Photos and Cupcakes...

Thanks to all of you who left me a comment regarding the cupcake post:

Kat (& LuAnn) - thanks for the tip about double cases.

Jennifer - thanks for the tip about the silicone baking cups. I'll keep an eye out for those.

Tracy - yes they did indeed taste good anyway :) And don't give up on that Christmas journal. Just set little goals...like a page a day or something...and you will get there in the end. I managed to get a few more pages done in my journal yesterday afternoon. I was hoping to do some more today but I now realise I won't have time for that. Maybe tomorrow instead...

Yesterday I got this in the post:

Have you got it? Sorted your photos? Or maybe even done the Big Picture Scrapbooking class that goes with the book? I'd love to hear about it :) I managed to read chapter 1 last night and hope to read some more tonight.

Off to work on some hybrid cards...

Note To Self: "Buy Cupcake Trays!!"

We were baking cupcakes yesterday afternoon. Very-bad-for-you cupcakes. Almond, raspberry and marzipan cupcakes. They are to die for...soooo yummy...but soooo bad for you too. Then again, everything that is super nice seem to be bad for you. :)

Now why is it that you always remember things too late? As the trays came out of the oven I immediately remembered that we'd had a disaster last time and had decided that we must buy some cupcake trays to hold the paper cases or otherwise they just expand sideways and flip over. Had I remembered? No. The first tray still came out pretty ok...

But the second one was a bit of a disaster. The cases just flipped over in the oven when the mixture expanded because of the heat/baking powder.

Still, we rescued the ones we could and continued to fill and add the buttercream icing like planned.

And the overflowing cupcakes were just scraped off the baking sheet and added onto a plate with the leftover buttercream etc as a little treat for the hard working chefs afterwards so nothing was really lost in the end after all :)

Right - that's a lot of baking photos. Over to my Christmas journal which I still have so much to catch up on and so little time to do it. This is the next spread in the book. The left side shows this year's Christmas card. (I just love that Cuttlebug embossing folder!)

At least I managed to print off photos for another 7 pages the other day. So that's a start. Now I just need to find some time asap to make those pages...

High (Up) In The Sky...

Mmm...those Pistachio Macaroons are dangerously addictive!! :)

This is a layout which was done for Cathy Zielske's Big Picture Scrapbooking class. I have the last 3 weeks to catch up on due to being abroad and having no access to my stash. Something that I was aware of even when I signed up back in September and I'm determined to finish the class properly rather than taking the easy route and skipping the last few weeks. Far too good class not to finish :)

Anyway the layout is pretty much following Cathy's original idea and sketch. I was very tempted to add a little more, make it a little more "me"...but in the end I decided to stick with Cathy's style :)

Mmm...

I feel like I'm "back at school" LOL! I have had a day with no scrapping today (very rare!) as I was trying to catch up on "The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker" class. I have already worked myself through the pre-class work and more or less the 1st week's work too. Lots of reading in the book and then quizzes to answer. Things to think about and plan. I spent most of yesterday afternoon doing it and then continued this morning. So after lunch it was definitely time for a break.

A baking break. It was ages since I baked but spotted this recipe for "Pistachio Macaroons" in one of Nigella Lawson's books the other day and picked up ingredients for it yesterday when we went food shopping.

Yummy chewy macaroons sandwiched with a sweet pistachio butter cream. Really nice (and easy to make - very few ingredients) but pretty sweet so I doubt you can eat too many at once LOL!

"The Organized And Inspired Scrapbooker"...

Hrm...I'm starting to think that I might have a little weakness for signing up for classes LOL! Back in the beginning of December I saw this BPS class which sounded very interesting. To organise your scraproom etc. And we can never be too organised, right? :)

I put it out of my mind because my scraproom is so tiny and I wondered how limited I'd be with what I could actually do/adapt and get out of the class etc. We went away over Christmas & New Year and I kinda forgot about it. Until yesterday when I bumped into a link to the class by chance. And it was the last day to sign up. And I signed up late last night. LOL! I already have the book that's needed for the class so at least it felt good not to have to buy yet another thing on top of the class fee. Anyone else taking it? :)

The class started on the 1st so today is actually the start of the second week already (which came as a little shock to me this morning!). Plus there's a "pre-class assignment". So I have a little to catch up on. First I need to do some Lilypad CT work, then I'd like to get some photos picked and printed for some entries in my Christmas Journal and after that I hope to sit down, download the pre-class work and get started on that :)

Leaving you with a Lilypad CT layout which I made this morning...

[Supplies: Scrap Pad - The Lilypad Special - Amy Martin, Artsy Photo Masks Vol 1 - Kasia Designs, Just Some Papers - Kasia Designs, Epoxy Dots #2 - Amy Wolff, Circle Werx - CD Muckosky, Colorful Borders - Jenna Desai, Flower Bits - Jenna Desai, Doodley-Strips - Kate Hadfield, Lilypad Linens - Kate Hadfield, Polka-Dotty Alpha - Kate Hadfield, TLP Buttons & String - Natalie Braxton (all from the Lilypad)]

Great Colours...

I kinda missed the launch of the January BYOC (build your own collab) at the Lilypad last week when I was away and I only caught up on it yesterday. Wow ---> love the colours :) Green (yum!), pink, white and black. I downloaded a few kits yesterday and got them all unzipped and sorted, ready to play with this morning:

[Supplies: Scrap Pad - The Lilypad Special - Amy Martin, Black And White Basics - Amy Wolff, Sock Hop Alphabet - CD Muckosky, Doodlicious - Jenna Desai, Flower Bits - Jenna Desai, Just Swirls - Jenna Desai, Button Bitties - Kate Hadfield, Doodley-Strips - Kate Hadfield, Lilypad Linens - Kate Hadfield, Polka-Dotty Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Paper Daisies - Kaye Winiecki, TLP Buttons & String - Natalie Braxton (all from the Lilypad)]

These are some of my favourite kits from the January BYOC (in no particular order):

I got behind on my Christmas journal, because of having no access to my stash over Christmas and New Year, so I'd better go and pick that up now...

Brrr...

We have just come back after spending Christmas and New Year in Sweden with my family. Had the best of times though I managed to catch a bad cold at the weekend so I feel a little rotten now. Typical timing LOL!

Got a mountain of things to catch up on and a basket over flowing with clothes that needs to be washed and other things that need catching up on so I better get going. Leaving you with a few photos taken on a walk in Sweden just near by parents' house :)

Lights + Hot Chocolate...

A few days ago I blogged my entry in my Christmas journal about my love for Christmas lights. This is the following spread in my journal:

A photo of some coloured Christmas lights on the left side (new for this Christmas...prism shaped glowing lights that slowly change colour) which I totally love and a documentation of a yummy combination of hot chocolate that I discovered. White hot chocolate with marshmallows and little chocolate covered biscuit balls and then cinnamon sprinkles on top of that. Yum :)

Reading...

I don't know about you but I love reading! :) I love books. I just wish with every book (well maybe not every book, but...) you got a bookshelf and with every bookshelf you got a space to put it LOL! I'd love to have my own little library in the house...a room full of books and a cosy chair. :) Every birthday and Christmas I wish for books. And with books you need bookmarks...

[Supplies: Sweet Safari - Misty Cato, Border-Line - Lauren Grier, Big Font Pack - Darcy Baldwin
(all SSD)]

Cards...

I hope you all had some great New Year's Eve celebrations yesterday :)

I just wanted to pop in and show you some hybrid cards made as part of my assignments for Sweet Shoppe Designs CT. They are both quite general sort of cards. Friends cards. The kind of card you can use for any time really, or if you just want to send someone a little note :)

[Supplies: WUB by Robin Carlton, Christy Lyle & MandaBean (SSD)]

[Supplies: Webby Buddies by Penny Springmann, Libby Weifenbach & Eva Kipler
(SSD)]