Cookie Cutter Brownies!

I was inspired by this blog post to make these (and this photo gave me the idea for turning the gingerbread people cutters upside down to make reindeer).

I used Betty Crocker's gluten free brownie mix for these, mostly because that was all I had on hand and I didn't really want to make brownies from scratch. Using the gluten free mix means I can bless a friend of mine at church with one, since she can't eat gluten any more.



I lined a Wilton 15.25 x 10.25 x .75 jelly roll pan with parchment paper. I placed the cookie cutters onto the parchment paper. Then I mixed up the brownie batter according to the directions on the box (using Earth Balance margarine in place of the butter, since Earth Balance is free of milk proteins), and filled each cookie cutter about half way with the batter. This particular batter is fairly thick, so I had to spend some time pushing it into the nooks and crannies of the cookie cutters.

I baked the brownies at 325° for 20 minutes. Do yourself a favor, if you don't have an oven thermometer, GET ONE! The temperature display on most ovens is inaccurate (ours is 25° cooler than the digital display reads). Having a thermometer inside your oven will increase the consistency in your baked goods.

I let the brownies cool, and then I mixed up Spectrum palm shortening with some powdered sugar. I didn't measure it, sorry!. I placed the icing into my piping bag using THIS method (which TOTALLY rocks, mess-free piping bags? YES, PLEASE! Take the 3 minutes to watch the video, it's completely worth every second), and went to town. I admit these would probably be cuter with bright colors, but I don't have any food coloring in the house and a trip to the store to purchase some was out of the question.

I'm going to package these up, cookie cutter and all, and label them with cute Christmas tags. I'll post a photo of the completed packaging once I've finished it!

TSOL and The Twinery BLOG HOP!!!

Are you ready for some fun?
The {Stamps} of Lifeand The Twinery Design Teams are playing together for this hop!

About The Twinery

Our twine is made from 100% cotton, it’s eco-friendly and made in the USA. Whether you’re gift wrapping, crafting or tying up baked goods to give to a friend, our baker’s twine adds a fresh, yet nostalgic look to any project at hand! Our baker’s twine comes in 14 delicious colors and is uniquely twisted against a bright white hue, creating an eye-popping burst of color and a creative embellishment! Our twine has lots of color which lends to a fun, candy-striped look. For creative ideas & more…visit OUR BLOG!

About The {Stamps} of Life

We feature high quality, made in the USA, clear stamps and digital stamps/brushes for stampers, card makers and scrapbookers. Feel free to browse our gallery with more than 2500 samples using our stamps, watch our free how-to videos and join our club!

As you make your way through the hop make sure you comment on each and every post. There will be 2 prize winners chosen randomly among the blogs:

One winner will win 2 stamp sets (winners choice) valued at $12.95 -total retail value: $26.90 per prize! from

The {Stamps} of Life

&

One winner will win the Ultimate Color Sampler Pack ($25 value!) from The Twinery!!!

The prize winners will be announced on The {Stamps} of Life and The Twinery Blogs on Wednesday November 16th.

Here's the card I created using Christmas4Him, Swirls2Build, Holly4Christmas and the Maraschino twine.

Green paper by The Robin's Nest, black ink is Licorice Premium Dye Inkpad by ColorBox and Stephanie Barnard. Other ink is by Versamark.

The hop list:

The Twinery Blog

The {Stamps}of Life Blog

Jeanne Streiff

Julie Ranae

Deb Felts

Monique Hansen

Vicki Garrett

Monika Wright

Emily Niehaus

Emily Leiphart

Beverly Sizemore

Hera Frei

Tami Mayberry

Stacey Winters

Lydia Fiedler

Caroline Stender

Kim Pargeter <<< You should have come from here!

Joana Studer <<< You are here!

Katrina Hunt <<< Go here next!

Laura Williams

Jen Carter

Kim Howard

Jenny Suchin

Sheri Twing

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to leave a comment to be entered in the drawings!

Altered Milk Carton Template

Head on over to The Hybrid Chick to see what I did with a milk carton template by Kelleigh Ratzlaff! You won't be disappointed!

Birdhouse Explosion Box

It's been a busy summer! I haven't had much time to write blog entries, though I have been busy creating! I'm hoping once the kids are in mother's day out come September, I'll be able to sit down and write lots of blogs to catch you up on everything I've been making!

I did want to share this cute little explosion box I made using Kelleigh Ratzlaff's Sweet Birdhouse Template and a great collab kit, Life is Sweet, by Meghan Mullens and Misty Cato.



Hope you enjoy!

Two More, As Promised!

Running in here right quick to share the last two projects I talked about yesterday! Kelleigh Ratzlaff has this awesome new box template just in time for Mother's Day!



And here's my second little 3" card with Dani's grab bag!



That's it for now - I'm super-busy with lots of new products coming to Sweet Shoppe Designs on Saturday!

Thursday is new release day at The Digi Chick, and making new release day even more exciting is the fact that the first Saturday in May is always iNSD (interNational Scrapbook Day). That means lots of awesome products from lots of awesome designers AND lots of really, really fabulous deals and sales throughout the weekend!

There are a TON of really great grab bags and other things available this week, and so I have several to share with you. First up is the digital layout I created using the grab bag by Mye De Leon. Isn't it so soft and pretty? The layout also uses a template from the grab bag collab between geniaBenia and Cluster Queen Creations. Seriously, 16 templates for just $4? That's a quarter a piece and totally worth every penny!

From the Arty Pants Grab Bag, this also uses Sugarplum Paperie's The Old Garden Gate and a border clipping mask from Mye's grab bag listed above. The flower was made with a Nestabilities blossom die and I used my digital brushes from The {Stamps} of Life All4Moms set.

Finally, here is one of three projects I created using the absolutely HUGE Color Me Happy grab bag by Dani. It's a little 3" card. I'll have the other two projects on the blog tomorrow - right now they're still in various stages of assembly on my workspace. I anticipated getting all three done today, but when your 18-month old teething son wants you to hold him, it makes it a little hard to get any paper crafting done!

I hand-cut the medallion, and added some Lilac twine from The Twinery to the card and button. I just love that purple!

Stop back tomorrow to see the other two projects I created with Dani's yummy grab bag! Happy shopping and scrapping this weekend!

Blog Candy Entry & Another Project

First, check out the awesome Nestabilities blog candy Col's Creating Memories has going on her blog until May 15!



And now the little hybrid project I made using Kristin Cronin-Barrow's digital scrapbook kit, Go Green. I took a 4" bar coaster and created this little piece of artwork. I applied Mod Podge to the coaster and then put the background paper on it. I sanded the edges, and then adhered the second layer. I absolutely HAD to make some paper roses from the newsprint paper in the kit. I printed it on regular copy paper and then created the three paper roses. I wrote a tutorial on making the rosettes (the outer flowers) for Jennifer Fox a while back. The center flower was made using this fantastic tutorial by Scrappy Cath.

A Couple of New Releases

A couple of my designers had new releases this week at Sweet Shoppe Designs and I thought I'd share what I made.

First is the layout using Libby Pritchett's Paper Clips - Photo Sheet Templates. These are really great templates for creating multi-photo layouts.

Penny Springmann released her digital kit, I Am (previously available as part of The Digi Files in March) and I used a couple of the papers to make this adorable little teapot using a resized and modified template from My Time Made Easy (I converted the pdf to a psd file in Photoshop CS5 and created some clipping masks for my papers). The original teapot holds 40 tea bags, but I wanted something much smaller to hold a few pieces of chocolate.

I added some Prima Marketing flowers to the top and then stacked a button, a flower rhinestone, and a pearl on top of that. I just love how cute and dainty it is!

Princess Cards

Here are the cards I made with the Princess4Life stamp set. This set is SO super cute!

The first one uses papers from Kristin Cronin-Barrow's Baby Girl digital scrapbook kit. I used my Silhouette to cut out the banner element to attach to the card. A friend asked me where I got those teeny-tiny clothespins - they're a digital element in the kit! Have I mentioned how much I love my Silhouette?

Next up is the princess card that uses Zoe Pearn's Summer Sorbet digital scrapbook kit. The swirls are cut from a QuicKutz die. The label is a Nestabilities die. I had to add some tiny rhinestones to the crown for added bling!

Finally, there's another happy birthday card using Sherwood Studios' Posy digital scrapbook kit. The flowers were made with Stacy Molter's Flower Templates & Cutting Files. I cut them with my Silhouette. The label is that same Nestabilities die.

Hybrid Cards

I created two square cards this week using brand new goodies from The Digi Chick!

First up is the way cool floral collage digital stamp by Arty Pants. I used Refresh: The Kit by Mari Koegelenberg for both cards.



I copied the dragonfly and butterfly a second time so I could cut out their wings and glitter them. I really wanted to use my crystal clear glitter by PK Glitz but apparently it is playing hide and seek on my workspace, so I used some of my Martha Stewart glitter instead.

My second card was based on this week's Mojo Monday sketch #188.



I used a little bit of twine from The Twinery to make the bow on the button, and then added a little Prima Marketing gerbera daisy flower to my accordion flower.

Not Your Typical Template Use...

Quick, run over to The Hybrid Chick blog and see what I did with this template! I guarantee you'll be surprised. ;)

Blog Hop!

Are you ready for some fun?

The {Stamps} of Life and The Twinery Design Teams are playing together for this hop!

About The Twinery:

Our twine is made from 100% cotton, it's eco-friendly and made in the USA.
Whether you're gift wrapping, crafting or tying up baked goods to give to a
friend, our baker's twine adds a fresh, yet nostalgic look to any project at
hand! Our baker's twine comes in 11 delicious colors and is uniquely twisted
against a bright white hue, creating an eye-popping burst of color and a
creative embellishment! Our twine has lots of color which lends to a fun,
candy-striped look.

For creative ideas & more, visit OUR BLOG!

About The {Stamps} of Life :

We feature high quality, made in the USA, clear stamps and digital stamps/brushes for stampers, card makers and scrapbookers. Feel free to
browse our gallery with more than 2500 samples using our stamps, watch our free how-to videos and join our club!

As you make your way through the hop make sure you comment on each and every post. There will be 4 prize winners chosen randomly among the blogs:

Two $20 gift certificates from The {Stamps} of Life

and

Two Colorful Bunch Sampler Packs ($20 value!) from The Twinery!!!




The prize winners will be announced on The {Stamps}of Life and The Twinery Blogs on Tuesday May 3rd.

Here's my card, inspired by Taylored Expressions sketch #135. The papers come from the Golden Afternoon digital scrapbook collab kit by Shawna Clingerman and Penny Springmann. I used the houses4us stamp set by The {Stamps} of Life.




Here's the hop list - if you got to my blog post without going through the hop, be sure to start at the top and work your way through, leaving comments so you have a chance to win!

The Twinery Blog
The {Stamps}of Life Blog
Jeanne Streiff
Julie Ranae
Deb Felts
Monique Hansen
Vicki Garrett
Monika Wright
Emily Niehaus
Emily Leiphart
Beverly Sizemore
Tifany DeGough <-- You should have come from here!
Joana Studer <-- YOU ARE HERE! :D
Katrina Hunt <--Your next stop!
Laura Williams
Jen Carter
Kim Howard
Jenny Suchin
Sheri Twing

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Hopping!

Mojo Monday 178 Entry

Here's my card for Mojo Monday 178! The card also gives you a little sneak peek of the Don't Stop Believing digital scrapbook kit by Libby Pritchett and Meghan Mullens, coming to Sweet Shoppe Designs on 2/19/2011!

I know it's been a terribly long time since I've updated the blog. I have created TONS of projects but as usual, I am so busy designing and creating things that I don't leave enough time to update the blog with everything I've done lately. :) Here's hoping I can manage to schedule some time to update the neglected blog in the near future because I have SO many things to share!