First Steps Into the World of Digital Scrapbooking

As much as I love papercrafting, scrapbooking with two little children underfoot can be a bit tricky so I thought I'd have a go at digital scrapping.
Ut has never really inspired me before but the other day in a cardmaking magazine I read an article about a digital scrapping site called NitWits and I instantly fell in love with the designs.

Here are my first attempts. Some are pre-made pages (I just added the photos) while others are my attempt at creating my own layouts.
I've sent these off to be printed and plan on adding some 3D elements when they arrive, so technically it will be hybrid scrapbooking.

The quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie

It happens so often - I see a recipe with a picture of what appears to be my idea of the perfect chocolate chuck cookie: crispy on the outside yet moist on the inside, chocolate chunks peeping out from the crispy crust...and it has to be chocolate chunks, not those ridiculously tasteless chips - and every time I am disappointed when I make the recipe in question.

Last week I made a recipe that used no eggs but did involve condensed milk. Nice cookies but they definitely were Condensed Milk Cookies - not chocolate chunk cookies.

Earlier this week, I tried a recipe that promised to be the perfect 'bakery-style' cookie. I tried it only to discover the result was a small, soft sponge cake - nice if you're hoping for a sponge cake, but most definitely not my idea of cookie heaven. I could tell from the minute I beat the sugars and butter until light and fluffy that the resulting cookies would be cakey: the procedure was exactly like making a sponge cake.

Yesterday, on my internet travels I came across an intriguing recipe and thought I'd try it. It's intriguing because although it doesn't fuss about egg size and flour type like I would expect a cookie recipe to (especially nowdays when cookie nirvana seems to be a worldwide quest) it does mix and match practices from overly fussy cookie recipes such as melting the butter and chilling the dough.
This time from the moment I combined the butters and sugars I knew I would be pretty close to cookie heaven by the end of the baking session - the mixture already had the right creamy-yet-not-fluffy consistency. Here's the dough complete with the remaining ingredients: again creamy with a creamy - not doughy taste:

I chilled the dough as per instructions and then baked the cookies.

As an experiment, I baked some in the oven and some in my Remoska. What's a Remoska? This site will explain it better than I can: http://www.hoorayforhomecooking.co.uk/.

Here are the results!!!
The cookie on the right was baked in the Remoska, the one on the left in the oven:


The ones from the Remoska were very good but in terms of appearance the ones from the oven are the winners. Having said that, I cooked them for exactly the same time and I wonder if they baked a little faster in the Remoska (I had preheated it first). The cookies seemed to spread out a little more in the oven too.



In terms of taste and texture? You know what? I think I can lay my quest to rest for a little while....these cookies and divine! They have a crispy outside and a chewy inside that isn't sickly like some cookies that are in fact not baked long enough. My only issue is that they do not look like the ones on this blog. But then again, I didn't and am not prepared to brown the butter in a saucepan until golden etc, etc....not for now anyway.

;-)

Octagonal Exploding Box

I've been having a go at making exploding boxes. This one is my second one and oddly I find them challenging to decorate - maybe it's bc it's an unfamiliar format as it were. The other thing that held me back is thaat I can't think of anyone to give these to. I wish I hadn't thought of that as it kinda killed my mojo.



A non-crafty friend came round today and saw one of the boxes I made. I asked her if she wanted to make one too and her face lit up and we spent the next 2hrs making one each. She did a beautiful job - she's not at all non-crafty after all!

I came across this idea on a beautiful blog: Country Heart And Home.
I wish I had half the talent this lady has!

An Upside down Card!

Woohoo....I have a new mobile phone which worked out cheaper than my old one! One of it's features is that it allows me to take pics and update them to my blog straight from the phone.
Very, very handy....except this one turned out upside down!!! I'm sure I could go back and correct it but it's not a great picture anyway.

It's my first card in months - since becoming pregnant with baby number 3 to be exact. Until recently the smell of paper made me nauseous (I never even knew paper had a strong smell until this pregnancy!!)

Who ever said Tilda was too girly?

Here's the anniversary card I made for my hubby!
I'm pleased bc I used her to make a card for a man and also bc it's the first time I've managed to give her hair a glossy look.



And here's Tilda posing in her ring...

Verse card for a friend

Here's a card I made for a friend going thru a rough patch.
I used the Sugar Free Fix collection from Craftwork Cards
It's the first time I've used their products and I highly recommend them! The quality is very good and everything mixes and matches so well. Plus I'm trying to cut out all sugar from my diet so it's appropriate!!
I prefer this card without the medallion at the bottom but I knew it would mean much more to my friend to have it personalised so here are both versions:

Pages from my summer 09 scrapbook

Two birthdays...

We've been celebrating birthdays!

Firstly and foremost, my little boy was 4!
He loves trains so I made him a cake that would fit the bill:



He loved it and so did his 18mo brother. It was so easy and so enjoyable to make I hope I'll be 'allowed' to make it again in future!





And speaking of birthdays...7 little chicks hatched this week:



They will be blue egg layers and green egg layers...assuming at least some of the 7 are girls that is.

Journal made as a gift

So once again the question loomed: what do we get Aunt L for her birthday?
She lives alone, doesn't drive, has no hobbies we can think of.
Then suddenly - as fortunately as time was running out fast! - I thought of an idea I had come across: making a notebook with my craft supplies!
Suddenly I was much more interested in the whole 'what-do-we-get-for-aunty' palaver.
I knew Aunt L would love a Prayer journal so that's what I decided to make.

Amazingly it took me 6 long hours to make it!
I used a Papermania Chipboard Album and decorated the front:





And then the inside of the front and back covers, aswell as printing out a form for each page of the journal:




I didn't have anymore of the paper I used for the front cover so I used a matching paper but then tragically and stuopidly I got some of my son's paint on it!!!! I tried to conceal it by using blending chalks but it didn't do a thorough job of it (the picture below was taken before I applied the chalks) but I think it still looked acceptable. At least it was only on the back cover.

Bangers and Mash

Presenting Miss Bangers and Miss Mash - our 12 week-old British Lop pigs!





Although they haven't been handled before they soon warmed up to us, especially to hubby (now why would that be I wonder??)




They're about the size of a medium dog at the moment. They got straight to work digging up all the roots underground. It was their first time outside and they seem to love it. What surprises us is how quiet they are - our hens are much noisier!

Father's Day Cake

I made this cake for Father's day and couldn't resist sharing it with you!
The fingers belong to my toddler who would only eat the garish green bits!!

June's Challenge with a Twist

Here's my entry for the Challenge with a Twist from Crafty Place.
The guidelines were to alter a container. So I altered the plastic box that my Flowersoft came in!

I really enjoyed doing in but getting the mesh fabric to stay stuck (on the top) in a challange I haven't yet sorted. Also, I have no idea what I am going to do with this box now!!!

Mixed batch

This is a truly terrible card! However I refuse to give up so I have dissected it and am trying to make some decent cards with the individual components. Watch this space! It can only get better!






This is the first scrapbook page I've made in ages. I'm always surprised at how scrapping and cardmaking are like chalk and cheese and use very different skills.






I was feeling really low today and the result is this very melancholic card. I somehow felt it could almost be a sympathy card. The sentiment isn't stuck down and the jury's still out on that one. The stamp is actually Tilda with Chicks but I covered the chicks with flowers.

First time getting 'Bumper Box Deal'

I hesitated a lot before ordering one of these 'pay £25 and get £125 value' boxes but last week I gave in to temptation and ordered one.The contents are:










My verdict?
Well, given that we homeschool our kids any craft stuff will be used anyway.Having said that, there are a lot of papers in the box: 10 packs plus one bag of off-cuts and one bag of 4 x 6 handmade papers.probably my only other criticism is that of the 3 stamp sets, 2 are identical which seems a bit pointless really.There are also 4 identical sets of Christmas stickers but that's OK as it's quite easy to make use of that many. Over all the stickers were good.
Would I do it again? Probably at some stage as my little boy will make use of the neon papers and grey dishwater-looking paper. If I wasn't homeschooling and if my sons weren't into crafting, then I probably wouldn't. It is good value if you were to buy the items individually but I wouldn't have chosen some of the papers, the quilling papers, the wedding cards and the duplicate stamp sets.

First time getting 'Bumper Box Deal'

I hesitated a lot before ordering one of these 'pay £25 and get £125 value' boxes but last week I gave in to temptation and ordered one.
The contents are:






My verdict?
Well, given that we homeschool our kids any craft stuff will be used anyway.

Having said that, there are a lot of papers in the box: 10 packs plus one bag of off-cuts and one bag of 4 x 6 handmade papers.
probably my only other criticism is that of the 3 stamp sets, 2 are identical which seems a bit pointless really.
There are also 4 identical sets of Christmas stickers but that's OK as it's quite easy to make use of that many. Over all the stickers were good.

Would I do it again? Probably at some stage as my little boy will make use of the neon papers and grey dishwater-looking paper.
If I wasn't homeschooling and if my sons weren't into crafting, then I probably wouldn't. It is good value if you were to buy the items individually but I wouldn't have chosen some of the papers, the quilling papers, the wedding cards and the duplicate stamp sets.

Some lovely blog candy on offer

This lady's blog always cheers me up.
I'm going to try her sketch and see how I get on. The only problem is that every time I look I'm immediately tempted to buy more Magnolia stamps!!

Two more faux quilt cards

I'm really enjoying this technique at the moment. I found it here: Dawn's Stampin Thoughts
I made these with the free papers at http://www.papertreyink.c...les_previous_months.html .

More Tildas and an Edwin

Flowers made with Flowersoft:




A Father's Day card:




These two are Christmas cards: