Monthly Archives: January 2012

A Piece of Pie Video: Valentine Gift Box

Posted on January 28, 2012 by apieceoflifespie

Ok y’all, time come to belly up to the craft table for another helping of A Piece of Pie Video! First I must thank you for being my lab rats with me learning this whole video thing, especially the editing. I will have to admit, I was a bit LONG winded in the introduction, so if you are needing escape that and get on with the actual tutorial, you can fast forward to about the 6 minute mark.. . . but you may miss out on all the sassy subtitles! 🙂

Thank you for coming and sharing a piece of “progress in the video making” pie with me!

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Posted in A Piece of Pie YouTube Videos, Cricut Cartridge: Simply Charmed Cricut Cartridge, Cuttlebug Folders, Gift Ideas, My Pink Stamper - Christmas Wishes, Pie's Cricut, Pie's Do It Yourself Projects and tagged Adele, do it yourself videos, gift boxes, How to use a crip-a-dile, projects for valentine's day using Simply Charmed, valentine gift boxes, Video making. Bookmark the permalink.

Hugs and Kisses Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on January 26, 2012 by apieceoflifespie

In the spirit of it almost being Valentine’s Day, I decided to start testing some recipe ideas for my little one’s school Valentine’s party. Since her request was something pink, I thought about making pink chocolate chip cookies and I tried a recipe sponsored by Betty Crocker’s sugar cookie recipe and I did not like them. I thought of shortbread cookies and that they may be a good option since the recipe did not need to be modified for not having eggs in them, which will compromise the color of the cookies due to the yoke.

I pulled up my favorite recipe by Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa, and did some modifications. I guess if you change three things to a orignial recipe, it can be called your own, according to the Culinary Art Institute. So here it is! They turned out WONDERFUL and super cute! Exactly what I wanted!

Recipe: (I stared the items I changed from the original recipe)

Ingredients

3/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 drops of Pink food coloring or 2-3 drops of red food coloring – depending on the color pink you want. *
1 1/2 cup sugar *
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 tablespoons of milk (to add a tad bit of moisture back into the batter once the flour has been added)*
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips *

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter, vanilla, and food coloring. Mix until correct color is achieved. Add 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low-speed until the dough starts to come together then add chocolate chips just until they are mixed through. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and shape into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes. This is also good to make ahead of time and pull out each disk at a time.

Roll the dough 1/2-inch thick and cut with any shape cookie cutter. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet or use parchment paper. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Thanks for coming and sharing a piece of “think pink” pie with me!

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Posted in Pie's Do It Yourself Projects, Pie's Recipes and tagged Barefoot Contessa, cookie recipes, Ina Garten, Pink Chocolate Chip Cookies, shortbread cookie recipes, valentine's day recipes. Bookmark the permalink.

A Piece of Pie Video: Hello Kitty Tootsie Pops

Posted on January 20, 2012 by apieceoflifespie

Yes, I am going to make you endure my SECOND ever made video! This time I did have fun with some new music I discovered, thanks to Pandora radio!

Even though my little one’s birthday is not until March, I am in project mode to get as much done for her little party as I can, so while I was coming up with ideas, I threw together this video and I hope it comes in handy for someone out there in cyber crafty land!

Thanks for coming and sharing a piece of “NOT ANOTHER A PIECE OF PIE VIDEO” pie with me! 🙂

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Posted in A Piece of Pie YouTube Videos, Pie's Craftiness, Pie's Do It Yourself Projects, Pie's Parties, Pie's Tips and Tricks. Bookmark the permalink.

In Recovery Mode!

Posted on January 19, 2012 by apieceoflifespie

The holidays were a whirl wind! I figured I logged about 40 hours in my craft room during the month of December! That meant late, late nights after the kids went to bed. Now I am in a bit of recovery mode from post holiday illnesses that took the family by storm and just getting my house back in order and us on a routine.

I did manage to sneak in to my craft room to make a couple of birthday cards and a Valentine banner. This weekend I plan on finishing up my craft space and starting a huge project of making scrapbooks for all the moms in my daughter’s co-op preschool. Just shoot me for being over ambitions now! 🙂

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The banner was made out of felt and I picked up some ribbon and the heart string at Micheal’s

The card was made out of a new cart I just got called Life’s a Party! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the cart. The paper was from “open stock” at Michael’s and I embossed it with circles and spots Cuttlebug embossing folder. The sentiment is from My Pink Stamper, of course!

Thanks for coming and having a piece of “recovering” pie with me!

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Posted in Cricut Cartridge: Life's a Party, Cuttlebug Folders, Gift Ideas, My Pink Stamper - Every Day Life, Pie's Cricut, Pie's Do It Yourself Projects and tagged alien birthday cards, boy birthday cards, boy cards using Life's a Party, Cricut, Cuttlebug, Do It Yourself, no sew banners, space themed cards, valentine banners. Bookmark the permalink.

I Have Been Doing a lot of Pie Making!

Posted on January 5, 2012 by apieceoflifespie

. . . well at least a lot of crafting. Outside of the already posted holiday projects I was up to my ears in crafting over the holidays. Since then we have been batteling the stomach flu, colds and trying to get Christmas and my winter “spring” cleaning done.

Santa was good to me this year! I got a ton of craft store gift cards and The Cinch. I am still holding off on the Imagine, just becasue part of my Christmas/Birthday present from they hubs was re-doing my craft room. So all things in moderation and I LOVE how my craft room is truning out! Deciding to re-do my craft room in the full swing of all the projects was a bit nutty, but if you knew me, you would get that I have a VERY high energy level that does not know how to stop until my body stops me:-).

I am on the hunt for the Hello Kitty Cricut Cart that has been retired so I can do my almost 4 year old’s bithday stuff, if you know of a place I can find it, that is not going to cost a million dollars, please let me know. I have been looking on Ebay and they are going for about $80-$100.

So on to my projects and thanks for coming and sharing a piece of “wow no wonder I am a wee bit Christmas Cheered Out” pie with me!

Project 1: Idea came from My Pink Stamper’s 12 Days of Christmas.

Project 2: Another idea from My Pink Stamper’s 12 Days of Christmas for the lady that does my hair. She lives in the “Christmas Candy Cane Lane” neigborhood and has the Charlie Brown themed house. She sits out with friends and family almost every night greeting the hundreds of people checking out the lights and I thought this would keep those sheer cutting hands warm.

Project 3: I made these cards for my nephews who were getting gift cards. They liked them!

Project 4: I made these pack of cards for all the ladies in our family. I ended up making 3 in each set which came to 21 cards! I did this kind of last minute. I used My Pink Stamper’s Sweetest Cupcake Stampset I won from a Blog Hop Challenge back in August. I also used Once Upon A Princess Cartridge for the cupcake. All the ladies LOVED them!

Project 5: I made this for a sweet friend that got married on December 9th. It was a very small and close wedding at the beautiful Ojai Valley Inn, Ojai, CA. I was one of the very few that were invited to the quiet and yet elegant event – I also made some tags for this event I posted about earlier this month. I used a new stamp set I got from Close to my Heart, Cherish the Day! The cartrige I used was Storybook – Thank You setting.

Project 6: My girls and I made this for my father-in-law’s birthday that was in early December. He loves old cars, so we had fun doing some new tricks using Peachy Keen faces and Everyday Paper Dolls Cricut Cartridge.

[Project 7: Christmas cards for some bloggging buddies I have formed this year. I used a Christmas stack from Papertreyink, Christmas stamp set from My Pink Stamper and the ortament came from Simply Charmed.