Coffee Frosting recipe

Instead of posting a weekly menu, which wasn't terribly exciting this week - lots of salads, I thought I would share a recipe I made over the weekend. Sunday was the husbands birthday and as a tradition he got to choose a cake. This birthday a Coffee Cake with Coffee Frosting was requested. Peter told me that they use to have a similar cake when he was young, so I was a little extra determined to create a really good cake for the b-day boy!

For the cake part, just the basics were used; flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, salt, milk, vanilla and butter. Now for the frosting it took 2 tries in order to get it right. My mistake on the first run? Butter. I don't use it so I tried, unsuccessfully, using a spread which was a total waste of time. After a quick trip to the grocery store I was ready for a round 2. Here's the recipe!

Coffee Frosting

ingredients
1/2 tsp. of instant coffee grounds, crushed to a powder
pinch of salt
1/8 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar/ confectioners sugar * you can add a little more or less depending on how sweet you like your frosting to be*
1/2 tsp. vanilla

directions
Mix coffee powder, salt, and butter in a medium sized bowl with an electric mixer, and beat until butter is smooth. Add half of the powdered sugar and milk into the butter mixture, and mix to incorporate. Add the remaining sugar and milk and mix at low speed to incorporate. Beat frosting at a med-high speed until desired consistency is reached. *I mixed my frosting on a high speed for about 6-8 minutes.*

This frosting was a whipped, buttery, sweet topping that was a perfect match to the dense coffee cake and Peter agreed! Success!

a question for you

As I sit here on the couch tonight, not scrapbooking, a thought popped into my head. If you had to choose a scrapbook challenge to contribute to, what type of challenge would you be more apt to play along with? Of course I know your first choice would be my Color Challenge with Crate paper, ;) so what would be your 2nd choice?

{ I did however make 2 more garlands today.... at least something creative was accomplished!!}

LakeBay ~ Crate

**eta** I know that the new product collections for Crate haven't shipped yet, so if you're asking yourself about that Denim color I chose for this color combo, here's my idea to remedy this conundrum. The Denim, is only a shade, don't worry about the teture! For this challenge I'll allow any shade of Denim that you'd like to use. Check out this color chart for lot's of denimy (is that even a word?) blue shades!


If you have time to scrapbook this next week, I posted my Color Challenge on the Crate Paper blog yesterday. Have I mentioned that the winner from this challenge gets to choose a any Crate collection as a prize? Not too shabby right? If I were to win, at my own challenge, it would be a toss up between the new Random Collection (which is so totally me!) or the Portrait
Collection. :)




This month's color combo is called "The Lakebay House." This actually wasn't my first choice for a color combo for the month, I had a different combo picked out and my finicky taste changed at the last moment and I went with Lakebay instead. Turns out though, this was the much better choice! I hope everyone likes it as much as I did!!!






I also had time to make a mini of little Chase! Just like this mini I chose a subject and took a series of photos to use. It's a simple idea for an album! The fabric pages are fabric swatches, (I scored an entire book of swatches from a local upholstery fabric store!) and the fabric tabs at the top of each page are from Home Depot.












Do you any crafty plans for the weekend? I'm going to try and spend a little time scrapbooking this afternoon and I'll be trying out a new coffee cake recipe sometime today. I don't think there could be a better way to spend a Saturday!! Happy creating!

one summer photo

anyone up for a photo challenge? If you could describe summer by only using a photo, what would that photo be of? How do you see summer? I still view summer as wild flower laced fields near grandmas house in Grass Valley. Summer afternoons spent playing in the creek and evening horse back rides. Fishing down at the pond with Grandpa and crafty summer art projects. Every summer held so many possibilities and every day was a new adventure to be had. My color combo for tomorrow is very reminiscent of summer-time! If you post a summer photo, let me know where so I can see too!

a week's worth of work

yep. 1 week, 4 layouts, 2 little books, a custom order and a bunch of lists for the next 5 months of challenges and I think I'm ready to wrap everything up! I should be getting back to a normal schedule soon. I do love my craft time though, staying up until 2am every night sewing and painting is about as adventurous as it gets for me..... the life of being a mommy is quite simple. :)

Here's a little detail of a layout for Crate Paper. I'll be posting on their blog this Friday. It's Crate's Color Challenge time again! It's a different color combo for me, and definitely one that wasn't as common and yet it's quickly become one of my favorites. Can't wait for everyone to see it!



I think I'll do a photo post tomorrow. I've been collecting some pretty photos and have yet to post them anywhere. I'm calling it an early night, I need to have a super productive day tomorrow. Good night all!

Food talk: 7-26

Funny how Monday's seem to fly by. It's likely because our Mondays are most peoples Sunday, it's our family/errands/laundry day. So, while I would like to keep my menu's on track for posting every Monday.... it rarely happens. Tuesday is fast becoming the new Monday. :)

Menu Outline for 7-25 by TaraAnderson on Polyvore.com

Weekly Menu

Monday:
Chicken Linguine w/ Pesto
Watermelon
Garden Salad

Tuesday:
BLT Cobb Salad (w/ turkey bacon)
Grilled Naan Bread
melons with strawberry's & mint

Wednesday:
Lemon & Herb Fish Cakes
Romaine Leafs with Salad Shrimp & Avocado
Couscous
Honeydew melons

Thursday:
Grilled Strip Steak
Spinach Salad w/ strawberries, red onion, feta cheese and pan roasted sourdough croutons - poppy seed dressing
Roasted Baby Potatoes w/ herb spread

Friday:
BBQ Chicken Salad (tomato, roasted corn, avocado, black beans, grilled chicken)
Watermelon
Berry Lemonade

I haven't thought of anything yet for Saturday's dinner. Sometimes when it gets this hot out, it's hard to be interested in food and we end up eating alot of salads and sandwiches. Things that are easy and light... and generally simple. While I was in Oregon, I found some of my grandmother's & great grandmother's hand written recipes that had been saved all these years. My grandmothers family is German, so a few of the recipes were for things like Sauerkraut Cake and lots of Sourdough recipes. I'm determined to find and recreate at least one of the recipes this week. :) Wish me luck and happy start to a good week!

it's Friday!

I'm home. Back to my tiny casa in the desert. We arrived home on Monday and I was just telling a friend today that I always go through a readjustment phase when I return home. I've cleaned, dusted, mopped, purchased a new vacuum cleaner, rearranged the furniture a couple of times, hung new/old artwork and reorganized my stuff again & again just for the sake of needing to get reacquainted with my space. Does anyone else do this?

While we were at my grandparents house I found a couple of milk glass dishes. I adore milk glass, I cluster different shapes and sizes together to organize my collections. The small dish type bowls are my fav, oh and the pedestal bowls too! I have a tray on my dresser for jewelry and another tray full in my craft room.

(I'll take some more detialed photos of my craft space as soon as I have some better lighting!)

I made my sister take me to one of her favorite antique stores in Florence where we came across someone's vintage bird collection as well as some nifty cameras. I walked away with 2 phesants, a vintage Kodak Brownie and this vinatge Revere movie camera. Cute isn't it! It still makes the noise of the old films when you turn the dial. :) It's the little things in life that make everday special and interesting!

scenes from the beach #2

I just discovered that the Safeway's in Florence has wifi. Woo-hoo! and a Starbucks, double woo-hoo! A few more photos of our trips to the beach. The kids are in love with sea shell searching and sea-gull chasing and making sand angels. Yep, those are my children. :) Just a few more days on the Oregon coast and we're home bound for Phoenix. Oh, and I have been taking videos of our vaca but trying to figure out how to upload them has proven a tad bit tricky. I knew I should have read the manual pre-trip! Have a splendid weekend!

summer journal idea:

I wanted to post last week, but forgot all about it! At the beginning of the year in Alaina's 1st grade class, her teacher handed out journals to each of the students. I believe that they had an allotted time each day to quietly write on their journals. It was so cute skimming through Alaina's journal at the end of her school year. She wrote about how much she loves her little brother, that she wants to be an artist when she grows up because "I'm really good at it," and about how much she and her dad love bacon..... the inner workings of a 6 year are quite humorous.

When Alaina asked me to make her a summer journal that she could take along with her on our trip, I starting thinking of an idea for what could be used to create the front and back cover of the journal. (It would have been easier to just use a compisition notebook but I really wanted something on a smaller scale. Pocket size or just a little larger.) I scoured my craft room looking for the right size chipboard to use as covers but didn't really find anything terribly useful...... until I saw a box of greeting cards!

A greeting card would make a perfect little journal! They're already folded and cute cards are readily available everywhere, but it's especially sweet if you can reuse a pretty card that was given to you. (Do you keep cards that you received? I always keep the pretty cards I receive for special occasions, I figure eventually I'll use them for something useful.

To start I trimmed down to size a small stack of graph paper and folded the sheets in the middle. Just use a couple of staples to hold the paper inside the card.

and no summer journal would be complete without a sheet of stickers. I used to be a sticker queen when I was little and I've obviously passed on the love to Alaina. (Chase too if you noticed his 4th of July flag below!)

There is my easy-peasy summer journal idea! Other add on ideas could be a sheet of printed titles, maybe add a roll of cute washi tape to hold paper notes, and a sheet or 2 of letter stickers. Hope you are able to make a few with you little ones and record those special summer memories!

scenes from the beach

thought I would pop in and share a few photos. We're hanging out at a McDonald's while I upload photos and the kids can play. It's my only option in this town for a good wifi connection. Beggers can't be choosers I suppose.

I took the kids to the beach for their first ocean experience a couple of days ago! You can tell my kids are tourists because they're clearly dressed for the snow instead of the beach. :) So beautiful but holy freezing Oregon coast!!

Tidal pools are always my favorite, and searching for sea shells. Alaina picked up a wee little hermit crab and screamed and complete terror. It's tough being a kid and growing up in the desert, we're so sheltered down there. Tomorrow will be another beach day for the kids. A sandy beach this time with no terrifying crustaceans!!

Paint Challenge

It's my turn again to post a challenge on the entreArtistes Magazine blog this month! I have been bitten by the paint bug, lately, when it comes to scrapbooking, so I knew I wanted to do a challenge that involved paint! So for my challenge, which is really simple, is to use paint to write your layout title.

I mixed together a few shades of acrylic paint in white/cream/sand shades. I like using lighter shade as my base. I tend to keep adding more layers of paint until I get the right consistency of texture and then I use spray paint. I love high contrast pages and it's hard to make a mistake with paint. Just remember you can always paint over something you don't feel belongs.

Oh and I also made a sketch! It's my first attempt at trying to make one on the computer rather than hand drawing one. I tried. :) Happy scrapbooking!

Guest Blogger: Jessica from Scrumdillydilly

hellooo from the road! Since I'll be away from my little craft space, I've scheduled a few scrapbook/craft posts over the next couple of weeks and I plan on actually uploading a couple of videos of our trip. (yep, you're going to get to hear my squeaking voice. :)) But first! I asked my talented friend Jessica, aka "Ms. Queen o'Crafts" if she would do the honors of being my first guest blogger. I thought it would be fun for everyone to see someone else on my blog for a change and I knew Jessica would put a great tutorial together!! Please say hello to Jessica for me!
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Salutations folks! This is Jessica here from scrumdillydilly sharing a little eye candy that is completely, totally and utterly inspired by Tara and her mad paper skills. I absolutely cannot adore her crafty brain enough, can you?

I have a few birthdays coming up and wanted to present the birthday peoples with happy scrappy wee notebooks. Inspired in part by Tara and her mad layering skills and in part because one of the notebooks I picked up has a big blazing word on the front that will not do for a gift at all I decided to create a tiny log cabin "quilt" from paper scraps to add a mad dash of color to the front of each notebook.

I gathered up my paper bits, scissors and my trusty glue stick and began with a mini wonky square.



Next, I added a thin scrap of paper to one side of the square and continued on my merry way, cutting and gluing and gluing and cutting.



I used an index card as my base and added paper until I had no more index card to cover. I flipped the card over and trim excess bits and popped the whole thing into my sewing machine.





I used a medium straight stitch and stitched around the perimeter of the card and then all the way across in a series of rows as wide as the width of my sewing machine foot.



After smothering the back of the stitch-happy paper with double stick tape, I positioned my little bit of color to the front of each notebook and did a little happy dance (along with a wee bit of rootbeer float as it was hot out and I was celebrating).





I think I may be addicted but I am flat out of notebooks. You can whip up your own books with scrap paper, cardstock and staples or cover a series of mini composition books. If yer really brave, you can switch to fabric scraps and whip up itty-bitty log cabin squares for embellishing all sorts of crafty fun. I hope you enjoy my tiny take on Ms. Tara's magic and don't be stranger if you have any questions.