Peanut Butter, Jelly and carrots??

It's Friday and that means it's time to Fool Your Family with another sneaky recipe! PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY MUFFINS

Nonstick cooking spray
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup carrot puree
1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons margarine or butter
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1 large egg white
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low-sugar strawberry, blueberry or grape preserves

1. Preheat over to 350 and coat a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, beat the peanut butter, carrot puree, sugar and butter with a wooden spoon until well combined. Stir in the yogurt and egg white.

3. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir until just combined - there should be some lumps in the batter.

4. Fill muffin cups with batter and drop a spoonful of preserves on top of each.

5. Bake until the tops of the muffins are lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center, 20 - 25 minutes. Turn muffins out onto a rack to cool.

Lost in New Jersey? Not me!

I'm writing this post while I'm on my treadmill today, so if there's a brief pause.......that means I fell off! For my card today, I used the sketch above from the Mojo Monday blog. It's a layout I don't think I ever would have come up with, so I decided to play along for a quick thank you card I needed to make.

When my father-in-law heard the kids and I were flying across the country by ourselves, he told me to take his GPS thingy to help me drive around in New Jersey. Can I just say that it TOTALLY came in handy when I was driving in downtown Newark at 2:30am. Our flight going out was delayed almost two hours, so we landed at a totally obscene hour.

Anyways......here's a quick thank you card I put together for dear ol' Dad.
I used So Saffron cardstock along with the "Delicate Dots" patterned paper from SU's Sale-A-Bration a few months ago. The main image is from a set called "Going Places" by My Favorite Things and the sentiment is from SU. For the dress, I used the paper piecing technique.

And yep....you guessed it.
Since I was working with a sketch today, I also made a Christmas card for my stash!

For this one, I used Close to Cocoa for the base and paired it with some of the textured paper from the "To The Nines" collection by SU. Oh my gosh - love that paper! I also used it on this project for Father's Day.
The images are from "Winter Post", which I was THRILLED to see were added into the new catalog! Let me just say that the new SU catalog for July 1st is the best one ever! Lots of new styles and themes - I'm a happy girl.

Okay, that's it for me today. I haven't fallen off the treadmill yet, so let's not tempt fate.
I'll be back tomorrow with a new recipe to Fool Your Family.
Hugs,

Sympathy - 5th Avenue style

Before I get to todays card, I wanted to thank all of you for your comments and e-mails regarding my last post. I don't normally share personal things on my blog, but GEEZ, how much can a girl take?! It felt good to get it all out (and perhaps the 4 glasses of champagne helped also...) I've always been amazed at the kindness and generosity of those in the stamping community. You gals are the best!!
I'm also happy to report that the "My Time to Create" team donation fund has already raised over $350 for the Weiman family! Amazing...

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Here's a card I put together last night for my friend Barbara who lost her sister on Friday. I really hate making sympathy cards, but hopefully it will bring some comfort to a friend during a tough time.For this card, I used images from SU's "Fifth Avenue Floral" and a sentiment from Hero Arts. I black embossed the floral images onto gold cardstock and trimmed around the bottom edge. Then I layered that onto white shimmery paper and mounted it onto a basic black base. I gold embossed the sentiment and finished off the card with some paper piercing across the top and bottom edges.

Thanks for stopping by.
I promise to have something cheerful to share tomorrow.

Some sad news...

Hey everyone.
The kiddos and I arrived home safe and sound from our trip to New Jersey over the weekend. Unfortunately we came home to some sad news. My friend Barbara, who attends a monthly stamp club with me, lost her sister to cancer on Friday evening. She had been battling the disease for over two years. My heart goes out to you Barbara.

On that same day, fellow "My Time" design team member, Alicia Weiman lost her four year old son Ethan to cancer as well. He had a very long and courageous battle with this horrible disease and his little body just couldn't take anymore. I can't even imagine what she and her family must be going through right now. Ethan had a younger sister, Ava, and Alicia is pregnant and due later this year.
Here is a picture of precious little Ethan...

Alicia kept an online journal about Ethan.
You can read the entries by clicking HERE.

As you can imagine, Ethan's medical bills are staggering.
The "My Time to Create" design team has put together a fund to collect donations for Alicia and her family. There's a link on my sidebar if you'd like to make a donation. Big or small, it all adds up. Or, if you'd rather send a card to the family, just e-mail me for their mailing address.

I'm emotionally spent right now.
My son lost his best friend to a fatal asthma attack 7 weeks ago. Telling my son about his friend is THE hardest thing my husband and I have ever had to do. It's so hard dealing with the death of a child. I'll never understand it....

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eyelet

Quick post for me today.
The kiddos and I just got home from our trip to New Jersey and I need to recover today.

Todays challenge over at Christmas Stampin All Year Long is to
have fun with eyelets.

Here's what I came up with... I decided to use eyelets to create a decorative border around my main image.
And speaking of the main image, oh my gosh! Aren't those little chipmunks THE cutest?!
They're from "Forest Friends" by The Greeting Farm and it was love at first sight. I also had a little acorn from Hambo that worked perfectly for my background.

Be sure to check out the CSAYL blog to see what the rest of the divas came up with.
You can also leave a link to your eyelet creation on the challenge post.

Thanks for stopping by.

"My Time" to inspire...

Saturday is finally here and the kiddos and I are enjoying our last day in New Jersey with my family. I can never resist a challenge, so I had to create my sample a couple of weeks ago and schedule it to post today!

Here's our inspiration photo from Lauren for this weeks challenge... Isn't it great?

Here's what I came up with...
The challenge picture inspired my card in many different ways. I used the wall color for my rectangular panels, which were inspired by the shape of the crib. For the circle elements, I stamped out one of the tree images from SU's "Trendy Trees" and punched it out with my 1" circle. I popped them up with dimensionals and layered them around the card.

Do you see the little pillow on the chair with a turtle on it? Well, I don't have a turtle image, so I used the little dinosaur from Pink Cat Studio's "Dress Up Billy" set and stamped that onto a green circle. And since the photo is of a baby room, I decided to use my "small wonder" sentiment and little stars to make this a baby themed card. I almost never have the need to make a baby card, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to add one to my stash.

Since I'm still out of town, I don't know which team members are playing along with the challenge today. Be sure to check out Lauren's blog and she'll have links for all the players this week.

Thanks for stopping by!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I'll be back home on Monday with a new Christmas challenge for you.

Welcome to Fool Your Family Friday!

Welcome to Fool Your Family Friday!
My kids will do just about anything for a Rice Krispy Treat. This version tastes just as good, but there are a couple of secret ingredients that make this traditional favorite better for you.MARSHMALLOW CRISPY TREATS

Nonstick cooking spray
1 tablespoon margarine or butter
1 (10 oz.) package of marshmallows
6 cups crisp brown rice cereal
1/4 cup flaxseed meal

1. Coat an 8 x 8 baking pan with cooking spray.

2. Melt the margarine or butter in in a large pot over low heat. Add the marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove the pan from the heat.

3. Add the rice cereal and flaxseed, and stir until the rice is well coated with marshmallow. Press the mixture into the baking dish and let cool before cutting into squares.

Sneaking in a quick color challenge - 2nd post today

Hey Peeps!
Still on vacation, but I had this card that was PERFECT for Kristina's color challenge and thought I'd post it.
The owls and sentiment are from U R A Hoot by Kim Hughes and the patterned paper is by Scenic Route. There's a link to the stamp set on the post below.

Thanks for peeking!

For my little graduate

My baby girl graduated from Kindergarten one week ago and this is the card that we all signed and gave to her. The kids and I love owls, so it was a pretty easy choice to reach for U R A Hoot by Kim Hughes when it came time to make a special card for my special girl.
Ribbon, glitter and flowers were a must for this card.
I used Cupcake Sugar Coating on the grad cap to make it super sparkly and added some tiny paper flowers to the branches. The blue patterned paper is also by Kim Hughes, and the pink heart pattern is by BasicGrey.

Ta-ta for now...

Getting ready for the "Pork of July"!

I've got another Hambo project for you!
Can you stand it?!

With the 4th of July quickly approaching, I thought I'd make an apron shaped barbecue invitation. Isn't this barbecue image great? And that sentiment just cracks me up!

I wish I could say that he reminded me of my husband grilling away, but he actually reminds me of myself. Except I'm a little thinner.....and less hairy. I've been a vegetarian for 22 years, but somehow I've taken on the role as Grill Master at our house. Not exactly sure how that happened, but I'm told that I make the best pork ribs in all the land.

I decided to create an invite with my recipe in a pocket on the front of the card.
Here's a close up.
I used a silver pen for the utensils and a red
Sakura glaze pen on the barbecue. It's super shiny in person.

You've gotta have LOTS of paper towels around when you're eating ribs. I stamped a sparkler image, also by Hambo, onto a few paper towels and wrapped them up with a 1" wide strip of cardstock. Then I attached a little panel to the front.
To make the apron shaped card, I started with a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" base and scored it 1/2" down from the top fold. Then I punched out the top corners as shown with my 1 3/8" circle punch.
Then I made a quick cut with my scissors on each side.
Voila!

Bon Appetit!