It's Been a Long Time...

... since I've baked.

My mom was out at brunch with her friends and sent me this picture. She loved the presentation and so do I. This is just perfect for the muffins I am making for my co-worker. Her daughter left for college on Saturday after staying at home for a year. She decided to take online classes in order to save money. I could tell that my co-worker was sad about it on Friday and when I asked her about it, she started to cry. Bless her heart. All I know to do is give a hug, say a prayer for her, and bake something for her and her hubby.

I have fresh blueberries in the fridge so I chose to make blueberry streusel muffins. Ok, quick tangent. I LOVE these Tupperware things. They keep my fruits and veggies so fresh for SO long. I think I've had these blueberries for over 3 weeks and look at them!
I made a few modifications to this recipe (see below) and I love how they turned out. I never have milk in the house and I don't usually like using powdered milk because I can really taste it in the finished product. Why didn't I run out to the store you ask? Because I'm working on a few projects and because it's too dang hot. So instead, I used this stuff You need the same amount of water as milk. So this recipe calls for 1 cup. I used 1 cup of water and then added the suggested amount of buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients. Easy Peesie! *Just a side note. If you go out and purchase this wonderful powder, transfer it to a sealed container when you get home. It will get all clumpy if you don't. Many a times, I've run the powder through my blender to break it down. What a pain.

Last night I prepared these parchment papers (so that there was time for the ink to dry) that I cut into 6"x6" squares and stamped them with different sentiments. The "With Love" is for my co-worker and my bf, the other ones are for my other co-workers (because I can't leave anyone out). Use something that is as big as the base of the muffin tin to push the paper in. Then fill with batter. Here's my muffin tin all filled up with the streusel on top. And here they are finished.


*Squeals* OMGoodness! I love how they turned out!! Think of all the ways you can personalize this for a special someone or special occasion!
Here's how I packaged it for my co-worker and her hubby.

Here's how I packaged it for my bf & other co-workers.
Here's the recipe with my modifications:
Ingredients
1 cup milk/or water if using buttermilk powder substitute
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries or frozen blueberries *Coat with flour
STREUSEL TOPPING
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons oatmeal

Directions
1Heat oven to 400 degrees.
2Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups, 2-1/2 X 1-1/4 inches, or paper lined cups.
3Beat the milk, oil, vanilla extract and egg.
4Stir in the flour, sugar, baking powder & salt all at once until flour is moist (should be lumpy). Add the blueberries, combine and divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
5Sprinkle each using about 2 tsp of the prepared topping.
6Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
7Remove from pan right away.

Come on and join us and participate in Twice Remembered's Make it Monday! or Tasty Tuesday!

New Invitation

The ladies in the Women's Club decided that they would like a PJ themed invitation. After scouring the web, I decided on this card which was inspired by this.

Cards for my family

I'm heading up north to visit my family for Easter. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the trip again for Mother's Day and my sister and cousin's birthday-- so it'll be an early celebration.

I made this card for my sis. It was inspired by this card. I love how simple it is to make.

This card is for my 8 year old cousin who LOVES tools. I mean LOVES. He amazes me. One time at dinner someone mentioned something that was broken in the home- he piped in and said, "you should use.... and .... " to fix it. He elaborate much more then that, but I can't remember the names of the tools he mentioned. I never heard of them before!

I was inspired by this card.

Thank you card

I have such a hard time coming up with an original idea for a card on my own, so I was way too excited about this card. I absolutely LOVE my new stamp set Fifth Avenue Floral and I'm using it on everything. It's so simple and elegant.

I used it on this thank you card for my co-workers. I truly am blessed to have such a wonderful job with such an amazing team. I also used it as a border to beautify a letter I wrote to my grandmother. It has been a New Year's resolution for me to send a handmade card to my sweet grammie every month. The only problem is that I have to write big and clear so that she can read it so I'm not able to get in much writing. I had just received a lengthy letter from her (which I so appreciate because it takes a lot of effort for her to write with her Parkinson's disease) so I wanted to write a longer letter to respond to her thoughts. Type written letters are much easier on her eyes, but I just can't bring myself to send a "blah" white piece of paper.

On a side note, I have to say, take a moment to write a letter to someone you love. It's such a blessing to receive these little treasures in the mail that allow me the chance to get to know different sides to this amazing woman. I have kept all of her letters and I look forward to having them for the rest of my life.

Women's Club Invitations

I volunteered to make invitations for the Temecula Valley Women's Club's- Stay At Home Ball. It's a Ball to raise money to purchase books for a library for a local non-profit residential and educational treatment center for youth. Here are two ideas I came up with:

I want to add some rhinestones to the flowers on the dress to make the flowers "pop" a little more. They are completely different ideas. I'm submitting these ideas and any others I come up with this week to the committee.

Valentine's Day Gifts

Happy Early Valentine's Day Everyone!

I have had so much fun making Valentine's Day gifts for my friends and family! It's so funny. While I made these gifts I thought of years past when I usually disliked these holidays because I thought it was only a ploy to get us to spend more money. But as I've rediscovered paper crafting and started baking new things, I've learned to have a new appreciation for the holidays. I love that making things for people gives me more time to think about them-- about all the reasons I love and appreciate them.

I made Homemade Marshmallows last month and my grandmother loved them and gobbled them up. So this month I decided to make homemade "Peeps"for my dear sweet grammie.

I halved the recipe because I don't want extras sitting around the house. :) I buttered and dusted my 8 x 8 dish with powdered sugar. After that, I sprinkled the bottom of the pan with pink and red sprinkles. I poured the marshmallows on top and then topped again with sprinkles.

Next I buttered my heart-shaped cookie cutters and dipped them in sprinkles before cutting.
Here's the finished product... I still have to make a cute box to ship them in. I might post that later. MMMMMMM!!! I had to sample some of the extra "throw away" marshmallows. I don't know if they'll really make it to the garbage can.

I've been baking a lot of things for my co-workers, but for Valentine's Day I decided to make something not to be consumed. I'm trying to respect their New Year's Resolutions and I found this cute idea for bookmarks in a matchbook.

Here are my finished products. Hopefully they won't be disappointed by not having something sweet to eat.