Pumpkin Fluff

Need a great and easy recipe for a social gathering this fall?  I think I have one for you...Pumpkin Fluff.  This dip is sure to be a crowd pleaser.  Here are the ingredients you'll need:

1 can pumpkin pie filling
8 oz. cream cheese
4 1/2 oz box instant vanilla pudding (dry mix only)
1 t. pumpkin spice
16 oz tub Cool Whip
cinnamon (optional)

Mix the first 4 ingredients together then fold in the Cool Whip.  Sprinkle the top with cinnamon if desired.  Serve with ginger snaps, cinnamon cookies, vanilla wafers, fruit, or anything else that suits your fancy. 

I got this great recipe from http://pearls-handcuffs-happyhour.blogspot.com/ 
Thanks for visiting my blog today.  

Five Things I Love About Close To My Heart

I've been purchasing products from Close To My Heart for many years, but I was most excited to find the latest package from them on my doorstep.  It was my consultant start up kit.  Listed below are five things I really like about CTMH.

1.  My Acrylix Stamps-Since their stamp sets are clear, you can see exactly where you are stamping.  If you don't make a perfect imprint the first time you stamp, no problem!!  You can stamp right over the first image, because you can see it.

2.  Workshops on the Go-Although you can buy their beautiful papers by themselves, Workshops on the Go includes not only papers but stickers, embellishments, a stamp set and more.  Plus, CTMH provides you with a pamphlet to put it all together to make at least a couple of layouts and usually an extra craft.

3.  Stamp set of the month-Each month that you spend $50, you will have the opportunity to buy the stamp set of the month for only $5.  Shown below is this months set.

4.  Flip Flaps-I tend to be camera happy and often have too many pictures for my layout.  Flip flaps allow you to add more pictures to a page in a unique way.  Simply add these specially sized photo protectors to the outside of your large page protector to make a mini album in itself.  

5.  Storage-Scrap bookers tend to collect a lot of stuff.  I only speak from personal experience!  CTMH has some very handy storage solutions that help with organization.  I can get 15 stamp sets in this baby!

Thank you for reading about five of my favorite CTMH products.  I'm excited about sharing more with you about this great company in the near future,  

If you'd like to know more about these products, you can view CTMH catalogs on-line on my website at www.renehobbie.ctmh.com  You can even place an order right there and have it delivered to your own doorstep!  

Wild Things

The boys in this picture were certainly wild at Six Flags, but I'm here to tell you...I'm WILD about Kiwi Lane Designs templates.  They make the scrapbooking process so much easier.  It's sometimes hard to fill up a 12x12 layout, but KLD makes that process so much less stressful.  I love the results of my layouts when I use their templates.  No, I don't sell their products...just want to spread by word of mouth how much I like their items.  To make the layout below, I used:

*Paper Pack Cheekee Monkey by Paper Studio  (Hobby Lobby)
*KLD Templates Aspen Court 1A and 1B, Nature 5 (www.kiwilane.com)
*Tim Holtz Distress Ink-Vintage Photo (Hobby Lobby)
*Silhouette for Title

Sorry I got my picture a little crooked!

Thanks for visiting my blog.  What crafting items are you 

WILD about?

Kiwi Lane Design Templates

Scrolling through youtube one day, I found a company called Kiwi Lane Designs.  (KLD) They sell templates that help scrapbookers design their pages.  This is great for people who are visual like myself. They have 96+ youtube videos, and I'm bound and determined to watch them all before I go back to school in the fall.  Their layouts are so beautiful!  I especially like the way they teach scrappers how to choose the paper they are going to use.  This video will show you how to pick an assortment of patterns that will work well together.

These are some of the KLD templates that I own.  Of course, I want them all!  

The process of getting started on a page is really quite easy:

1.  Layer the templates on a page that you'd like to use. 

2.  Use the templates to cut matching patterns, and replace the templates on the page as you go along. 

3.  Ink the edges of the pattern pieces to give it a finished look.

4.  Adhere to the page.

This is my first layout using the KLD way.  (So don't be too hard 

on me :)

This way of scrapbooking has given me confidence in using bold patterns together that I wouldn't have had before.  It's also gotten me out of a scrapbooking lull, and I'm excited about putting some more pages together.  Thank you, KLD!!

Finding great tools like Kiwi Lane Desigsn makes me wonder what else I'm missing out in scrapbook land.  Do you have a favorite item that you like to use?  

Orphan Train

Orphan Train was a very interesting book, and I really enjoyed reading it.  I was unfamiliar with the practice of trying to find homes for orphaned children in the early 1900's by putting hundreds of them on trains.  The train would stop at towns along its journey, and the children would be paraded in front of couples hoping to find a child to adopt.  Many of them were given loving homes, while others were used for cheap labor.  This is the story of a girl who rode one of the orphan trains.  I could hardly put the book down and bet you won't be able to either!

The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.
(review taken from www.goodreads.com)

Camping Keepsake

Last summer, we went camping in the beautiful state of Minnesota.  My grandparents used to live there, so it is a special place for us to visit as often as we can.  Some wonderful memories were made with my dad on that trip.  I made this little scrapbook album as a keepsake for him.  However, I don't think he's going to get this one.  Good thing I bought two!

 At the local scrapbook store, I purchased the coordinating album, papers, and chipboard stickers. All these supplies made putting this album together very fast.  Shown below are the inside pages:

Thank you for stopping by my blog to see my camping keepsake.  Have a great day!

Spicy Sweet Chicken

We recently moved to another home, and I gave most of my cookbooks away.  Because there are so many good recipes on the internet, my cookbooks were hardly ever used any more and were just taking up space.  Here is a recipe for Spicy Sweet Bacon Chicken that I found on Pinterest.  It was a home run at the dinner table tonight!

You'll need the following ingredients:

chicken breasts (thin pieces or pound them out)

bacon

salt and pepper to taste

chili powder

garlic powder

brown sugar

Wrap each piece of chicken with a piece of bacon.  If you can get two slices on each, go ahead.  The more bacon the better.  

Generously sprinkle chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper on both sides of each chicken piece.

Roll each piece of meat in brown sugar.

You can bake this recipe in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, but we grilled ours outside instead.  It was delish!  Let me know if you try this recipe and like it.  

Recommended Titles From Frisco ISD Librarians

Getting my hands on a good book this summer was one of my primary goals.  I recently finished The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (loved it!) and now need to decide on another title.  The list below, recommended by Frisco ISD Librarians, will help me do just that.  If you're in need of a good book to dive into, it might just assist you, too!

January Scrapbook Page...2013

Do you have any crafting goals for the new year?  Mine are to get back to my first crafting love...scrapbooking and to learn a new skill...sewing.  I have the best Santa, and he bought me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas.  I'll have to tell you about this wonderful machine in another post, but it is going to help me with that first goal.

Doggone that Pinterest.   They just make everything look so easy...even sewing.  Now, don't look for me to make any articles of clothing.  I just want to know how to #1 thread my machine and #2 sew a straight line, but I'm looking forward to making a few things I've seen on the web.  Sewing on cards and scrapbook pages is also really popular, and I want to know how to do that.

I enjoy making a small scrapbook each year to highlight the happenings of the Hobbies each month.  Here is an 8x8 layout that I've made for January.  It's all ready to insert a couple of pictures.

Materials Used:  All are Stampin Up unless otherwise noted.
Paper:  Not Quite Navy, Marina Mist, Peach Parfait, Whisper White, Black, Polka Dot Parade DSP
Ink:  Marina Mist
Stamps:  Capture the Date (CTMH)
Embellishments:  Marina Mist ribbon
Tools:  snowflake punch, scallop border, tag die   The Silhouette was used to make the snowman and j.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I'd love to hear about your crafting goals for the new year.