Banana Nut Bread

Two posts in one week.....What is going on here I don't know. I just thought it would be nice to do a post with the banana bread that I made from the banana's that were in the pink peony post. I made two loaf's one with my regular recipe that has 283.5 calories per slice and this one that has 147 calories per slice. Big difference. Brent liked both but this is the one he will be getting from now on. Found this recipe on Spark Recipe board and I like it just as well if not better than my regular recipe. Very moist. I do think it's a little sweet so may cut the sugar down from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup. I added a hand full of walnuts but nuts are good for you.....Right......and I used unsweetened applesauce.
You can find the recipe here Spark Banana Bread Recipe Make sure you read all the comments to get some good ideas to change it around some.

Lovely Pink Peony's

It's been a long time since my last post, but I just haven't had anything to write about or take a picture of until now. You know how much I love peony's so I had to take time for this snap.

Is it dead?

It's been 3 whole months since we posted to the blog.  I have things to post, just no time to get it done.  I'd like to think the blog will survive but its looking iffy.  Maybe if it rains next week, I'll have some inside time.  I've got some graduation cards to make and a birthday card for Amanda too.  Hopefully, things will get less busy so I can post a few pics.

February 1st. 2015...grrrrrrr..

I can't say its not beautiful, it is!! But....I was quite happy with the 50 degree weather we had been having...its till snowing here.  We probably have 7 inches on the ground and expecting 3 or 4 more.  I'm off to blow what snow is on the driveway off and then Bill can get the rest this afternoon...

This actually reminds me of the first image I posted to the blog, 7 years ago....and it was in February too!


Day 1 of our blog

Classic 65 Model

I changed my mind and decided to post this quickly before I went for my walk...if I didn't do it now, I would forget what papers I used...

My son in law turns 50 this Feb. and I wanted a manly card.  I bought the truck from the Silhouette store and it was made by Echo Park.  The paper that I used for the truck is also by Echo park called Very Merry Christmas...yes, Christmas paper works for other things..LOL.

The background map is by Carina Gardener from her Well Traveled Kit.  The road uses paper by Splendid Finn called Very Krafty (the ledgers).  The sign comes from One Little Bird out of the Pedal Pushers kit.  And lastly, the clock faces are done by Jenni Bowlin.  I wanted balloons to come out of the back of the truck but didn't want to actually use balloon icons.  Wanting to keep the manly feel, I thought the clocks worked for balloons and would also signify the passing of time.  I added the hands onto the clock faces by putting tiny brads though the back and using the prongs as the hands of the clock.  The truck is shaded with Tim Holtz distress ink in both Soot Black and Festive Berry. 

As usual, I printed everything on my Epson Premium Presentation Matte paper and then cut everything out again with white cardstock and glued the printed sections to the cardstock.  I did not do this to the background papers...they were just printed on the Epson paper and then adhered to the card base.  But the truck, clocks and sign are done in double layers to give it a sturdier feel.  I could have printed on the cardstock and eliminated a step but I LOVE the way the Epson paper takes ink...so beautiful!  These weren't even printed on my Epson (it was out of ink and the replacement won't be here till Tues.) I bought an All In One HP Envy printer about 6 months ago and when I ran out of ink (one cartridge) on the Epson, I used the Epson Presentation Paper in the Hp and was totally surprised to see how well it printed.  The only downfall to the HP...it will not print on my heavyweight cardstock...have to use the Epson for that.  But...I ran out of the color cartridge on the HP last night around 4:30...placed an order for both the color and black cartridges on the HP site around 5:30pm and guess what I got at 9:30am this morning..yep, you guessed it!  It was over nighted to me and didn't cost me a dime!  Well, the cost of the cartridges, of course, but no shipping charges!  Yahooo....

Ok, here is the shot...now I'm off for that walk!

Have a great weekend!!

Sharing a few things..

I promised you that I would share a few more things I made over Christmas but guess it will just have to be one share...I made, wrapped and delivered 3 signs and didn't get a single shot of them.  The only shot I got was the one I made for me...

I made this to put over my fireplace.  None of these are my ideas, they were all Pinterest finds.  I use contact paper to make my stencils.  I paint the base paint first and then lay the stencil down and Modge Podge around the letters to seal the edges so the paint doesn't seep underneath.  Then I add my paint, let it dry and then remove the stencil and distress it with sandpaper.  I really, really like making these. I made a sign for Randy to hang in his shop and one for Jerri Ann for her bedroom.  Then I made one to give to the Marshall woman at our annual Christmas get together.  I will be able to share a shot of the one I made for the woman because I'm making two more for my nieces who fought to get it at the get together but lost out.  So...kind hearted me, I told them I would make them one each.  I've got the signs put together and sanded, just need to paint and stencil.  If I have my camera up to Jerri Ann's some day, I'll try and remember to take a pic of those two. 

The colors are a bit off on this...the blue is a bit more subtle than it shows here.  I'm really not good at taking photos anymore.  I try and it looks really good on the back of the camera but once I upload them to the computer, they are lousy.  I'm to the point where I'm thinking of selling my gear and just buying a point and shoot. 

Ok, since I don't have any more signs to share, I do have 4 new cards I've worked up this month. January is really slow, card wise, but Feb. makes up for it.  Only 4 birthdays in Jan. and there are 7 in Feb. plus Valentines day.  Whew...I'd better get my butt in gear!

First is a birthday card for Bill's Aunt...Nothing really special about it...I used American Craft white cardstock and a file from the Silhouette Store. Since I wanted the cutout to 'remain' in the paper I had to edit the file to remove the outer border cut.  I got this paper free with my Cardmaking magazine and liked the colors. Then I cut the happy out of some lavender shimmer card stock and glued it on the front. Rounded the corners and added Rhinestones.  It didn't even cost me extra on postage.  Yippee!

 

Next, I had to have birthday cards for two young boys...one is 14 and the other turns 11 tomorrow.  I think I made them 4-wheeler cards last year too...LOL...

First one is for the 14 year old and I have no idea why it has a purple cast.  I give up on editing photos...I'm just going to shoot jpg and take what the camera gives me!  According to this image, the card is ugly but trust me...it looked cool!  I was really impressed with how it turned out.  The paper is by Vicki Robinson called Growth.  Then I added some paint splatters.  The 4-wheeler is an image I found online and traced and then cut it from black cardstock on the Cameo.  Glittered up some stars, added some rhinestones and layered it all on some gray cardstock.

 

This one was for Tracer...our great nephew...he is going to be 11 tomorrow..can't believe he's grown this fast.  This one used the same traced image as the card above.  I printed off the digital paper for the background and then made the top paper by adding stars, faux stitch lines and the text.  Cut some yellow stars and added some sequins for a bit of pop. I'm sure he'll like the addition on the inside...LOL

 

And the last one was for my favorite neighbor friend.  I had got a tutorial on how to make a cutout with Photoshop to make a digital scrapbook page and decided to experiment with the Cameo and see if I could come up with something similar.  I love how it turned out but need to figure out a way to keep everything straight.  Since it all went on in sections, it was hard to 'line' it all up perfectly.  The paper is digital and, of course, I have no idea who the designer is...I really, really, really need to add notes when I'm working on things.  I have so many papers and I don't 'add' them to my program permanently, I just drag them into the shape I want, so I can't go back and see where I got the paper later.  And my mind is horrible about retaining anything for longer than a few minutes at a time.  But both papers came from the same designer, I'm sure.  To create the snowman, I first made my three parts for the front.  I determined the sizes I wanted to use, drew out the three rectangles and then selected the center and right sections and then butted up the edges. I then placed my snowman shape on top and directly centered over the splice between the two halves.  Selected all of them and clicked on modify/subtract all.  When I moved the two rectangle shapes away from each other, the snowman shape was cut out of each half.  I'm having trouble telling this so it makes sense....sorry!  Anyway, then I filled my shapes with the digital papers, printed them out and then cut them on the Cameo.  I added double sided foam tape to the backs and lined them up as best I could on the front of my card.  Oh, forgot.....I added the white snowflakes to the solid center paper, chose 'no cut' so it would print only. The white stitching is done with my white gel pen by hand after I had it cut out.  Cut a snowflake out of double sided adhesive sheets so I could add glitter and then swirled some twine, added a pearl, some buttons and it was done.  Pretty cute, if I do say so myself! 

That's all for now...need to get more cards done!  If you have any questions, just ask...I know I'm not good at instructing!

If I get any slower....I'll be backing up!

Believe it or not, I started editing these last Wednesday night...got sidetracked and competely forgot about posting them till I sat down here to work on bills....LOL....I had a blast doing this but if I EVER decide to do it again, it will have to be a planned out a bit better..like a couple months earlier!  LOL...

So, I wanted to surprise my wonderful friend, Maxine, with  a twelve days of Christmas.  These will not be in the order that I actually delivered them but close...I've slept too many nights to remember the complete order.  Also, not all these photos are mine...some I had to get from Maxine cause I forgot to take pictures in my rush to get it all done on time. 

Each 'gift' was delivered while she was working but I didn't fool her as she guess the very first day!  Each gift was accompanied with a gift tag that I made with the twelve days of Christmas on each one.  I cut each day out of glitter paper and affixed each to a gift tag. The only image I have of the gift tags was the day 2 tag with the magnets but you get the idea.  The glitter paper is by American Crafts and it was super thin...a bugger to cut in the Cameo!  It was just too thin but all I had in the colors I wanted to use. 

Ok...on to the pictures!

Day 1 has no photo, just a jpg file saved from my files as I forgot to take a picture of them.  I made her gift tags for her presents so this was the first gift, as I wanted her to be able to use them.  She is a huge snowman collector!  I added glitter to the snowflake and around the hat and scarf.  This was cut from Kraft cardstock, layered onto white cardstock and then the snowman, snowflake, patterned paper were all printed and cut on the Cameo. 

 

Day 2...Refrigerator magnets.  I ordered the glass tiles from Sun and Moon Crafts kit and was really impressed with their service.  I ordered on a Tuesday and had them by Thurs.  Super service!  I designed the pictures in Silhouette Studio and then did a print and cut and used Fantastic Glaze and Glue to adhere them to the tiles.  Added a magnet to the back and they were done...pretty easy and pretty darn cute!  You can see the gift tag in this photo.  All the tags looked like this except I changed the day and the image with each tag. I got the images from the Silhouette store.  Some of them, like this one, had way too much scroll work for my cutter to cut at this small size. So, I did a bit of editing and removed some of the scroll work.  They would be stunning at a large size but I was cutting them at an inch or less...

Day 3:  Snowman ornament.  This was a Pinterest idea.  This is not the ornament I gave to Maxine.  Its one I made up first but I didn't like it with the ping pong ball.  I did hers with a bigger smooth styroform ball and liked it much, much better but I don't have a photo of it.  The hat is made from a baby sock and then I just painted on the face and added the trim and bow.  On hers, with the bigger ball, the hat looks better proportioned with the face.  I bought some more balls and socks and going to make some for myself.  On this day, I also gave her a cookie gift box with cookie mix, icing and sprinkles and a note that stated that it was a cookie exchange....I didn't have time to bake mine so I was just gifting the supplies and she was to bake them and give them back!  LOL....

Day 4: Snowman Candy Jar.  This was a jar from our Dollar General.  It's actually a spice jar, I think, cause it had a sprinkle type top under the lid.  I removed that top and painted the jar lid gold.  This was another Pinterest find and I just copied it.  Everything was either scrapbook paper that I had and cut on the Cameo. I downloaded a free svg file from SVGCuts to make the tiny hat and just downsized it to the size I needed, added some gold trim I found in my Christmas ribbons and bows box and added a small pompom to the top.  Glued this to my Styrofoam ball the very last so it wouldn't get man-handled while I painted the face. The red ruler paper section is another lid from another jar that I wrapped the scrapbook paper around and then added some flat scrapbook to the top to glue the rosette to. The snowflake tag was all cut on the Cameo and then layered up and glued to the front of the jar, on the flat part.  The gold ribbon came off a package I had been given a few years back and saved...the face is all painted with craft paint except for the nose and that is the end of an orange golf tea that I cut down.  I pressed it into the ball and then removed it and added glue to the hole, replaced the 'nose' and let it dry.  I think it is super cute!  Need to make some more of these for gifts!  I can see them in several holidays...maybe a bunny for Easter. 

Day 5: Snowman pillow.

This didn't come out like my mind thought it would but luckily, she liked it...I bought a round pillow form and then made the cover.  I used felt to make the snowman, cut it out on the Cameo and then used Heat N Bond to add it to the pillow cover.  Added some buttons and ribbon and that project was done and ready for delivery.  Whew....day 6, coming up! 

 Day 6: Merry & Bright Shadow Box..

These were all the rave on the Silhouette Facebook page.  I used a Christmas tree file that I downloaded from the Silhouette Store and some snowflakes to make the chalkboard like background.  I'm sure I should give credit to the chalkboard background but I didn't save this information and I can't find it right now...but leave it to be that its not mine! LOL...I added the snowflakes and tree and then printed it on my Ultra Premium Epson paper.  I made a mat out of cardstock and layered it over the top of the background.  This is all in a shadow box that I picked up at our Dollar General store. The size is 8 x 10, so its a bit bigger than the 8 x 8 size that we use for the subway art months.  I then cut the title out of white vinyl and added to the front of the glass.  The wording was a purchased file from the Silhouette store.  Added some DG store ornaments to the inside and it was done.  I ended up making 4 of these...one for me, Maxine, Jerri Ann and Kristen.  Mine was in red and silver, Kristen's was in all the bright Christmas colors and Jerri Ann's was totally different. She uses blue and silver ornaments and I used that beautiful Silver glitter cardstock like I used for the deers on my Christmas cards for her background. The blue/silver ornaments and silver glitter were stunning together but I should have done something different for the wording cause the white got kind of lost in all that silver.It didn't 'pop' like the white did on the black background. I might make her another one next year and change things up!  These are super easy to make!

Day 7:  Merry Christmas Banner.

Now this is not my image...Maxine shared this on Facebook, so I just took it from there. You would have thought I'd have at least one image of this cause I made one for me too...LOL..but no, I didn't get a shot of it on my fireplace.  Anyway, this is just made out of cardstock and adhered to cereal box chipboard.  You can't see it very well in this image, but the background is a digital file called Painted Fresh Snow by Sahlin Studio.  The font is DJB Paulam and the tree came from the Silhouette Store.  I print and cut all the banner tags and then used a hole punch to punch the holes.  I had some red and white gingham ribbon in my stash that I used to tie them all together.  So they wouldn't slide around, I glued the ribbon on the back on each tag once I threaded them through the holes.  My plans are to make these but add the cardstock tag to thin pieces of board to make them really sturdy.  Another project, for another time. 

Day 8:  This one was really easy but you will have to just imagine it....I have no picture of it to share!  LOL....I made her a tin of Kettle Korn...my recipe!  Bill and I fix this a lot and love, love, love it.  It's fixed in a Stir Crazy popcorn popper.  It's like Kettle Korn but we don't add salt...just the sugar. We used to use plain sugar but have changed to Splenda Blend now.  I've tried it with plain Splenda but it just didn't glaze the popcorn right.  But, the Splenda Blend glazes the popcorn and cuts the sugar calorie count in half...

Sugared Popcorn

3 Tablespoons Buttered Popcorn oil
1/2 cup popcorn
1/4 cup Splenda Blend

Heat oil in popper till hot (I usually add one kernel corn and when it pops, the oil is ready).  Add the popcorn and then sprinkle the Splenda blend on top of the popcorn.  Put the lid on the popper and let it pop!  Yummm...

Day 9: Joy to the World tray.  I picked up these trays at our local antique store, painted them black and added the wording with white vinyl.  I really like these!  The hardest part was determining the size of the circle to fit the text in. 

Day 10:  Easiest gift of all!  I had purchased her some card making supplies....just threw it in a gift bag attached the tag and delivered it...no photo!!

Day 11:  Her Name and wedding date sign.  This is her photo also!  I had this picture frame in the basement.  It was originally a wood look but I painted it cream and distressed it.  The background is made with scrapbook paper and then I added the wording with black vinyl to the front of the glass. 

Day 12:  Lantern with snowman and trees inside.  This was her main gift and I delivered it on Christmas Eve while she was home.  I had tons of fun with all this and hope she enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed doing it for her!  Maxine and I share a lot of the same interests.  She makes cards and is an avid gardener..  When the kids were little, we did couponing and refunding together...and, she has been a friend for over 45 years now! 

Whew...this took me the better part of a whole day to post!  No wonder I hesitate to post much...LOL...have a great day!  I'm off for my walk!