Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

1/4 c  Earth Balance Soy Garden * 

1/2 c applesauce

1/2 c. white sugar

1-1/4 c. brown sugar

1 T  Ener-G Egg Replacer * 

4 T Soymilk or water

2 T Soymilk

1-3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 t  baking soda

2-1/2 c. oatmeal

1 to 1-1/2 c chocolate chips

1 T vanilla

1/2 - 1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Cream butter, add sugar, cream together. Add eggs, hot water, mix together. Add flour, soda, salt. Add oatmeal, chocolate chips, vanilla and nuts slowly. Mix well.
Spread in a greased 9x11 inch pan. Bake 375°F 25-30 minutes.


*These items can also be purchased at your local health food stores.


I hope you all enjoy!
DanicaA

Butterfly Top Note Box 2

Here is another Box I made again using Retired papers, but I love how it turned out. This is also my entry is this weeks Stampin' Royalty Picture Inspiration challenge. What a gorgeous setting.

Here is the link to the tutorial I used to create this box. 

Top Note Box Tutorial by Amanda Corbet of Krafting Kreations

Today's post is a bit short but, I hope you all enjoy, anyway!

DanicaA

Project Details: Project Recipe: Melon Mambo, Very Vanilla, Glossy White Card Stock, Sweet & Sour Specialty Designer Series Paper, Vellum, Four Frames, Petite Pairs & You Are Loved Stamp Sets, Melon Mambo & Regal Rose Classic Stamp Pad, Melon Mambo Embossing Powder, Embossing Heat Tool, Frost White Shimmer Paint, Top Note Bigz Die, Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die, Big Shot, Sticky Strip, Victoria Crochet Trim, Pearls

Butterfly Top Note Box

I saw this box on another blog with tutorial attached and decided I wanted to give it a try. I really liked how it turned out. The Butterfly Stamped image didn't come through in the picture as well as I would have wished, but it is very pretty and quite subtle. the image isn't the least bit over powering. I used retired Stampin' Up! DSP as I wanted to try the project out and felt if I messed up at least it wouldn't be with my current papers.

I am including multiple photos of the finished product, in one of which I included some Hershey's Hugs. The boxes are perfectly sized for small candies or little trinkets and would make a great valentine gift.

Here is the link to the tutorial I used to create this box. 

Top Note Box Tutorial by Amanda Corbet of Krafting Kreations

I hope you all enjoy!
DanicaA

Project Recipe: Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla, Glossy White Card Stock, Elegant Soiree Designer Series Paper, Vellum, Four Frames, Petite Pairs & SAB Fresh Vintage Stamp Sets, Crumb Cake Classic Stamp Pad, Crumb Cake, Marina Mist, Bashful Blue, Baja Breeze, Basic Grey, Soft Suede Stampin' Write Markers, Frost White Shimmer Paint, Top Note Bigz Die, Beautiful Butterflies Bigz Die, Big Shot, Sticky Strip, Victoria Crochet Trim, Pearls

Photo Updates for Past Posts

Here is the promised photo of my new shelf unit

I have finally taken some photos of the Olive Salsa. I provided this recipe a while and was wishing that I had a photo or two of them.

I hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

Shopping & Blogger Background

Today was a hectic day, I spent the day in town, which means an hour drive each way, Shopping & visiting family. A couple of my siblings are going to the community college working on their prerequisites and my grandparents live near by, so went to visit them as grandpa just got out of the hospital today. He had a relapse of Pneumonia, He is doing better though.

Isn't this gorgeous!

More Craft Storage 

So in between visiting I did some shopping therapy, bought a shelf for the wall behind my bedroom/craft/office door for storage for my crafting supplies. I think it will work perfectly and if it does I may have to buy another. I will add photos when I get this put together and hung up.

& it's portable.....WooHoo!

I also did a bit more work on my blog background, I have finally figured out how to get it on my blog now I have to figure out how to get it positioned the exact way I want. It keeps cutting of the parts I wish to keep or making things to short. I think I know what I need to do but it will take a bit of time.

I hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

New Header made with MDS

Today I have been working on creating a new header using Stampin' Up!'s digital program My Digital Studio. To find out about the 30 day free trial visit my February 1st post. 

I really like the design but I definitely need to work on re-sizing it as it is way to long.

Tell what you think of it. I would really like some feed back as to whether it all works well together.

I have also been working on a new background to coordinate with the header, I think I will have it made by tomorrow and then I have to figure out how to get it on here properly.

Well, really short today....

Hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

Dream Card

Tonight, I made this card using the colors from 

Utah Divas International Color Challenge #72 

and the Freshly Made Sketch Challenge #20

I like the colors and the shape, although I am not sure that it turned out quite the way I wanted it to. I may have to try this again at a future date.

I hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

Project Details: Cajun Craze, Riding Hood Red, More Mustard, River Rock, & Pear Pizzazz Card Stock,  Loving Thoughts Stamp Set, Basic Black Classic Stamp Pad, Basic Rhinestones, Riding Hood Red Pleated Satin Ribbon, Circle Dies, Big Shot

New Catalog Schedule

This past month Stampin' Up! announced some changes to the catalog, both the Idea Book & Catalog & the Mini Catalogs.  Some of these changes may have you thinking Oh, No! What are they doing? But I ask that you hold on to all thoughts and wait to see how this works out. I am listing below some of the changes and my thoughts and opinions on them.

• The Idea Book & Catalog will be renamed to The Annual Catalog
• This raises many questions, by changing the name will they get rid of the samples pictured in the book? According to the information I am receiving as a Demonstrator is that the samples will stay.
• The annual catalog will run from June 1, 2012 (preorder in May) through May 31, 2013
•  This means that your current catalog will be ending a month earlier so be prepares to purchase those things you really want as they may be retired a month sooner than expected.
• The annual catalog will be reduced from over 240 pages in the current Idea Book & Catalog to 208 pages.
• Okay I will admit that this raise more than a few eyebrows, but at the same time as announcing the catalog will have less pages they also made a few other announcements that makes this less scary & less likely to mean a huge difference in the amount of products available. 
• One of the things mentioned was that the Simply Adorned & Decor Elements will be discontinued together this cuts out 8 pages
• Also announced is that most seasonal items will be moved to the Seasonal Catalogs (see more below regarding minis). By removing these items or even just most of them they free up 30 pages
• Total the amount of pages they are reducing the catalog (32 Pages) by and the total of pages that simply adorned, decor elements & seasonal items take up 8+30=38. This is a total of 6 pages more than they say they are reducing the catalog by. This to me means that they won't be removing all the holiday items from the main catalog.
• Stamps will still be featured at full size.
• The annual catalog will be printed on lighter-weight paper.
• Okay I am unsure what this will mean to the quality of the catalog, we are all questioning whether this will cause the catty's to fall apart sooner or become even more dog-eared. I am going to have to wait for the answers to questions I have to this change.
• Celebrando Creatividad will remain unchanged.
• The Occasions, Summer, and Holiday Mini Catalogs will be replaced by two seasonal catalogs called the Holiday Catalog and the Spring Catalog.
• Okay I am excited about this change. As things stand right now, I feel we barely have a chance to show case items in the minis especially the summer mini before it is time to introduce a new mini. I also feel this will give us more opportunity to show off more of the annual catalogs products.
• The first Holiday Catalog will run from August 1, 2012 through the beginning of January, 2013
• The first Spring Catalog will run from the beginning of January, 2013 through May 31, 2013.
• Longer running time= more chance to decide if you like a product and a better chance of being able to afford the items you want.
• The seasonal catalogs will be larger in both size (8 1/2" x 11") and page count (about 40 pages) than the current mini catalogs.
• This is great. I am not sure how much this will change the amount of product these will carry, if they will have more new items or if the size/page amt will just be for the additional seasonal items they choose to bring back each year.

Whew, long post today, but I felt that you need to know what changes will be occurring with Stampin' Up! in the near future. Many of the changes I am excited about, the main change that I am hoping to here more about soon is the new cost of the annual catalog. We know the cost is changing for us but I would like to know what the change of cost to you will be. 

Keep watching for updates on these exciting new changes to Stampin' Up!

I hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

Wonderful You Heart

Today's post is a gorgeaous card I made using the Color Throwdown #177 challenge. 

I really wanted to try this with my new heart framelits but just hadn't gotten around to it, so I decided that last night was the night I was going to make my heart card. It is so simple, take a piece of card stock 11" X 5-1/2" fold in half and place your largest heart die just slightly off the edge at the fold and run through your big shot. I like being able to make different card shapes. 

Aren't these gorgeous colors. Very Classy.

Before I started Blogging and selling Stampin' Up! products, I made a card for my grandma's birthday, she loves butterflies and I had a stamp of a large butterfly. I traced the butterfly on card stock folded in half with the top of the wings at the folded edge, cut around my tracing and had a wonderful personalized card for her. I know the ladies at the post office really liked it.

I hope you all enjoy!

DanicaA

Project Recipe: Melon Mambo, Basic Black, Whisper White Card Stock, Hearts Collection Framelits, Big Shot, Heart Punch, Vanilla Scented Embossing Powder, Take It To Heart Stamp Set, Melon Mambo Classic Stamp Pad, Whisper White Organza Ribbon, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

My Digital Studio

free 30 day trial download is available today! 

Visit my website to download and try out My Digital Studio. If after thirty days you choose to purchase you, you can purchase the downloadable or disc version of the software to continue using it. You'll simply open up the trial version you already have on your computer, and will be prompted to enter the product registration key you received after purchasing the software. (You'll receive this key via e-mail if you purchase the downloadable version, and you'll find it along with your shipped software if you purchase the disc version.)

So come on over and give it a try.

I hope you enjoy!

DanicaA