Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

Last night I made this delicious pie!  Not exactly healthy, but still delicious:)  I made it without the nuts, also.  It is so simple to make, but yet delicious!  You must serve it with icecream - otherwise it might be to sweet to serve plain:)  I had it warm last night, and now I might have some this afternoon all the way cooled and see what it tastes like!

You can find this delicious and simple recipe here.

Have a wonderful day!  I can't wait for spring break next week!!!!!

Lessons from Dribbling a Basketball

Dribbling a basketball on our gravel driveway never fails to make me start thinking.  It's truly a wonderful lesson.  The other day as I was dribbling the basketball, I thought maybe I could share with you.

When I dribble the ball down the driveway, sometimes I bounce nice and smooth and even.  Sometimes the ball rolls away on the ground.  Sometimes the ball bounces low, and sometimes high.  Sometimes bounces are closer together, sometimes farther.  You can hear the ball's resounding thud as it hits the gravel repeat back to you.  You shoot a hoop when you get back to the basketball hoop.  There are many things that happen when a ball bounces, and it reminds me of everyones life here on earth.

When the ball bounces nice and even and smooth, it reminds me when our life seem to be perfect.

When it bounces low or rolls on the ground, it reminds me of when sometimes in life we are depressed and low in spirit.

When the ball bounces far apart, life is moving quickly.

When the ball bounces close together, life might seem to be going by slowly.

When I hear the thud of the basketball as it hits the ground, it reminds me of how sometimes things in life come back to you - things you did before, whether good or bad.

When I get back to the concrete and I run in and shoot a hoop, it reminds of maybe when something wonderful happened in your life and you were excited.

All these things are happenings in everyones life.  We have to remember though, that although sometimes things in life don't happen the way we want them to, God is in control.  When you are dribbling the ball, hitting it, making it do one thing or another, it's like God's hand on you, the ball.  He is the one who makes things happen in our lives and it's what is His will.  It's very important as we go through our life that we remember that we are indeed not in control, but that God is.  We here on earth need to ask for God's will in our life and live according to His teaching.  Although sometimes it is hard, it is still important.  It's good for us to read the bible, to try to understand, with God's help, what He wants us to do and how we should live.  To know the things we shouldn't do, the things that are sins.

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

"It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man." Psalm 118:8

Cream Puffs Recipe

These are delicious!  I've made these before with a similar recipe for the puff, but did different things in the inside.  You can see the ones I made before on my families blog here.  The actual cream puff turned out better when I made the before, but looks aren't everything!  They wer still delicious:)

Cream Puffs (From Betty Crocker's Cookbook)

1 cup water

1/2 cup margarine or butter

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 eggs

Cream Filling (below)

Whip cream

Powdered Sugar

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Heat water and margarine to rolling boil in 2 1/2 quart saucepan.  Stir in flour; reduce heat.  Stir vigorously over low heat for about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat.  Beat in eggs, all at once; continue beating until smooth.  Drop dough by scan 1/4 cupfuls about 3 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.  Cool away from draft.  Cut off top one-third of each puff and pull out any filaments of soft dough.  Fill puffs with Cream Filling & Whip cream.  Replace tops and dust with powdered sugar.  Refrigrate until serving time (I made them when we wanted to eat them and ate them right away).  Refrigrate any remaining puffs.

12 cream puffs; 205 calories each (this does not include any calories in the whip cream).

Cream Filling

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tablespoons margarine or butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in 2-quart saucepan.  Gradually stir in milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Gradually stir at least half of the hot mixture into egg yolks.  Stir into hot mixture in saucepan.  Boil and stir one minute;  remove from heat.  Stir in margarine and vanilla; cool.

These are really delicious and you should have some:)

(the recipe is here and it don't matter what the picture says:))

YUMMY!!!!

Have a wonderful day!



Sandal Make-over Tutorial

Do you remember this?  Well, I'm giving you the tutorial now!

Late last year, I bought a pair of sandals from Old Navy for $1 or $2.  I actually bought 2 pairs, one of which I'm doing the tutorial for - the other ones were fine the way they were.  Anyways, this pair of sandals, I noticed when I got home, had little dangle things as embellishments and I realized on one of the sides, a bunch of them must have fallen off.  I first thought it would be fine to wear them that way, but then I decided I wouldn't want to.  Then I thought I could just cut them off and wear them plain . . . but that's a little boring though, and it also shoes little wholes where the other embellishment was attached - - and that was when I thought of making my own interchangable embellishments.

How fun is that?  A embellishment to go on your shoes that you can change to match each and every outfit!  You could also do this with other types of shoes, like flats!

1. Okay - so first you're going to get a pair of sandals  -  you can see mine above.

2.  Cut off the embellishments already there, if there are any.  In the picture above, you can see the little holes I was talking about.

That was where the project stopped for me for quite a while, because I was waiting until we got some E-6000 glue.

3.  With E-6000 glue, glue a small square of velcro onto desired place of sandal.

4.  If you haven't already, make your embellishments for your shoes.  I already had this done, and you can make more whenever you want!  I used handmade fabric & lace flowers, buttons, etc.

5.  Glue with either E-6000 glue, or hot glue, the other side of velcro to embellishments.  If the back of your embellishment is backed in felt, like mine is, I recommend using hot glue.  I used E-6000 glue on 3, and hot glue on one I made after doing all this, and it seemed to work faster.  In the long run, I guess I'll see if one works better than the other, or if they both work.  (I just hope they're long lasting!)



Rolled Fabric Flowers



6.  Now all you need to do is wear your wonderful new sandals & have fun with new embellishments.  I love them and how I can change the embellishment to match my outfit.  There are so many possibilities.



Rolled Fabric Flowers



2 Buttons (glued onto felt)

Lace Flowers (Love 'em)!!

I can't wait until the weather is nice enough to wear them!

Note:  I have seen similar tutorials for similar things, but I wanted to make my own to show you what I did.  I'm not trying to copy anybody or anything!

So enjoy the tutorial and go make yourself some prettied up shoes.  I, personally, am going to be looking out for other sandals, flats, etc., to be doing more things like this!

Have a wonderful day - here it's quite beautiful & I should go outside again.  I went outside for a while, but it got kind or boring riding my bike back and forth on the driveway and I couldn't find the basketball:(  But it felt wonderful - about 50 degrees & the wind whipping all over me *wonderful*

Psalm 19:14 Vintage Frame & Sneak Peaks!!!

Yesterday, I got all my stuff ready to make this, but never got to making it.  Today I decided I WAS going to make it, so I got to work and actually did something, unlike the last few days where I come home and don't really do much of anything.  I had really fun making it, and look forward to making more frames like this.  They're so fun to make, and turn out looking awesome, (or so I seem to think, anyways!).

I started out with a blank wood frame.  Then I painted it up, so it looked kind of vintage/worn/something . . . not sure how to describe it!

Then I started on with the embellishments.  It was so much fun, creating and being creative, using a mixture of medias - paint, sandpaper, a paper that came from a clock, flowers, buttons, lace . . . the list goes on!

By the way, the clock piece came from a clock from my room, that went dead, so I decided to save it to do something with it . . . glad I saved it, because it was fun to work with.  It was white color, so I painted it with my black, white, and brown paint and then sanded it down some to get the effect it has now.  I really liked how it turned out . . . at first I didn't think it would turn out, but then I decided to sand it down a bit (I think I did that when the paint was still wet), and it got a look that I liked.

Side View:

Details:

And guess what . . . tomorrow I should have a tutorial coming!  Remember to come check it out . . . bearing, anyways, that I get it done . . . It'll be coming soon though, at least in a few days!

&

(the pics for of these didn't turn out - the white was too shiny:(   )

Hope I get to both of them SOON!!!

Have an awesome day . . . and week!!



Learning to Knit

Well, I learned how to knit . . . now I'm knitting a scarf:)  I learned how to in my Textiles & Apparel class at school and now we have to make a scarf.

Ways to Use Scrapbooking Note Pages

These are actually for my scrapbook project for school, and I have to have 2 paragraphs on each one, so I was excited for these notecards - it's a great way to journal!

If you haven't seen the scrapbook note cards, go here to see them, or email me here if you want me to send you the file.

I used the "Facts of the Moment" note card for this page.

This page, the note card used is not one I created, but one from the scrapbook retreat.  It still gives you the idea about how you could use them, though.  This note card is where I got the "Giggle HaHa Laugh" idea for the notecard - I wanted it to be a side ways one like this, but I couldn't get it to work:(

Enjoy . . .

. . . and have an awesome day/weekend!!!

Recycled Lace or Doily Tags Tutorial

These are very cute tags made from tags from clothing, such as jeans - the ones I used are from Target & I really liked them!

LACE TAGS

For the lace one, you need a tag, a strip of lace (mine was from a skirt I no longer wanted), & a sewing machine threaded with thread the same color as the lace.

1. Get a tag that you like.

2. Cut off any part that goes all the way across the bottom, like seen on this one.  Tags like this one, with just writing on the side and on the bottom work best, as you cover the stuff on the side and cut the part off the bottom.  If the edges are rounded like on this one, round the edges that you cut off.

3. Sew on the lace.  I do it a little bit longer than needed and fold it over on each side.  I also fold it over to the back on the long length.  On this tag, I used 3 strips of stitching length-wise.*  On the tops and bottoms, I did one row of stitching, just over the lace part, though.

*On a different one, the first one I made, I did two rows of stitching - it just depends on how you want the lace to hang.

And you're finished!  Unless, of course, you want to do something on the back, which I'll show you how to do after I show you how to do the Doily Tags.

DOILY TAGS

For the doily tag, you need a doily, a tag, and again, coordinating thread & sewing machine.

1. Get a tag. Cut a doily a little larger than in half, or to desired size.

2. Sew on to the tag.  I did two strips down the side, again folding it under.  I then sewed it around in a circular way to secure the doily down better.

You're Done!

Now how to do the back: You know all tags have stuff on both sides, so I decided I should cover all that junk up.  To do this, I simply cut a piece of paper to the desired size, then taped/glued it down on to the tag.

*With this picture (#1), you can kind of see how I stitched the lace & doily on better.*

Please do better than I did at cutting out paper and gluing it on - I did this quite quickly!  Before I try to give these to anybody, I think I would redo the backs, and maybe use cardstock paper rather than regular printer paper because you can somewhat see through it.

WHAT TO USE THE TAGS FOR:

-CARDS/USE ON GIFTS

-SCRAPBOOKING

+ OTHER FUN STUFF!!!

Now all you need to do is go whip up a few tags - they're simple & quick to make and they're so cute!

Have fun with it!

Hopefully I'll have another fun tutorial coming up soon:)

*Linking to some of the blog parties on my sidebar.*

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Printable Scrapbooking Note Pages

At the scrapbook retreat, there was some note card sort of things like these, and I really liked them, so I decided to design them myself.  And then I thought other people might want some to, so I decided to share them with all of you!

This is the sheet that I would email you a file for that you would then print off.

I printed this on 3 different colors of un-textured (so you can write on it) cardstock paper so far.

"Facts of the Moment"

"these are the facts"

"Laugh  HaHa  Giggle"

Once you print it out, then you cut each of the three sections apart and into the desired size.

Close-up of the 3 cut out pages (sorry about the bad pic - almost looks like they're all one piece of paper!)

So would you like some of these to use on your scrapbook pages?  All you have to do is email me here, and I will email you the Microsoft Word file for them.  They're so fun, and it gives you a new way to journal.

One of the pages we got at the scrapbook retreat was quite similar to the "Facts of the Moment" one, but it said Once Upon a Time, I think; someone actually just placed a 4x6 picture of them at their wedding on it.  So you could either use this for journaling or a background for a picture on your scrapbook page.  Get creative with it!

I don't have pictures of the pages I did using these yet, but when I do, I'll do a post of them, so you can see some of the ideas of what you could do with them.  If you get these, and scrapbook with them, be sure to show me what you do with them!!

Have an awesome day!

p.s. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, we have late start, (besides Rachel) because 10th graders have to take the HSPE.  So I get to get up a little bit later in the morning . . . any time later than 6 a.m. is an improvement for me!  Yeah for late starts . . . sad though - next year I'll be the one going and getting up at normal time to go take the HSPE:(

Mom's Irresistible Hot Fudge Sauce

This is the simplest hot fudge recipe there is, I am quite sure!  And it is most delicious!  I think it's best on Schwan's Ice Cream, just because it's the best vanilla ice cream:)

1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 cup evaporated milk or whipping cream
Dash salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter in microwave-safe glass bowl.  Mix sugar and cocoa together in separate bowl; then add to butter.  Add milk and salt.  Cook in microwave for 2 minutes or until it boils, stirring after 1 minute.  Stir in vanilla when done.

Enjoy over ice cream! 

I've been horrible at blogging lately - I need to start doing some more crafting again.  What I really need to do is work on my scrapbook project for school - 7 more pages to do before April 1st:(  I'll show you the scrapbook pages I got done at the scrap retreat soon, but I didn't get much done - only 3 pages.  Can you tell I'm a SLOW scrapbooker.  I'm even slower than my mom!!!

Have a wonderful day!