14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 13

I was sick last night and this morning so didn't get anything posted til now. Today's "14 Days of Valentines" post is one of Aaron's favorites...peanut butter cookies. Add a Hershey candy heart and you have a special treat for any time of the year. A couple of these will go in his lunch for tomorrow.

14 Dys of Valentines ~ Day 12

Only 2 days left til Valentine's Day! You have to have cards, so today I am sharing a couple of cards I made using Fancy Pants' Love Note line.

Everything is by Fancy Pants except the heart pin in this card. I have no idea where it came from. Also the crocheted heart that I made and the doily are not FP. I have a little box filled with doodads that I can add to cards or projects and it was in there.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 11

No I didn't forget today. It just ended up being a crazy day. Today I am sharing another recipe I found on Pinterest...Red Velvet Puppy Chow. I wasn't sure how it was going to taste using a cake mix, but it really is yummy. I didn't add the cream cheese and milk, since it has to be refrigerated if you do that and this in going into some care packages.

I added Valentine M & M's and it's hard to see, but tiny red and white heart sprinkles. I doubled the recipe and still have cake mix left, so will either make another double batch OR will make some individual mug cakes.

I am also linking this up to Country Girl at Home for her Pinned It Made It Monday challenge.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 10

We are having a blizzard and the electricity kept going off this morning. I hope you all are having a warm day or are in where it is warm.

For today's project, I made these pretzels that I will be sending in some love pkgs this week. I thought the pink might be too "girly", so made the red sugar ones too.

Here are some pics I took first thing this morning. It is still snowing and blowing hard. Our road is all drifted in. The road is to the left of the row of 3 trees.

 

Cows huddled up against the barn.

 

We got rain yesterday, then snow, so all the trees and here rose bush are frosted ice.

 

The higway is on the other side of the tree, can't see it either. Keeps drifting shut.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 9

My post is a bit late today as I needed to get these rolls made first before I could post. I made two pans of these. One is for my friend's benefit tomorrow and the other for us. These will be perfect to warm up Thursday morning for breakfast. You can get the recipe here. I didn't make them orange, just regular cinnamon rolls. They are so good!

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 8

I saw these cute Valentine pencils and remembered I had a fun pencil box pinned  (instructions here) and decided to make these for some special people in my life. Because my pencils were apparently smaller in diameter, I had to adjust the sizes for the box.

To make mine, I cut the designer paper (My Mind's Eye lt. pink; Fancy Pants dk pink) 5.5" x 3.25". I then scored 1/4" from the bottom (short side) and from the side (long side) at: .25", 1.5", 1.75", & 3".

After I put the box together with Mono Multi, I adhered a paper doily around the box with Mono Adhesive Dots and then tied a ribbon around the whole box.

The little 'tags' are cut from a sheet of Paper Studio designer paper I picked up at Hobby Lobby last year.

This one is all Fancy Pants paper. The black check is a punch out banner piece and the 'tag' is a from a sticker sheet. All from the Love Note line.

The last one I made is from scraps I had... ribbon and paper. 

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 7

Today's project is this cute gift bag using a retired image from Inky Antics by Tammy DeYoung. Tammy's designs are among my very favorite of Inky Antics!

I created the box using this template, then cut a scallop oval with my Cricut. The oval is permanently attached to the back and to the front with a Fastener Tab by Tombow. Image is colored with Irojiten pencils and "button" is a cabochon adhered to designer paper with Mono Multi.

Fill with chocolates or other goodies and you have a gift within a gift.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 6

WOW! I can't believe I have posted so many days in a row. LOL!! Today I want to share with you another easy project to make for any occasion. I love using designer paper scraps to make these notepads. Here are 3 I have made so far to give to special friends for Valentine's Day. Of course there will be a little chocolate added as well. Ü

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 5

I am a huge fan of Fancy Pants Designs and am excited that this week on Tombow we are partnering with them.

Today I am sharing a quick and easy project using their Love Note line designer papers.

I have a bandsaw and can cut my own wood, but I have read that you can go to Home Depot and cut your own there if you don't have a saw. I painted the blocks white, let dry and then used Tombow's Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to adhere the papers to the wood.

After that dried, I adhered the letters with the glue and then "painted" over all the blocks with the aqua glue as well. It dries a nice clear color and coats the paper to preserve it. Much better than Mod Podge and doesn't bubble up!

For the heart, I cut 3 hearts with white cardstock and glued together with Mono Adhesive Dots and then adhered it to the block with the aqua glue. I wanted the heart to stand out a bit.

I am making 5 sets of these. One for me and one for my son's girlfriend and the others for a benefit for a dear friend who is going through breast cancer. There is going to be a auction Sunday. If you live nearby and would like to bid on a set, let me know.

Be sure to stop by the Fancy Pants' blog to see what their design team creates using Tombow products. Don't forget to check the Tombow blog each day this week as well.

14 Days of Valentine's ~ Day 4

I have another "strange" gift I created for Valentine's Day to share with you today...pillowcases. Ü Here is how I came up with the idea...

Benjamin asked me (a long time ago YIKES) if I would make him a Husker pillowcase. I decided it was getting done and since the colors are red/white/black, perfect for the Valentine pkg I will send to him (he's in college). So....if I'm going to make him one, then I'm thinking I should make his girlfriend one. If I'm going to make her one, my nephew who is in his first year of college might like one (esp if it has to do with cartoons Ü) and if I make him one, then I just as well make Aaron one too. Remind you of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" story? Ü Only this is "If You Make a Pillowcase for Benjamin..."

So on to the pillowcases. I used this tutorial to create them (Pinterest of course).

The pillowcase that started it all...

I love that I have a "girl" to create for now. It's fun to make girly things. Ü

For Aaron:

and Ryan, my nephew

Creating these was a BIG thing for me. I used to sew a LOT. My grandma taught me to sew when I was 8 and I got my first sewing maching when I was 13. This was the first project I have made in over16 years. I was making a doll that fateful summer as I was pregnant with twins. In August I was in an accident that took their lives and just couldn't make myself sew after that and I had tried for many years to. This was very theraputic for me. DH even asked how long it had been since I sewed (I used to quilt too and am ready to get back to it) and when I said "since the accident", he understood what I meant.
 

I am also linking this up to Country Girl at Home for her Pinned It Made It Monday challenge.

14 Days of Valentine's ~ Day 3

Welcome to day 3 of my 14 Days of Valentines. This may seem like a bit of a weird gift for Valentine's Day, but I like to give practical gifts as well as fun and or food gifts.

I crocheted these 3 dishcloths using this pattern I found on Pinterest. I followed the instructions to the letter. They are so easy to make and I got almost all 3 done while taking tickets 2 nites at an LVC Basketball game last week. I finished the 3rd one up today (only had 1/2 done).

I'm thinking I might add a small bottle of dish soap and a tag that says "I 'soap' you have a great Valentine's" or something like that. We'll see...I'll post a picture if I do.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 2

Today I am going to share a recipe and a tip that was new to me. I have been making monster cookies for a long time and have always used quick oatmeal. I went to make my cookies and only had 2 cups of quick. I googled to see if I could use old fashioned and was pleasantly surprised that I could! Not only that, but I like them much better. Ü This is a very good thing, because we eat lots of oatmeal, so I always have old fashioned around. Now I'm not sure that I even need to by quick again.

Here is a picture of my Valentine cookies. Some were eaten and the others I put in the freezer to save until Valentine's day. I used an ice cream scoop to make extra large cookies.

Monster Cookies
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
3 cups peanut butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
6 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
8-9 cups oatmeal
1 - 12 oz pkg chocolate chips
1/2 lb M & M's

Mix in usual cookie order. Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes.

14 Days of Valentines ~ Day 1

Happy February! Hard to believe that one month of the new year is gone already. I want to share with you 14 projects I have created/am creating for Valentine's Day. Many will be Pinterest inspired.

 

Today's is one that is a Valentine version of a gift bag I made at CHA for Halloween last summer.

 

I used a small white sack from Hobby Lobby and covered the papers with Kaiser Craft designer paper. The images (socks and sentiment) are digital ones from Whimsie Doodles. I colored the image with Tombow Dual Brush Pens. Ribbon from May Arts. Inside are some fun fuzzy socks that are orange and hot pink polka dots.