Mocha Scones

So, I put gloves on and a mask and made these earlier. I couldn't stay away from my kitchen and the fact that I had all the makings for these tasty treats! No sneezing could've stopped me, I don't think. :) These things are easy to make and they are really good too. I can't wait to have one of these with my coffee tomorrow morning.

I split the dough in half and put Ghirardelli Bittersweet chocolate in one half and crushed chocolate-covered espresso beans in the other. So far, I have been really liking the Ghirardelli brand of everything and Lindt, too. I could tell an obvious difference from the two brands and the regular cheap brands at the store [that I used to use, but not anymore]. I don't mind spending the extra buck on the good stuff. :) 

My resident taste tester [a.k.a. my husband] is yet to taste them. He has had this belly ache since he got home from work and is just now starting to feel considerably okay. So I really don't know yet what he thinks about them. I should hear from the people I have shared them with soon. I didn't know one batch would make so many, which only makes these scones the perfect thing to bring or make for the next get together with friends.

I will share the recipe soon. I made a few changes to the process due to my laziness and the fact that I can't stand doing everything by hand when I have machines sitting on my counter that could do the job better and faster... So, please bear with me.

See you all soon folks!

These (Crazy) Ideas in my Head

I hope I still have readers. I feel like I have been gone forever. But I have been down with the flu, plus we are in the process of finishing up the living room makeover, including the other bazillion things and ideas I have in my head.

This is one of the reasons why I do not like being sick: I can't act on these ideas. These crazy ideas. Like, while I was sick and couldn't function, I wanted to make my own painted [accent] tiles... What I am gonna use it for, I still don't know but I want to make them. I also want to make my own thermal/blackout roman shades, but I can't decide what kind or color of fabric I want to use exactly and it is driving me crazy that I can't make up my mind. I am a decision maker, I don't doubt myself... but with fabric and sewing, my decision making skills are pretty darn useless. I also want to BAKE! I want to bake sooooo bad it is breaking my heart that I can't quit sneezing... STILL! Ugh! I was just looking at this mocha scones recipe a couple of days ago and I knew that I want to make them and take photos of them and show them off... because that is how I roll. I like to make people drool. Some lucky fellas get to enjoy them. :)

See, I have been sick with the flu for four days, and I can tell you, I feel fine. But until all the sneezing stops, I cannot act on these ideas and I am not going to handle food. I do not like being sick and I am going crazy because my brain won't stop working. It is hard. Very hard. 

Random Thoughts

Here's a random thought in a photo:

I have just put a new post on John's and my blog, showing what had happened to our living room during the weekend. Click here to see what we've done. :) The elements in the photo on top are just random thoughts. I need to decorate my living room. The walls are currently bare and needing some attention. 

Hmmmm... I wonder if these things will get me to where I want my living room to look like... 

Fabric Keychain

Hi all! I have not been to Pinterest in a while but last time I was there, I saw this really cute fabric keychain on there that I have fallen in love with. Other than humming birds, junque journals, pretty paper, and glue, I also love seam binding and keychains! 

So a couple of days ago, as my friend Sara and I were at the craft store shopping for the stuff for her daughter, Whitney's french memo board, I remembered to pick up a couple things [that being seam binding and purse clips!] to finally get the keychain project going. The step-by-step instructions are on Amy's blog.

Here's my keychains: [click on the photos to enlarge]

I made two of them for me and Sara. :) We are notorious for losing our keys, so maybe with this thing, we could minimize that because I made this to where it fits around the wrist. I am no sewing guru. I only know a few tricks, I even goofed on one of the keychains I made.

Happy Wednesday all! 

Humming Birds

Hello everyone! I hope everyone has had a good start to your week. It has been so beautiful and cool in the past couple of days, and around here, that's a great thing because we get grueling hot summers. So this has been a good break from all that. Another exciting thing is, this weekend is balloon fest weekend. it would be nice if the weather stayed pretty so I can go take photos out in the park of the balloons. My church is sponsoring a balloon, so that should be so much fun.

Today, I am going to be sharing photos I took of humming birds. They are very tiny birds that migrate this way some time between June and July. According to wikipedia: 

Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm (3–5 in) range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12–90 times per second (depending on the species). They are also the only group of birds able to fly backwards.^[1] Their English name derives from the characteristic hum made by their rapid wing beats. They can fly at speeds exceeding 15 m/s (54 km/h, 34 mi/h).^[2]

These birds are so teeny tiny and they are hard to catch sitting still. But yesterday, I went to go see John's Grandma and Grandpa as I had promised I was going to take his picture for his 80th birthday and I just wanted to go see them and hang out for a while. Where John and I were sitting [as we were talking], was a window and a humming bird feeder infested with humming birds. See, I am crazy about these things!!! They are so cute I wish I could give them a hug. lol 

So I sat by the window and waited and waited for them to stop fighting and start eating and here's what I got:

And here is John's almost 80 year-old Grandpa. : ) He is very special. We call him DJ Rodg... Just because John always told me he used to be so uptight, but he has changed through the years. I have even taught the kids at church to call him DJ Rodg, I just thought it would be cute if they came up to him at church one morning and said, "Hi DJ Rodg!" I took a gazillion photos of him, but this one's my favorite.

Two Very Simple Cards

Hi everyone! :) Here's two cards that anyone could make. All you need is a couple stamps and some odds and ends. 

The butterflies [on both cards) were punched out from Martha Stewart's 3-in-1 butterflies punch. They were leftovers from a layout I did a week ago. The twine was something I wanted to use on a card that didn't use, so why throw it away when I could use it on something, right? And the button, I just have a ton of them. The stamp is from Hero Arts, called Wild Bouquet. I just used some Stickles to put some shimmer on the card.

For this card I used the Hero Arts Wild Flowers stamp. The sentiment is from an older TPC Studio set I've had for a while. I used some gems on this one. 

These two cards are flat, and are ideal for mailing to people. :) I got the idea from StampTV. Clean and simple doesn't have to be bland and monotonous. If you add color here and there, your cards will take on a happier mood, making it less boring. :)

Happy weekend all! 

What Makes You Smile?

These make me smile. : )

J & V: An Idea Derived From Pinterest

Hi all! TGIF! I am celebrating for the Husband. He has been running percussion camp and band camp the past two weeks out in the heat and I have been feeling so sorry for him. Although he loves everything that has to do with music, band, marching band and pep band, I know it can't be nice to marching out in the heat and most especially hard to be barking orders at kids who would rather be home sitting in the airconditioning. 

Anyway, while he is out roasting in the heat from 9-4, I am at home doing chores in my own pace, in the A/C, and Pinteresting during my breaks. Today's post is an idea I got from one of my Pinterest journeys this week. I love tone-on-tone everything, so when I saw the photo, I jumped on it immediately. 

I'm sorry that I can't show you the photo where I got this idea because apparently, I didn't pin it into my boards. And I just found this out as I was working on the project. The original project used a stretched, mounted 12x12 canvas, wooden letters were used for the initials and I am not very sure about the other letters. But I think it is the coolest idea for this wall art that I have been working on to put in my living room. 

For my project, I just used a 12x12 textured white cardstock and cut all the letters in the same cardstock I used for the background and I used foam adhesive to pop up the initials because I am planning on putting this sweet little number in a shadow box. :) [However, I am thinking about re-doing this because this is my first try at it, so I have glue smothered all over and some of the letters are a little skewed.] 

Lastly, I used a digital cutter to cut the letters with the Sure Cuts  A Lot software. And I used HELVETICA! I don't know why I typed that in ALL CAPS. lol But I will definitely try cutting it in American Typewriter because I love that font too. [I spend too much time at fonts.com!]

I had better go before I go totally geek on all of you. :)

Happy weekend!

Our Week in Daytona in a Layout

Hi all! I found this template yesterday from Two Peas from Nichol Magouirk's Scrapbook Stamping Class  and I thought I would use it for some of the pics I took in Daytona. :) I have been trying to get caught up and making sure that most pics that I have been wanting to archive has been put in a layout before I burn all the pics in a CD to be stashed away. :)

She used the emboss-resist technique on the title and some of the embellishments she used. But I only used the technique in my title since I wanted photos all over my page because I have too many and I wanted to use as much photos as I could on the layout. :) Click on the photos to enlarge them.

To print my photos, I used the Epson Presentation Matte Paper. The pics turned out so great and the paper is not as expensive as photo paper. I got a 100 pc stack of the Presentation paper for $13.99.  I also print from an Epson printer, I have the Epson Artisan 725 and this thing prints pretty decent pictures and it is conveniently WIRELESS. : )

I used Fancy Pants Design's Beach Bum 6x6 paper pad and the coordinating chip stickers [that came with the collection] for this page. I also used Divine Twine, Ranger Stickles, my Martha Stewart 3-in-1 butterfly punch, Inkadinkado Butterflies Cling Set and Glimmer Mist in Moonlight to achieve the Emboss-Resist Technique on the title. I typed my journaling and printed it out. :)