Where did the week go?

Wow - it was a long hectic week. I didn't get any scrapping done. But I do have this adorable page to show you that I made last weekend. I am getting some more scrapping done today.

The title of this page is: Grandpa Makes the Best Playmate. And yes, I know I have a typo on the page - it will get fixed. These are pictures of my Dad playing with my brother Joe's girls when we were up in Michigan in March. Grandpa just played and played and never seemed to get tired. He's a great Grandpa.

I Made Cookies!

The other day I saw an article about Michelle Obama's and Cindy McCain's cookie recipes in Women's Day. They both look delicious, so I have decided to try them. I started with Michelle Obama's Shortbread cookies. Tim has a big 12-hour race today and since he loves shortbread cookies, I made these for him. Hopefully these freeze well since I have most of them in the freezer right now.

I'm not going to the race. It's just too long for me to be outside in the heat. I'm spending the afternoon and evening scrapping at today's Virtual Scrapbook Night on Splitcoaststampers.com. Which means I'll have a bunch more pages to show.

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies

1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1-1/2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

2 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons Amaretto (I used 1 tsp. almond extract and a little water)

1 teaspoon each orange and lemon zest

3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg white

chopped nuts or dried fruit (optional)

1. Heat oven to 325 degree F. Line a 17x12x1 inch pan with non stick foil. In a large bowl, cream together butter and 1-1/3 cups of the sugar.

2. Slowly add egg yolks, and beat well until smooth. Beat in Amaretto and zest.

3. Stir in flour and salt until combined.

4. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan, flattening as smoothly as possible.

5. Brush top of dough with egg white; sprinkle with nuts or fruit (if using) and with remaining 2 Tablespoons sugar.

6. Bake at 325 degree F for 25 minutes or until brown, turn off oven and allow cookies to sit in oven (with door ajar) for 15 minutes. Cut while slightly warm. Makes 6dozen 2x3-inch cookies.

Trick or Treat

Here's a layout I did for my nieces. I made two pages almost identical - one for each of their albums. The girls are bigger now since these pictures are from 2006 (correct me if I'm wrong Kirsten). I had some Cars paper that I cut the emblem and Lightning McQueen out of to use as embellishments. I also had some stickers so I used those to flank the title. I ran a wheel stamp across the page in a couple of places - that has been a versatile stamp and I use it a lot. It's a simple page with bright colors - so saffron, real red, brocade blue and black. I hope you like it girls.

Celebrating the Seasons

I got a bunch of pages scrapped this weekend. But I'll share this one with you first since I just finished it last night - and I love how it turned out.

The pictures are from Easter when I was in Minnesota. My Uncle Gerry and Aunt Sandy had the Holles family over for Easter dinner. The siblings also exchanged their Christmas gifts. I got to see my cousin Elly and spend some time with her. The group picture is Uncle Gerry, Aunt Jean, Aunt Julie and Dad. The other picture on the left page is my Dad and Uncle Gerry relaxing and visiting. On the right side is a picture of my cousin Elly helping my Mom with her cell phone, a nice picture of Aunt Jean and Uncle David, and then a picture of all the women sitting at the table visiting.

Every week on Splicoaststampers.com there are challenges to get people stamping and scrapping. So for this layout I used the sketch challenge and the variety challenge which was to use pattern paper from three different manufacturers. That was really hard for me, but I did it - and it worked. I used a red pattern paper from Stampin' Up and a tone on tone paper from Basic Grey and the black pattern paper is unknown. I put everything on a vanilla background. The title and journaling were done with a SU font. And the simple embellishments are black painted chipboard.

The Prize

Here is the page I made to show off the Blue Plunger Award that Dylan won for his psychology project. Dylan wrote out the journaling part for me that explains what his project was. Stamping Up has a cool punch that makes it look like the paper was torn from a notebook. I bought the papers on my last shopping trip because I knew the blues would work well with the very blue plunger and then I could use browns to tone it all down.

Summer Hair Cut

An interesting Southern tradition is that every year after school's out young boys get their hair buzzed for the summer. Tim decided he would try it this year since he has so much hair and it grows so fast. Turns out, we both really like it.

For this layout I used a sketch my friend Sally made for me, SBSC143. I used Not Quite Navy for the background and some new pattern papers by Paper Studio that I bought on my last shopping trip with Judi. And I used a little ribbon for accent. The other pages I made this weekend are a secret until the next Virtual Scrapbooking Night on Splitcoast - but they turned out darling.

Mojo!

My mojo's back! I'm creating today, so I'll have some scrapbook pages to share with you this week. Stay tuned.

Creative Cooking

At least I'm being creative in the kitchen if I can't be creative at the scrap table. Tonight I made Mexican Egg Rolls. I got the idea from an appetizer at Chilis. I didn't have any corn in the house, so these aren't very colorful. But they were yummy.

Mexican Egg Rolls

1 lb ground beef, browned with onions and garlic

1 can black beans, drained

1 can green chilies

1 cup frozen corn

taco seasoning and/or lots of cumin and chili powder

2 cups grated cheese

I used 2 won ton wrappers for each egg roll and about 2 good spoonsful of filling. Makes 12. Spray with Pam and bake at 400 for 15 min. Serve with sour cream and salsa.