Bah Humbug Metallic Card

Hello Friends -

Today I have a card for the Bah Humbug Christmas Challenge.  The theme is metallic.  I wasn't certain what I would do for this one when I started (it's a given I'll do my best to play with the lovely ladies of Humbug Hall).  However, while I was poking around at Hobby Lobby this week I found Quic Kutz metal sheets.  Now that I start talking about this stuff, I could have used my favorite -- aluminum foil.

Before I blather on any longer I'll show you the card.

Isn't it fun?   I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder which I ran through with that lovely metal sheet.  One bonus to using these over aluminum foil -- they have adhesive on the back.  They aren't very forgiving though.  You can see a couple of little dings in the sheet from when it was at the store.

It seemed just a little bit blank if I didn't add something to the top so I pulled out Nesties Label 11 and cut out  two of the smaller ones.  I punch two holes in the sentiment tag and added some teeny tiny little brads to make it look like an actual label.

Here is a close-up of the tag.

Getting pictures of all this metal is NOT easy.

What do you think?  The lines are clean and the embossing makes a real impression (hehehe - pun intended).

I must say, I didn't think there would be a post for today.  Life just seems to be getting in the way of my crafting.  I wanted to play with paper but I found myself messing in the kitchen instead.  The Wonderkid was responsible for his class's snack today.  I'm not one to grab the bag of crackers and send him off but they won't let me send anything with sugar (or much sugar I sort of cheated this week).

This is what I made.

and

They are pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and bread.  Now, I bake about the same way I do anything else.  I look at a recipe and think of all the ways I could do it different.  In case you haven't noticed, I'm not much of a rule follower.  So, I wanted to add the chocolate chips to this recipe because -- well why wouldn't you want to add chocolate chips to almost any recipe?  But, given the Wonderkid's school I thought I better come up with a way to make it a little more "healthy" so I substituted some whole wheat flour for some of the white flour.  I thought the little ones might not notice because of the pumpkin masking the color.  The only problem is the pumpkin didn't have a strong enough flavor so they taste a bit like corn bread muffins with chocolate chips -- not bad just not great.

The other thing getting in the way of my paper crafting

THIS MESS

I've been reading the blog of a wonderful lady in Scotland, Kath and her dog Buddy.  If you haven't had a chance to check them out I highly recommend this blog.  Every Wednesday she joins with some other ladies and shows you what is on her work desk.  Well, this disaster is what is on my work desk and it is KEEPING me from crafting.  Whenever I start using vinyl, it comes out and recently I found a need for the HTV, also. So it came out.  Then somehow every embellie in the world jumped out of the boxes.  I need to wrangle all of the St. Patrick's Day things and smash them back in their boxes since I don't think I can get away with making any more St. Paddy's Day cards.

So, I'm back to organizing.  I've been talking about getting the Nesties in order and I need to work on the embossing folders.  I feel like I need to do a google search every time I start a blog entry because I can't remember the names of most of them.  Anyway, I'll pop back in tomorrow to let you know about my progress.

Don't forget about my birthday giveaway.  You still have a couple of days to enter if you haven't already.

I'm also entering this card in Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge.

Buttermilk Biscuits

I love to make buttermilk biscuits, especially whenever my brother comes home from London.  As all of my friends outside of the States know, biscuits mean something completely different elsewhere.  Here, they are a bread often eaten for breakfast but also with other meals if you are in the South.  The ones above are layered biscuits which can be pulled apart for lots of layers with tons of butter and...

fruit butter.  This is a jar I cracked open this morning, Peach Vanilla Butter.  I used a modified version of this recipe from Food in Jars.  The Wonderkid prefers to eat Applebutter on his biscuits so we had two jars open this morning.

It was a yummy meal on a cold day.  I think everyone was quite pleased.  This recipe made it into the "big project" I'm working on.  I'll share it also.  This is a modified recipe from Martha Stewart Magazine.

Buttermilk Biscuits

4 cups King Arthur flour, plus more for dusting

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter cut into pieces

2 cups buttermilk (I use lowfat, no one will ever know the difference)

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional)

3 cups grated cheddar cheese (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 500F.  In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and cayenne pepper.  Add butter; using a pastry blender or two knives, cut mixture in until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
2. Add the buttermilk; stir just until mixture comes together; batter will be sticky.  Transfer to lightly floured work surface; use floured fingers to pat dough to 1 inch thickness.  Use a 2 inch round biscuit cutter or cookie cutter to cut biscuits as close together as possible to minimize scraps.
3. Transfer to baking sheet; bake at 500 degrees for just 4 minutes then turn down over to bake at 375Ffor 20 – 25 minutes.  Remove from oven; cool on a wire rack.  Serve warm.

OK – here are some modifications.  You can leave out the cheddar cheese and/or the cayenne pepper.  These are good biscuits any way you do them.  I normally make them as layered biscuits.  If you do that you would change it this way:

Once you have the batter and it is sticky,

1. On a lightly floured surface, gently roll dough into an 8 x 11 rectangle.
2. Fold the top and bottom thirds inward, overlapping at the center of the dough.
3. Turn the dough a quarter turn; then repeat steps 1 and 2.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Remove plastic wrap and roll out to ½ inch thickness.  Then cut with same biscuit cutter as step 2 above.  Continue with steps.

Notes about biscuits

1. Don’t overwork the dough.  If you do that it will be tough.
2. Chilling the dough creates the pockets that makes the biscuits flaky.
3. You can use powdered buttermilk instead of fresh if you want.  It is much better with buttermilk than with regular milk.
4. Use a sharp utensil to cut them and don’t twist it, they won’t rise well if you twist the cutting utensil.    

Brownie Toppers

I wanted to do another food posting but I also wanted to show some of my paper crafts, so here is a combination.

I was remiss in getting thank you cards out to family and friends for the Wonderkid's birthday presents.  It was over 2 months ago and I hadn't done a thing.  So, I thought I would make their cards, bake some brownies and blondies and add these cute toppers.  I was pushed along because I HAD to make some sweet treats for one of my dearest friend's birthday.  She always spends it at the beach and I send a small box of treats for everyone to enjoy while they are there.

The blondies are from my Great Grandfather's cookbook.  It has a catchy name, Grandpa Healy's Cookbook and the third and I believe last version was published in 1972.  I LOVE his cookbook, not just because he was related.  He was very meticulous about his recipes.  Many of them have 3 different types of flour, two types of sugar, etc.  The challenge is he used brand names and many of them are no longer in existence.  He also used a type of sugar called "brownulated".  Domino Sugar still makes it but you can purchase it in most stores.  I have it shipped to my by the case, that caused quite a bit of laughing in my household.  I had three versions of blondies this time, carmel, chocolate chip and butterscotch.

Brachs makes the most wonderful carmel chips, think about those little squares that you would buy to make carmel apples in the fall but get rid of the wrappers and make them chocolate chip sized.  They taste fantastic and bake wonderfully. The chocolate chip is made the way the book says, and finally, butterscotch.  The butterscotch is Moma's favorite.  I made them for vacation a couple of years ago and haven't been able to get the recipe the same again.  I think I've finally done it.  The smell of the butterscotch is so overpowering so I wasn't adding enough butterscotch.

Here are a few of the brownies.

And then the brownies.  I have some wonderful friends that want to make and sell brownies as a business.  I worked with them to get a recipe that they liked. These are not your childhood brownies.  They have a very strong chocolate taste, almost like a bitter chocolate.   I started with a King Arthur flour recipe as a jumping off point. I changed the type of cocoa used in the recipe and I add the Brachs carmel chips or Andes mint chips to some of them.  Be careful with the Andes chips, a little goes a long way. 

Here is the final product, in its box and everything.

My brother is a big fan of Chelsea soccer (futball) and his gift to the Wonderkid was a stuffed animal of Stamford, Chelsea's mascot.  So, I sent him lion toppers and a lion thank you card.  The cut for the toppers and the card were from Zooballoo.

The toppers are cut from a top note on the Sentimentals cartridge.  I used inexpensive cardstock from my stash (JoAnn's, Micheal's, Hobby Lobby, whatever I have handy)  The card was made using Core'dinations gemtones cardstock.

The butterflies, hearts and stars were cut out of silver DCWV metallic stack.  They all came from the Wall Decor and More Cart.  I'm really starting to love that cart.  It has some nice scroll work and cuts very nicely.

The card in this picture was made using the H2O cart.  It was used for a thank you to someone sending sand toys and such.  A similar one went to another friend that sent water sprinklers and such.