HAPPY 2013~~

NEW YEAR new plans, resolutions, goals, and best of all adventures!!
I want to let yall know on a new adventure for me!!  Creative Times Magazine which is a fabo online crafting mag has allowed me to be their new quick tips article writer!!  I am excited!!  You will find it here:
www.creativetimesmagazine.com   and best of all they are working on it not only being an online mag you could also order a hard copy!! I will be doing that!!
my first article of tips is in there!!    I am inspired so wrote up the next article last night for the march/april issue.

And onto new plans:  I have a few new projects I so want to make and some of them are ideas from the most wonderful online site  PINTEREST!! oh my love love LOVE that place!!  I can so get lost on the site!! If you havent visited please do do but be warned!! LIMIT yourself!!  hours pass quickly on there and I dont get much accomplished around here!! LOL oh well!! I have 50 some boards and find new things to pin by the minute.......no second!! 
here's a link to my boards:::   http://pinterest.com/chickenscratch/
And dont you know my boys have their own board!! LOL I need to put some more pics of them on there soon.           New goals: I have a few do you?  I really want to try making some great altered mixed media jewelry pieces.  I have visions in my mind but just have to incorporate that into actuallly doing...ya know.    Another goal would be to clean up and.....oh that dreaded word............organize my craft studio!! It has become a dumping ground if you will for everything!!  I can't even think of being creative in there anymore!! =(  time has come to pitch the unwanted unused items. 

Onto some of the things I did just before xmas.  

Susan made this beautiful chocolate mint torte.  Layers of decadent moist chocolate cake with peppermint infused buttercream topped with luscious chocolate ganache' and some marizpan holly!  Oh so yummylicious!!

chocolate dipped butter squares   and they were addicting too!!

my mom decorated some little sugar cookie trees for on our cookie trays and boxes. 

our popular red raspberry filled linzer tart cookies!!

some twisted candy cane butter cookies Susan made.  These were soooooooo yummo!! 

Old milkcan for my hubby's boss.  I was very pleased with how this turned out.  I had sectioned the painted area off with chalk, *hint* chalk wipes off with no marks, use it all the time when painted signs or pretty much anything.   hubby sandblasted the area and left the rest of can it's lovely rustiness!!

OK OK!~! I got up on christmas eve at 2 am to finish this block set for my little darling neice, so yes!! can u see it!!!  I didnt until her mommy and her unwrapped it!! I will be making another R for it!! LOL

I used vintage seam binding in brown for the outside edges, painted the blocks light sage green and mod podged the awesome My Mind's Eye papers and some little pearl accents.  My cricut finally got to get used!!  I have had it sitting on a work table poor baby neglected..... I can see using that alot this year!! I have alof of things to make!! 

And a couple last minute signs I painted for gifts!  Love those snowmen and a bit unhappy to not paint them til next winter!! sad!!=( 

maybe if we had some snow I would paint them more!! but we see grass!!

 

Love this guy!! I did one similar for my shows and the lady that bought it loved it so much she ordered 2 more.

Love this one too!! 

So that is about all for today.  Hope yall had a wonderful happy safe new years!!  My mom and I went out to lunch yesterday, did a bit of shopping and then came home.

 Hubby and I stayed home with the "boys" last night, watched tv, played games and had popcorn!! What a wonderful evening and start to the new year!!  Love my boys and our family!

Have a great day! be back soon!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

More goodies to share!!

Here's a peek at some of the things we made friday for saturday market.
My chunky tomato soup with noodles.  Yummy!! I had a bowl last night for dinner!

soups ready for market

cut up french bread loaves for my pumkin bread pudding

pumpkin bread pudding with maple syrup glaze

oh so yummy!!  bread pudding ready for the oven

blueberry lemon muffins

blueberry buttermilk cake

my mom applied my "farmgirl bling" lemon glaze to the cakes

italian herb foccacia loaves

we picked some lucky john apples from at the kitchen to use for apple crisp and apple zucchini bread *which by the way is one of the most delish breads I have had!!!

muffins waiting for topping

lemon glazed lemon tea cakes

We also made some banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, krispy chocolate chunk cookies with cocoa rice krispies, espresso cookies, and some of my chunky maple applesauce.

IT was a beautiful saturday to be out at market.  Thanks to everyone for coming out to South Haven market.

Have a blessed weekend!!

be back soon with some prim halloween handmades I am finishing up today!!

HUGS

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Hey yall!! WOW it is almost 1/2 way thru August already!! where the heck do the days go??  wayyyyyyyyy to fast that is for sure!
So last week my mom and I were busy busy!! We had the annual blueberry festival in South Haven on saturday and then I had market thurs in Allegan plus we had lots of rain and storms again and more coming possibly tonight!!  Fingers crossed we dont loose power again!   We roasted some zucchini slices for the vegetable lasagna.  Oh my goodnes!! zucchini at it's finest here!! I will never never ever fry it again!! We sliced them lenghwise into thin strips, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper then placed in a hot oven for 10 minutes.  These were better than any kind of fried veggies~~I think this week we are gonna make some zucchini chips.  Keep them in the oven a bit longer til crunchy!~~ cant wait!!~

tater gnocchi ready for sauce!

Gnocchi dressed and chillin

coconut macaroons  YUMMY!!

these are my zucchini lasagna pans

My mom decided to add a bit of bling to them and sliced up some fresh tomatoes and parm cheese

this was a squash casserole, we topped it with crumbled butter crackers, only Ritz will do for this job!! LOL and baked til golden!!

Our newest idea!! Cake cup parfaits!! We did my loaded carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and then red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting *oops forgot those pics* they looked so amazingly yummy!!

5 sheets of my cinnamon graham crackers baking

all done and baked to crunchy perfection!

red velvet cupcakes patiently waiting for their filling.  I take an apple corer, pull out the centers and add cream cheese frosting up over the top and then top with crumbled cake.  they looked wonderful!  Red velvet is probably my favo cake!!

homemade gazpacho, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, herbs blended up.  I did leave it a bit on the chunky side and it was delish!!

Swiss chard, zuccchini, sweet red peppers, red onions and pork sausage sauteeed for the breakfast casseroles. 

dilly beans out of the canner

rustic round rosemary loaves  so yummy and super easy peasy to do! The recipe is in my album on pinterest  Darlene Stumpf-Westfahl

Farmers morning breakfast casserole 

my mom aka pretzel princess did 2 pans of these up.  First dipped in homemade caramel, then in our milk/dark chocolate and rolled in chopped peanuts.  

So that is about it for now to share!!  This is gonna be a full week too.  Tues night market in Kalamazoo, Thurs Allegan, Saturday South Haven, we have a full day baking tomorrow!! cookies, breads, cakes, muffins. 

Be back soon to share more!!

Hugs

Darlene

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~

Sunshiney days and a snippett roll

It has been forever since I last posted. Tried a few times right after valentines day but my pics were taking wayyyyyyyy too long and I had a busy week so didnt have time to keep monkeying around with blogger.  Maybe it was our puter but I really dont think so.  Well I am back and will be posting more things I am working on.  

I had a cookie making festival at the kitchen before valentines day.  Chocolate chip, peanut butter, peanut butter cream filled cookie pies, espresso cookie pies with espresso infused buttercream filling, chai infused shortbread flowers, shortbread hearts, and chocolate chip cookie pies with peanut butter cream filling.  WHEW!! that was a busy busy day. 

Here are a few pics of some of the arrangementes we made for the shop for that wonderful day St Valentines!! 

These were my favo rose this year!~ they opened up just beautifully and those colors were magnifiscent. 

And on to my lastest project!! A snippett roll!!  WHAT fun this was to make!~~  4 of my friends on my craftin forum decided to do a snippett roll swap.   They are really a great way to use up all bits and pieces of wellllllllllll snippetts of this that and everything else.   So I got out some stamps, some pieces of lace, fabric bits, some beads and some scraps in my scrapbook paper stash, and of cource buttons!~! 

Fibers and ribbons and lace oh my!!!  what fun! 

The black backround fabric was perfect!! I found it while out thrift store shopping with my mom and brother, it had flowers embroidered all over it in a silvery shimmery thread so that blended in just great.   I can say I would do one of these again!! it was so fun to be creative and unique.   When I get all 5 of them I am gonna connect them and will share those pics.  

Well I am off to maybe work outside, we have had sun almost all week and in the 40s so it has been so like early spring round here and I for one am loving this!!  Should go to the kitchen and work on some things but I can do that tomorrow!!  I did make up calzones and they went over really well, our chicken pot pies were all gone before 11 am at market friday and my vegetable pasties went almost just as quickly.  Gotta make more of my pie dough and with a full menu out this week I gotta get busy!!  Hope yall have a blessed sunday and I will be back soon!!

HUGS

*DARLENE*

I wanted this to be on the prim side and the first one I started working on just wasnt gonna be prim enough for me so I started over with a new idea in mind.  My theme if you will for these was "take time to create"  I cut out pics of clocks and sewn them onto old vintage sheet music papers, the words create art is stamped onto a heart cutout, Love is stamped onto a piece of muslin that opens up to reveal a ticket stub and a verse about happiness. 

~~LIVE LIFE JOYFULLY~~and SIMPLY~~