Cinnamon Peanut Butter Cookies

Happy Fall, Everyone! :D :D :D There is something about Autumn that always gets me in a domestic mood and I start feeling the urge to bake, bake, bake! So today, I thought I would take a turn at sharing one of my favorite fall recipes.

These may look like your standard Peanut Butter Cookies, but don't let the picture fool you! The hint of cinnamon adds a little bit of a kick and leaves your tastebuds craving more. Be careful! This batch will be gone in no time. But that's okay because they are a cinch to make. Enjoy!!!




Cinnamon Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl; set aside. In a larger mixing bowl combine butter and both sugars until smooth and creamy. Add egg, vanilla and peanut butter, blend until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Make a single fork tines impression across each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes. Yield: About 20 cookies

A few more...

Here are Francine's layouts for the October WIP kit.....



Congrats on the pregnancy, Francine! Hope you're feeling better by now...

Have a great weekend...

Time Capsule Mini-Album

Happy Friday! Francine here! :)

I received my first PhotoJoJo /Flickr Time Capsule e-mail this week, and I couldn't wait to start the album I had in mind. I decided to use the September Kit for this project, I was happy to see that some of the Scenic Route Stickers had a photo theme! I used a 2-ring binder that I bought from the stationary aisle, and covered it with papers and embellishments from the kit.




Tip: If your main wallpaper doesn't cut to the exact size you need for full coverage, you can always hide your flub by distressing the edges of the album. Here I used the Basic Grey files and Distress Ink in Burlap (my new favourite).

I also found some binder separators in kraft in the stationary aisle, and cut them down to size to use for the album pages. Here is the title page:



and here is the first spread using four of the five photos I received in the email (one was pretty much a duplicate so I didn't bother to use it).:




I think I am really going to enjoy adding to this album, it might be the first mini-album I manage to keep up with over time. It's really amazing how seeing these photos sparked my memory, I remembered almost everything about this day: I'd been shopping in Lyon with my friend Lucy, and took the photos while walking along the main shopping street on my way home. It's inspired me to take another walk there soon, and see how much the area has changed, if at all.

Did anyone sign up for the Time Capsule project? What are you planning to do with the photos you receive? We'd love to see!

Still on that Fall high...

Happy Thursday everyone! Colleen here, still on my Fall high. My house is finally Fall'd, as we say here at Casa de Vasconcellos, and this year I decided to add a little crafty touch to my decorations.

Let's take a tour shall we? Won't you be my neighbor? LOL This is that Fall rag quilt that I was telling you about in my last post. I love this thing...and I love this spot in our house. A little reading nook right in our living room. If you look above it, you'll see one of my scrappy decorations. Here's a better look:I was reading Nora Griffin's blog the other day, and saw where she made one out of felt leaves that she cut with a Sizzix die. Here's a link to her post. I don't have a Sizzix and I couldn't find any brown or Fallish felt anywhere, but my friend Joanna (hi Joanna!) suggested that I use some American Crafts leaves and I just glued them together with some thin rope and made my own version of Nora's cute little garland. Mine are made with the foam leaves, because that is what I had lying around, and I used my tombow. I started out with liquid glue, but it was a mess and took forever to dry and I seriously do not have the time or patience to sit there holding every single leaf sandwich in the hopes that it dries sometime before nightfall...the tombow was so much easier. :)

Also in the living room, I've got my mantle decorated with some leaves and this cute little scarecrow guy that I found at Michael's.I'll change it out with some Christmas berries after Thanksgiving. The gourds and little bale of hay were at Mike's too and it makes a cute little mantle scene. And on the coffee table, I have this amazing wool felt runner that I bought on EtsyIt stays out all year, but it just screams fall to me. I also set the table in the dining room to be a little more Fallish...That is a runner that my mom made me (she's the master quilter of the family) and my 7Gypsies ATC spinner. And of course, Trish's little Halloween house set...well, one anyway.My sweet friend Nicole bought the set for me for my birthday, and I have them scattered around the dining room here and there. Here's how they turned out. Aren't they cute? Trish still has two in her Etsy shop if you want to get a set for yourself. You can so turn these around and use them for Christmas with Christmas paper. I used the leftovers from that kit to make a Halloween banner. Check it out:Here's a closer look. I used some things from my stash to add to it, and I think it came out pretty cute. I just love a vintagey banner. I might make one for Thanksgiving too with some leftovers from the WIP November kit. I made a couple of cards too with the leftovers from the Halloween houses, but I mailed one already. Ooops...I'm so bad about mailing cards before taking a pic of them. This one I did remember to shoot.
So, that's my version of Fall! If you guys make a banner, or have some great Fall decorating ideas, link 'em up here so we can see!

A Few Things...

1. Thank you so much for your kind wishes, prayers, comments and emails. I appreciate that more than you know. The tribute to Robert was wonderful.

2. The November WIP kits will be available to the public at noon EST on the website. The subscriber emails and paypal invoices went out last night, so if you didn't get one, please email me at Turay413@gmail.com.

3. I'm behind on my CZ class. How are you all doing in yours?

4. Totally stoked about this class with Dina. Love, love, love her. If you sign up for her class by midnight on Friday, you'll be entered in a drawing to win a November WIP Project kit!!

5. The deadline for the final payment to the Fall Retreat at the Bertram Inn is today. I am SO excited to get away with scrappy friends!!

6. I'm obsessed with the stamp in the above picture. It is in the main kit for November and I can't wait to use it...

7. I'm scheduled to teach 2 private classes in the next month on a mini book called "Christmas' Past". I have no other classes scheduled after the Bertram, but I may add one. I'll keep you updated...

...and that's about it! Hope you all are enjoying a wonderful fall day...

A Grateful Heart

Most of you out in blogland did not know my friend, Robert Bueck. You are the unfortunate ones. Robert died tragically in a scooter/automobile accident on Friday afternoon, and today his friends and family are gathering to celebrate his life.

When the initial idea of starting a kit club was being tossed about, Robert jumped in and set up my website. He helped me do all the business things I needed to do--and I was clueless. He got sucked into helping me because his wife is one of my dearest friends, and he wanted to help. He did for me what he has done for countless people--and never asked for anything in return. Any time I had a problem with the computer or the website, he was a phone call away. Wednesday evening's phone conversation with him consisted of trouble shooting and dinner plans with our spouses this weekend to celebrate his and Jen's wedding anniversary together. It was beautiful.

I will be forever grateful for him on a personal level, but also on a professional one. I could not--and I would not--be here with this company without him and everything he did for me. The outpouring of love for him and his family is proof of the way in which he led his life. I am honored to have known him.

The service today will be enhanced with the most amazing pictures of Robert and his family. His wife Jennifer and I met through this wonderful hobby, and we share a love of photography. The photographs she took of their family will surround and comfort us all today. Their two children will cherish those memories and pictures, and for that I am grateful.

Godspeed, my friend.


In light of the situation, my family and I will be in attendance today, so the November kits will not be posted fully until tomorrow. The subscriber emails have been sent out, so I will invoice customers as soon as I can. Please accept my apologies--I hope you understand. Thanks so much.

Thinking outside the box

and in this case, the hat box...


A lot of times when making a gift for someone you try and theme it around things that they like. In this case Chelsea and I decided to make something for a friend of her's in band, choosing the drum as our theme.

After having no luck to try and find a drum, we decided to make one. This drum was made with a hat box, foamies, star brads and gold ribbon. Using glue, cropadile and staples we adhered the top first with staples, knowing the 2nd strip would cover our work. Trim foamies sheet to size then wrap around and glue with mod podge.

To decorate and help hold on foamies we added the brads and ribbon around the sides with the cropadile and a paper piercer. Then filled with candy.

Embellishments

Hey everyone, it's Amy! I want to talk about something that sometimes stresses me out when I'm scrapping. What's that, you ask? Embellishments!!! I totally have a love/hate relationship with them. I can usually get my layouts going, but when it comes to the embellishing, I sometimes struggle with what and how much. Since the layout or project I make just doesn't seem finished without the embellishments, I spend the majority of my time on picking my embellishments. Case in point, here is a layout that I started (it was for the Janelle's Sketch This! site) but it just didn't feel complete like this:



So I took it back to the drawing board, and ended up with this:


which I like much better. Here are a couple of my fav embellishers, other than the fabulous WIP designers:

Leslie Ashe
Alexis Hardy

And some of my favorite embellishments? I'd have to go with:



just to name a few. How bout you? Do you have a fav embellishment? Let me know what you love, I'm always looking for new ideas.

7 Gypsies

Hello friends! This is Laina. I've had a SevenGypsies Photo Carousel sitting in it's box staring at me for the past several months.

I finally figured out what to do with it...

The carousel is made to hold 4x6 photos. It is also the perfect holder for postcards! I have a collection of vintage Disney postcards that were sitting in a box. (When I was little I was OBSSESSED with Lenticular postcards and Viewmaster Reels) This holder was the perfect way to display them. I didn't have enough postcards to fill the whole carousel so I added photos of our trip to WDW from last September to the extra sleeves. The rest of the design was simply made with paper scraps and punches. It went together so easily that I'm inspired to make more as gifts.

If you'd like to try to make one with our own theme, Trish has several for sale in her Etsy shop! If you make one, be sure to post it in the WIP Flickr account.

a fun little challenge....

ok i haven't posted a sketch in what seems like
forever and a day. so i have a fun little sketch
for you today to maybe help get your mojo flowing.
so the challenge is to take this sketch utilize it
and make a FALL themed layout with it!
make sure you share your pages with us--- we wanna see!

here is the sketch


and here is how i used it.


now lets see what you can do!
happy scrappin'!