Hello from San Antonio

Good Morning and Hello from San Antonio, Texas!

I am here in San Antonio for the Close To My Heart Regional Celebration. What a fabulous time we had (it was over last night). I love re-connecting with the other consultants from around the country. Most of them I only get to see once every year or two. Then, of course, there are the new friends you meet every time you go to one of these events and the great friends that I traveled with. There were 5 of us that came down from Wisconsin together. The friendships I have made are wonderful! I cannot say enough about how great this company is either! We have learned soooo much and created many fabulous things. I will have to post pictures when I get home as I don't have that capability here.

We are just heading down to breakfast and then for a day of sightseeing. Our flight home is later this afternoon. I will hate to leave this beautiful city, but I am anxious to get home to my family, too. I don't think I want to leave this weather and head home to snow, though. I hear we got some of that white stuff while I was gone. I hope it is all gone before I get there.

I hear The Alamo calling me, so I will have to go. I promise, I will post some pictures of our new artwork when I get home and unpacked :)

Happy Scrappin'
Tammy

Trick or Treat Layout

Here is the layout that I made for Halloween. I saw one like it on our Close To My Heart bulletin board and "scraplifted" it, changing a few things to fit my needs. It is made with our "Game On" papers.


Enjoy,



**Are you happy now, my friend, Lynn??

Lynn called me and gave me a hard time about not posting new artwork on my blog, so I just have to give her a hard time LOL!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

As promised, here is a picture of my daughter and my nieces Kinzie and Kiana. A fairy, a black cat and Minnie Mouse, what a fun trio of girls!

Don't you think the altered frame looks much better with a photo in it? I sure do. I love it!!

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

Thank You Secret Sister!

A big shout out to my Secret Sister to say THANK YOU! For those of you who are confused...I am participating in a Secret Sister swap with some fellow Close To My Heart Consultants. For the months of October, November, December and January, we anonymously send a gift in the mail to our Secret Sister. We will have the big reveal in January to find out who drew who's names. I have to say, I LOVE getting surprises in the mail. What a great surprise to come home from work to. It made my day. Just look at what she made for me. A little altered chipboard "hatbox" full of candy. She even used one of my favorite paper packs to decorate it.

I also got this adorable altered picture frame. I will have to snap a new picture of my daughter tomorrow night before she heads out to the school dance to put in it.

And I think my very favorite part of the gift (at least the most creative, in my opinion) was an altered tin full of "Build A Snowman" refrigerator magnets. How cool is that?? I may just have to make some of these :)





Well, I better head off to bed now. Gotta work tomorrow and then get home for my Trick-or-Treaters. I hope I get lots as I have my "Frankie" bags all ready to go for them. Remember, if you are local to me, bring your little goblins over to get a treat!

Birthday Party

Well, today we had the family birthday party for our daughter. She turned 17 a couple of weeks ago. This is the card I made for her. It is actually one we made at our Close To My Heart Convention in Florida last August, but I modified it to work for her birthday. I just love this Notebook Paper from CTMH.

Being this time of year, of course we had to have apples with caramel. Here is the recipe for the caramel dip (thanks to Amy for sharing that with me). It is fabulous! They now make the Kraft caramels in "chip" form (kinda like chocolate chips) and they are unwrapped! That is awesome as I always hate unwrapping them all. It takes about a 1/2 bag of them for this recipe. I also use a whole package of cream cheese (I think they come in 12 oz. bricks, don't they?) Anyway, here it is:

Caramel Dip

16 individually wrapped caramels
1/4 cup water
1 pkg. (8 oz) cream cheese
1/2 cup brown sugar

Mix together cream cheese and brown sugar. Melt water and caramels together and then fold into the cream cheese mixture. Serve immediately.

Enjoy,

Magic Moments Layouts

Here is the layout that my Club girls created last Sunday. They had the option to make it with the Indian Corn Blue or the Hollyhock colors. It is amazing how different this layout looks when you change just one color. It was a very fast and simple layout to do.

If you are interested in joining my club, please contact me and I can let you know the details. Feel free to leave a comment here or send me an email: tammyhellstern@myctmh.com

Blu'bana Bread

Well, this morning I had some bananas sitting on my counter that were getting too ripe. You know what that means...it's time to bake some bread. I thought I'd share one of my favorite recipes with you (I have LOTS of favorites, so you'll be getting a lot of them). After trying this recipe out many years ago, I have never gone back to baking regular banana bread. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do :)

Blu'bana Bread

1 pint (2 cups) fresh or frozen blueberries
4 cups flour, divided
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
5 medium ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. ground allspice
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour two 9” x 5” loaf pans.

Toss blueberries with 2 Tbsp. flour; set aside. In large mixing bowl, with electric mixer at medium speed, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, bananas, and vanilla; beat at low speed until blended, scraping bowl occasionally. Add remaining flour and other dry ingredients; beat at low speed until well blended. Fold in blueberries. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool at least 20 minutes to serve warm; or cool completely to serve later.

Enjoy,

Tammy