Ice Cream?

SO, it was a cold January day and we decide we wanted ice cream! LOL

Looks yummy Huh? It ends up as yummy soft serve!

We also wanted some fun and I had a bunch of stuff already for freezer bag ice cream so we went for it! I found several recipes online and went with my own, since I do seem to have an issue with following directions! But the main ingredients are pretty standard: Cream or milk with various levels of fat, vanilla, sugar, ice, rock salt if you have it, and plastic bags. I double bagged mine since it seemed a common suggestion.....I suggest it too.

This is what we used....I had yummy heavy whipping cream and really good vanilla but milk and extract is fine too.

We used a small pitcher to hold our ice since I used the chipped ice from the in door ice machine. It worked well but there was still a bit of entertainment from the few stray ice cubes flying around. :) For cats and kids alike.

After putting the ingredients in one bag I doubled it up, then put it into the ice and rock salt filled outer one.

And then we shook and shook the bags for a long time! It was fun and even the littlest almost finished hers. I think a smaller portion would have been better so it would take less time to freeze up.

It was more fun than this looks! Ha Ha Ha!

Even the teenager had some fun....

The best part is eating it!

Have fun and I hope you try it! It's a lot less work than you think and very fun! I do suggest gloves too....and have some towels handy too.....

Sorry for the terrible iPhone pics....my "good" camera has quit on me and I haven't decided what to get next!

Thanks for stopping by.

Memories of summer.....

I've had a special picture I was waiting to scrap for a while, and recently I ran across it while cleaning up, and the scrap bug bit me. Well maybe I should say my heart went Zing? ;)

The clean up, plus stumbling across a new SVG site, plus some great updates to MTC(Make the Cut, my favorite cutting software) all made this whole thing come together so easily. It was very inspiring. I think all these things are going to take my scrap booking to a new level and make it much easier overall.

My G is so attached to this flag which we have displayed in our home and use for Girl Scouts. I even imported the journaling to print and cut it to a new size...its all straight in real life too. LOL

To create this page I made a basic layout in MTC using elements I purchased from MissKate'sCuttables  plus a few of my own elements....Miss Kate's is a super new site that adds new files every day and works like a dream. It has a daily freebie, wishlists, and keeps track of your account/purchases too! Great site! Plus the SVG's are small inexpensive sets I find really fits my needs. She also includes a PNG and JPG file for digi or hybrid or simple print and cut! Been working with Photshop and digi/hybrid pages to use my patterned papers and create more exact colors and hope to show those soon! I've already played with it a bit and need to put it all together.

OK back to my page....G had done a simple page of her own and included a bit of journaling for a project at school, but I wanted one a bit more elaborate. With MTC, I created the mat with the wavy side piece, the simple star center piece, and the base blue layer with the stars cut out to add to the elements from the kit.

To do this I imported all the SVG's into MTC and moved and sized them till I felt it looked right. Next I made adjustments to colors and separated the different pieces into separate layers and pages according to color. The new image handling properties o the MTC software made this possible without freezing or crashing everything. Next I chose my papers and went to town! My Zing was amazing! It cut the finest detail on the firework I was able to layer three colors in descending sizing....down to super thin!

each blue square represents one inch! ooooooh, ahhhhhhh.... ;) fireworks you know...

The blue background paper is a really thick sheet of mulberry paper and cut with my ZIng on multicut 2 qnd speed 9 with the blade extended fairly far out. As a result of trial and error as well as advice from the MTC forum, I used lower pressure than one would think and nothing tore! I am not sure it made a good choice for cutting but the texture looks really nice in person.

Not totally satisfied with the center section but overall it was a super easy page to pull together and with no guessing at sizing, color combos, and placement! My days of pushing paper around the page may be over! Maybe....

Thanks for stopping by and have a great time scrapping!

What A Character...

My G has almost constantly had her nose in a book since she received the Dork Diaries gift set for Christmas, so it was a no brainer that she dressed up as Nikki for "Character Day" at school. The elementary school had a reading month with various special days to make it fun for the kids. On day they were allowed to dress as a character in a book.

The main character in Dork Diaries is just like my G, and they bonded instantly. G even got her hair trimmed a bit extra so she could do the hairstyle, and of course we had to make the special pen and diary. :)

G as Nikki....

Thank goodness there were a few black and white pictures for us to model things after!

The diary and pencil...

The pencil could be a fun treat for a party or something extra for homework fun? For the pencil, I simply trimmed a strip of blue paper from a 12X12 sheet and put score tape all along the back in a few spots before twisting it around a pink striped pencil. The top was a strip of paper (same thickness as the blue but pink) with score tape and then I added a row of shorter strips in two different sizes linded up edge to edge. I then put another strip of score tape in a few spots so that it stuck when I wound it around the base of the pencils eraser. The strips sorta stuck out of the top and after bending them down a bit, I added two stars back to back on the end....yep with score tape. LOL

 Just a few things we have been up to! Thanks for stopping in.

A couple of cards....

Unfortunately I have needed a few too many of these kinds of cards. My heart was heavy as I looked for something special to make for two friends, and I finally settled on using an element from SVGcuts.com's Iris fold cards. These are super pretty and hopefully lift the spirits of my friends.

One of my long distant friends lost her MIL and I substituted a basic flower for the original. I copied it again slightly differently for a "get well soon card" for a wonderful lady who needs her spirits lifted after a series on mini strokes and some trouble regulating her heart rhythm. I really hope for her full recovery for purely selfish reasons...she gives the best hugs. I wish my card could be a great big hug for her and my friends across the country too.

How SVGcuts.com saved my Christmas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Mine was quite peaceful despite having people over three different times and less time than usual for crafting for gifts. That brings me to how SVGcuts.com saved my Christmas....

Most of the time I am crafting last minute and don't even have a chance to take pictures of every project, so I have to say how much I love the online resources for craft files. I can download a project in my PJs in the middle of the night! Some resources are so much better than others. I never am frustrated over a project that won't come together from SVGcuts.com and as mentioned before, they always post video instructions, just in case. Perfectly designed SVG files and instruction videos? Gotta love that!

This year I was looking for a way to package simple candy for teachers gifts so it had to be a bit more special....but not too difficult. I was so impressed by the files I used this year....amazingly the toy soldier was a freebie even! It all went together so well I was able to achieve my goal without too many late nights or added stress.

So without further ado, here's what I made....BTW a gift card fit easily into each of these containers along with some candy for a few special gifts.

A whole bunch of Santa's hats.....cotton balls for the tops. :) For my younger daughter who had to transport these on the bus and hand out herself....nice and contained. This was Santa's Village Kit...

A virtual forest of trees for the High Schooler's teachers...simple yet cute! Using Santas Helpful Elves kit. So helpful...:)

A small blizzard of snowmen....goodness how cute were these for a few more special teachers and friends? Oh plus a few gift bag boxes you keep seeing a peek of behind stuff. Christmas open House Kit!

A special Toy Soldier (freebie) was perfect for my older daughters Orchestra teacher.. They performed a few pieces from the Nutcracker this year so how perfect was that?  He did miss the hand warmers this year tho I think.

And even a special gift box for my High Schooler's Agricultural Sciences teacher.....how cool is that? Much cuter IRL BTW. From Santa's Village Kit.

I hope your holidays were filled with as much crafty fun as mine were. I wish you God's blessing of peace in the new year too!