Grateful Card {Happy Thanksgiving!}

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians! 

Products used:

• Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
• Patterned Paper - My Mind's Eye (ledger) & Bo Bunny (polka dot)
• Chipboard leaf - Basic Grey
• Baker's Twine - My Mind's Eye

I'm grateful for each of you. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, friends.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. 

Give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good. 

His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.

Psalm 100:4-5

Autumn Decor 2012

October is here & fall is in full swing. We had a beautiful September with lots of warm weather. Things are starting to feel cooler. The wind has picked up the last couple of days, resulting in a lot of fallen leaves... I've been seeing some trees that are already empty. That kind of makes me sad. Fall goes by so fast here in Saskatchewan.

I finally finished my fall decor last week. Since we don't have a mantle, I settle for doing some vignettes around our living room & kitchen.

Let's start in the living room, shall we?

I grouped a bunch of pumpkins together on a felt placemat from the dollar store.

I put some glittered pumpkins in my small lantern with some fake fall leaves.

The whole vignette.

In my large lantern, I placed a battery operated candle that runs on a timer. That way, it goes on automatically in the evening for a few hours.

I also covered some books in brown paper since their colours didn't jive with the whole fall theme I wanted.

I also have my happy fall wreath in the living room which I posted about last week.

In the kitchen, I simply put some fall-looking flowers in with the vignette I have up on time of my cabinets.

What have you done to decorate for fall?

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Fall Festival Festivities

  

  This past weekend, I shared a booth with a friend of mine, MJ, at our church's Fall festival. Today I thought I'd give you a peek at what I was selling. This was my portion of our table...

Clockwise from top left: Felt pinwheels decorating gift bags, felt pinwheels on gift boxes, I had them displayed in a small vintage suitcase, tissue paper flowers decorating gift bags, The whole shebang, a large tissue paper flower gift topper graced a brown paper wrapped box, place cards for Thanksgiving, a cache of handmade cards, & more pinwheel fun.

 Whew! It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun making all of this loot for this year's Fall Festival.

Stay tuned for some tutorials on how to make some of these goodies!!

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Enjoy your day!

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Chai Loaf with Cinnamon Glaze {My Favourite Fall Treat, Revisited}

Last fall, I shared with you my favourite fall treat - Chai Loaf. That's all well & good except for the fact that my blogging photography was pretty poor when I first started out. (Last year's photo - epic fail. Not pin-worthy. At. All.) Not that I'm so amazing now, but I like to think my photography skills have improved somewhat. 

So today, I'm revisiting my favourite fall recipe with new & improved photos. :)

Chai Loaf

Prep time: 15 min. Total time: 3 hrs. 55 min (includes cooling time)

Makes 1 loaf or 4 mini loaves (as pictured above)

Bread

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter or marg, softened

2 eggs

1/2 cup prepared tea (I like to use Pumpkin Chai from David's Tea)

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

3-5 tsp. milk

additional ground cinnamon

1) Heat oven to 350 F. Grease loaf pan with cooking spray.

2) In large bowl, beat sugar & butter with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in eggs, tea, milk, & vanilla on low speed until ingredients are well combined (will appear curdled) . Stir in remaining bread ingredients just until moistened. Spread in pan.

3) Bake 50-60 minutes for a full loaf (35 minutes for mini loaves) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean & slightly golden (do not underbake). Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack. Loosen sides of loaf from pan; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool 30 minutes.

4) In small bowl, stir powdered sugar, vanilla, & 3 tsp. of the milk, adding more milk by the teaspoonfuls, until spreadable. Spread glaze over bread. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly & store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

Note: I've had some feedback on some people having their loaf come out flat. You'll get the best results with a glass meat loaf type pan. If you're using a metal bread making type pan, you may end up with a loaf that isn't rounded at the top.

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As well as:

The Weekend Potluck

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Sheet Music Fall Wreath

Funny story: I actually made the base for this wreath back in June with absolutely no intention of using it for fall. I simply wanted to make a sheet music wreath. After I rolled the sheet music & glued it all together, I wasn't super pleased with the middle area. It looked unfinished. So, I set it aside, waiting for an idea to spruce up the centre.

There it sat, in my craft room, all summer. Only this weekend did I get inspired with an idea. It was easy too!

I cut a circle out of corrugated cardboard & hot glued it on.

Then, I hot glued on the clothes pins. 

And this is my favourite part: I clipped in the paper leaves (from Dollar Tree) & the letters which I cut out with my Cricut. The great thing is, after fall, I can switch out the leaves & "Happy Fall" for something more seasonal or something totally different!

It now has a proud home on my living room. I really like how it looks with the plum walls.

Yay! I'm excited that I was able to come up with a solution for something I wasn't sure would pan out.

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Thanksgiving Card

Here in Canada, we're only a couple of weeks away from Thanksgiving. Mmmm. This time of year is filled with wonderful memories of the past as well as opportunities to make new memories with friends & family. In preparation for Thanksgiving, I've made a couple of Thank You cards in autumnal colours & themes. Here's the first. I'll share the other design with you next Monday.

Products used:

Cardstock - Michael's

Patterned Paper - Bo Bunny (polka dot), Close To My Heart (plaid)

Stamps - Bo Bunny (swirl), Making Memories (gratitude)

Stamp Ink - Stampin' Up!

Chipboard acorn - Basic Grey

Thanks for reading. If you like what you see here on Silver Boxes, I'd love it if you would become a follower, 

subscribe by email (sign up on the right sidebar), or follow along on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. 

And please leave a comment when you do so I know who my new friends are! :)

Enjoy your day!

Check out the great parties I link up to!

Dutch Crumb Cake

Fall. It brings with it visions of colourful leaves, hot drinks on cool evenings, & homey flavours in the kitchen. 

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made this cake during the fall & winter months. I specifically remember my Grandpa really liking it & therefore receiving it for his birthday almost every December (along with a package of smoked cheese, a block of halva, & a bowl of marinated vegetable salad - funny the things we remember about our loved ones... those were some of his favourite foods.)

Anyway, back to cake.

As a kid, I didn't enjoy raisins in baking, so when my mom made this I would often eat the yummy crumb topping & then make up some excuse not to eat the rest. Happily, my tastes have become more refined over the years & now I enjoy this cake in its entirety. I think you will too. 

Dutch Crumb Cake

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 cup butter

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 cup evaporated milk

1 tsp. baking soda

1 egg, beaten

2 Tbsp. molasses

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350º & grease a 11"x7" baking pan.

Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles cornmeal. ***Reserve 1 cup of mixture for topping.***

Combine lemon juice & milk. Add baking soda & stir to dissolve. Add to flour mixture in bowl along with egg, molasses, & raisins; stir until dry ingredients are moistened. (Batter will be lumpy.) Turn into pan. Sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over top. Do not stir.

Bake 35-45 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack. May be served warm or cooled - delicious either way!

Thanks for reading. If you like what you see here on Silver Boxes, I'd love it if you would become a follower, 

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Indian Summer Cards {Basic Grey}

Earlier in the summer I made this little series of cards out some products from Basic Grey's Indian Summer line. 

I thought I would save them to share with you in the fall or when I when I was feeling a bit more excited about fall.

That time has come.

Recently, I found out that our church is holding another Fall Festival this year. This time, it's at the end of September instead of October. Because of that, I've been busy getting cards made for my friend, MJ, & my booth. 

And in thinking about fall & getting ready for it, I find I am becoming more & more excited for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to squeeze every last drop of fun & sunshine out of the last of summer before the kids go back to school after the long weekend in September. We still plan to go swimming a few more times, do more gardening, & have an end of summer bbq. Summer is not quite over.

And for that, I am grateful. :)

Thanks for reading.

Enjoy your day!

First Day of School Layout

  My crafty times have been pretty few & far between lately. It's been a very busy spring for us & now that the school year is winding down, I'm really starting to look forward to having whole summer days to get some fun projects done. 

  As the last day of school draws nigh, I'm just now scrapbooking photos from the first day of school. :) 

Products used:

• Red paper - Echo Park
• Yellow & green cardstock - Die Cuts With A View
• Blue polka dot paper - Bo Bunny
• Yellow lined paper, ABC border, & red letter stickers - Sassafras Lass
• Yellow ruler border - Little Yellow Bicycle 
• Tag - unknown
• Small letter stickers - Making Memories
• Apple sticker - We R Memory Keepers
• ABC sticker - October Afternoon
• Ribbon - My Mind's Eye

Has it been a busy spring for you? Are you looking forward to summer as much as I am? 

Enjoy your day!