February's OMG goes to Adeanna - send me your address and I'll get some stuff in the mail to you!

Enjoying The Gulf

Been down for the Alabama Social Work Conference - it's been years since I've attended this conference and it's been very nice to see some old friends from throughout the state - and of course being at The Gulf is always a pleasure...some photos to share:

and a note - this conference started in 1922 [!!] and they have scrapbooks with things from those original conferences [news clipping, mimeographed copies, etc] through today - basic scrapbooks with just clippings, programs, photos with names - but, oh so nice, to see how far the profession has come here in our state and also to see those who have paved the way for the services we offer [in all professions] today.
Very nice without all the hoopla of scrapping we use to create... so I encourage you to
KEEP YOUR MEMORIES
- doesn't have to be 'all that' to capture something meaningful for future generations...

Encyclopedia of Your Ordinary Life - V

A few years ago I had the opportunity to complete this extraordinary scrapbook album designed by CathyZ and based on the book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Rosenthal. While I still haven't read the book, I love the concept of this album - a random sampling of those ordinary facts about your life [my life.] The homework involves keeping a list, A to Z, of random memories for several weeks and then gathering photos [or not] to support these memories. Love it. The album is really very simple [a la Cathy Z] and easy to put together with only two square photos per page and two to four 'definitions.' Have I said I love this album? And I want to share some of my life with you so I've committed to do just that in 2009 [keep in mind this was completed during the summer of 2007.] I'm going backwards and today I present: V
VISITING
Lazy days with family and friends. I have great memories of family and friends just dropping by and visiting together, or us visiting with them. It was especially nice to have summer afternoons sitting outside and catching up on all the family news.

VACATION
While growing up we took a vacation to the beach every year. Joe hated the beach, but enjoyed seeing us enjoy it. Craig and I love to travel – and looking back – we’ve taken many, many mini-vacations yearly – along with some longer weeks away as a family too. “A vacation is what you take when you can’t take anymore of what you’ve been taking.” - Not always true, but it is always nice to get away and slow down a bit from our hectic lives…

VALUE
I think I sometimes struggle with self-confidence, but have never doubted my value or worth. Mama and Joe have always given me a sense that I could accomplish anything I set out to do. I hope we’ve given our children that same sense of value. Love the song by Nicole C. Mullen – “Baby Girl, do you know who you are?, God has made you a shining star, Baby Girl, you’re a diamond hiding on the shelf – a little bit of light stronger than the darkness… Baby Girl…”

My Scrap Space

We purchased these wonderful shelves from Craig’s previous boss when they were down-sizing and I have one section for my goodies. It stores mini-albums, as well as recent 12 x 12 albums, craft books, embellishment containers [re-decorated from Christmas goodies,] LOM photo storage system, storage for class materials, and memorabilia box.
Can you tell green is a favorite color of mine?

And I have to admit, there’s more…partly because of the kit business we’ve had these past few years. This is one of the closets in the play room where I store paper packs and extra scrap supplies. The chest-of-drawers was left in the house when we moved in. There’s a tool box with pull-out drawers from Home Depot on the first shelf, and then other extra goodies I’ve purchased for classes or kits through the years. Oh, and top shelf right corner? Those are my scrapbooks [pre-archival] that I created in middle school, high school, & college - that's the 70's and 80's...

I also have another little desk [again, from a thrift store] in the play room where I can craft while watching television. A book shelf nearby [custom built by Craig many years ago to hold 12 x12 albums when I first started scrapping] houses albums, my sewing machine, and a few other crafty things. This desk cleans up easily so the boys can use it for a computer desk when they’re home. Again, a place to hang some favorite layouts is above the bookshelf.

So that’s it – my craft area. Organized the way I work best. I’m a firm believer in re-purposing and finding new uses for old things. I hope this little tour of my space will give you ideas on how you might organize your area in a way that’s best for you.

My Scrap Space

There’s a little built in window seat behind my desk so I placed a mission style sofa table [used in our previous home] on top of that for shelving. It holds photo boxes with extra adhesive and recently purchased goodies, etc. On top is an old file holder from my very first office-mate that holds envelopes and card-making materials and additional bins with pieces of scrap paper, rub-ons and projects in progress…

My little alcove is small so I use the walls as well – to the right is two bulletin boards [first used in the boys’ rooms before our move] with fun and inspirational things on them. There is also a couple of hooks for memorabilia that I have embellished with heritage photos, some framed works, and every day goodness that makes me happy. I also have a clear file holder [from Wal-Mart] hanging on the wall where I store favorite papers or layouts waiting to be put in their albums. Oh, and my craft apron I sewed up this past winter…
more tomorrow...

My Scrap Space

To the left I have a wire shelving unit and two stacks of storage drawers on the floor. The shelving unit [from Big Lots] is three wire cubes stacked on top of each other. It holds old magazines and craft books, as well as cricut cartridges and my stamping container – I’m not a big stamper and have only alphabet stamps that all fit in this one storage container. [My cricut sets on part of my computer desk that abuts this unit.] The storage drawers hold stickers and papers by theme [outdoors, seasons, holidays, etc], as well as by color, using the ROYGBIV method. A couple of drawers also hold knitting and crochet supplies as well as labeling systems. On top of the drawers I have my trimmer and alphabet [stickers, chipboard, and rub-on] basket [divide in bags by color]
Above this is a set of shelves Craig made by turning a shelving unit [from K-Mart, bathroom storage section] on it’s side and cutting a couple of more dividers. The sections hold: a box for modpodge and decorative scissors, paint with brushes behind, ribbons on spools he made to fit, mini albums, and photo storage envelopes. Love this shelf – it’s so nice and handy to my ‘work’ area. On top of the shelf I have some little Disney mementos, clear jars [Wal-Mart] with embellishments: odds bits of ribbon, metal, flowers, etc. and another little basket of odds and ends. There’s also the clip-on light that helps my aging eyes…and I have cup hooks under this shelf where I can hang favorite [recently completed] layouts by clips.
More tomorrow...

My Scrap Space

First, I want to be clear - I’m not sharing my space because I think it’s “all that, ” because, hey, I know it’s not. I’ve seen those photos of all the beautiful scrap spaces some people have…and honestly, I don’t have the money, space, or inclination for that. [Well, maybe, if I had the money…lol] I share my space to show what works for me – and keep in mind that it changes a little each year as my process of crafting changes…. I know that everyone doesn’t have a designated area for their crafting [for many years my craft supplies were stored in the laundry room and taken out to be used at my dining room table, only to be put away again when supper-time came.]

When we moved a few years ago I was so pleased to have an extra room we could use as an office / scrap space. [Our computer cabinet is in there as well as a futon, Craig’s desk, files, and his storage closet.] I was even more pleased to find that a table we’d had custom made for our first home fit perfectly into the little alcove that all my scrap goodies would call home.
Thus, my scrap desk:[and sadly, or not so - because it means I'm taking time to play -
this is what it looks like most of the time...]

My desk is set up so that I can easily pack up for a crop. To the left is stackable containers that hold my pens and water color pencils. Then my [wheeled] carry-on luggage that holds embellishments divided into fishing tackle boxes by color. [CM cutting tools are stored in the inside pocket.] My adhesive container [again, stackable] is in front of this. My scissor / small tool container sits on the top embellishment box. Moving to the right you see another container with large and most often used punches as well as my small xryon. Then, a box for inks & chalks with my photo file on top of it. Next is a little clear drawer container I picked up at a thrift store while at Scrap Bowl last year. It holds additional embellishments divided, again, by color. On top of this is my tool caddy, scripture rolodex, and some bling…and of course Figment to help with my imagination! Also another little tool caddy I made from a 6pack drink carrier... An additional lamp is next, and then a stack of recently used scrap papers waiting to be re-used or re- filed is in front of the lamp. I have a quilters cutting board on top of my desk with a piece of glass [from a frame bought at a thrift store] over it for easy cutting and cleaning. A little florist frog holds some additional tools. I store extra bags, RAK goodies, and storage cases [cricut] underneath.
More tomorrow...

Free Faithbook Class!

During the month of March I will be offering a free five week faith book class based on the book, Born to be Wild [rediscover the freedom of fun] by Jill Baughan. I first read this book last summer while I was enrolled in the Have More Fun class with Stacy J and loved reading this christian perspective on fun while learning how to have more fun with my scrapbook pages. And I want to share some of it with you. PLEASE, feel free to buy the book and read it thoroughly. It's such a great read!! The class will be structured [and all classes are already loaded and ready to be posted on their assigned day] and work like this:
Mondays - I will post a short exert from the book with a scrapbook layout sketch.
Wednesdays - I will post my take on the assignment for the week along with a photo of my layout.
Fridays - I will post feedback on any comments or links to your work. [Obviously, these are to pre-loaded...]
There is no cost for this class and anyone can join in for one week or all of the class. The only thing i ask is ta ht those who join in post a comment and link to where they post their take on the assignments. I LOVE [love -love] to see how students put their own twist on layout ideas! I look forward to it and hope you'll plan to join in! Oh, and there will be prizes for the top three participants...

We Have Snow!!

and you know what THAT means if you've ever been around Craig or my mom when it's snowing...
SNOW CREAM!!!
The necessary ingredients can be purchased at any local yokel grocer:

sugar, evaporated milk, and vanillaThe SNOW must be fresh and untarnished...
mix together to your taste - and enjoy![Of course that's probably easier to do if there isn't someone lurking about to take your photo!]
We're in Kentucky for me to attend Fiskars Fun Day - and what a Fun Day it has been!
The local store [Scrapbook Village] worked with fiskars to pull together an event here, in what she referred to as the not so big city, and they did a wonderful job. They invited four other *local* scrapbook stores to join them to sell an abundance of fiskars products.
Fiskars sponsored, and offered four fun classes FULL of wonderful heidi grace and cloud nine product, AND the opportunity to play with all kinds of fiskars tools - both old and new -
They provided lunch as well,
AND gave away every. single. tool. used in the classes at the end of the day
- all for $39!
W e went by group to choose the tool we wanted and while some of those border punches are lovely [seriously, I'll probably be using a 40% off coupon for at least a couple of them..] I chose the cutting system with the swivel blade [retail: $44] - something I'd probably never buy for myself, but think I'll use for circles in particular...And there's a crop tonight - but I was scrapped out [with a bit of a back ache...] so finished up so Craig & I could go eat just in time to enjoy the beautiful snow falling.
There's maybe an inch on the ground...
Wish we could share some with you, Mom!

More sketches

for Sisterhood of Scrap: found some extra photos from when these were printed sepia-style to hang in the boys' bathroom. Love these - brings back sweet memories - so I had to do a layout for our "All About Us" album... [papers from my monthly kit at Zany Zinnia - ribbon from my stash.]

My Library of Memories System

LOM – My Albums
I’ve never felt the need to scrap every. single. photo. In fact, when I first started scrapping [back in the 90s] product was expensive for me so the goal was to get the gist of the event down in just a couple of pages…including a focal photo, some memorabilia and a scattering of stickers – wherever [achoo] Really, this was what I was 'taught' - here's my first archival scrapbook page:

[the bone was the invite - and the journaling was put in several years later...]

For many, many years I scrapped chronologically – limiting myself to two scrapbook pages per event or season, highlighting the child whose album I was working on at the time. [For years I did layouts of each event for three albums.] This is good – and bad. My children have only five albums to deal with [preschool, elementary, middle, high school, and college, in progress,] instead of one or more for each year of their lives… [I can't imagine where I'd store 38 albums if I'd done an album a year for them...] and I have an album [or less] for each year since we’ve been married. These albums are full of events we were involved in – with an occasional memory page thrown in. These last few years I’ve expanded my scrapping to include many more memory layouts that have nothing to do with an 'event' in our lives and I’ve thrown in the occasional ‘just because’ layout that has a fun photo or meaningful quote. So these are my albums today:

Included are the boys’ albums [in CM type albums] and my yearly albums [I complete these, still - am moving toward all AC albums] as well as my heritage album [“People We Love” – divided, again, by family name], a “Just Because” album, and an “All About Us” album. The albums are housed in the playroom and in the office near my scrap area. I also have an 8x8 album that I use specifically for faith based pages [although these are also scattered throughout all of my scrapbook albums.]

[8x8 and 6x6 albums, as well as two-up albums are on the bookshelf]

I enjoy doing lots of mini albums and photo album scrapbooking, highlighting a specific trip, or theme. [I have a 7x7 Disney album that has two pages for each of our trips through the years. Is this the only place I’ve scrapped my Disney photos? Not a chance. But it is fun to see how we’ve changed through the years as we’ve enjoyed the most magical place on earth.] These albums are on the book shelf in the office and in a basket in our living / dining area.
Thanks for looking and I hope it's been helpful as you begin / continue your journey into the LOM system. Make it your own!

My Library of Memories System

LOM - Other Memorabilia
We’ve always collected little bits of memorabilia as we’ve traveled through life [school projects, invitations, birthday cards, travel tickets & pamphlets, etc.] For me, school projects have always been kept by grade & child in a storage box in the attic. But as I begin to clean and purge other areas of my scrap space I begin to find all kinds of memorabilia that didn’t have a ‘home.’
My solution has been to place this in large zip type bags and keep in a box, ready for use on my scrapbook pages. Each child has a bag for elementary, middle, and high school [Their college memorabilia is kept in a file near our computer.] And there are bags for things we’ve collected during our travels. The kids’ bags will probably always be in this box, but the travel bags are disposed of once I’ve scrapped all of the photos / memories from that trip. The box sets on a bookshelf near my scrap area and I love that it’s easily accessible when I want to pull something out to include on the page.

My Library of Memories System

LOM - Old Photos & Cold Storage

Old photos – what do I do with the millions of old [and admittedly pretty rotten] photos? When I started the LOM I was actually dreading this part a bit – as I’ve said before – I have lots of photos from the last 30 years or so. For many years I kept all my extra photos in some generations cases – mostly organized by year & season. I knew I’d need to set aside time to go through all of those – and this task was complicated by the fact that I kept finding photo envelopes scattered throughout our house full of photos from the last five years [since moving and putting my generations cases in a hard-to-get spot…] I got started this way:

1] I set aside 30 minutes at a time to work on photos –

2] I went through a group at a time and ruthlessly purged; sending some to the trash and others that might be duplicate or not deemed scrap-worthy to cold storage [I re-used my generations cases for this.]

• I was pleased to see that when I took out at least one of my old photo storage cases that the photos were already organized by person and not year. So at least ten years of photos were already half organized for me. [Somehow several years ago I’d decided this type of organization would work better in finding photos of those we loved for those who come behind me.]
• I purged ruthlessly – and trashed many of my not so great photos [and of course the pretty rotten ones were first to go!] I do not feel the need to keep every single printed photo of my children. My reasoning? I have many, many excellent photos of them at every stage of their lives and simply don’t need the bad ones. If that photo of a little red dot [their jersey color] on the soccer field was the only photo I had of them, then, yes, of course I would keep it. But that’s not the case with me, and I doubt it is for you either…
• I pulled the ‘best of the best’ of these photos and placed them in the LOM boxes that I’ve talked about previously. I’ve always scrapped events from my children’s childhoods and I’ll admit that there are [many] times when I’ve chosen to go back and scrap memories of those time and the ‘best of the best’ may already be in their scrapbooks. What to do? I simply scan the photo and print a couple [one to scrap and one to put in my LOM box in case I want to use it again…]

3] I went through all of the photos a second time and sorted photos into categories for my LOM system. Everyone's categories will be different - especially in the 'Things We Do' category. Lots of church, camping, soccer, drummer, fishing, scrapping, sailing, etc. in this one for us...

4] Made dividers that were appropriate for our lives and filed the photos.

5] I know these will be full one day [soon!] and I’ll have to do another purge to cold storage.

More tomorrow....

My Library of Memories System

LOM - Photo Printing / Storage:

After ‘going digital’ a few years ago I began only printing photos when I needed them and as a result saw my creativity decline…so I love that Stacy encourages printing up the photos and having them in a place where we can enjoy and share them with others even without scrapbooking them. She advocates putting these photos in three-up binders in chronological order. The photos are readily available when you’re ready to scrapbook and can easily be used for scrapping those chronological events in our lives. She states [and I agree] that looking through printed photos helps ignite the creativity that brought us to this hobby to begin with – the need to tell our stories…

1] Every so often [usually when Walgreens has a 10c sale] I go through a monthly folder on my computer and send my favorite photos to print. Usually order a few 5x7s of my favorites as well. I have NEVER printed every single digital photo I’ve taken. [And yes, there are times when I go back to that same folder and print different shots for different projects…]

2] I have to admit that I’m not much on the three-up binders; I prefer to have my photos filed in a little folder that sets on my desk. They are filed chronologically – and I scrap the chronological events from this folder. However, I no longer scrap chronologically – meaning, I may do a page or two from an event in July before I’ve scrapped everything from March….make sense?

3] Once I’ve scrapped a ‘section’ chronologically the left-over photos go into little plastic envelopes on a shelf above my scrap space. These are labeled with LOM sub-topic suggestions: “Oh Brother,” Places We Go,” etc. This is where most of my ‘memory’ scrapping photos come from. It’s nice and handy and photos move easily between the two areas.

4] When the envelopes are full the photos are moved to my LOM storage boxes. [Very few go to ‘cold storage' at this point because I almost never print a photo I consider to be awful [non-scrap-worthy.] You’ll notice that I really do like for my photos to hang out in this area [see how each son has an entire box of their own?] I started taking photos in my pre-teen years [remember those flash bulbs we put on our little instamatic cameras? And how cool we thought the little 110 cameras with the flash built in were?!] so I have A LOT of photos. Still. These boxes hold those I’ve determined to be the ‘best of the best’ and I enjoy going backwards with my scrapbooking and finding a few to tell a special [or silly] memory that comes to mind. Photos in these boxes are not divided by date, but instead, by person, place, or everyday activities.

5] I also have another little hand-made file where I keep all of my heritage photos. These are divided by family name [parents and grandparents] with corresponding family members’ photos going into the appropriate section. I almost never scrap a photo directly from this file, but instead scan the photos I want to use for different projects.

Hmmm, these might go nicely into those three-up binders … so they can be easily shared with others…more on photo purging tomorrow...

My Library of Memories System

My LOM System

Lots of talk going on lately about the LOM [Library of Memories] System brought to us in the scrapbooking world by Stacy Julian via her book Photo Freedom. I love the system and, as she says everyone should, I’ve tweaked it to my own personal needs and wanted to share it with you. So for the next few days I’ll tell you a little about how I organize, scrap,

and yes, PURGE, photos.

LOM - Digital Photo Purging:

I take a gazillion photos – always have, even before digital [can we say 18 rolls of 36 exp film for a one week trip to Colorado – that’s 648 photos! – PRINTED. [And on 250 of those I was trying to capture that one perfectly lone scrub pine tree on a mountain side. ] Thank goodness with digital I don’t have to print all of my photos to find the ones I love. And I can check to see if I got the shot I wanted. And with digital I still take waaaaaaaaay too many photos. With digital I’m known to take ten – plus - shots of the same flower from different angles and settings, and that’s just the beginning. I’m a firm believer in taking a gazillion photos to get that One. Perfect. Shot. – Here’s how I wrangle them up so they work for me –

1] I do not delete from my camera because I often need to see a larger image to determine what is best about a particular shot.

2] Upload all photos to the computer and view them full screen.

3] Go through once and delete all the obviously hideous photos.

4] Go through again and delete the ‘not so great’ multiple shots. I never narrow down a subject to only one shot, but instead tend to keep 6 or so photos of any one subject. [What I like today may be very different from what I like tomorrow, or next week, or next year…]

5] I move these photos to a folder labeled by year – date - event . [See the photos at the bottom of the screen. All monthly folders for 2008 are in the 2008 folder...]

6] We have an external hard drive that backs up everything daily, but I also burn these photos to a couple of disks every few months. [One for home use and one put away for safe keeping.]

7] Every few weeks I also take some of my favorite ‘character / portrait’ shots of my immediate family and copy them to folders labeled with our names. Easily available when I want to do a memory scrapbook page…

More tomorrow...

I bought a scrapbook kit on-line!

Can you believe it? Even though we sold kits for several years I've never, ever bought one ...

until now.
I've been looking around and there's several kits I'd like to try before I do a subscription of any kind... I admit the name Zany Zinnia just grabbed me. Since it's February, the kit has a decidedly Valentine feel, but unlike our kits there are no layouts or ideas included in the package
[I think these are available on their site.]
Here are a couple of v-day cards I did using my very first ever scrapbook kit:
These are for the Saturday Sketch over at the Sisterhood of Scrap. I really love the yellow in the kit - I think it'll be making a presence in the sb world this year...

Encyclopedia of Your Ordinary Life -W

A few years ago I had the opportunity to complete this extraordinary scrapbook album designed by CathyZ and based on the book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Rosenthal. While I still haven't read the book, I love the concept of this album - a random sampling of those ordinary facts about your life [my life.] The homework involves keeping a list, A to Z, of random memories for several weeks and then gathering photos [or not] to support these memories. Love it. The album is really very simple [a la Cathy Z] and easy to put together with only two square photos per page and two to four 'definitions.' Have I said I love this album? And I want to share some of my life with you so I've committed to do just that in 2009 [keep in mind this was completed during the summer of 2007.] I'm going backwards, today I present: W

WOODSY SMELL OF FALL

Always one of my favorite smells – damp earth and falling leaves. It’s enhanced with the brilliant colors that come along with it. We love to take long walks through nature in the fall [notice, I didn’t call it hiking…] and camping is wonderful in the fall when we can just get a little closer to it all.

WARTS

Little bits of nuisance that I had on a couple of fingers and the inside of my palm while growing up. The doctor told us to put iodine on them daily and they would go away – and it worked. I later read that you could tell someone to put anything on it daily and their belief that it would go away is what makes them go away… whatever, I’m glad they’re gone.

WHIMSICAL

A little morsel of fun that every life could benefit from. I enjoy having a little something whimsical in each area of my life – whether it’s the unexpected tin “Live”, “Laugh” and “Love” signs over the doors in my kitchen, my old people angels at work, or Figment sitting on my scrapbook desk to inspire my imagination!

Sping has Sprung!

Spring has Sprung!

Every year a few weeks after our yard is filled with thousands of robins

[and that’s no exaggeration]

on their way north and before we welcome the

first firefly of the year

we look forward to seeing the first sign of spring in out yard…

After some bitterly cold days we’ve had a few exceptionally warm days

[75* in February!!]

so we knew the little bits of yellow goodness would be popping out any day.

Very pleased to catch these when I went outside on my way to work yesterday.

Welcome Spring.

And yippee!

I've signed up for an awesome on-line class with Shimelle!
I've taken a real-life class with her in the past and have to say
-- this is one crafty girl! Very Fun! And I look forward to it.
Want you join me?
[Just link on the photo above...]

Cookie of the Month

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies
Ever had a whoopie pie? My very first memory of one is those my mom bought us early in the mornings [freshly delivered to the grocer.] We called them 'mickey' cakes and they were chocolate goodness with cream filling. Then when I spent sometime out west I met a family from back east [don't you love it?!] and she made the most incredible whoopie pies - just like the mickey cakes I'd had as a kid. Jotted the recipe down, and you know what? Never made them.
When it comes to cookies I'd always dreamed I'd be the roll-out-the dough, take the time to decorate each one individually, kind of mom - but my real life was much busier than I'd envisioned and we maybe made roll-out & decorate cookies two times while the boys were growing up. I'm definitely more the scoop and drop kind of cookie gal.
But I've always wanted to make a whoopie pie...

When I first saw this recipe in Better Homes and Gardens before Christmas I knew it would be perfect for Valentine's Day! So cute and valentine-y! The weekend I'd planned to make them I left the torn-out recipe at work so searched on the web to find it and found this much easier
[and probably less expensive] recipe that I use here.
The ingredients:
Red Velvet Cake Mix
3 eggs
Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup flour
Filling:
1/4 cup butter
4 oz cream cheese
7 0z marshmallow cream
Preheat oven to 375*
Prepare cake mix as directed on package, adding the 1/2 cup flour. Do not add more flour.
The 'dough' should resemble pancake batter.
[Note - be careful with this batter - it's very RED and will stain...]
To make round whoopie pies: scoop batter into a large plastic zipper bag, snip off a very small bit of one corner and pipe the dough onto cookie sheets in one inch blobs,
being careful to leave about an inch between each blob.
[I cover my cookie sheets with foil and spray with 'pam.']
Bake for 6 -8 minutes. Cool.
Prepare filling by blending all ingredients together.
After the whoopie pies have cooled,
scoop a small bit of filling onto one side of the 'pie' and top with another side of the 'pie.'
Share with those you love...
I have to admit the filling isn't quite the taste I wanted...a little too cream cheesey for me...
I think the recipe from the friend of a friend used raw egg whites - maybe not a good idea,
but I'm wondering if possibly some coolwhip and the marshmallow cream
might work a little better...
I bet you could make the chocolate version using a nice chocolate cake mix.

Saturday Sketches

over at Sisterhood of Scrap... here's a long-lost photo for today's sketch: A slide photo taken by my dad. Love the colors in the photo ...

Do You Know God?

Truly know Him? Do you believe He is who is says He is? I really believe that in the moments when I truly grasp [and believe] that God is who He says He is are the moments when I am absolutely free of anxiety. When I can recognize His awesomeness I am able to trust Him completely to walk with me and guide me as I go through this life. I am His. And, if I am His, then what do I have to fear?

Psalm 100:3

Know (acknowledge, perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the [His] sheep of His pasture. [Amplified Version]

“You and I have got to know, not just hope or think, that the One who cut covenant with us through the torn flesh of Jesus Christ – Elohiym, the God over all creation – is the same One who sits upon the universe’s throne, having spoken the worlds into existence.

Surrounded by a society that spouts many gods… you and I can know that the Lord is God. Hoping we’re on the right track will never dig a deep enough path to follow our to our Promised Lands. We’re not going anywhere of profound eternal significance until we know.” - Believing God – Day by Day - Beth Moore

January Cookie of the Month

A little late with the posting - but here's the first cookie of the month for 2009 [I plan to do a little 8x8 scrap / recipe book with each of these...]:
Cappuccino Flats
[From Better Homes and Gardens Cookies for Christmas, 1985]
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
[okay, I substitute cocoa and butter for the unsweetened chocolate]
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon [ground]
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon instant coffee crystals
1 teaspoon water
1 egg
1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces
* in heavy saucepan melt unsweetened chocolate; cool slightly. Meanwhile, stir together flour and cinnamon, set aside.
* In large mixer beat shortening and butter until softened. Add sugars and beat until fluffy. Stir coffee crystals into water to dissolve. Add coffee mixture, melted chocolate, and egg to butter mixture. Beat well.
* Add flour mixture and beat until well mixed. Cover and chill about one hour. Shape into two 7 inch rolls, wrap and chill for six hours [over night.]
* Pre-heat oven to 350*. Slice dough into 1/4 slices and place on un greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 -12 minutes until edges are firm and lightly browned. remove and cool.
* Melt chocolate carefully in the microwave [50% power for 30 -40 seconds at a time.] Stir well. spread chocolate mixture on one half of each cookie. Place n wax paper to complete cooling until chocolate is set.
* Enjoy
These have always been a favorite at our house around Christmas time - but somehow were left out this year [maybe the 60 dozen snicker doodles took their place...]

Choice

From Choosing Happiness - Life and Soul Essentials

Your life is made up of millions of choices. They don't all need to be made wisely. In fact, they won't be. But they do need to be made consciously, whenever possible. You need to be conscious that this is you who is choosing, you who is acting, you is reacting, you who is responding.