Summer's End Blog Hop

Welcome to the Summer's End Blog Hop! You might be arriving here from STEPHANIE'S BLOG. Let's Hop!

I've been wanting an excuse to put aside everything I'm working on and make something fun using my pile of new goodies from Convention. On this page I combined Sea Glass Cardstock and Glitter Paper, an Uptown Gold Foil Vellum dotted overlay, and some of the new Whimsy B and T. I added lots of bits and bobs from the You and Me Compliments, and a few cards from Hello Gorgeous. Plus lots and lots of hand stitching, since I was inspired by this sketch from Stuck Sketches.  

This summer one of our favorite special places to take our family and friends who visit from out of town is Kyra's Bake Shop in Lake Oswego. It's a 100% gluten free establishment that gluten lovers will still love because everything is so delicious! Kyra has won Cupcake Wars multiple times with her gluten free cupcakes, so that should give you a clue as to how amazing this place is. If you go, get the tomato soup. It's seriously the best tomato soup I've ever had, and even my veggie hating ten year old scarfs it right down. 

Next up on the hop is KATY'S BLOG. Happy hopping!

Day 298: Homemade Toffee Candy Teacher Mason Jar Gift

So this is what I did with the tags from last night's post - I popped them onto these adorable mason jars filled with a homemade toffee candy to deliver to my boys' hard working teachers at our conferences today.

I got the jars on Etsy. I know I can make my own, and heaven knows there are enough mason jars in my house, but sometimes you need a little helping hand. These were adorable, and not too expensive, and best of all I didn't have to paint them myself. I did make the tags  (I'm sure you can see where the tag inspiration came from) plus the candy to fill them up. On the tags we wrote, "Thank you for every piece of knowledge." We heart our teachers!

Here's the link to the original toffee recipe I altered. It's simple, with few ingredients, and totally yummy! It was originally supposed to be an Almond Roca copy, but I crushed some pecans and unsweetened shredded coconut together in my food processor and put that down instead of the crushed almonds. Then I poured the toffee mixture on top (made with real butter and dark brown sugar) and topped it with melted Enjoy Life Semi Sweet Chocolate Mini Chips, because that's our favorite allergy friendly chocolate. You'd better just go ahead and make a double batch because it's so delicious! I'm going to save all the crumbs left from break it up for ice cream topping. Sweet!

I'm linking up to the Heart 2 Heart gifts from the heart challenge and the Paper Issues Owl I Want for Christmas party.

Day 250: Gluten Free Halloween Treat Bags

If you have spent any time hanging around my blog, or Facebook, or Instagram, you may have noticed that we are a hard-core gluten free family. It's not hard at all to say no to the gluten goodies when they make you feel terrible...but it is hard to say no to the kiddos for so many things that their friends just get to do without the worry of will-that-make-me-sick, even if they do accept it with grace and good will. We do our best to find fun but safe gluten free options for the boys on holidays.  

At Convention this summer we got to make these adorable Halloween tags using Tasty Terrors during one of our crafting sessions. I tucked them into my bowl of extra goodies I'm not sure what to do with but too cute to toss out and there they sat all summer long. Today I dug them out and added them to these cute chevron gift bags that I have filled with gluten free candies from gluten free facilities so the boys can have a special treat after not digging into all the not gluten safe goodies surrounding them on Halloween. I added some black bows, because that's Max's favorite embellishment. I know they will be super excited to get a "present" for Halloween!

Day 90: Christmas and Gluten Free Dairy Free Chocolate Cupcakes

Today I was looking at the Cricut cuts hanging out in my bin, leftovers from when I built the Cricut boards for the Heirloom Pro Show. I love this Merry and Bright overlay!  

I mounted the overlay on bright red cardstock, inspired by the Muse Christmas Visions Challenge. I glittered the words with Cinnamon Stickles. Then I colored the ornaments with a green marker. I popped on a sequin and some bitty sparkles, then I outlined the edges with my stardust glitter gelly roll pen.

Today I spent the day with Max, hanging out with his PreK class at the park and then at a class BBQ. We brought these tasty cuppies, which are gluten free and dairy free. I adapted a few recipes to get to this cupcake, and I've linked those recipes belowin my adaption. I don't always bake dairy free, but I wanted every preK friend to be able to eat the dessert tonight. I've filled these with Dandies allergy friendly marshmallows in the past, but today I just piped a bit of extra frosting inside. I did not make these as tall as the high hat recipe I cited below, because no preschooler needs that much frosting. These came out fudgy and delicious - Enjoy! 

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Filled Lazy High Hat Cupcakes

Pinspired by Gluten Free on a Shoestring and The Mixing Bowl Diary

Makes 24

Cake: 

3 cups favorite gluten free flour 

1 1/2 TBSP xanthan gum (leave out if your blend already contains it)
1 3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups greek yogurt or sour cream or goat's milk yogurt if you need dairy free
1 cup coconut oil, melted
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups warm water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 24 cupcake cups or line with paper liners. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add wet ingredients and blend until thick and smooth. Scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely - then if you want to fill them, scoop out a small chunk of the center to make room for the filling. When the cuppies are totally cool,  pipe on the frosting. Pop those in the fridge for a few minutes to make sure the frosting is set. Add a spoonful of the ganache on top of the frosting, and top with your favorite allergy friendly sprinkle if desired. I stored them in the fridge until party time, and they held up well unrefrigerated at the party.

I took all the scooped centers and pressed them into a glass pan, I covered them with a thin layer of leftover frosting and poured the remainder of the ganache over the top.

GF/DF Frosting:
1 1/2 cups Palm Shortening
1/2 cup coconut cream, chilled
1/2 cup coconut oil
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Start with 2 cups of sugar, and add the rest of the ingredients. Beat the frosting until it's your desired stiffness, adding more sugar if necessary. It will hold it's shape better when refrigerated.

GF/DF Ganache:
1/2 cup coconut milk (or cream)
1 bag of Enjoy Life GF/DF chocolate chips

Place ingredients in a glass bowl. Place bowl on top of a medium saucepan of boiling water and stir until smooth.

  

10 Things We Buy Every Week and Soup

OK - I've been missing the Listicles as I work my way through the mounds of Convention Artwork I have to share, and this week's topic was easy to write about, so I'm taking a break from the artwork today to do some Family Journaling.

I'm not even going to try to make it crafting related...though sadly, I could. Instead I'm going to focus on the things we eat for our crazy, whole foods, gluten free, awesome diet lifestyle. We cook a LOT and GF/real foods takes up almost as much of my brain space as stamping, which says a lot! And I'm sharing the recipe for what we eat for lunch most days around here after my Listicle, so if you like soup, give it a try! If you don't like soup, try it anyways. It's delicious!

My crew of berry pickers

10 Things We Buy Every Week

1. Raw Milk - I travel 25 minutes to an amazing farm out by Newberg to get fabulous, wonderful raw dairy for my little clan of gluten sufferers. It's made a huge difference in our allergies and tummies, plus Farmer Charlotte is a rockstar who was recently featured in "Wise Traditions". She's as passionate about her cows (and our milk) as I am about stamping. Just sayin'.

2. Apples - Gabe is completely obsessed with apples. I try to buy seasonal at the farmer's market, but this boy is routine driven, and if an apple a day for snack time makes him calmer and happier, apples it is. 

3. Bananas - The other two kiddos in our house are bananas over bananas. I buy 6 every other day or so. Why? If I buy more they won't eat any, some kind of internal alarm that goes off and tells them to immediately stop eating all bananas so they can watch me go nuts over the waste of browning bananas. 

4. Butter - no margarine in this household! My enabling sister helped me pick out a huge sampling of local butters to find a replacement for my beloved Kerrygold until the GMO feed hooplah shakes out.  

5. Carrots, Onion, and Celery - plus other random veg, but always carrots, onion, and celery. Gabe claims to not eat any of them...yet he does, every single day. The trick? I puree the trio with chicken stalk and pour that in with any meat I brown up or pretty much anything I can stir it into easily. Someday I might tell him...for now I just giggle gleefully as he eats his mac and cheese.

6. Kefir - we buy unsweetened plain kefir to mix with the boys smoothies. Or drink with a spoonful of raw honey or crushed berries.

7. Applegate Salami/turkey - The boys favorite picnic lunch is either salami or turkey rolled up with...nothing. Handful of protein, party of three, please!

8. Bubbie's pickles - Any self respecting real foodie would probably ferment their own pickles. But the siren call of stamps keeps singing in my house, so we get our pickles from Bubbies - probiotic, crunchy, sour, oh-so-tasty! I even picked up a jar in Florida to munch while we were at convention. I'm eating a pickle right now...well, while I write this, probably not while you are reading it. Or maybe I am - I eat a pickle most nights around 8 p.m.! 

9. Tillamook Cheddar - We live in Oregon. We buy Tillamook cheddar, or as the boys call it, "yellow cheese". They don't eat American or other processed cheeses. I do sneak shredded Gouda  into lots of things for the Vitamin K. But the only cheese the boys will eat voluntarily is Tillamook cheddar. Or Mozzarella if it's on a nice GF pizza.

10. Something Seasonal - I try to buy veggies and fruits in season and from a local farmer if I can get it. Right now we're chowing on blueberries, picked by our own hands from local berry patches. It's fun for the boys, great for my pocketbook at $1.25-$1.50 a pound, and it always results in a nice afternoon nap time. 

Where's the meat, you ask? When I do recipes or people ask me about whole foods/GF I always mention that we eat a lot of meat. But we almost never get that at the store, as we have a great local farmer who fills our freezer with amazing beef and chicken. I've got a Smarty Pig account going for next year's goal of buying a pig from Farmer Chrissie. It's backwards from how I was taught, to save a little each week for the big meat bulk buy, but that discipline saves us so much in the long run while getting amazing pastured meats for my family....and there's something really nice about that well stocked freezer of possibilities. 

Gabe's Favorite Lunch Soup

2 Quarts Chicken Stock (homemade if you roll like that)

1 bag frozen organic sweet potato chunks

2 cups or so of chopped onions, carrots, celerey, leftover veg - cook's choice

Salt/Pepper to taste

Palmful of Garlic powder

Palmful of Onion Powder

Palmful of Dill...or Parsley...or a tsp of Garam Masala if you're adventurous

Saute the veggies in a spoonful of your oil of choice (coconut oil round these parts) until soft. Add stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until everything is soft. Puree in batches (or with a stick blender - I love my stick blender) until smooth as can be. Season to taste with your favorite spices.

Serve to pickiest child on the planet, call it chicken soup, and giggle to self as picky-pants eats soup with kale, white beans, and Indian seasoning while declaring it delicious so long as there are no lumps. Victory!

Ten Things I Learned in 2012

This week Stasha at The Good Life has tasked us with pondering 10 things we learned in 2012. So here's my eclectic list of self-introspection...it's gonna be a gluten heavy list, since it's our first year seriously gluten free, and it's made all the difference in the world.

1. I can get a lot of projects done in the middle of the night. I sketch during "spare" moments of the day, then once the boys are in bed (and responsibilities handled), I'm off to the Stamp Pad upstairs to get my craft on. Lately while I've been healing there's been a lot more sleeping, and less crafting, but the midnight crafter is back, and I am so glad to have my inky paws again!

2. We are not joking around about this gluten free thing. Even after we could see that it was doing good things for us I still kind of harbored an idea in the back of my head that I'm just not as sensitive to the gluten as my boys.  Eating in Dallas this summer cured me of that notion. Gluten free is not a phase. Sigh. Max is so sensitive that even licking the tables when we go out is enough to cause a gluten reaction now,  which for him is a very ugly eczema type rash all over his poor tiny body...that lasts for three weeks minimum...and causes people to ask if he's recovering from chicken pox.

3. It's almost impossible to get a two year old to stop licking tables, mouthing counters, and eating weird things from the floor in public without the use of a straight jacket. We may need to become shut-ins if we ever want the eczema to go away. All ideas to stop the madness accepted!

4. I am also not joking around about not being able to consume coffee. Apparently not only am I NOT less sensitive to gluten than my boys, I am not unable to tolerate coffee either. Even a tiny bit brings on an allergy attack of the like not seen since we first moved to Oregon in 2000. It is not pretty or pleasant. I mourn the loss of coffee more than the gluten.

5. Earl Grey tea is awesome...especially with an obscene amount of half and half. Not as good as coffee, but I'm getting this extra aged super strong Earl Grey now that totally rocks.

6. Hanging with my team (at Convention, Team Stamp, and even our monthly meetings) is guaranteed to be a rollicking good time. We laugh so much that I don't think it can be classified as work. Everyday I am grateful for my girls. They motivate me, inspire me, and make me laugh until my face hurts. They bring me Starbucks, and apples (for the teacher, lol), and so much joy. My team is the BEST part of this business.

7. Parent Teaching at Ben's coop preschool is so much fun. At first I was worried that the coop required too much time (keeping me from really important things, like blogging, right?). But while I'm there working with all those 4 year olds, there are no distractions or multi-tasking, no to-do lists or laundry piles. Ok, there is a laundry pile, but it's not my job there. So parent teaching is like a vacation from Crazy-town.

8. It is not necessary to recreate every gluten food in a GF version. At first I went nutty trying to make GF goldfish and GF waffles, etc... Life is much simpler when lunch consists of leftover chicken from last night's dinner, a bit of cheese and some veg or fruit. Boys don't care about fancy or variety. GF mac n cheese once a week is enough. Honey sweetened plain greek yogurt is enough. A simple apple is enough. (But here's the GF cheese cracker recipe that we use for special occasions when I feel like baking. These are amazingly tasty and not too tough to make.)

9. Pack GF food with you everywhere you go. Even if you don't think you'll need a snack. Pack extra. It is guaranteed to either be super expensive or nigh on impossible to buy a snack on the run....and the boys will be ready-to-tantrum-type starving if you leave the house without enough food to feed an entire preschool class. And the only thing you can buy will be a $2 Kind Bar which they will scarf in 3 seconds flat and ask for seconds...and thirds...times three boys. So much for the college fund!

10. Photo collages rock! How did I not know how to make these before this year? Now I can make the awesome BIG photo scrapbook sketches and fill in that big space with all the photos I LOVE so easily. Win-win, baby!


Finally, a bonus lesson from 2012. Blogging is awesome. People actually read what you write. And crafty blog followers are super nice, like when I met two friendly blog readers and fellow CTMH sisters at a craft fair this weekend (Hi!).  Blogging has completely changed my business. If you'd asked me a year ago, I'd never have guessed that I'd be where I am today, happily creating consultant kits and crafting midnight cards for my next blog post. When I hit my little health snag this fall, I really MISSED stamping and and blogging. It is so good to be back!

Thanks for reading, for your kind comments, for sharing your art with me on Friday Favorite Things (coming back soon!).

Happy Thanksgiving, Stampin' Friends!