Dear American Crafts,

Dear American Crafts,

I remember being a Scrapbook Store manager and meeting a nice guy from A.C. who’d call on the store now and then. He gave me my first fine tip black slick writer, suggesting I just try it, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

The black fine tip Slick Writer remains my #1 favorite tool. It will write on anything, and is fine enough for journaling so that when scrapbook companies come out with these cute (but annoying) slick surface journaling sticker my ink sticks beautifully.

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I am also a huge fan of your alphabets. I have much love for thickers (felt & chipboard are my faves) and flat stickers alike. I remember when I nearly cried at CHA a few years back when you introduced metal photo corners. I got all happily choked up again when these glitter buttons arrived last week. They’re brilliant and I will be collecting as many as I can. You know what I love? I love how my A.C. embellishments coordinate with all my other stuff.

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Now? Well now I’ve added cardstock to my A.C. essentials. The price is so right per sheet – and the quality and colors beautiful. Not only all of this, but you are a classy company with amazing service & support as well. Anyone who knows me will know my regard for good service, and that I’m fiercely loyal to companies who know how to treat their customers. You remain firmly in that category.

All my love –

May

new discovery: smooch

Have you heard of smooch? It reminds me of my liquid eye liner.

smooch

It’s ink (with pearly/metallic finish) in a bottle great for accenting stuff (like corrugated letters in pic). It’s very new to me – but based on performance of this bottle of molasses I’m ordering more from www.scrapbook.com as soon as possible.

If you’ve worked with it – what do you think? Any good tips? I am just loving the applicator and how it’s like applying make up to my page. Only downside I see is frequent re-dippings… but I’ll see how that plays out and if I just need to get better at it.

MB

MB = message board

Once upon a time I was very active on several message boards. I began quite a few friendships via MB’s and I’ll always be grateful for that. One by one I disappeared from posting on boards. Between two kids, work, and life stuff I just didn’t make time to surf them like I used to. My reasons also largely involved the desire to move away from drama that can take over boards, as well as cliques and scrap-politics. Blech. No thanks.

So I’ve been floating out here in space, keeping track and meeting new scrappers via blogs, facebook, and sometimes even twitter not to mention Big Picture classes where I’m avidly participating in class boards and such.  I’ve got to be honest here – I really haven’t missed general message boards in the last year or so all that much. I get so much outside them now and keep up via e-mail (and all above mentioned forms of communication) as the internet scrapbooking community has grown and changed that I don’t really know what place they might have for me anymore. I DO believe they have a place – but where do I fit in?

Does that sound insane? Do you know what I mean?

Well I will tell you this: I’ve been “lurking” (aka looking but not posting) at a few boards but really haven’t been jumping in deep. What I am really after today is to engage you in a coffee talk discussion please: What do you get out of message boards? Where are you active? Why? Related: how the heck do you keep up with multiple boards?

Apples & Chocolate “scrummy yummy” cake

note: When something is really good, E calls it scrummy yummy. We like to use it now too.

I’m on a great quest. The quest for greatest blondie recipe. (like a brownie, but pale and not full ‘o cocoa powder) that I can tweak final ingredients to make a lot of variations. I expect it’ll take me a few tries but that’s ok. I’m going to enjoy the process. I love to bake, and I love to try my own experiments and make stuff up. It’s fun – and my best creations have happened this way.

I made my first attempt last week and it didn’t come out very good. Well it was ok, but not great because it was too cake-y and not moist/fudgy enough. As I explained why I considered it a fail to my husband he shrugged and said he didn’t care – that it was great to him. I sighed, frustrated that he didn’t see that this, this bar cookie really was more cake than blondie and that it wasn’t a great bar cookie because it was just too cake-y.

Then the lightbulb went off.

What do you do with a cake? You FROST IT. Of course, the answer is so simple! I added a cheap “white frosting” from Pillsbury – just a very thin layer, and then sprinkled my cinnamon sugar (yes, that’s something I keep on hand and you should too!) on top of that. Result? Magical fall apple/chocolate/toffee/cinnamon cake!!! It’s all gone now, but it will be brought back, possibly with different add-ins.

the cake

Here’s the recipe:

{mix and set aside}
2 cup unbleached flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. Kosher salt
{then in sauce pan}
3/4 cup butter – heat until melted, try not to get too hot!
{mix in}
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
{carefully add}
2 large eggs – stir a lot and make sure the butter isn’t hot so you don’t fry them eggs!
4 tsp. vanilla
2tsp cinnamon
{then whisk into dry ingredients bowl until smooth}
{now gently fold in:}
1/2 granny smith apple diced fine (about 1/2 – 1/4″ cubes)
1 large Hershey Symphony (milk chocolate with almonds & toffee) bar chopped up
1 handful semi-sweet chocolate chips

pour into greased 8×8 pan and bake at 325 (metal/dark) or 350 (glass) until done. About 40 minutes. I didn’t do a toothpick test- I just watched for it to be firm & start to pull away from edges.

{when cool}
frost very lightly with “white” frosting – I think cream cheese might taste great too.
dust with cinnamon sugar to finish

kit reveal-

All will be revealed in good time, and this seems like a good time to me for a little more info!

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This is the kit I’ve been working with the last few weeks in the final week (#6) of my Kits class at Big Picture. Yearbook is a perfect name for the kit – it’s been a delight to play with and so full of fun stuff.

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Tonight is the reveal and kits will go on sale. If you’re in class and want to play along with this kit – be sure to hop on over to Studio Calico and check it out before it gets all sold out! I’ll be going over there to the super fun reveal chatting tonight – maybe I’ll see you there…

M