Merry Christmas!!

Hope your Christmas day has been joyous!

Christmas 1979

Bummer of a week

Well, this week was a little rough. It's been so busy with Christmas shopping, working full-time, taking care of kids full-time since my hubby has been working overtime for UPS and attending holiday gatherings! Whew, I need a break. To end the week on a very sad note, our dog Gunner went on to doggie heaven. It's been really hard to talk about, Gunner was with us before kids and he's not all that old 8-years, hiding the grief from the kids is not the easiest. Having a 4 and a 2 year old, they do not quite understand yet. At first we decided we would wait and see what our older daughter would say, but today had to finally tell her that he was really sick and went up to heaven. The constant asking of when is Gunner coming home, was rougher on me than anything, it was time to tell her the truth. She wanted to make sure someone was taking care of him, what a sweetheart. Gunner is truly loved and will be missed. This girl is done with animals for a very long time.

This week can only get better.

Nicki

Winner!

Congrats to the winner of the Holiday Necklace on Thursday's Post!

The winner is: Sarah- Gypsy Mermaid

Drop me an e-mail at jdnicteel@mchsi.com with your mailing address and I'll mail the necklace right out to ya!

Thanks for all the comments!

Nicki~ Scrap it Swanky Sister

Scrappy Jessi's Cookie Exchange & Give Away!

So excited to be part of Scrappy Jessi's Cookie Exchange this year! I can't wait to see what all the other girls are making today also! Christmas is my favorite time of year, and I LOVE to bake!! Just wait until you bite into these little Gems.


Cardamom Snaps

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Shortening
1 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Baking Soda
2 tsp. Ground Cardamom (split into 1 1/2 tsp & 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Cup Mild-Flavored Molasses
1 Egg
2 1/4 Cups all Purpose Flour
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar











Looks like a lot of stuff, but it really isn't, they're pretty easy to make!

Here's a step by step, pics and all on how to make these.

1. In a mixing bowl take the 3/4 cup of shortening and beat with mixer on medium to high for 30 seconds.










2. Add Brown Sugar, Baking Soda, 1 1/2 tsp. of Cardamom and Cinnamon. Beat on med to high until combined. Should look like this...











3. Beat in Molasses and Egg.












4. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer and then stir in the remaining flour with spoon.













5. Pour Sugar and 1/2 tsp of remaining Cardamom into a separate bowl. You will now shape the dough into 1 inch balls and roll the balls in the Sugar to coat. You can use Green & Red Christmas sugar in the mixture as well to keep it festive!

Place these 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet, or do as I did and use parchment paper (love this stuff!!)















6. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 min or until edges are set and tops are slightly cracked. Cool on wire rack.

Makes 48 Cookies

Check out these scrumptious little crunchy on the outside gooey on the inside snaps!















They're so delicious! What goes perfect with these is a cup of Mexican Cocoa!


















I'm a cinnamon girl, actually I would bathe in it if I could~ LOVE IT~ if you are too, then this is the cocoa for you!!

Mexican Hot Cocoa

3-4 Tablespoons of sugar
3 Tablespoons- Nestle Tollhouse Baking Cocoa
1/4 Tsp- Cinnamon (or little more ;0))
2 1/3 cups of milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

In small saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa and cinnamon, over medium heat stir in milk constantly until hot (DO NOT BOIL~did that before and oops didn't turn out). Remove from heat stir in vanilla and beat with wire wisk until frothy- serve immediately.

You can add marshmallows and cinnamon sticks as desired.

This is sure to make your tummy tingle!

Now for the give away... I'll be giving away my new little holiday charm necklace that is shown on yesterday's post. Leave a comment today and I'll draw a winner at random and announce the winner on Saturday! Thanks and good luck!

Happy cookie blogging today & thanks to Jessi for hosting!!

Scrap it swanky sister~
Nicki

Ahhhhh, Starbies and Baking

My kitchen smells of molasses and cinnamon, I've got my Starbies and I'm baking away for Scrappy Jessi's Cookie Exchange today. Mmmmm.... I can't wait to bite into these yummy little sweet things... stay tuned, the cookie recipe is comin up!

Charmed

I've been working on some new little necklaces over the past few days, here's one that I wanted to get posted before I got too busy with other things. I used Tim Holtz new Idea-ology Fragments and backed them with some adorable Doodlebug paper. I added in a glass bead from my bead stash. These will be perfect for the little girls on my list to buy for this year! I'm doing some other projects with these as well, but don't want to give too much away until after my gift giving is done, since these will be given as gifts this year. It's been fun making jewelry again, haven't done it in a while and to combine jewelry making and papercrafting in one has been really cool.

Tomorrow I'll be posting my sweet treat for Scrappy Jessi's Annual Cookie Exchange, stay tuned and check out all of the blogs participating!

Black Friday Deals!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! We had a great day! Right after the turkey dinner, the girls took a nap and off I headed to the sales at Michael's. They opened at 4:00 p.m., so I HAD to go check it out!! I scored a few Cricut cartridges, some lovely My Mind's eye paper ~ I LOVE this brand!! As well as a few other little things.

The Cricuts I scored were the new Winter Wonderland~ you can make adorable little houses with this cartridge and the second one is the new Sweet Treats cartridge, with girls this will come in VERY handy!!

As I was scanning the ads, I noticed that Office Max had the Pogo Printer that I so desperately wanted at Scrapfest 2 years ago and I held off because at that time they were $100. Well, my friends, they were in the ad for $30.00 (yes you heard me correct). So I went onto Amazon to see if they had the same deal and they did~ so Merry Christmas to me, I bought it! These are the printers where the ink is in the paper, it's so cool and they print out 2x3 photos, love it!!

I also did a little more shopping on-line that evening at LeapFrog.com for the kiddos, found some GREAT deals there! That was all for Thursday shopping.

Now for Black Friday...

My alarm was set for 3:40 a.m., I thought that was early but as I drove down Delaware Ave, I realized there were a whole lot a crazy people out, not just me! So I proceeded to Kohl's first which I really didn't have anything to buy there, just thought I try to see if they had some deals, first I was heckled because I didn't wait in line with the 100 other crazy people but instead just walked right up when the doors opened and walked right in. Little did they know I had nothing to buy in this store! Whatever, crazy people! So I left Kohl's after finding that their toys are marked up 500% and then 50% off makes them regular price at Walmart or Target. I went to Walmart next, this was more of a social visit then anything, saw a friend, then my old co-worker, grabbed a couple of DVD's and I was out of there all by 4:40 a.m. I headed to Target next, they had a line wrapped all the way around the store, so I went to stand in line so that I could get in the door and get the much needed Nerf Blaster for my nephew, it was VERY cold, waiting in that line for 30 minutes and of course by the time they open the doors and the spot in line where I'm at they start to let everyone else that wasn't waiting in-line in the door, so I was pushed and shoved a little, but I guess that was those Kohl's folks getting back at me. I didn't care, I was happy to get the Nerf Blaster and a couple of items for myself and I was out of there! Done with my shopping by 5:30 AM. Can't beat that! I met up with my sis, mom and dad and helped them do their shopping saw a few more friends and socialized more than anything. Back home by 8:00 AM. Whew! What a morning!!

Up next... the finds at the local craft store!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone finds their Thanksgiving Day a blessing! I know here in our household, the morning has been filled with fun and laughter! We started out the morning as we do all Thanksgivings watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! The girls and I love to see all the new floats, and their favorite this year was the Sesame Street performance and Abbi Cadabby Float! I'm so thankful for my healthy and happy family, I couldn't ask for anything more!

We're starting dinner as we speak, we made some extra special things for our table, little turkey place cards and some button picture holders. I also made up some cute Thankful tags for each place setting, so everyone has a place to write down what they're thankful for. These will be going on a scrapbook page for this Thanksgiving.



I hope you all are enjoying a lovely day with your families!

Stay tuned for the Black Friday shopping trip, starting at Michaels at 4:00 PM today!

Love
Nicki

Here Turkey, Turkey

Today was a fun filled day of crafts and laughs! My daughter's who are 2 and 4 and my daycare provider's daughters who are 3 and 6 spent the afternoon together. As stated previously in my blog post, I would start to post some ideas for the whole family including the kiddos so here's the first one.

I got to try some of the crafts with the girls and the first one was the paper sack turkey, the picture posted is the one that my 4-year old did~ not too bad for her first paper sack turkey. This was an idea off of a website for kid crafts. Take a brown lunch sack and filled it with newspaper, then twist at the top of the sack and cover it with a light brown piece of felt for the turkey's head. Wrap a pipe cleaner around the head to make the felt stay in place. We took several different colors of felt and cut them into 1 inch strips and glued them to the back of the turkey for the feathers. Used google eyes and the beak is orange felt. The gobble we cut out red hearts and glued it on upside down.



Pom Pom Turkey's~ were the next craft we did, these were super fun, I didn't really follow any directions for these just made up as we went, but took a larger pom for the body of the turkey and a smaller pom for the head and glued them together. Took googly eyes, orange felt beak and red felt gobble. Then I took several different colored pipe cleaners and shaped them into feathers and glued them on the back of the larger pom. Too cute!!


The best part of it was my 2-year old lost her turkey, so she says, "here Turkey Turkey, where are you?" it was too cute! The day was great fun with the girls!

Friday night I went to Scrapmania with my sister and it was just nice to get away and have a girls night out. We made an acrylic ornament with angel mist to make the ornament look snowy, and an adorable card that we embossed and used these very fun dome embellishments that looked like little ornaments. I also completed a couple of pages that I had started at Scrapfest. So many cute new things out for the holidays, I want one of everything! I'm in love with glitter!!!



Next post~ adorable place-cards for Turkey Day!

Enjoy your week!

Birthday Month!

It's my birthday month and I'm going to do what I want to! Every year this month creeps up on me and so this year (yes I say this now) I'm going to do what I want to! I will hit another Birthday milestone this year, not THE milestone yet but it gets closer and closer. I'm looking forward to celebrating another year that I'm blessed with an awesome family, friends and career! This month, since I get to do what I want to, I'm going to post some fun tips to do this holiday season, including some fun ideas for the kiddos as well! I'm going to get the Christmas stuff out early so I can enjoy it! (the last 2 years I've been getting the stuff out 2 weeks prior- what's the point?) I {Heart} Christmas! No stress this year, lots of homemade gifts! Since every year I always end up rushing around at the last minute, I just want to do it differently this year! Happy Birthday to Me!

Watch for my first post this weekend!

Nicki

Mini Books & Extras

This weekend I made time to sit down and do the Halloween Mini Book project from The Little Yellow Bicycle. I received this kit as part of the goodie bag from LYB at Scrapfest. I wanted to get it done BEFORE Halloween and I did it, so proud! There was a lot of leftover supplies when I completed the book so I made a couple of mini notebook projects with the scraps. Too cute~ I think!! I also made the K & Company Halloween mini book from last year's Scrapfest goodies! I totally forgot I had it and was looking through some bags that I forgot I had, it was like Christmas all over again! I took some pics of the adorable little books as well as one of the Bo-Bunny Make and Takes from Scrapfest- another adorable little mini booklet! Wanted to get this posted before the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holiday hits. Time sure is going by quickly!


Take time to enjoy some ME time if you can and get the cobwebs off of those stored away mini books and create something adorable for the upcoming holiday's, just like I did!

Have a great week!

Nicki

Final Scrapfest Pics

Here is the last of the ScrapFest 2009 pictures, these pics are of the classes I took as well as the crops I attended.

First Picture is the freebies I received from the Archiver's bags from the crops. Have to say this year wasn't as good as the last, but I'm still happy with the items, I'll definitely use them up!



Sorry this next picture is vertical instead of horizontal~ I couldn't fix it. These are some of the layouts that were at the Make and Take booths, the bottom is Me and My Big Ideas, the one in the top was Bazzill. The middle one is Creativity Inc. they have the coolest BIG brad's ever!!


Here's a pic of the Bo Bunny layout from the Crop Saturday night "Crop around town", in the Rotunda of the Mega Mall. We had some excitement that night, one of the ladies was hit on the head by flying debree~ some punk kids at the mall were throwing stuff overboard. So uncalled for!
Fiskars/My Minds Eye Class Layout~ this was an adorable layout~ Too bad I didn't get to finish mine yet, I wanted to wait until I got home, very cool punches used for these as well as the adorable paper~ LOVE My Minds Eye!!


Quikutz/American Crafts- Here was the project from the Quikutz team, the tool is so cool! Wish I had this but it's a big investment with all of the dies you would have to buy. Very cool idea though to use these sleeves, very quick and easy way to scrapbook! Love it!!




DCWV- Class- I didn't layout all of these pages, but there were a ton of extra's in these kits, such great layouts and ideas~ very easy to put together. The papers are adorable!!



Last but certainly not least~ LYB (Little Yellow Bicycle) This was the Friday night crop around town and it was in Woodbury, MN. (about 20 min from the mall). They by far had the best product and certainly generous giving us as much as they did! Love these guys!!! They spent a few minutes telling us all about how they get their product on the shelves and it's just an amazing process! MY DREAM JOB!!! Anyhow, they gave us these really cool bags along with a T-Shirt and their Halloween/Fall/Thanksgiving kits with lots of extras!! Absolutely tremendous job on the package provided!! VERY HAPPY GIRL HERE!!


Here's some pics of my sis and I and my sis and Karen at the Woodbury- LYB crop! So much fun with these two ladies!!




Well, that's all on the ScrapFest trip! Next up~ Halloween goodies!

Check in again soon!

Nicki

More Scrapfest

Finally getting time to download the pictures from Scrapfest, still going through all of the stuff I scored as well! Lots of freebies and make and takes that I just adore. I'm working on a Halloween display this week, I'll post more on that later!



Adorable stuff at the Doodlebug Booth~ love their new chunky glitter, it is to die for, I want one of every color! Look at this very cute Trick or Treat layout they had on display, they have some awesome product!


This was one of Cosmo Cricket's idea's on display, how stinkin cute is this Halloween mirror, I bought a bunch of those mirrors at a garage sale this summer for 50 cents each and I'm going to be making some of those this week for my Halloween display! Can you say adorable?


This was one of Little Yellow Bicycle's ideas, an advent shadow box for Christmas. They were so generous at their make and take booth and at the crop that we attended Friday night! They ROCK!! It was very cool to learn how their product makes it to the shelves also!


Here's a pic of the Bo Bunny girls from the Saturday night crop, they are soooo much fun! Got to meet Julia Sandvoss (far right) she runs the Bo Bunny blog and coordinates the design team, such a great person, so down to earth, she is so talented!


Mega Mall Fun:

My sister and Karen just arriving at Scrapfest, waiting in line to check in.


Our first snack, Cinnabon of course! God that 1100 calories was the best eva! Too bad we had to have a jerk working there! First bad experience of the weekend! Nuts! No you can have no Nuts! (guess you had to be there!)



Ok, who knew there was an American Girl store at the Mega Mall! Not me, but I keep saying my girls are too young for those dolls~ not anymore, oh my I need to keep them and myself away from that place! Everything is so darn cute and you have to have an outfit to match the dolls! They even have a beauty salon where your doll can get there hair done! I walked away without a doll for every occasion, thank you lord!

Well, I have a ton more pics to post, so look for more tomorrow!

Nicki

Back in Town

Well, it was a lovely weekend away at Scrapfest! I have tons of photos of all the great projects that were available. There were lots of people there this year and it was hard to get through all the make and take booths, but I'll post the pics of those that I was able to get to. There was sooooo many cute things, I tried to not purchase much because of the overwhelming stock of scrapbook supplies I have currently. I did pick up a few adorable things though! Stay tuned... I'll be posting more tomorrow!

Nicki

Getting ready for Scrapfest!!!

Well, the time has finally come! Scrapfest 2009 at the Mall of America in Minneapolis this weekend! Last year was my first year at Scrapfest and I met some amazing people and came away with so many ideas! If you've never been you're missing out so if you can't make it this year, put it on your calendar for next year, it's such a fun time! My sister and I are going with a our friends Kelly and Karen. I'm taking only 2 classes this year, it was really hard getting into the classes that I wanted. I'm so bummed on a couple I couldn't get into. We are also going to 2 crops, the Little Yellow Bicycle on Friday night and the Bo Bunny crop on Saturday night!!! I can't even tell you how excited I am! We went to the Bo Bunny crop last year and it was the best time ever!! I'm working on t-shirts and I hope to get them done for the crew! I came up with a theme last year that I haven't been able to get out of my head, it may rub off and be on etsy after this trip! We'll see!

I just finished up my Christmas projects for one of my client's and am moving on to some baby gifts for a few friends of mine! I love doing baby projects and I have the perfect stamp and new little pom ribbons that are to die for that I'm going to incorporate!

I'll post as soon as they're finished, until then Happy Scrapping!

Nicki

Espresso!

This is how I feel today! I had to have my Starbies this AM!! Tired and it's been one busy week! I've been creating pages upon pages of 2008 Christmas for one of my clients and it's been so much fun! I don't know about you, but I Heart Christmas and when I can incorporate it throughout the year (when it's not such a stressful time) it just makes me smile! I've been using my favorite holiday paper pack that I picked up last season from My Minds Eye, it's got glitter all over the pages! LOVE Glitter!! Problem is, it's hard to keep anything stuck to these pages!! I finally realized the best was Scotch tacky glue! I've also found my stash of supplies I bought at Scrapfest last year and have used the Cloud 9 chipboard stickers that were so darn cute on some of these pages. Instead of Christmas in July it's Christmas in August in this scrap chick's creative space!!

Hope you have a great rest of your week!

Nicki