Photo Frame Spice-up

I wanted to give my best bud from the UK a photo of her time here when she came to visit me for my wedding in 2010.  I haven't seen her since, until earlier this month when she suddenly decided to come visit again...and I hadn't even started with her frame yet!! So I quickly had to get it done.  Some of her favourite colours were blue, pink, yellow & green and so those are the ones I worked with:

It started out as an ordinary untreated wooden frame:

I painted it white and decoupaged it with torn strips of blue mulberry paper:

I left the corners un-decoupaged to add some interest.
Then I just glued on some flower and voila, done:

I think it's really cute.  I love decorating photo frames. :)

Linked up to these LINKY PARTIES:
Be Different, Act Normal     .

Diaper Cake - Baby Shower Gift

I finally got a chance to make my first diaper cake! (well, we call them nappy cakes here...).

And for those who haven't made one yet, it's simple, here's how...first, the nappy cake ingredients:

I rolled up the nappies and secured them with rubber bands:

I formed a cirlce with them (my husband had to help me with this part, you need more than 2 hands), and at the same time added some of the "cake filling" inside so that the circle wouldn't collapse in when I tie the rubber band around the outside of the circle to keep the nappies together:

I joined a few rubber bands together with knots and a paperclip to make one big one to put around the outside of the circle:

Then I went on to the second tier - it's the same as the first, just a little small in diameter:

The top 2 tiers were only made of nappies.  And then for the cake topper!

I made a little sign for the donkey(?) to hold too. 

Then I could start decorating the cake.  First I layered 2 different ribbons around each tier:

And I placed little paper roses in the spaces between all the nappies - it just looked incomplete without something there:

The mum-to-be likes Winnie the Pooh, so I googled some pics, printed & cut 'em out and glued them on the top tier with sticky dots:

Then the next tier down, I decorated with stickers:

And the next one with cute heart thingies I found at the craft store.  I thought they matched the green patterns on the nappies perfectly, and the yellow ones sort of matched the Pooh pics:

And for the bottom tier I used a stencil to cut out little flowers, glittered them around the edges and put a bling on:

I had to secure the ribbon around the tiers with glue dots and staples because the decorations were too heavy and it pulled the ribbons down.
And ta-da.....

And the mum and dad-to-be loved it (and so did the rest of my family) and that made it all worth it. :D
Oh, I ended up getting a silver cake board at my mum's house, to put the cake on - it presented a little nicer than a scrap piece of cardboard that was too small for the cake, hehe.

And I had to make a card too:

And the message inside, hehe:

I cut out the size of the nappies from the packet and stuck it in the card too, just so they'd know what size it was.


Linked up to these LINKY PARTIES:
Craft Envy                    Be Different, Act Normal

Cookies Packaged in Paper CD Envelopes (& cookie recipe)

Xmas is long gone but I still have an Xmas gift idea to post. :)  I made spiced sugar cookies for everyone and wrapped them in paper CD envelopes:

I had to wrap the cookies in plastic wrap so that they wouldn't make the envelope oily, so that's my least favourite part of this gift, but I thought the rest turned out really cute. :D
I used the MyMemories Digital Scrapbooking Software to make little Xmas tags for each envelope:

Just to show again that this software can be used for so much more than just the usual scrapbooking!

P.S. If you use my special discount code in my side bar here somewhere ----->, you'll get $10 off your purchase of the MyMemories Digital Software program! :)

As for the cookies, they're one of my absolute favourite cookies in the whole wide world!  I used my Xmas cookie cutters for the first time and made some cute Xmassy shapes:

Of course, with my kitchen luck, this is what happened to my first batch:

I wasn't complaining TOO much though, 'cause I got to munch all these yummy flops. :)
I did from the next batch onward get most of them done perfectly:

 So here's the recipe....ENJOY! :D

Sugar Spice Cookies

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs cream

• mix together 1 cup flour, baking powde, salt & all the spices.
• cream butter, beat in sugar.  Beat in egg, vanilla & cream.
• stir in flour mixture, then add enough of the remaining 1 cup flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll.
• wrap in plastic wrap and chill several hours.  
• preheat oven to 180 degree C / 375 degree F.
• place dough on adequately floured surface and roll to about 1/8" thickness - these cookies must be quite thin.  Cut into shapes, placed on ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 8-10 minutes. (mine came out perfect at 10 mins) (Note: when I used an ungreased sheet as suggested, my cookies stuck to it and broke! So I greased it with spray on grease and that worked much better)

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