May the 4th Be With You

I made this for my loving boyfriend today who loves Star Wars and has recently introduced me to the movies as well. I wanted to surprise him today being Star Wars day and make him something to show him that I care. So May the 4th be with you!

US Scrapbook Stores Map

http://papercrafterscorner.com/scrapbook-stores/

I have found a new favorite website. It is called Paper Crafter's Corner and they have a huge up to date list of scrapbook stores, crafty events and even scrapbook kit clubs. Check them out!
http://papercrafterscorner.com

Scrapbook Stores / Paper Crafting Stores

The above map shows 671 US brick & mortar paper crafting retail locations including independent scrapbook stores, independent stamping stores, Archiver’s locations, PaperSource locations, Craft Warehouse (pacific NW), and a few “mom & pop” general craft store locations (like Ben Franklin.) It does NOT include “big box” stores.

Looking for more detail on stores, retreats and events in your state?  Click here 

Fluer De Sel Vanilla Caramels

WARNING!! These are extremely addictive. Don't send me your dentist bills! ;)

Yield: about 60-100 caramels (depending on how you cut them) Prep and cook time: 1 hour (not including time to cut and wrap caramels. That takes about another hour or 2) Ingredients: 1 cup butter, unsalted 1 cup light corn syrup 1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk 2 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp. vanilla
Fluer De Sel for sprinkling Equipment: Candy thermometer 3-6 qt. Sauce pan Parchment paper 9x13 glass dish or rimmed cookie sheet Caramels: 1. Every time before using a candy thermometer, clip a candy thermometer onto a pan full of cold water and bring it to a boil (make sure the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan). 
Boiling water should read 212°. Once the water is boiling, make note of any difference in your reading, and adjust your reading accordingly when you make the candy (for example, if thermometer reads 210° in boiling water instead of 212°, then take caramel off at 242° instead of 244°). 
High-altitude note: If you live above 7k feet, see the high-alt info below. 2. Line pan with parchment paper, even up the sides.
If you are dipping: Prepare any apples, pretzels, or other things you’ll be dipping. Chop any nuts or prepare any candy you’ll be sprinkling on top. 3. Cut butter into smaller, even sized cubes for even melting. Melt over low in sauce pan. 4. Carefully add sugar by pouring it into the center of the pan. If any sugar crystals stick to side of pan, push them down with a damp pastry brush so they do not crystallize the entire batch and make you want to cry. Stir slowly until well combined with melted butter. 5. Add and mix in corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk. 6. Cook and stir on medium for one minute, then to med.-high until boiling. You want to change temperatures slowly so you don’t shock the candy. Once boiling, clip on your candy thermometer (again, don’t let it touch the bottom of the pan). By the time your caramel is boiling, if you have been stirring well, you should have the butter fully blended into the caramel mixture, not separated. 7. Reduce heat to about medium, adjusting so that you keep a moderate, steady boil. Stir frequently. I’m serious about the stirring. If you let your caramel go too long without stirring, you’ll end up with a separated, greasy batch of caramel. No good. 8. Temperature does not raise at a steady rate, so watch thermometer closely. If you have any doubts about the accuracy of your thermometer, periodically do a test by dropping a little in cold water.
When your thermometer reaches thread stage (230–233°), take out any caramel that you would like to use as dip.
When thermometer reaches late soft ball stage (234–240°), dip in a few apples for caramel apples 9. When thermometer reaches 244°, remove caramel from heat 
10. Stir in vanilla.
If dipping: start immediately. 
If making caramels: pour the caramel into the prepared pan.
Either way, take care not to burn yourself, this stuff is so so hot. 11. Allow to cool for several hours. Sprinkle Fluer De Sel over caramel and use a knife or kitchen shears to cut pieces. I use a pizza cutter but be careful with it so you keep your lines straight. Wrap in parchment paper wax paper. You need patience for this, it takes a while! So turn on your favorite TV show and get to wrapping.
And, for handy reference, here is the candy temperature list: 230–233° Thread 234–240° Soft ball 244–248° Firm ball 250–266° Hard ball High altitude: If you live above, 7000 feet, stop at 227 degrees! I used the NMSU E215 Guide, which I’ve found to be the best reference. I used the lowest temperature listed for chewy candies. It was the perfect temperature.

Enjoy!

Valentines Day Nails

Look what I did using washi tape!

Steps:
1. Punch a heart out of a piece of washi tape
2. Place tape on nail make sure all edges are pressed down
3. Paint where nail shows through in washi tape
4. Peel off tape while wet and touch up and edges
5. Let dry!

Our first wreath

I've always wanted to make a wreath like this. It is very time consuming I must say but living in New York, you have a lot of time on the subways. I wrapped the cardboard wreath with white yarn while sitting on the G train for the past week. It took me about 2 days of train rides to wrap 2 layers of white yarn around the cardboard wreath. 

I added glittered letters of our initials and a tiny little anchor in the middle of the center flower.

Framed Layouts

Its official, scrapbook pages look so much prettier when they are framed! Thank goodness for Hobby Lobby! I grabbed a handful of these simple black 12x12 frames for about $5/piece since they were on sale 50% off! Score!

I made a page for Kyle before I went out to Italy to give to him when I got out there. He loved it so much he told me he wanted to frame it. Why didn't I think of that?! I just thought he would push pin it to the wall or something. Then near the end of my stay out there he asked me if I would make some more for him of photos of us from my stay. Awww. Of course!! So I made these and bought some frames and the photos don't do them justice but I think pages look so much better framed!

So I had those shipped off to Italy for him with an empty 3rd frame for the one that I already gave him. But since I loved how they looked so much and I was getting ready to move to New York, I wanted some for myself too! So I whipped up these two to bring out with me to the big city.

Vivere in Italia

http://missmaeabroad.blogspot.com/

I had the wonderful privilege to travel to Italy this summer and adventure around over there with my amazing sailor. Never in a million years at the beginning of 2012 did I think I'd end up over here, in love and not wanting to move back home! You can see more about my adventures over on a blog that I created while I was in Italy.

Glitter Nails

Ok the new trend is glittery nails right now. The problem is they use gel when you get them and I'm allergic to gel. So I can't have glittery nails...or can I?! I have all this Martha Stewart glitter left over from my starbucks cups, who says I can't dip my nails in them? So thats exactly what I did. I painted my nails with just a top coat then dipped them in glitter and added a top coat on top of that. They looked pretty good too! The only problem, they washed off the second I did the dishes. Eh at least I tried. They looked cute for a day.

Glittered Part 2

Remember when I glittered my Starbucks Cup pink a little while back? Well I also bought purple glitter at the same time I bought the pink to make a second cup. I think I like the purple better because the color is darker than the pink one.

Glitter!

How many people actually decorate their Starbucks cups? I've yet to see someone do so, or even personalize it. So here mine is to break this pattern and hopefully people will start getting creative and decorating their cups too!
I used Martha Stewarts glitter and a simple spray adhesive to create this cup. Make sure you cover the inside with something like foil so you don't accidentally get spray adhesive in the drinking area of the cup. All I did was spray glue then sprinkled glitter over the glue area until the whole cup was glittered!

Blinged Out!!

I am in love with Hobby Lobby! Best craft store around by far!! I don't know what I'm going to do without it when I move to New York. Save money I guess?!

The amount of bling they have! So fantastic! Amy came over today too so we sat in the kitchen and sorted bling for a few hours while we watched movies. Only Amy would be patient enough to do something like this with me. I love this little girl!

Shipping Cupcakes Overseas

Sounds like an impossible task right?! Well its not. The impossible part is dealing with the freaking Military and their stupid mail system that takes forever. This is the only thing that makes shipping perishables difficult. Other than that its quite simple.

I bought small mason jars that had seal lids on them instead of screw tops. This made it easier to put wax paper on the frosting and seal them shut before shipping.

So when you bake your cupcakes in a mason jar, theres no real temp or time difference. You just need to judge the size of your jars. If you are using bigger jars you will need to bake longer than you would bake a normal cupcake. Simple logic since if you were to bake a mini cake in a tiny spring-form you would do the same thing.

Make sure you remove all accessories to the jars. Thats why mason jars with screw lids are so much easier because you just unscrew the lids then put them in the oven. With these seal tops you have a lot more components to take apart but nothing some pliers can't help you with. Once your jars are stripped and clean you need to make your cake batter.

Any cake batter will do. For my test run I just made a simple chocolate cake (the photo above) Remember when you are filling your jars with batter that your cakes will rise and you don't want them to rise above the rims because then you wont have room to frost and seal the jars. I suggest half a jar of batter or less depending on how many eggs and rising ingredients you have used in your batter. If you want make a fancy flower or design with your piping tips on top of your cupcakes, make sure that you fill your jars with less than half a jar of batter so you have room to do this later.

Once your cupcakes are baked and cooled you can frost and decorate them like normal, still keeping in mind that you have a lid to put on. After they are frosted place wax paper on top of the frosting and seal the lid tightly.

Now this is the scary part. Freeze your cupcakes. When I first heard of this I freaked out because everyone knows, don't put cake in the fridge. But the freezer isn't as harsh on cakes as the fridge is and being in a sealed jar it doesn't dry out the cake like the fridge would. Phew!

I shipped these cupcakes from California to Italy. About 7000 miles! And this is what they looked like when he opened them up! He also said that they still tasted really good and weren't dry at all. Phew and Phew!!

If you are planning on shipping cupcakes like this, remember to bake them the day before you ship them and freeze them overnight. Package them up in bubble wrap individually instantly after you take them out of the freezer and box them up and ship ASAP!

Kyle got these after 2 weeks because of the military mail system...so I was really surprised that they were still good. If you are shipping to a military member, rushing your package won't speed up the process. It will just get your package to the US mailing spot fast but then once its in the military's hands you are out of luck in speed, thats what I've learned so far. Not the end of the world but it does make for shipping things like this more difficult.

Shop Hop 2012

The three of us made the trek today down to San Diego and back. We had a little delay because Nat forgot her passport at her house so we went back to Orange then all the way down to Temecula first. Christine was decorating Natalie's bag with bling on the drive down, so I had to sit in the back and sort out bling sizes for her. What a task to do while driving. I'm sure Nat will be finding bling in her car for the rest of forever.

Scrap Attack was super cute with their sundaes and ice cream stand outside. We got all decorated and posed for a photo in front of it.

Then there was Paper Tales. OMG. Thats all I have to say about this store. It is so freaking cute and I wanted to buy everything in there including the adorable candy stand they had us pose behind. I loved it all! We did spend a lot of time and money in this store!

Oh also earlier on in the week we hit the local stores closer to us and the cutest display that day had to be camping one at A Perfect Day Scrapbooking

So of course, since it was us girls going out and shopping, Christine had to leave the boys at home. Well naturally they have to get into some kind of trouble while home alone. A little back story. Christine and I got these free license plate frames from This N' That that said "I'd rather be scrapbooking" on them. Well we had to do something with them so we put them on her husbands car! As a payback he decided to take it off and make his own frame, specific to me, then put it on my car while we were gone. He even got his son to help! So terrible. Well at least the statement is true, I do love beer and I do love my Seaman/Sailor Kyle Parker! At least he didn't use some horrific typefaces like comic sans or papyrus which he said he thought of later. 

That would have put icing on the cake. This wasnt just payback for us putting the frame on his car, we also made a stop at Stone while we were Shop Hopping...without him. Naturally that upset him that we went and had great beer and great food without him, and his wife experienced it the first time with me and not him. To make matters worse the girls spent a good time taking photos of our beer and food and sending them to their hubbys back home. Making the evil worse!

Stone Beer Mac and Cheese, Beer cheese soup and pretzels. So heaven.

Totally worth it.

Recipe Book

During the shop hop the girls and I made it to Paper Arts Warehouse which sells Pinecone Press kits and supplies. I came across the cookie recipe book and had to buy it! I decided that I wanted to make it before I left for New York so I could fill it up with a few favorite recipes here and fill the rest up with things I make out there.

The original kit came with all the pieces to make the book as well as sleeves inside and decorate them too. I decided that the paper it came with wasn't really my style and had just bought this kit during the shop hop as well and it is much more me so I switched it up. I still used the kit instructions and made the envelopes and put them in the book supplied with the kit. But the decorative pieces are different now.

I made this today at Shawn's house. Whenever we get together, we never accomplish anything. So yes, this 20 minute kit took me the who day. But thats the fun of these things, I can take my time and still finish with a cute little piece!

Frozen Lemon Mousse

Christine just had Liam and has been recovering from her C-section and has been having AC issues at home in the middle of the summer. So I told them that I would bring over dinner and dessert for them this week. I made pasta salad since it is a cool dish that you don't need to heat and frozen lemon mousse because she loves lemon things and being frozen would help cool things down. The mousse was fantastic!! I was very impressed. I mean I love mousse and I love lemons so of course I would love this dish. There is a lot of cream in it though and makes it really very rich.

I have to say that I am a genius right now. Our freezer was so full and I needed these to sit level so they could freeze and the only way I could do that was by using a bungee to make sure the tray didn't slide out of the freezer the second the door was opened. Pure genius!

Birthday Puffs

Ok I would take it upon me to make something I've never made in my life before the day I need to deliver them. I always do this it seems and I get to that last 10 minutes and freak out because something has gone wrong and I don't have time to fix it. Well naturally this happened to me today.

I went out with Kyle's parents tonight for his mom's birthday. I know she loves cream puffs so I wanted to try to make them for her. The dough turned out perfect, the Pate a Choux. But once it came to make the cream filling I was at a loss. I had about 10 recipe books out on the table looking through all of them trying to figure out what goes inside a cream puff. The downside to this is I have never actually had a cream puff. So of course I don't know what the filling on the inside is like. Is it sweet and creamy? Light and fluffy? Bland? What the heck is in there?! After reading over way too many recipes I settled with one that would have turned out really good, if it wasn't 100 degrees outside. That made for a very runny filling and I didn't have any time to let them freeze completely. So I just threw a raspberry in the middle of all of them to help keep them cool from the time it took for me to leave my house and make it to theirs and let them put them in their freezer, which isnt a long drive at all.

She loved them and I ended up tasting them later and was impressed that they weren't terrible. I surprise myself sometimes with my baking skills.

SoCal Shop Hop 2012

Who is excited for this years shop hop!

Here is a handy map of all the stores that are on the 2012 lineup! Enjoy.


View So Cal Shop Hop 2012 in a larger map

101 Things That Bring Me Joy

I am the queen of listmaking. My favorite list making app used to be Zenbe Lists but this year I discovered Wunderlist by 6wunderkinder. I love that with both of these programs you can edit online and on your iPhone/iPad/iPod/iwhatever and that it syncs fast and you can share lists too with other users.

Statistics show that people are the most depressed during the holiday months because of the amount of stress and memories of loved ones, family issues etc all come about. Here is something that I always have handy in my group of lists is a list of 101 things that bring me joy. Not just happiness, but Joy.

I believe that Joy is a completely different thing then happiness, there is more passion in it.
So when things start getting rough, I scroll through my list of things that bring me joy and cheer up.

1. An amazing sailor named Kyle Parker. <3
2. Arakawa Family
3. Apple

4. 
Aprons

5. 
Asking the person behind the counter how their day is going and having them be happy and startled that I actually care and want to know

6. 
Baking

7. 
Band shirts with good designs on them that actually took time or were hand screened

8. 
Beach

9. 
Being a motivator

10. 
Being sneaky

11. 
Being spontaneous

12. 
Big white fluffy comforters

13. 
Big wine glasses

14. 
Blue pens

15. 
Boots

16. 
Bows

17. 
Bracelets Anklets earrings and rings

18. 
Brackets { }

19. 
Buying random gifts for people for no reason at all but that it made me think of them or that I wanted to get it for them

20. 
Camping

21. 
Caramel Frappuccino’s

22. 
Chanel Chance perfume

23. 
Colorful huge graffiti

24. 
Cuddling

25. 
Cupcakes

26. 
Cute things

27. 
Dancing

28. 
Dancing beautiful jazz to a ridiculous hardcore song

29. 
Dancing so hard I can feel the music running through my body and I get in this state where I don't even know what I'm doing I'm just moving to the music that is pulsing through my veins

30. 
Developing my own photography

31. 
Dirty or old stand mixers, that means they have been used

32. 
Disneyland

33. 
Doing something good or helpful for someone that they don't know about. Especially if they benefit from it or come and tell me about how this good thing happened and they have no clue I has a hand in it and I sit quiet and never tell them. 

34. 
Dresses, epically flowy ones

35. 
Flower the Lilly. They have the most wonderful smell I love having huge bouquets of them and letting them smell up my room

36. 

Freaking cute coffee cups! 

37. 
French tip acrylic nails

38. 
Frilly things like underwear or on dresses

39. 
Getting all done up for someone who will appreciate that I'm trying to look cute

40. 
Getting excited, even if it's about nothing

41. 
God

42. 
Going on adventures

43. 
Going to shows

44. 
Good books with pretty covers

45. 
Good coffee

46. 
Green

47. 
Handmade stuff. Buying handmade items and supporting artists

48. 
Having good long conversations with strangers

49. Hobby Lobby
50. 
Insulated Starbucks Cups

51. Italia
52. 
Jesus Yourself Others
. JOY
53. 
Joann’s

54. 
Leaving notes for people to find way later on

55. 
Listening to hardcore music really loud in a long car wash

56. 
Little ramekins

57. 
Long talks that never have awkward silences or a need to think of a new subject

58. 
Love

59. 
Lucky
 (RIP)
60. 
Macs

61. Meringue
62. 
Modeling

63. 
Music, except country

64. 
My little may, Amy. 

65. 
My purple camera

66. 
Never knowing what time or day it is

67. 
Old cameras

68. 
People telling me sincerely that they love whatever I just baked them

69. 
People watching with Ashley

70. 
Photo shoots

71. 
Photography

72. 
Pirouettes epically doubles or triples

73. 
Pushing down the buttons on soda lids

74. 
Really bad movies

75. 
Really big coffee cups that resemble bowls so it's like you are drinking soup that tastes like delicious coffee

76. 
Ruffles

77. 
Scrapbooking
78. 
Seeing someone wearing my design

79. 
Shopping

80. 
Sitting in my backyard on a nice morning with my coffee and Lucky and no distractions

81. 
Sleeping Giant

82. 
Song lyrics

83. 
Songs I can dance to

84. 
Spending money on others

85. 
Stand Mixers

86. 
Straws

87. 
Strong arms

88. 
Taking photos. A bagillon of them

89. 
Teaching someone to dance

90. 
The Academy Is...

91. 
The beach

92. 
The library

93. 
Traveling and adventuring

94. Typefaces
95. 
Weddings

96. 
When I don't burn the chocolate I'm melting

97. 
When I make people happy

98. 
When my back doesn't hurt me

99. 
When whatever I’m baking turns out freaking cute

100. Weddings
101. Worshiping like crazy at an amazing Sleeping Giant show or any Tohm Green show

Its A Boy!!

Christine comes home from the hospital today and I leave for New York on Monday. I made this sign for her a long time ago when we first thought she was going into labor but that never happened. Then when she finally did have Liam she has been kept in the hospital for the past few days. So today she gets released and I rushed over to her house to put this on their door before they got home!

Bake more than once a month - June

To continue one of my tasks on my 25 before 25 list, "bake more than once a month" here are June's baking adventures:

- Lemon Bars, Lexie's
- Peanut Butter cookies, Clean Oven

The Smith Family famous Lemon Bars! My absolute favorites!

My famous peanut butter cookies, these things are addicting

Previous Months:

May

My fancy new Card Box

Again. I love love love Hobby Lobby. Look at this pretty little box I got today to put all my handmade cards in. Its so cute! And Pink! I love it!

And theres still room for more cards! Looks like I need to get cracking again and start making more cards! As you can see in the background with InDesign open I'm obviously procrastinating right now by filling my box with cards instead of finishing my portfolio with artwork.

35 Thank yous

Since I graduated recently I have needed to send out a ton of thank you cards. One day while scrapping with a friend I decided to had make all my thank you cards instead of buying them. I chose a simple design that I could easily repeat many times and got to work! 35 cards later and I have a beautiful stack of hand made thank you cards that are so much more personal than just a store bought card.