Charging All Your Gear {Together} When You Travel

  Picture this: You are on a trip (maybe a road trip), staying in a hotel. In the morning, you check out & are on the road for hours before you realize you forgot your camera battery, or your iPod, or your child's gaming device, or your cell phone, or your laptop behind in the hotel room because it was charging in the bathroom or on the floor beside the bed?

Nightmare.

  Hopefully, you'll be able to get whatever you left behind back before too long, but it's such a hassle, right? 

  Here's a tip to help you keep all your "chargeables" together in one place. Hopefully, somewhere in plain sight where you won't forget any of it when you leave.

  It's really simple. Pack a power bar.

Plug in the power bar in a obvious spot - somewhere near the door or on the desk, if possible. Then load up all your electronics that need to be charged. 

I've got my camera battery charger, my cell phone, my son's iPod, & our laptop all charging here in one spot!

Viola! Everything together in plain sight & charged when it's time to pack up & leave.

Problem solved.

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Splash Layout {Echo Park}

  I'm almost finished showing you the pages I've done so far from our summer holiday. Which means... I have many more to get to! I will have to put the scrapbooking aside for a bit, though, while I get ready for the craft fair I have a table at in November. 

  These photos were taken in Oceanside, CA in August. After a hot day at Legoland, my mom-in-law, my daughter, & I took a walk down to the beach. It felt so nice to put our feet in the ocean!

Products used:

• Cardstock: American Crafts
• Patterned paper, stickers, tags - Echo Park
• Felt accents - Pebbles
• Badge - American Crafts

Thanks for reading! Have a good one!

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles {Echo Park}

  How was your weekend, friends? Good, I hope! My son started playing basketball on a community team & his first game was this weekend. They ended up losing the game, but they improved as it went on & they show great promise for the future.

  I was also invited to be a part of a craft fair coming up at the beginning of November. I'll be sharing a table with a friend of mine. Because it's getting close to Christmas, I'm now working on some Christmas crafts I can have available for sale at the craft fair. Busy, busy!

  "One Little Baby... Many Happy Hearts". That's the sentiment on the stamp that I wanted to use for these baby cards I made a couple weeks ago. Paired with these plane, train, & car stickers, it just made sense to use it as part of the exhaust & steam. With a little doodling added in, I really love how they turned out!

I'm happy they turned out so cute!

Products used:

• Patterned paper & stickers - Echo Park
• Stamp - Stampin' Up!
• Cardstock - American Crafts

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Enjoy your day!

Apple Streusel Muffins {Revisited}

Last week, I had a HUGE surprise! My chai loaf went crazy on Pinterest & exploded in views in just one week! Thank you, everyone! 

I figured after updating the photos on that recipe, it took off, so I should do the same with some others. 

My next update:

These tasty, moist muffins have a crumbly brown sugar topping - so delicious! You can also reduce the fat by using a bit of applesauce, but not sacrifice any of the flavour. Enjoy!

APPLE STREUSEL MUFFINS
makes 12

Topping:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. butter, softened
1/8 tsp. cinnamon

In small bowl, rub together topping ingredients until crumbly. Set aside.

Muffins:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil (or to reduce the fat, use 1/8 cup unsweetened applesauce & 1/8 cup canola oil)
3/4 cup finely chopped or shredded apple

Mix dry ingredients. Set aside. Mix wet ingredients. Combine both until just moistened. Do not over mix. Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle with topping. Bake in 400º F oven for 15-20 minutes.

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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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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

This recipe was featured on:

Thrifty Makeovers {Earring Tray & Basket}

  In the last couple weeks, I've shared with you some of my recent thifty finds. Some were good as-is & some needed a bit of refreshing.

Remember what this tray used to look like? With a couple of coats of spray paint (Krylon - Global Blue), it's now a pretty display for my earrings.

And this basket was a bit worn out & dirty. With a bit of clean up & some spray paint (same colour as the tray), it now sits in my closet, holding my scarves & small purses.

Another successful thrifty challenge!

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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This project was featured on: