Apple Cinnamon Muffins

These are great for breakfast!  The oats make these hearty.  My picky kid loves these! 

Apple Cinnamon Muffins  yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons soft butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup grated apple (or just diced really small)
1 cup milke

Preheat oven to 375

In one bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda & salt.

In separate bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar until creamy.   Mix in egg, vanilla & apple.  Mix in milk.  Combine wet & dry ingredients.

Spray muffin pans with oil (or use muffin cups in your muffin tins).  Fill muffin cups evenly with batter.  Bake 12-15 minutes.  Test with toothpick to see if center is done.  Let cool for about 5 minutes before taking muffins out of tin (& eating).

happy smiley faced box?

I'm not even sure what to call this creation.  Perhaps happy smiley faced box painted with acrylic paint? 

book club circle journal

 

We've been exchanging circle journals for maybe 5-6 months in book club.  This was a page I made a number of months ago for a journal where we were tasked with create an imaginary world.  I actually found myself creating a girl and the world created itself.  It all started with one of the girls among the several I drew while having my car repaired. I went to the nearby Fedex Kinkos and asked them to shrink the head size for me.  I think I had them go to 75% and 50%.  Back at home, I cut a dress from a small bit of map & some wings from some patterned scrapbook paper. I believe I inked the edges of the wings.  I trimmed her hair to make it look a little neater, then I glued her together.  I then applied some Diamond Glaze or or 3D Crystal Lacquer to make it look as though she wasn't created from different bits of paper and give her some dimension.  The background is a watercolor wash with faux flowers and bits of bling.

work in progress - complete!

 Almost done!  Added the bird, the hearts, the words and some small doodles in the lower left corner.

My next step was to add some beeswax!  I hadn't used beeswax prior to doing this last week.  I liked the way it made her face look a little more like part of a painting rather than a separate piece of paper I glued down to the canvas.  If I were to do it over again, I probably would have purchased a melting pot from Ranger Ind. and a natural bristle brush of some sort instead of a quilting iron since it seemed like forever to put the little pellets of wax down & then wait for the wax to melt using such a small iron rather than brushing it on.  Oh well :)  After applying the wax, I went over it with my heat tool.  That seemed to smooth things out a tiny bit. 

done!

The kid didn't want me to put beeswax on it.  I guess it sounded like a weird idea.  It was indeed strange.    She's still wanting this piece for her room, so I guess it didn't put her off that much :)

Question for you:
What have you been working on lately? I'd love to see or hear about what you've done or made.  Please share a link to something you made recently, be it at your blog, Etsy shop, Flickr, Facebook or wherever.

update

Alright...time to dust myself off & get back onto the horse, so to speak.  I burned out on trying to do a full project every day, even though some were really small.  For a few days after day 10, I kept thinking I would get back to doing it.  Nope.  I would have liked to have finished the full month but I didn't. 

Lesson for next time?  Maybe do a little more preparation in advance or do some sort of project where I add to it every day.  I saw a really cool 30 day embroidery project where someone made a grid and added a complete new square of embroidery every day.  I really like that idea.  Maybe even for art journaling or doing an inchie to add to a page each day?  Hmmm...still time to think on that one.

Even my work in progress ended up underneath some other bits and pieces.  I will get back to it/her.  I have a few ideas for her, yet.  I'm hoping to get a little work done on this project by next Tuesday at the latest.  Hopefully a little sooner.

I made this skirt for my daughter. I put together some ideas from a few different girls skirts I came across on Pinterest.  It was one of those projects where I wasn't quite sure how it would come out so I made sure not to get her hopes up but we were both happy with it. It was simple but still took a little planning since I'm still new to sewing.  I ended up making her a reversible headband with the same fabric on one side and bright pink on the other using this pattern from Happy Together Creates.   

We're doing a  few projects in book club.  For our swap of the quarter (trimester?), we're doing a prayer flag exchange.  I've started but...well, I better get moving on it since it will be really hard if I wait until the last minute.  We're also doing a circle journal.  For now we're each getting someone else's journal/scrapbook to take home for the month and do a page in it before bringing it back the next month.   This is the page I made for Elena's journal.  I used the song lyrics from Japanese Bowl by Peter Mayer. Here's the song along with Peter's explanation.  Worth a listen! 

How I did it

To the chipboard background I applied a mixture of 3D Crystal Lacquer and some of Terri Sproul's Shimmer Powder in aquamarine.  That created a really nice shimmer & some of the grayish-black areas in the background.  I stamped the diamond pattern (note to self: next time use Stazon or heat set with embossing powder).  I did a tape transfer of the song lyrics and applied that with...I think with Crystal Lacquer or some sort of medium.  Added a bit of tape the the lower right corner.  For the winged heart, I used chipboard pieces I had in my stash.  I painted them and brushed on a bit of gold Perfect Pearls to the heart. I cut the wing on the right side and then mixed some gold Perfect Pearls into some 3D Crystal Lacquer.  It served as both an adhesive to the wing and also as a medium for the gold. 

day 10 of 30 days of creativity

Few are the giants of the soul who actually feel that the human race is their family circle
-Freya Stark

art journal page: masking tape, acrylic paint, pens & scrapbook paper. 

day 9 of 30 days of creativity

Spotted this on the way to the Y with my kid this morning.  I had one of those moments where I wondered if this had always been there since we go to the Y every Saturday morning.   Fun & quirky.  When we left,  I had to take a picture.  I just played around on PicMonkey to get this funky background.