Baby Showers and Birthdays!

I was able to create a few cards this weekend for a baby shower for my good friend Melissa and then for some birthdays that we're celebrating at work this week. I leave for Birmingham REALLY early tomorrow morning - so I wanted to get these posted before I left!

The baby shower card was a bit of a challenge because she has decided to be surprised by the gender of the baby -so it had to be a gender neutral card! While it was challenging, this is probably one of my favorite cards that I've made...



These were for the birthdays at work this week. I am just kinda "eh" about them - I like them, but I probably won't be repeating them. The one with the orange background, I like, but I wish I would have used yellow instead of orange, but didn't have any yellow paper on hand - I'll have to add it to my order at the next stamp camp!

TWD - Cheddar Apple Scones

So in all of the madness of June, one of the Tuesday with Dorie recipes I missed was the Cheddar Apple Scones chosen by Karina of The Floured Apron. I finally made them this weekend and they were excellent. I agree with others that they were more like biscuits than scones that I've had in the past, but they've made quite a tasty breakfast, and brunch, and late-night snack, and dinner so far this weekend! LOL!

I made them according to the recipe, but at the last minute thought that bacon would make a nice addition - in my mind I was thinking of Applewood Smoked Bacon and then bacon and cheese kolaches - so it all seemed like a natural fit. And IT WAS!! I'm so glad I added it! I just used the 50% reduced fat Real Bacon Bits, which was so much easier than frying and chopping up bacon on my own, and it cleared up a little more room in my fridge as well! Bonus!


And ready to eat:

TWD - Double Crusted Blueberry Pie

This week's TWD selection was made by Amy at South in Your Mouth. I was excited to see she picked the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie - it was perfectly suited for the week of July 4th! Of course I didn't MAKE it for the 4th, but enjoyed the blueberries being in season none the less! I made this yesterday for a group of girls in my bible study this summer. It's the same girls I took to Frontier Ranch in June. They were a little shy about digging in at first, but at the end, they did a good job finishing it off so I didn't have to come home with any leftovers. I laughed when one girl said it reminder her of "a mix of fruity pebbles and a pop tart! " Another girl looked at her with this look on her face and said "Did you just compare this pie that she made to a pop tart!?!" It was pretty funny... I think she got the fruity pebble vibe from the lemon zest that was included.

I thought all aspects of this pie came together pretty easily. I was a little nervous about the flour and sugar in the filling - I didn't want it to be gritty. So after I poured it all into the pie crust, I poured it all back into the bowl second guessing whether to include it all. What I forgot about was that there were bread crumbs in the bottom of my pie crust - EEK! I ultimately decided that Dorie knows best and just made sure the flour and sugar was incorporated into the berries pretty well (and the bread crumbs!) and poured it all back in hoping for the best. And from the looks of the pie plate at the end... there were NO ISSUES! And you couldn't taste the breadcrumbs in the filling, so nothing was ruined with my second guessing...

Oh, and I took a cue from one of the many TWD blogs I read and made little pie crust cookies with the remaining dough. The girls (and myself) definitely cleared those out as well - I'm happy not to throw away pie dough anymore!

TWD - Chocolate Pudding

Finally! I got something done on time! Amazing!



I'll admit - when I first saw the recipe for this week, I thought it was just a whole lot of work that Jello had just made a whole lot easier for us. And while I still think Jello pudding mixes have their purpose, now that I've had pudding from scratch, WOW. I have a whole new appreciation for pudding! Along the way, I thought it was all going to end up in the trash. It did NOT look good when moving it from the stove to the blender on the final run... but the blender made it all better! It tasted wonderful - a lot different than instant pudding - it wasn't really sweet, but more rich than normal...

The recipe was chosen by Melissa of It's Melissa's Kitchen - check out her blog for the recipe!



I found that the pudding was definitely the most challenging thing to photograph so far. Because it sat in the ramekins, when topped with coolwhip, you couldn't see the pudding, so I had to dig in and get some cross-sections. Dang the luck!

Stamp Camp - June 2008

The theme for stamp camp last month was 'Watercolor'. We used a few different techniques including water color crayons and using drops of ink as well. Most people preferred the water color crayons, but at the time, I really liked just the tried and true drops of ink with an aqua painter. After having a few days separation, my water color crayon projects (the pear and the flower) didn't turn out too bad after all... Not sure if it justifies the cost of the crayons though.









The theme for swap cards this month was 'sympathy cards'. Here's the one I created - you'll recognize the color scheme and stamp set from the bookmark I made earlier in the month. I love chocolate (the color, and the food actually) with most colors, so this is one of my favorite color schemes. And it happens to be one of my favorite stamp sets too - I just don't get to use it all that often!



Next month there's no set "theme' for stamp camp - we're just making a variety of cards. And the swamp is based on a layout - I'm interested to see what people come up with - myself included!