Monday, January 31, 2011

Last Day to Enter~

Today is the last day for you to enter the Holiday Sketch Challenge! You have until midnight CST.

I wanted to share a very special layout done by a dear friend of mine, Betty Anne. This is her entry for our Holiday Sketch Challenge:


Betty Anne is truly an inspiration to all of us around her and since I can't say things better than she can I am reposting her very own blog post about this layout here on the Cookbookin' blog. Enjoy and be sure to visit Betty Anne's blog for even more!

Our Most Prized Possessions Are Our Family Memories

If your looking for my Let's Scrap Blog Hop Post you can find it here.

Kristie, a friend I met through Let's Scrap, is on the design team of Cookbookin. I joined their blog quite a while ago but hadn't had a chance to make a layout for them yet.  Then in December, Cheri O'Neill, from Let's Scrap made a fantastic sketch for them.  If you follow my blog you know that I just love Cheri's sketches.  So I decided that I would enter their sketch challenge.  
Here is Cheri's sketch


and here is my layout

     The lady in the picture is my mother.  As far back as I can remember my mother made chocolate candy at Christmas.  It was like a very sugary and sweet fudge.  After all six children grew up and had children of our own my Mother found that she really couldn't afford to buy gifts for everyone.  So each year she would make up batches of her candy and each family would get a little box filled with it.   I can't say it was the best candy/fudge I have ever tasted but biting into that sweet treat always brought back fond memories for me.
     My Mother passed away 8 years ago this month.  Just before Christmas I got thinking about her and her candy.   I thought that the recipe was long gone and I would never get the chance to ever taste it again.  But I started to make some phone calls to my sisters and learned that my youngest sister Cathy actually had my Mothers original recipe. So during our family Christmas get together she brought it down to me.  The paper was well worn with add notes on it in different color pen, but it was my Mother's handwriting.
     My Mother was an old fashioned cook and many of her recipes didn't have measurements.  Often they would say a pinch of this or a dash of that or even at times a handful of this.  In this recipe one of the ingredients was a hunk of butter. How big is a HUNK of butter?? She then had drawn an arrow from the butter down to the bottom of the page and it said - a dessert spoon heaped like an egg. Ohhh so that's a hunk of butter, then in different pen and obviously added later on it said - 2 tablespoons of butter.  Geesh she couldn't have said that in the first place. LOL
     I ended up making a batch of the candy a couple of days before Christmas.  I made some with the cocoa in it and also some without it.  I can't even explain how happy I was when I took that first bite and was whisked back to my childhood and sitting in our old kitchen watching my Mother make it.  It was just pure joy.
**************************

Thanks Betty Anne for sharing all of this with us here at Cookbookin'!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a fantastic Holiday season and that you took LOTS of great pictures. I sure did and I am ready to hit the ground scrapping now that vacations are ending and life is returning to normal. I thought I start the year off featuring those layouts that have been submitted thus far for the Holiday Sketch Challenge. Entries are not due until January 31st and the draw is random for a GREAT prize kit so I'd love to see lots more entries. Just click on the sketch that is on the sidebar to get the details.

From Karien, we have THREE gorgeous layouts. Karien is a super talented scrapper that I "met" over at Let's Scrap. Her layouts always have pizazz and flair!




From Mary, we have a beautiful representation of Thanksgiving Traditions. Mary is a fellow design team member with me over at Kitchen Keepsake. Her talent just AMAZES me! We have a crop coming up over there and I can tell you that Mary has some incredible tutorials to share.

 From Sandy, we have this amazing bunch of cuteness. Sandy won a  recent drawing here at Cookbookin' and has used some of her prize to create her entry this month. That gives Sandy TWO extra chances in the drawing THIS month. Go Sandy!



Thanks girls for entering, I am just amazed at what you all can do!!!