Random.org says the winner is:

Which would be…

Beverly, you are the new owner of a set of AmeriColor food-safe markers.  I’ll be getting in touch soon to get delivery information.  Thanks to everyone who entered.

We now return you to your Super Bowl Sunday pre-game crafting.

Our lovely hostess is Paulette from {Around the Block with Scrapalette}.  You should have arrived from Cindy’s blog {In Love With Paper}, but if you didn’t that’s okay!  Jump in here or go back to Paulette’s page and follow on the fun to the end.  The list of my fellow hoppers is at the bottom of the post.  There might be a little bit of a giveaway down there too.  Maybe.

If you came here looking for a paper project, you’re going to be disappointed today.  I decided to go a different direction and broke out my Cricut Cake.  I love this little machine almost as much as I love my regular Cricut Expression.

I’ve been baking since I was eight years old (that’s 28 years for those who like to count), and sugar cookies are one of my favorite things to make.  For me, decorating is relaxing. A stress-reliever of sorts. Sure, my hands and back hurt for a couple days after a big session, but it’s worth the while.

For many years, I avoided cutout sugar cookies like the plague.  It was my mother rubbing off on me though.  She had never had good luck, and I didn’t want to try.  But with the internet comes recipes. Mounds and gobs and thousands of recipes. After a little experimentation (and more than a few failures), I finally found a recipe that works.  It’s {the best rolled sugar cookies} recipe from AllRecipes.com, and they truly live up to their name.

The secret to successfully moving dough from the cutting surface to the pan is to roll the dough out on a silicone baking mat with plenty of flour. Don’t be afraid to use flour!

My collection of cookie cutters is huge, filling almost an entire shelf in the basement.  However, the three I chose for this project are quite special.  They were my grandmother’s, and I refuse to part with them. Ever!

Each one measures 3″ across, and they are absolutely perfect for topping with icing or gum paste.

Yes, gum paste.  It’s a baker’s playdough.  Stretchy, rubbery, sweet, and it dries hard if/when left out in the air too long.  It’s also one of the best things to cut with the Cake.

I use the recipe from { cricut.com/cake }. It’s easy to work with and tastes so SO much better than store-bought stuff.  The only ingredient that I didn’t have on hand was tylose powder.  Don’t let the fancy-schmancy name fool you…Wilton sells it as Gum-Tex.  You can find it right next to the meringue powder and cake coloring in the craft stores.  I ordered it from Amazon, though I could/should have picked it up at my favorite little cake supply store.

Don’t get on me about the corn syrup.

Or the Crisco.

Or the gelatin.  Really.  Just don’t.

I use my KitchenAid with the dough hook to do most of the mixing, but do finish it by hand to make sure the texture is right.  The hardest part of the whole thing is getting the color mixed in.  I use paste coloring, but you could use powdered or gel as well.  Stretching and twisting the gum paste like taffy works great.  Unfortunately, I ran out of red paste before I got to the color I really wanted (red), so we’re going with a dark pink that looks almost salmony.

After you get the gumpaste to the color you want, roll it out on your silicone mat or a piece of parchment as thin as you can get it.  Mine was about 1/8″ thick..  Then transfer it to a cutting mat that you’ve slathered with Crisco.

Roll it out a little more to make sure there are no air bubbles trapped, and pop the sheet into the freezer for 30-45 minutes.  This will help solidify the Crisco to the gumpaste, sticking it to the mat so it doesn’t slide around while in the machine.  Don’t forget this part!! Take my word for it…it ain’t pretty.

Now how to get the shapes?  Well, you can cut with your machine directly, but I can never get things sized right that way.  I’m a visual person and prefer to design in {Cricut Craft Room}, export the file to my Gypsy, and hook her up to the machine to do the cutting.

 If I had grabbed a little more gumpaste when I started, the entire mat would have been filled.  As it was, I made due with what I had.

Even so, it didn’t turn out exactly as planned.  You can see a heart in the upper left and one on the lower right got cut off.  Oops!  That’s definitely something you have to watch out for.

After pealing the shapes from the mat, and letting them dry overnight, I got out my handy dandy food-safe markers and did a little doodling with my AmeriColor Gourmet (food-safe) Writers.  I love these markers for sugar cookies.  My girls like to use them on plain, unfrosted cookies.  Crazy kids!

What’s next? Icing!  A lot of people use royal icing on their sugar cookies.  In my opinion, it’s flavorless, and I hate how hard it gets! Breaking the teeth of your guests is NOT something I recommend.  Instead, I’ve migrated to using a glaze.  It dries shiny and doesn’t layer like royal icing does, but it tastes a whole lot better and there’s no work involved in eating that cookie.  Again, the recipe I use comes from AllRecipes.com.

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp corn syrup
2 tsp milk
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/8 tsp lemon extract
1/4 tsp clear vanilla

Add milk, just a few drops at a time, to get it to the consistency you want it.  I use a piping bag and a #4 tip to do my outlines.  Then I thin the glaze down with a few drops of milk and spoon it into the center to fill out the rest of the cookie top.  This is when the gum paste toppers go on, too.

When the icing was dry, I mixed some luster dust with a few drops of vodka and painted shimmers on some of the toppers.  Apparently, I did things out of order this week.  Not sure what I was thinking.  This is what can happen when you use too much vodka.  It bled all over the place.

Don’t do it this way!  Here’s the right order…

1. paint with luster dust
2. color with markers
3. ice cookies and top with gum paste goodies

And here are the final results.

The black & white topped cookies were done with one of Wilton’s patterned sugar sheets.  I’m afraid I can’t give this product a good review.  The sheet I had was dry and brittle.  And it tasted like…well, it tasted a lot like slightly sweetened paper.  Certainly not the kind of thing I would serve company.  So while it’s pretty, I won’t be using it again.  I’d rather spend a little more time coloring with my AmeriColor markers.

And speaking of markers.  Who wants a set?  One (1) lucky duck is going to receive a new set of 10 AmeriColor (food-safe) Gourmet Writers. Leave a comment below (don’t forget to include your email address) for a chance to win.

 The winner will be chosen at random and announced Saturday, February 4th.

Your next destination is a visit with Michele from {MicheleGreen.com}. I’ll see you there!

Here’s the whole list…just in case you came in somewhere in the middle and want to see what everyone has in store.

1. Paulette from http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/
2. Dana from http://danascraftycorner.blogspot.com/
3. Beth from http://thunderbirdlindybydesign.blogspot.com/
4. Sis from http://papercraftscissors.wordpress.com/
5. Doreen from http://polkadotpaperprincess.blogspot.com/
6. Cindy from http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/
7. Deb from http://www.queenmommy.com/ ** You are Here ** 
8. Michele from http://www.michelegreen.com/
9. Carolyn from http://cccscraproom.blogspot.com/
10. Colleen from http://scrappycol.blogspot.com/
11. Elizabeth from http://www.217creations.com/
12. Sukie from http://www.scrappindhilly.blogspot.com/
13. Sharon from http://designsbysharon.blogspot.com/
14. Renee from http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/
15. Tammy from http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/
16. Brenda from http://happyscrapper64.blogspot.com/
17. Amy from http://scrap-pix.blogspot.com/
18. Jami from http://thepaperfarm.blogspot.com/
19. Terri from http://scrappinwiththebug.blogspot.com/
20. Meg from http://peacockpaperie.blogspot.com/

Thanks for joining me for a little bit of fun in the kitchen!   Hope to see you again soon!

Spent a good portion of this evening making a little surprise to go in the boxes I’m sending out for a Valentine’s Day swap.  So so cute!  I promise to share…eventually, but want to keep it a secret until after reveal day.

Last night, I was up late making gum paste hearts for a quickly approaching deadline.  That’s right, the Love is in the Air Blog Hop is on Saturday!

I’ll have all the details soon.  But for now, here’s a hint (and some of you won’t be terribly surprised), I’ve been hanging out in the kitchen.  First there was a little bit of flour action.

Then I broke out the sugar…and the” power tools.”

I hope you’ll come back on Saturday to see what I’ve been up to, and then to join in on the rest of the hop.

I have been keeping a list of project that need to be done over the next few weeks. Many of them have a Valentines Day focus, which may seem odd for someone with no love life. Well be doing cute and fun…not romantic. Bear with me. Please! With enough chocolate, we’ll get through the lovey-dovey holiday without shedding any tears and then move in to bigger projects.

Pinky swear.

In the meantime, here’s a quick list of some of the things I plan to tackle soon:

• tiny mailboxes
• “sour cream tube” valentines
• cookies, gum paste, and food-safe markers
• love is in the air {a v-day blog hop}
• kitchen re-organization
• crochet dish scrubbies
• Cricut circle valentine swap
• what to do with a stuffed fireplace

Whew! I’m tired just reading that list, and I’m sure I will think of other things to add to it.

I know blogs without photos are boring, and I’m sorry that I don’t have anything new to share today. How about a little eye candy?

What? I like cowboys!

Over the next few days Ill be working on a new template for my blog here. Im hoping it loads a little faster, looks a little better, and is a tiny but easier to maintain.

So keep your eyes open! And please dont freak out if Im down for a day or two during the transition. In trying to make thing seamless, you sometimes have to get a little creative.

Were talking 4:00 early. 4:00 with a kid and a tummy ache early. It could have been worse. She wasnt throwing up all over the place.

My beautiful 8-year old has reflux and is lactose intolerant. She always has been, but sometimes its worse than others. Apparently our dinner choice of creamy potato soup and ice cream for dessert didnt sit well.

Yeah, Im totally in the running for Mom of the Year.

Totally.

My latest completion is this beauty.

And some details of the days…

I actually started this project a few months ago.  I started with 4 (yes four) coats of magnetic paint.  That dried for about a week before I added 2 coats of chalkboard paint.  I waited that long because I started on Sunday and didn’t have enough time to finish before having to go back to work.  This was also during soccer season, so…well, I think you can guess how much “free time” I had at that point.

The plain chalkboard was great, and the girls were getting a lot of use out of it.  However, it didn’t fit the vision I had for the wall.

Then I got my Cricut (insert evil laugh here) and everything changed.  I added the vinyl lettering a little over a week ago, and love the way it turned out.  The red and white letters really pop on the black background, and the girls are staying on top of me to stay on top of the menu planning.

Win. Win.

Products used:

• Rust-oleum Magnetic Primer (4 coats)
• Rust-oleum Black flat chalkboard paint (2-3 coats)
• Oracle 631 vinyl in Cloud White and Ruby Glitter
• Cricut Light Chore Chart cartridge
• Cricut Lyrical Letters font cartridge

Your blogs make me sad when you beat yourself up with words of unnecessary harm.

You’re not a bad mom. You never were. The fact that you realize what you’ve done that goes against everything you learned about right and wrong shows that you’re not a bad mom.

You love your babies (however old they may be).  You’re not a bad mom.

You provide food, clothes (they’re usually clean) and safe shelter.  You’re not a bad mom.  And even if the shelter  you provide isn’t perfectly safe, if you’re doing the best you can do with what you have, you’re still not a bad mom!

Please, please, please stop beating yourselves up!

None of us are perfect.

None of us have never made a mistake.

We are moms who care deeply for our children. It is our nature to criticize our short falls.  But let’s understand where our faults really come from.

We’re human.  Every single one of us.  We’re going to fail in some way every day.

If we can love our faults as much as we love our strengths, we can truly love ourselves.

Should I admit that I don’t remember ever having had goat cheese before?  I really didn’t know what to expect.  Separate, both the cake and filling were “eh” to my tastebuds.  The cake was a little bland, even though it was both sweet and spicy.  The filling had a tangy/salty punch that I wasn’t expecting.

The combination though…wow.  It was like a party in my mouth.  The flavors really melded together in a beautiful way.

1/3 of these went into the freezer for testing.  I’ll take them out for New Year’s Eve and update with the results of that.  This may be one where the cake part is fine to freeze, but the filling would do better having been made fresh the day of serving.  I’ll let you know!

The class I loved the most was called Kookie Kutter Kraze.  See, I’ve been a baking nut since I made my own birthday cake at the of 10. Mom got me the Wilton’s Strawberry Shortcake pan, and I did it all by myself.  She was beautiful!

But today’s recipe isn’t about cakes.  It’s about the wonderful gingersnap recipe I came home with from my introduction to cookie cutters.  Before that day, I hadn’t really made shaped cookies.  My mother’s experience with sugar cookies had been so terrible to that point that we never made them.

Enter my new friend the gingersnap.

This particular recipe was published in the December 1969 issue of Woman’s Day magazine.  The cookies have become a family staple, and are still the only rolled out/cut out cookies that my mother makes.  I’ve since found an excellent sugar cookie recipe, but we’ll save that for another day.

This year, the girls wanted tiny little (1 1/2″) gingerbread girls.  So that’s what we made.  I can fit 63 of the little buggers on one of my pans.  I think we got 5 pans out of about half the dough.  That’s a lot of little gingersnaps!