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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Easy, no bake mini cheesecakes

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Yall, this is so easy and delicious... I had to share! I made these for my coworkers and they LOVED it! I was at the grocery store after midnight (just got off work) and was quickly searching for a easy dessert that required little effort and tastes yummy. Best of all, minimum ingredients and no baking time required!

Prep time: 10 minutes
Ingredients for 1 dozen:

1 box - Jello No Bake Cheesecake Mix. Graham cracker crumbs are included.
12 - Reese's PB cups
About a cup - Mini chocolate chips for sprinkling on top
12 - Cupcake liners
1 - Cupcake pan

Also, you will need milk to make the jello cheesecake mix! Once I was home I forgot and didn't have any on hand so I had to go back to the store. That was probably the hardest part of making this recipe.
So don't forget your milk!

Directions:

1. Line cupcake pan with liners.
2. Add the PB cups. Make sure to remove all the packaging!
3. Make the cheesecake mix according to the directions on the box. (Add the packet and milk, blend).
4. Plop cheesecake onto PB cups. (Yes, plop is a verb used for cooking).
5. Cool in refrigerator.
6. When ready to serve, sprinkle graham cracker crumbs & chocolate chips on top.
7. Eat and share! You only need one ;)


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I made 2 dozen, so I bought 2 boxes and 24 PB cups. I let mine cool overnight about 10 hours and it turned out great, wasn't soggy. Don't skimp on the chocolate chips, they are a necessity!

Here is the original pin I used to make this recipe!

I hope you are inspired to make these for the upcoming holidays, parties, or just for anytime you have a sweet tooth. You could probably experiment and make mini pumpkin cheesecakes with these!

- the crafty love girl

Saturday, September 27, 2014

2 easy DIY fall decorations

I've been seeing a ton of fall inspiration on pinterest lately! I was feeling like a pinterest project needed to happen STAT, and since I had the day off.... it felt like a perfect time to get crafty. Maybe the crisp fall air inspired me... (haha in Texas in September, the only thing crisp are the chips at a tailgate!) Lets just say the pumpkins got me in the spirit of fall early this year.

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First, the mantel. While grocery shopping I didn't expect to pick up pretty garlands and picks (I got these goodies at walmart people!) but I felt like they were calling me! LOL! I mostly added a few here and there to what I already had. I got the owl mug there, too. Isn't it adorbs? So the mantel was finished... but it needed something more..

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I wanted to make a burlap banner and a chalkboard tree slice so I headed to my local Hobby Lobby store and gathered supplies!! Everything was on sale except the tree slice which was $10.99. I fully intended to use my 40% off coupon on it, pulled my phone out with the coupon ready, but totally forgot to show it to the cashier! I was making sure she was ringing up everything correctly and totally forgot! Bummer! If you have your own tree slice from a tree in your yard that would be so neat to use!! Or you could buy one like me!

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I drew out my shape on the back of a sheet of burlap paper and cut it. I then used that piece as a guide to cut out my other pieces. I wasn't worried about perfection. I liked using the sheets of burlap paper because they are sturdy and I like the fun patterns. I added orange polka dots to the patterned pieces. I painted the letters by hand because I didnt have a stencil or sharpie. I just used some craft paint and a paintbrush.

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Once they were dried I hot glued them to the rope and added some lace ribbon...and Viola! Maybe took me an hour from start to finish!

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Before I started the banner project I put a coat of black chalkboard paint on the tree slice. I let the first coat dry completely and then added a second coat. I used Martha Stewart's brand chalkpaint. 

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After the second coat dried I primed it by rubbing a piece of chalk over the entire surface. Then I used a wet paper towel to clean off the chalk. (I simply followed the instructions on the paint bottle). Then I wrote my message and displayed it on my fireplace! I can't wait to use this and write greetings for all the different seasons! 

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I had some extra bits and pieces so I used it to spruce up the downstairs bathroom! (Because why not look at pretty stuff while you're on the pot LOL!)

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So there are my 2 easy DIY projects for fall that you can add to your home! I hope you were inspired to create something for your space! And if your mojo is a little low, let pinterest inspire you! Turn some of those pins into projects!

Happy Fall Y'all!

- the crafty love girl



Tuesday, August 19, 2014

My insta crafty love

Wow, I can't believe my last post has been over 2 months ago! Summer is almost over (yay!) and September is around the corner...my favorite time of year is approaching. I have been working and Project Life-ing and been over on my new crafty instagram account that you should totally follow! I am sharing my layouts and hauls over there with bits and pieces of my everyday life sprinkled in. I just found it hard to keep up with it all... doing the actual scrapbooking process, taking photos of the layouts, editing them, and then blogging them. It kinda took the fun away and felt like a chore. Anyone else ever feel like that? Maybe my next phase of this blog will be about knitting. More writing, less process. IDK when, but I'll be back when I feel like it.

Take care and follow me on IG where I will be posting daily crafty love!

- the crafty love girl

Monday, June 2, 2014

Tutorial for Windows 8 phones: How to make 2- 3x4's on a 4x6



Do you have a Windows 8 phone? I love mine, but feel somewhat disappointed when it comes to finding an app that is helpful for creating collages and printing photos for Project Life. Many of the PL groups on facebook talk about great apps for iPhone and Android (Collect, Picframe, to name a few...)

Fellow Windows 8 users, I have discovered an app that makes my PL process so much easier and today I'm going to share a tutorial on how to create 2- 3x4 photos on a 4x6.

Step 1: download the PicsArt app in the Windows Store

Step 2: open the App and tap the "Collage" button

Step 3: tap the "Grid" option

Step 4: Select "Landscape (4:3)"

Step 5: Select the grid design with only 2 boxes
Step 6: 
Here you will see a few tools. The border width is set by default at 20. I set my border to 3 and after the photos were printed and I cut them in half, there was just a small amount to trim. I want these photos to fit inside the 3x4 photo pockets for my project life page protectors. (Next time I may try border 0, I just wasn't sure if it would cut off some of my photo if I did that). If you want a border around your photos by all means set your border width to whatever you like! This is for your project life! Drag the blue dot to make the border width smaller or larger. By tapping on the gray box the settings will go away. 
Step 7:
Now tap "add" to select the photos you want. It will take you to your gallery, or other places like your facebook albums.

 Step 8:
You're almost done!! Tap the save button! From here, you can edit your collage further by using different effects, or adding text if you want.

That's it folks! Now that you have saved your collage, it is ready to be printed. This will print as a 4x6.  I send my photos to CVS to get printed, so when I got them, this is how they turned out. I just cut them down to size and did have to trim slightly to get rid of the border.




This is a collage that I forgot to change the border from the default width of 20 to 3. I had to trim more and the photo was slightly not as wide since I had to cut more off of it. It really wasn't noticeable once I had them in the page protectors.

If you want to make 2 photos that are in a "landscape" setting you can do exactly what we did above and just rotate the photos so that they are on a 90 degree angle. Or you can choose "portrait (3:4)", select the 2nd collage design, and upload your landscape photos this way.



For those of you that have Windows 8 phones, I hope that you were able to learn how to make life a little simpler when it comes to getting ready to print your photos for your Project Life layouts. This app has been very helpful to me, I hope you will find it useful as well! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment below!
- the crafty love girl





All about Gossamer Blue

My layouts today are from Gossamer Blue's Life Pages May kit.

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Since becoming a GB subscriber (my first month was May) I am doing the album challenge! If you are a GB subscriber, there is an opportunity to earn a free album if you create 4 layouts/spreads with the monthly kit & upload those photos to their gallery. So after 5 consecutive months, if you have posted 20 layouts you will be shipped an album free of charge in your 6th month! How cool is that?!

In my previous post I shared LO's using GB for week 18 and 19:

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Here are my new LO's using GB:

Week 20 continued...
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This month's journal cards and embellishments were bright and colorful, a little out of my comfort zone. I usually like to use more muted colors. I checked out the June kit and I definitely like it much better!

If you want to join GB, you can visit their website here. They have kits for scrapbooking and pocket style scrapbooking that you can purchase through a monthly subscription or you can buy a kit individually in their store.

If you do become a subscriber, you can get a referral gift by clicking on the info tab and then click the contact us link. Or you can click here. All you have to do is send a message with the name of the person who referred you. Feel free to use my name, Lindsey Stewart and we can both get a gift! A person on facebook recommended this kit club to me, so I used her name as a referral and this is what I got! So generous of them!

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Here is a look at the June Gossamer Blue Life Pages kit:

I hope you enjoyed my GB LO's! I'd love to see what you have done with your GB kits, share or link below! Have a wonderful Monday!
- the crafty love girl

Sunday, May 25, 2014

On a roll...Weeks 16 - 20

Here are my most recent pages that I've completed. The best part was getting them all done in one day. I find that I work better when I let 4 or 5 weeks pile up so that I can't remember what happenned. NOT! It was hard because I didn't journal much for weeks 16, 17, & 18 so those weeks just got one page. I think its more simple that way, but I'm missing out on the details! So to my future self: use my PL journal (the super cute one I got on Etsy) and write a recap of every day. That way I've got more things to journal about! This was me at the start... should've taken a pic of it at the end! It was so clean LOL.

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Also, I finally found an app for Windows 8 phone users that really helped me create the 3x4 sized photos. I made a collage with 2 photos on a 4x6. Super easy, I will share a step by step on how to do that in my next blog.

Week 16
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Week 17 (excuse the blurry pic!)

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Week 18 (using products from my first Gossamer Blue Life Pages kit!)

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Week 19 (Gossamer Blue)

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Week 20 (Gossamer Blue)
Lots of LO's for this week, my sister graduated college and my grandparents and I went on a road trip to get there! Tons of photos! I took all of these with my phone. I still have at least 2 more LO's for my sister's grad pictures, just waiting to get them from my Mom because we took some on the digital camera.

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So that's all I've got for now! Happy scrapping! 
- the crafty love girl


week 15

Viola! Here is my week 15 LO. Enjoy!

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- the crafty love girl