Thanksgiving Crafts....

I did a few crafty things last week in preparation for Thanksgiving. Some of them were with my 2 year old daughter, like these:

Ellie and I also decorated some sugar cookies. We made these back when we made our Halloween cookies with Mommom and I froze the leaves for later. I actually remembered they were in the freezer and we enjoyed decorating them together, albeit with canned frosting and Wilton sprinkles instead of homemade goodness, but my energy levels were running low and I decided it was more important to spend time with my daughter decorating the cookies than it was to have them perfect. Ack! I think I'm loosening up in my old age...

And last, but not least, I made this little outfit for Eliana to play dress up in last week. It was an afternoon whim and it took me just a couple hours start to finish. And I love how it turned out!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving week!!

Thanksgiving is coming...

and as one who usually turns all looneybin this time of year, I found the following quite humorous:

26

Yes, 26.

That's how many layouts I have completed in the last week. I scrapped with Julie and Kristin last Saturday, and with Erika yesterday. I'm on a roll!

Wanna know what I did today?

No.... not scrapping.... I canned! It's been over 5 years since the last time I canned (when we lived in Iowa!) and I'd forgotten how fun it is! Erika came over and we canned. She canned salsa and I canned apple butter and orange marmalade. I make apple butter every year, but this is the first time I've ever made orange marmalade. I sort of did my own thing with it, but it's good! And would you like to know what I did with the orange peel? If so, just take a peek here and see. Oh. My. Goodness. This is the most heavenly thing to do with an orange peel ever!! Amazing. And the best place to store these little confectionary marvels? In your belly. :)

I also dehydrated apples and made some orange infused syrup and roasted a pumpkin and started drying pumpkin seeds for toasting. Then I left and went to church to teach a Christmas card class for our ladies' night out. It's been a busy day!!

Tagged...

Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog:
Share SEVEN facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird...just 7 facts. :) Tag 7 people at the end of your post and make sure to let them know they've been tagged!

1. I used to teach Latin to 3rd through 10th graders. It had to be one of the jobs I enjoyed the most and one I would love to get back to once our kid(s) are in school.

2. I am 5 feet tall. I often forget how short I am, though, and I think I'm the same height as my 6 foot friends. And yes, I have quite a few girlfriends 6 feet tall and over. I think we're all the same height. Only I can stand up on my countertops without hitting my head and they can't.

3. I used to manage the darkroom for our campus newspaper in college. I loved printing photos and developing film and said I would never go digital. Wow, that must have been a long time ago, like a decade already.

4. I have 6 blogs that I keep updated at least once a month. They range in topics from crafting here at MIM, to family, to childrearing, to weightloss, to thoughts and devotions, to housekeeping. A couple are for the benefit of others, but most are for my own personal tracking and thought processing.

5. I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I went to college. My parents still live in that house, though it's changed a lot through the years. The first time I moved out of the town I grew up in I was already married.

6. I have had the same best friend since I was 4 years old. Charlotte Newlin Allen. We have been closer at some times and drifted apart others, but we have always been the best of friends and I wouldn't have it any other way.

7. I love Sci-Fi. Some girls watch chick flicks. I watch Farscape and Firefly and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. It makes finding movies my husband and I agree on easier, that's for sure!

I know I'm supposed to tag 7 people, but I'm too lazy right now. So if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

I'm scrapping!

Today I am going over to Julie's house to scrapbook and I am so excited! I haven't scrapped in a while and I haven't scrapped with Julie and Kristin since before I had Eliana! So to prepare myself and get into the groove, I took a few minutes to scrap yesterday afternoon and last night - and I whipped out 5 layouts in no time! Hooray! Right now I'm working with our camping pictures from this summer and the August SPS kit. Loving the colors in that!!

So this afternoon I'm packing up some untouched SPS kits and a few tools and an appetizer of some variety (still working on that one...) and heading to Bozeman for hours of scrappy fun. I can't wait!

Didn't get the DT position...

... but that's okay. Probably good, in fact. The truth is that I've been really really busy this fall and I'd like to be not so busy come winter/spring. So I wasn't even sure that I wanted to do the DT thing. But at the same time I knew I would have been mad at myself had I not even applied, because I would have loved to be on the DT! I didn't make any new layouts for the application, I just used my favorites from the last year.

So... I quick grabbed pictures of the layouts I had already photographed (and had saved places other than Leif's computer, since that's where all of our photos were stored and it was in the middle of a new operating system upgrade!) and sent in my application. Then I told God that I felt really busy but wanted to do this and let Him decide! ;D

I think the best part is that I didn't have to spend a month waiting to hear since I applied like 5 days before they announced the new team! I am looking forward to seeing what the new team will do with the Sweet Pea Scraps kits this year - I am always turning to the gallery for inspiration, so I hope to be seeing a lot of their stuff! If you want to check out the new team, you can see them at the Sweet Pea Vine.

Just under the wire....

I just applied for a DT position. I've been planning on applying for several weeks and thought I still had a few days. Turns out the application period closes tonight at midnight, not on November 4th, like I thought it did. I'm glad I chose layouts tonight instead of waiting another couple days like I was going to! Eek! So I got my application in at 10:30, just an hour and a half shy of the deadline. Whew! That's cutting it close!

Stamped Cookie Tutorial...

I made stamped Jack-O-Lantern cookies for our Halloween party last night and they turned out really cute, so I figured I'd share how it was done. I used the large face pieces from my Spooky Sweets stamp set from PaperTrey Ink.


This was the first time I'd used something other than ink on acrylic stamps, so I wasn't sure how it would work. But it turned out great and I can see all sorts of possibilities for this technique in the future, for birthday parties and baby showers and all sorts of fun events. It's faster than using buttercream frosting to decorate cookies, too, which is a plus. And it's easier on the hands! Here's what I did...

First, make your favorite sugar cookies. Then frost them using a glaze that will dry to a hard shiny finish. The recipe I used is made from powdered sugar, milk, and corn syrup. I pipe a border around the edge of the cookie and then fill it in. Let it set to harden overnight and then stamp the next day. Here are the details on stamping once you have a glazed cookie...

Once you are finished stamping, clean the stamps off with warm soapy water and make sure to get all the corn syrup out of the grooves in the stamp. Dry them off and they're ready to put away for another project!