Saturday, August 29, 2015

A Golden Birthday

Kinda scary that I've posted 3 days in a row. LOL! This summer has been super busy, so blogging got put on the back burner. But things are slowing down some, so hopefully, this blog won't be so neglected.

Sunday, my oldest (Benjamin) celebrated his "golden" birthday. He was 23 on the 23rd. I didn't get a picture taken of his gift, but everything in the box had gold wrapping or the word "gold/golden" on it. It was fun to go shopping for all things "gold". If you need any ideas, just let me know as I looked at pretty much EVERY single item in Dollar General going up and down every aisle and several aisles at the grocery store. Ü

In the box were 23 gold dollars, gold wrapped candies (brachs, resees, twix, ghiradelli, lindt, and ferrero rocher, golden round crackers, golden oreos (2 pkgs as I got one pkg at Dollar General and then went to the grocery store and they had golden birthday party flavored ones and he really likes those, so had to get those too), gold fish crackers, gold dial soap, and I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting. I could have gotten him glittery gold duck tape and gold bond lotion, but that seemed a little girly. LOL I also thought to get him golden french fries, but didn't have a way to keep them cold before I needed to come home the day I went shopping.

He likes cheesecake, so I made a new one called Rocky Road that I found on Pinterest. The only thing I changed in the recipe is I topped it with toasted pecans instead of almonds as he doesn't like almonds. Oh and I added a little cream to the chocolate topping to make it more of a ganache.



and here is the goofy bd boy...not looking at camera...

 
pushing cheesecake away so it's not in photo...

 and fake smiling...LOL



recipe:
Rocky Road Cheesecake
Preparation: Heat oven to 350 degree F.
Ingredients:
Crust
·         14 Oreos, crushed
·         3 tablespoons butter, melted

Cheesecake
·         10 oz. dark chocolate
·         4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
·         16 oz. cream cheese, softened
·         1 ¼ cup sugar
·         ¾ cups sour cream
·         3 eggs

Topping
·         4oz. chocolate, melted
·         ¾ cup mini marshmallow
·         ½ cup Blue Diamond Salted and Roasted Almonds, coarsely chopped
·          
Instructions:
To make crust:
1.    Crush Oreos to a fine crumb in a food processor or place Oreos in a Ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to roll over and crush. Combine crushed Oreos and melted butter and mix to combine.
2.    Press Oreo mixture into bottom of pan. Place pan in oven and bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside.

To make cheesecake:
1.    Place both chocolates in a heat proof bowl over simmering water and stir constantly until chocolate is melted; set aside.
2.    Place cream cheese and sugar in a stand mixer bowl fitted with a paddle attachment and cream on medium speed. Add in sour cream and beat to combine. Add in eggs and beat until combined. Turn mixer to low and gradually add in chocolate beat until combined.
3.    Pour cheesecake mixture over Oreo crust and bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes (25-30 minutes for an 8 inch pan). Center should slightly jiggle when pan is tapped. Allow cheesecake to cool for completely. Cheesecake will slightly fall once cooled.

To finish with topping:
1.    Pour melted chocolate on top then sprinkle almonds and marshmallows on top of chocolate.


Friday, August 28, 2015

What Does the Fox Say

Shower number 15 was so much fun! (okay, so they all are LOL) I knew that somewhere along the line I wanted to do a "What Does the Fox Say?" baby shower. I decided I would do it for Amanda and when I was telling a friend of hers what the theme was going to be, she started laughing as Amanda likes to tease her and send her the WDTFS song to bug her. Love it!

For the invites I used a svg cutting file from My Scrap Chick called Fox Belly Box Trio.

Here are some photos from the shower. I apologize for some of the blurry ones. I was having issues with my camera. Not sure what was going on, but several were so blurry. For the food we went with a build your own trail mix. It was a huge hit.

I found these napkins at Hobby Lobby. I thought they were fox on one side and owl on the other, but 1/2 were fox and 1/2 owl 

I found these birch straws on amazon and thought they were perfect for our theme!





To hold the trail mix, I just cut down some little white sacks (not sure if I got them at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, just had them in my stash for awhile) and added a strip of designer paper at the top

To hold all the goodies we had to choose from to create the trail mix, I placed a paper doily in a turquoise berry basket or balsa basket. I made mini banners from the same papers used on the sacks.

  I also glued the designer paper to clothes pins to hold little signs




Right outside our church are 2 large hydrangea plants, so I got permission to cut a few blooms to decorate with. I thought they looked "woodsy" with my pine cones and tree slabs.






Thursday, August 27, 2015

Sew in Love

The next shower in line ended up being one I couldn't attend, but was asked if I would still make the invites for it. This bride to be's colors were yellow, blue, and gray and she likes to sew and quilt.

I created this invitation (with info on the back) using Cutting Cafe's Ribbon Spool Set. A local business was going out of business, so I was able to get enough packages of rick rack at a very good price.


I actually ran out of gray cardstock and could not justify driving 1.5 hours away to get some. After Bible School a friend jokingly offered me gray spray painted grocery sacks they had used for a project asking me what I could do with them. I didn't know at the time, but it worked out perfectly for this project!

The "sew in love" label was made on my computer and the yellow gingham patterned paper was left over from THESE invites. I love how I was able to use up the scraps.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

BFB Waiting for Morning


WOW! Another great book by my favorite author Karen Kingsbury. Karen rights "real" books. "Real" in that people die, struggle, fail, etc and then she shows how by God's grace they can survive. 

This story was no exception to her "real" writing. In this story, it opens as Hannah is waiting for her husband and daughters to return from their annual end of summer fishing/camping trip and they are much later than they are supposed to be. Then comes the dreaded visit from a police officer letting her know that they have been hit by a drunk driver.

This was hard to read and yet hard to put down. "Hard" in that I've had 2 friends killed by drunk drivers. This story is all about forgiveness and was beautifully, though very hard as forgiving is sometimes the last thing we want to do.

I highly recommend this book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Pretty Cute Stamps Design Team

Now I can share!! I have been selected to be on the Design Team for Pretty Cute Stamps! I am  honored and excited to be on this team. Be sure to check their blog to see their cute stamps!

These are the links for the other Design Team Members that i will be joining.


I am looking forward to designing for PCS. Thank you Lisa!

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Take Note

This week on Cutting Cafe, the team is taking note with  Regina's MINI NOTE PAD AND CARD SET....PRINTABLE STAMPS AND TEMPLATE - CUTTING FILE or POST IT NOTE BOX AND COVER SET....TEMPLATE - CUTTING FILE
Every year since my daughter in law started teaching, I have made her some personalized note cards that she can use. The first year was this set with her maiden name, last year this set and box with her married name and again this year, but using an apple graphic I found for free on line.  
I used the MINI NOTE PAD AND CARD SET....PRINTABLE STAMPS AND TEMPLATE - CUTTING FILE to create my cards. Opened up the lined version in word and added the apple graphic and wording.  
I'm a little late getting my post up today as we upgraded the computer to windows 10 and it is taking me awhile to figure out all the photo editing now as the upgrade changed how it worked before. Still have some playing around to do and get it all figured out! 
Be sure to visit the Cutting Cafe Blog on the 7th and 21st of every month to see the design team's projects in which you can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win 3 FREE sets of your choice from the online store.