Re-cap!

I know, I know...this poor neglected blog!!
Here is a bit of a catch up...I promise I will try to do better! The good news is, I have been so busy with etsy orders that I haven't had time to devote to the blog!!
Here are a couple of pics from Halloween:
My trick or treats--most of which Cody ate:

My scariest trick or treater EVER!!

And my Peanuts, along with all of our carved pumpkins!!

Peter's 4 pointer::

Sprinkles the Moose, who has moved in next door to our house::

And the latest picture of Cody with Humphrey and Hawkeye...They are growing fast, all three of them!!

Thanks for stopping by!
**Keri**

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Okay, so it is LATE but it technically still IS St. Patrick's Day, so here is what I wanted to share with you today! Better almost late than never, right?
Here is my St. Patrick's Day card for 2009. I made about 10 of them. I always like to keep St. Pats cards simple for some reason. The color is garden green from SU!. I stamped the base with a linen background stamp, although it is hard to see in the pic. I punched a window hole through the bottom corner of the card front, and embellished it with other punch outs to kind of "frame" the window. I stamped the clover from Purple Onion Designs on a smaller punch on the inside, and colored it with prismacolors and sansodor. I used crystal effects to give it a raised up, shiny look.
Now here is my latest entry on the "how stupid could one person possibly be" list....I made 9 dozen shamrock sugar cookies on Saturday...Yeah...I did....I have to feed the whole neighborhood, half the church and my family, ya know...I do have to say, they were SO GOOD! You can find the recipes back in the Feb. 2009 entries. I even used tiny clover sprinkles on some of them!!

So there you have it. My contribution to St. Patty's, '09. I do have to add that I had my first ever corned beef tonight, and it was pretty good!! I ate it while in a steamy sugar house, covered in mud, sitting on a school bus seat, with a can of root beer between my knees, but the green mac and cheese and the green beans that went along with it, made it the perfect meal, no matter where I would have eaten it! Cody and I helped collect sap tonight, the old fashioned way, and I think my body is gonna be rebelling very soon if I don't get to bed!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
**Keri**

How Many Dozen??

Good Friday Morning, everyone! Boy, am I beat. I am so glad it is almost the weekend! Cody recently decided to be in Spanish Club. Even though he does not even like Spanish. Typical kid, typical boy, and you will see where I am going with this in a minute. Apparently, there is a field trip next Friday. Over to Vermont to see the Flamenco (sp?) dancers at the Flynn Theatre. Well, that is reason enough to be in Spanish Club, right? Miss a whole day of school?! ALRIGHT! So if you wanted to go on the trip, you had to pay for your ticket, and make something for a bake sale (today) to help pay for the bus. She also requested that it had a Valentine feel to it, as the holiday is so close at hand. So when Mom and I went to town the other day, I picked up sprinkles, cello bags with hearts, and all kinds of baking supplies. I have been trying not to bake, so I hadn't bought any flour/sugar, etc. since the Holidays! I did a double batch of spritz cookies, in pink, and white, and I did a triple batch of sugar cookies, complete with royal icing and sprinkles. Cody did the sprinkles!
I think I made about 10 dozen cookies last night, at LEAST! I was so tired I was drooling. I finally got done, got them all packaged, and went to bed after 10 pm. I made 20 packages for the bake sale, and a special one for Cody's best school buddy, the nurse. Here is my recipe for sugar cookies. I have been using it for years, and it never fails! Always remember not to roll them out too thin!
Keri's Sugar Cookies:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups flour
Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift in flour, b. powder and salt. Let chill until easy to work with. Roll out to a 1/4" thickness and bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes.
*I don't let them get brown at ALL. Not even a litte bit.*

Royal Icing (from Martha Stewart dot com)
2 cups conf. sugar
2 1/2 tblsp. meringue powder
1/4 cup water.
Blend well and add coloring if desired!



I used a zipper bag with the tip cut off, for the icing. I use an offset spatula to fill in the middle..Here is what the bake sale packaging looks like:
I used a cute punch with a Purple Onion Designs sentiment for the middle, and tied it with a pink ribbon. Purple Onion Link is in the sidebar!!



Here is the special treat for our friend, the nurse. I got this cute box at Michael's and loved it!! They have all kinds of prints for the holidays. I filled it with goodies and tied it with a huge grosgrain ribbon, and a sentiment tag.

Now all I have to do is make up a tray for tomorrow's SU! workshop!
Have a great Friday!
**Keri**

Happy Halloween 2008!!

Happy Halloween everyone!! Hope everyone is having a fine Friday! I have the kiddos here with me today, so everything is a mess!! Before I show you my Trick or Treats, can I just say, that is anyone knows where my brain went (aka my Charlie Brown spiral bound notebook) please let me know! I can't find that thing anywhere and I NEED it! It holds all my lists of things I cannot forget! Okay, now back to business!
These are my 2008 Trick or Treats. We live in a very remote area, so we only get about half a dozen TOTers. All close friends and relatives. So I can "go out" a little bit and make something special.
I made these bat cookies last night, iced them with royal icing, and sugared them with black crystal sugar.

They are SO GOOD! I packaged them in clear sleeves with an adhesive strip. I also found these cool suckers with pumpkins on them. They are on extra long bouncy straw sticks. Cute!!


I also made these cute little tins for my daycare babies. They are sold at Michael's, and they are the perfect size for circle punchouts in the "windows". They hold a good amount of small candy. I used M&M's, but Skittles would work, too!
I taped the edges to make sure they wouldn't pop open.

For my bigger ToTers tonight, I made nugget boxes. You can find instructions and template for many different sized nugget boxes at www.splitcoaststampers.com.
The one I made holds 8, 2 rows of 4. I covered the nuggets with 1x3 inch pieces of halloween patterned paper, and placed them in the box. The cover sleeve I made out of clear report cover material. I embellished with a cute halloween tag using circle punches, and tied it with some funky orange yarn.



I also have popcorn balls to make, but those are best done fresh, so I won't do them until after work this afternoon.


Well, here's hoping you have a festive evening!
Tomorrow is Cody's party, so we are looking for good weather!
**Keri**