birthdays

i love birthdays and throwing a party for the kids.  everytime i ask them what theme should we have for your party?  2 years ago my youngest wanted a "rainbow" birthday and last year he wanted a "winter" birthday.  I totally forgot to share some of the pictures of those parties so i finally got around to it before he has his 7th birthday in January (i think it'll be "superheroes" but we're not sure yet)

5th birthday "rainbow" party

here's the overall look of the sweets table.  i used my Silhouette to make the banner.

these are cake donuts in rainbow colors (i used the leftover batter from the cake)

rainbow lollypops!

extra stuff on the table.  oh yeah! did you notice the confettis on the table?  i used different sized paper circle punches to make them.

And now THE CAKE!!!

so very yummy!

6th birthday "winter" party

Igloo cake with a penguin and puffle

wintery marshmallow pops

"melted snowmen" personalized water bottles

white chocolate dipped pretzels (so yummy if you love sweet and salty!)

"snowball" donuts

take home "homemade hot chocolat"

thanks for stopping by!  (i promise to try and be more regular on my postings, i have a whole bunch of yummy cupcakes and crafty goodies that i've made and haven't share with you...i can't wait!)

Bella

photo session with my niece

head on over to my photography blog and check out the photo session i did with my *new* little niece this past summer.  I actually have another session i did after this one that i haven't posted yet...didn't i tell ya?! i'm a procrastinator! but i want to do better in 2014, not as be a better procrastinator but do less procrastinating...hahaha!

happy holidays!

it's that time of year again!  I hope everyone had a great Christmas with friends and family and lots of TURKEY! 

 X-mas has to be my favorite holiday and i LOVE making X-Mas cards, i think they're my favorite to create.  Here are the cards i sent out this year.  ENJOY!

i totally stole the idea for this card from here

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Yeti Set Go, Let it Snow, Gnome Sweet Gnome, Hats Off to You, Milo's ABC,

A birdie Told Me

I got inspired by this card for this one

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Sweet Christmas, Say Cheese, Milo's ABC, Woodgrain backdrops

stamps used: Lawn Fawn:  Let it Snow

Purple Onion Design: Willard sipping, campfire, Hugo Toasting Marshmallows

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Let it Snow, Winter bunny

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Making Frosty Friends

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Winter Sparrows

stamps used: Lawn Fawn: Milo's ABC

i used the DYlusions watercolor technique i learned from this video

and the last card i made last year but i don't think i had shared it so i thought i would since i like it a lot for it's simplicity

thanks for stopping by! 

Bella

call me Perky McGlitter!

I'm skipping Halloween and going straight to X-Mas

taken from the Cosmo Cricket blog

As crafty peeps, we are the elves of the holidays.

Did you know that Santa names all his helpers, not just the ones at the North pole? In fact, he has extra special names for all his crafty peeps based on lots of things they love.

 i'm Perky McGlitter, who are you?

Maple Bacon Cheesecake

so earlier today i posted on Instagram a picture of a Maple Bacon Cheesecake that i made yesterday and i've had a few requests for the recipe.

The original recipe is from Stacey Poon-Kinney from the Next Food Network Star, a few months ago i did try to make her recipe as is and i had a few problems with the topping part and it just made a whole lot.  I did love the taste of the cheesecake mix so i just simplified the recipe and i only get great comments whenever i make it.  I do want to say that the crust from the original recipe is DELICIOUS!!!! but since i use small ramekins i don't put any crust on the bottom.
So here's how i throw the recipe together.

1 pounds cream cheese
1/4 cup maple sugar
1/4 cup greek yogurt

2 eggs plus 1 yolks

3/4 cup maple syrup
4-5 ounces bacon, cooked until crisp and roughly diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

 In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, mix the cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the greek yogurt and mix well. Add the eggs and yolks one at a time; mix well and scrape down the sides before adding the next egg. Add the maple syrup. Pour into ramekins, stopping 1/2 inch from the top.  Place ramekins on a baking sheet add a bit of water on the bottom.  Bake for 20-24 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack, top with crispy bacon pieces and a sprinkle of maple flakes or maple sugar (this is optional)

ENJOY!!!!

let me know if you try this recipe, i'd love to know how it turned out for you.

Bella

design team application

One of my FAVORITE stamp companies, Purple Onion Design, is having a holiday design team call!  I am SO thrilled, i've been wanting to get on their DT for the longest time!  I'm posting some things you might or might not have seen before.  wish me luck!!!

missing in action! Photo bombing!

well ok, it's not as dramatic as my title sounds!  everyone is fine :)
however, my cards and layouts have been missing from my blog.  I have been creating, just not updating my blog.  shame on me!  Here are a few things i've created that have never been posted.

sorry for the bad picture on this one...

 thanks for stopping by!
Bella

Ashton Kutcher is so sexy smart!

i might be a bit late posting this video and most of you out there have probably already seen it but i just had to share.  Ashton Kutcher delivered such a great speech at the Teens Choice award this year, this guy is smart and as he says being sexy is being smart.  i'm gonna get my kids to watch this until these lessons sink in ;)

1. Smart is Sexy
(be smart, be thoughtful, be generous)

2. Build your life, don't live your life

3. Opportunity = hard work

(find your opportunity)

a baby photo shoot

Hi!!!

i know, i know it's been a while... i really don't have any excuses to give you :(
i'm still card making, project lifing and scrapbooking but very very sporadically.  However, last monday i set up a little photo shoot of my friend's new baby boy.  you can check out more pics on my other blog but here's a look at my favorite pic of the day (and guess what, it's was taken with my phone as a little extra...)

have you heard...

 if you are a follower o m y blog via goggle reader you might have learned that google reader

will be abolished as of July 2013. So with that said, i've been trying to find another blog reader.  I've discovered bloglovin, I just love this site and there's even an APP, sweet!  You can follow my

blog by using the link below.

 
Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Good News!

last night i received an email from Jackie Ludlage over at Canadian Scrapbooker requesting one of my layouts for the Summer 2013 issue!  you have no idea how good it felt to receive that email.  it's been so long (at least 2 yrs) since my last publication.  hmmmm... maybe i should start scrapbooking more so that i have more to submit...

charlie's 6th bday - part 2

oops!  i totally forgot to get these pics uploaded!  i promised you i'd come back and post them so here we go.

As i mentioned on the first post (a month ago) this year's birthday theme was "winter". cut up a whole bunch of snowflakes (like when i was back in elementary school!) and hung them from the ceiling over the sweets table

he wanted an "igloo" cake.  i ran out of fondant to cover the whole cake (which was what i wanted to do at first) but i had a whole bunch of white chocolate so changed up the look of the igloo and made white modeling chocolate for ice blocks

i found a great youtube video on how to make a fondant penguin.  i also added a puffle in there. the penguin is made of brown modeling chocolate tinted black and the puffle is made of a little leftover fondant that i colored pink (that's what Charlie wanted, a pink one!)

store bought "snowball" donuts (man these are good!)

then i made pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with blue sugar. 

(i love the sweet and salty taste of these!)

Marshmallow pops! my first time making these, but not the last...oh so good! 

and to wash everything down...

bottles of "melted snowman" I made these labels using a digi xmas kit i had, i also put each kid's name on his bottle

I had also left my Xmas tree up, i'd taken the decorations down the week before but  decided that a winter themed birthday would not be complete without a snow covered tree so i re-decorated it using only white snowflakes and other white ornements.  i completely forgot to take a decent picture of said tree, i was able to crop this out of another photo but unfortunately it's not in focus but you get the idea of what it looked like.

getting back in the game!

So i realized that i was missing being a part of a design team so over the last few months i've been on the look out and this week I applied to 3 different DT posts.  With that i started looking over my blog, knowing full well that I hadn't done a good upkeep and realized there were some layouts that (i don't think) i'd ever published. So here they are most recent to oldest.

a quick valentine's day tag that will probably be added to a card in the futur

this year's Santa layout (i'm not really liking it that much, but hey what are you gonna do about it) and yes i just noticed that i forgot the "I" in the title.  For real this is all my boys had on their list for Santa.

this is one of my favorite layouts lately.  I used one of the pictures the photographer took of my boys at my sister's wedding this summer.  photo by Joi Photography

thanks for dropping by, 

i've got something (i think) pretty cool coming up so tune back in. 

Bella