Baking some snacks for the road

My daughter and I were busy trying to bake up some snacks for our trip tomorrow. The challenge we had on hand was to only use ingredients we already had at home.

What would you do with these? In case you can't tell from the photo, these are frozen cranberries that I've had for 2 years (Yikes!) and whole oats.


How about some healthy Cranberry bars - only has 3T of canola oil in the entire recipe and no cholesterol!





Now the snacks for the kids...these are known to have many names (coconut, nuts, choc. chips, graham cracker) but this particular recipe only used 3-4 T of melted butter. We used pecans we've had in the freezer. A quick toast in the oven releases their flavor. We used skim sweetened condensed milk to save some fat calories. I was hoping to use up all my leftover graham cracker crumbs but the recipe only used up 1 cup. I always have broken grahams around that can't be used for s'mores or Chocolate eclair so I keep processing them and saving them for that someday that I will make cheesecake from scratch.







I'll be back in 2 weeks! By the way, we tasted both desserts and they were both delicious!

And the winner is.....

Heather C.!!!!! (had to wait until my daughter woke up this morning to select the winner!). Send me an email to let me know where to mail your box of goodies! Congrats!! I expect to see a photo of this citrus bag prominently displayed in your new home :-).

Will post later!

Second GIVEAWAY! Drawing is tonight!

Here's the other citrus bag-in-box I made for the second Blog Citrus GIVEAWAY! I've entered all previous commenters and will have the drawing tonight. If you're interested in being considered for this giveaway, you can leave a comment on this post or previous post. Thanks and good-luck!

FINALLY - Here's the Blog GIVEAWAY Photo and Winner! And a second GIVEAWAY?

And I did have a winner....Ikinlala guessed the name of the citrus posted here so she wins this adorable bag-in-box citrus bag, a pack of "fruit salad" gummies and from my Etsy shop Dizzy Broad: "Key Lime Pie or Mojito?" notecard and a thank-you notecard with a stamped orange image (if you'd like to see detailed photos of the notecards, please go to my Dizzybroad Etsy shop for details)I will be mailing this to the winner tomorrow!

But wait!! Since I took sooooo long in getting this photo out, I will have a SECOND GIVEAWAY! I'll make another bag-in-box citrus bag but this prize will come with a pack of Lemon Head candies and also the 2 notecards mentioned above. I will have one of my kids draw the name tomorrow and will announce the winner by tomorrow night.

BTW, the citrus is called Calamondin or Calamansi. It is a tropical citrus and very sour. It's used for both savory and sweet cooking. I'm not sure where it originated but I know they use it a lot in Filipino cuisine.

Lastly, I cannot take credit for the bag-in-box pattern...found it from this website called Inking Addict (who, in turn got it from a talented lady named Diana Gibbs).

If you'd like to be considered for the second GIVEAWAY, leave ANY comment on this post and I'll add your name to the drawing! Have a happy Monday!

Look Mama - no training wheels!

What Mom wouldn't be proud?! My baby girl learned how to ride her bike without training wheels this weekend! She is only 4 1/2 and eager to do whatever her big brother is doing so now, he better watch out! (Yep, that's my husband right next to her, making sure she doesn't fall over. Isn't that sweet?!).

My swap from NEBRASKA!

A group of wonderful ladies got together to participate in a swap hosted by Crystal at littlebitfunky (thanks, Crystal!). My swap buddy was Amanda from Nebraska. This is what arrived today.



Thank you so much, Amanda, for my state of Nebraska box!!!! It is so full of yummy goodies (my daughter has already claimed the box of chocolates!) and right up my alley with all those great looking sauces, spices and jams! In my past life, I had gone to culinary school and worked for a catering company so all these food goodies will be put to great and delicious use! We can't wait to try popping the corn-on-the-cob popcorn! How cool will that be?! Thanks again, Amanda! Someone is bugging me now to open the box of chocolates....

Coffee cans, new cards at Dizzy Broad, gorgeous notepad and clown cards

What do you do with these?






These continue to stack up as we LOVE coffee! They are made out of cardboard and come with a plastic lid. Certainly don't want to take up room in the trash for these and I don't think they can go in the paper recycling. Any ideas? (Yep, they're from Trader Joe's!)

Here are some fun, new notecards in the shop right now! This is from SU! fruit stamp set (I think it may be retired?). I went nuts making the matching handmade envelopes using retired SU! colored paper.



And...I'm still dolling up the GIVEAWAY so photo is still on it's way!!








Lookee here! Isn't this an adorable notepad? Sending this to hadesigns for inspiration for my Dizzy Broad banner. The butterfly is die cut from vellum then I used a glitter pen to add sparkle.










Paper is from SEI Chocolat. Notepad holder opens up to reveal the notepad in the center. Can't take credit for the design though :-) Found it on SCS but I may change the design so when the notepad is all used up, you can just remove it and put a new one in (currently this design has the notepad glued to the folder so you'll have to discard the entire thing when done). If you'd like the link to the directions to make this, leave me a comment here and I'll go dig it up.






Kids and I made these clown cards (from Basic Grey's Build a Clown clear stamps) as thank you cards for all the Sunshine Clowns we met in Florida. Becca and Grant handcolored the individual clown body parts then I assembled them with brads and dimensional tape. The legs and arms actually move!










Background stamp behind the clown is from SU! - it's a jumbo roller wheel. Finally had a reason and occasion to use it!




Have a great Friday!