Omigosh! The month is half over and I have not posted!

Please forgive me, I have not blogged in years so I got a bit busy (ok really busy) and forgot about posting...Yes of course I've been crafty, so I will work my way backwards starting today.

Today I was really wanting something sweet, so I went to my cupboards and looked through my vast ingredients, lol, I settled on some cookie dough. Flour, crisco sticks (instead of butter, are they really better for you?), brown sugar, white sugar, ectracts....yep got it all, but then I saw the half used bag of cake batter from making my cake batter mousse, and thought why not. I had also used it to make some cake batter cookie dough once but I didn't really like the outcome of that. In case you are not familiar with these, it's cookie batter made to be eaten RAW, no eggs are involved, they are NOT meant to be baked, that would not turn out well.

So I started out with my usual cookie batter dough recipe:
1 & 1/2 tbs butter (I use Crisco butter flavored sticks - not really sure if this is better for me or not)
1 Tbs brown sugar ( I use light brown and have used solely brown before no white and it is yummy)
1 Tbs white sugar
Instead of my usual 3 tbsp flour I used 3 tbsp cake batter (French Vanilla)
1 tbsp water
1/2 tsp Butter Vanilla Emulsion (you can use Vanilla Extract if you do not have emulsion**)
While this mixed well it was too runny for me, so I added 1/2 tablespoonsful of flour until it reached the consistency I wanted (2 tbsp)

Then I mixed in red, white & green Christmas sprinkles and topped with holly and berry sprinkles. This made 2 servings of what I call Christmas Dough. Next time I make make a special cinnamon swirl and hope it taste a bit like a snickerdoodle. (My plans for this are to separate out about 1/3 of the batter before adding in the 2 additional tbsp of flour and adding cinnamon and possibly a bit more sugar to this, then swirling it into the finished batter)

**What is a baking "emulsion"?  Emulsions are water-based,  alcohol-free alternatives to extracts.  Instead of using alcohol, the flavor is micro encapsulated in natural stabilizers and suspended in water.  The encapsulation enables the flavor to not lose its integrity when exposed to high heat. 
Which means....Use baking emulsions instead of extracts with better results!



You can get emulsions in many places, I found mine on clearance at TJMaxx, but you can order direct here

My first Christmas deco of the season

I love wreaths! Nothing says welcome to my home like a Christmas wreath hung on the front door, or on all the windows as was done on my grandmothers old house. I've never had one though, always wanted to make one! The budget is very tight right now, this economy is not the best, but I don't have to tell you that right? I mean that's why you are here. I took my low budget self on a shopping spree at the local Dollar Tree. Being that it is the "beginning of the season" they were not totally picked over yet.




I scored a 12" wreath on wire, it was skimpy to I got a 20 ft garland to work into it. I saw some nice red scroll designed wire line ribbons, so added that to the basket. Some very pretty glittery berries, but I didn't like the leaves on them. In the same display were some velvety holly leaves with not so nice berries, so I picked up both, the pretty berries and the pretty leaves. For a little extra flair I saw some pretty glittery reindeer with small bells and then for the center piece a start shaped door knob hanger with gold bells. So Red and Gold were the two main colors.

At home I rolled out the garland and began cutting 8" pieces. I wrapped these around the pre-made wreath to fatten it up a bit. I then unwound one of the ribbons and worked it in and out of the pine needles securing it in place by wrapping in through the hoop. Next were the berries, as I said I loved the glittery berries but the leaves had to go. So I took apart both picks and paired the pretty berries with the velvety leaves. Since they were on wire sticks they were very easy to slide into place and secure with one of the new tied on pine pieces from the garland. Since I could not find my extra bouquet wire I pulled the ugly berries off of one of the left over sticks and used it to secure the door knob hanging star to the top. Last were the reindeer. I wont lie I wanted to get this posted so badly that they are not secured into place yet. I'll have to hot glue them I think.



Not too bad and all I spent was $7.00!

Tutu's are so cute!

My friend LaDonna texted me today asking if I knew anywhere locally to get a tutu for her daughter on short notice. I didn't but I had seen and pinned several on pintrest and figured it wouldn't be too difficult, so I said, "No I don't but I could make it for you, just pay for the materials." She was a tad reluctant to accept this offer because she was planning to have me do the pictures of her daughter IN the tutu, but I said, no problem! I can do both, in fact I wanted to. This was a perfect opportunity for me to try my hand at a new craft that I knew would only help my photography business as well!

So we started with a picture of what she had in mind, an oh so cute Rock star onsie with a tulle tutu, lot's of ribbons and a cute hair bow. For now all I have is the tutu, we also got a bright pink tank top that will have rhinestones spelling out rock star, some pretty black satin ribbon decor and zebra ribbon as well. She got a bright pink headband and a flower with pink and zebra ribbons with another rhinestone in it as well. Some of the zebra ribbon will be woven into the tutu as well, and he mom is going to add "Rock Star" in her own handwriting to another bright pink ribbon. It's going to be sooooo cute when we are done and then, oh I can't wait, and then they will come over next Wednesday for their photo shoot! It will be Rylee's 9 month shoot. I'm so excited!!!

Bella's Bento for Wednesday

I LOVE making lunch for Bella. I know she may not remember them when she gets older but it really is a lot of fun and hopefully she enjoys them now. Today's bento I have dubbed the Orange Bento, it includes;
Ham and cheese with honey mustard on a pretzel roll
Mandarin Orange slices
Cheddar & Mozzarella cheese stick
Annie's Organic Bunny gummies
Cheetos & Cheese fishies

It's all very orange, lol. And for good measure she will have orange juice to go with it. Do you ever make specialized or theme lunches? I'd love to hear about them!