Thursday, April 30, 2009

It's Your Day! CIC 50

OMG It's Kristina's 50th Color Insporation Challenge! We've only been playing for a while, but we're already hooked!!! It's so fun! :D And we were definetley motivated by the prizes she has to offer! Seriously, if you haven't tried it, now is a great time to start and oh, what fun it is! So here are the colors we had to use this week... And Kristina indicated that we ONLY use these 5 colors this time, and that's exactly what we did :)














So now that you've seen the uber cool colors we get to use, here's our card:


And a few more pictures from different angles:


~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Monday, April 27, 2009

Monday Munchies

Today for Monday Munchies, we have a "little" thing called:
Mini Nachos
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And the cool thing is, there are only 3 ingrediants:
*Scoop Chips
*Salsa
*Cheese
All you have to do is put some cheese onto the chips and stick them in the microwave for 25 seconds. Then, take them out and scoop some salsa on them (we like it chunky!) Then you're done! It's as easy as that and your tastebuds will greatly thank you too! BTW...(for showing off purposes) you can add a sprinkle of parsley like we did.

We used bay leaves as a garnish in the salsa! :)









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@ Easy

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Hope you enjoy! I know we did!

And...our critic (Mr. Smith) rated it with a 9.5!!!
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~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Friday, April 24, 2009

Craft Corner

Hope it isn't too late for a little Easter Fun! We just thought we'd share these clever ideas with you, sent in from Hayden Smith. Thanks Hayden! He dyed some eggs for Easter and this was his final product:

This is "Deviled Egg"

This is "Poacher"

And this is "Eggspert"



Hope you liked these cute little ideas! We thought it was quite clever! Tell us what you think! We love to hear it!

*Special thanks to Hayden for making these wonderful dyed eggs!


These are rated with a:
@@ Medium

If you would like to send us a craft, recipe, card, or anything that comes to your mind, e-mail us at thegourmetscrappers@gmail.com

Thanks!

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Monday Munchies

Here is our first Monday Munchies! We can't wait to share our favorite snacks with you. Today we have a snack called:


Apple Smiles
These are a very fun snack! They will sure make kids smile!
Apple Smiles are made with 3 simple things: Apples (red or green), peanut butter and mini marshmallows:



















Here's how to make them:


1. Slice up your apples into wedges.
2. Spread peanut butter over the side of one of the slices.
3. Place marshmallows (the teeth) where you want them on the peanut buttered apple.
4. Spread peanut butter on the side of another wedge and place on top of the marshmallows.
5. Eat!

These are rated with an:
@ Easy

We love feedback so tell us how it is.

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Friday, April 17, 2009

Exciting News to Share with You!

Throughout our cardmaking processes, we've had many compliments and such about our cards and over the Easter weekend I was visiting family and my Aunt Pat gave me a great idea! She also scrapbooks and so I showed her some of our cards. "You know, you two could sell these," she said. We were very flattered and excited! We couldn't wait to get back home and start working on this project.

We made lots of cards...















We also made business cards...
(we cannot share a picture of these because our phone numbers are on them :)


punch cards...







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custom card order forms...










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special deals on prices...











and put together a final product...






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We were ready! We went straight to our favorite bakery, 3 Woman and an Oven, and started talking to them to see if they would sell our cards! We are "on hold" as of now, but we will let you know if anything else happens! :)
Wish us luck! And be sure to tell us what you think and give us any tips! We're all ears! :)
~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Saturday, April 11, 2009

KWerner Color Inspiration # 49 Card 3

Wow! Okay, I promise this is the last one. It has just been so fun using these colors together! I have to say, this one definetley was the most time consuming out of the three, but anyways, here you go! :)

Colors we had to use:









And on the our last card spree for this challenge, here's what we've created:






Be sure to let us know your favorite out of our three entries! (Other two entries are in posts below.) Thanks for visiting! Hope you liked it. :)
~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

KWerner Color Inspiration # 49 Card 2

And since we just couldn't get enough of these colors, here's our second card :) We were actually up until 1:00am creating this one! Hey, we had nothing else to do!

Oh, but first, here's the colors... again:








So now, here's our card. Well, technically, it's our second card. Hence, the name of this post ;)









That's all for now, but I'm sure we'll probably have another card for this same challenge coming atcha soon :) What can we say? We <3 these colors!
~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

KWerner Color Inspiration # 49 Card 1

These week's colors were quite bright, except for the black of course, but they were very fun to use indeed! We had tons of fun making each creation with these colors. We just couldn't stop! :)

These are the colors we were indicated to use:









This is what we came up with:











~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tuesday Tips

It's our first Tuesday Tips and we hope you find this tip very helpful! I used to have a problem: cookies, potato chips, and whatever we baked on a pan, always stuck to the pan! It was such a hassle getting them to come off! Our good ol' friend 'Pam' Cooking Spray helped a little, but it wasn't enough. We have 2 'dos' and 1 'dont'... here's our dont:

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We were on a mission to find out what kept our cookies from stickin'! And we've finally found an answer :) 2 answers actually :))

The first 'do' is Parchment Paper. I use Reynold's Parchment Paper:

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The second 'do' is a Baking Mat that will last forever, unlike parchment paper, so you dont have to keep buying and buying something over and over:
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And here's a website to go to and find just the right baking sheet that you will love!... http://www.bizrate.com/cooking_baking/products__keyword--baking+mat.html

This has helped cure our baking pan problems once and for all! Hope it has helped you also! :)

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

KWerner Color Inspiration Challenge #48 again!

Today, as we were looking through all the creations we made last year, we came across two scrapbooking pages that were perfect for the Challenge. They had the perfect colors and were just too cute to not put them up. I don't know if we can put up more than one entry for the challenge but we are trying because we love all of our "scraps"! The first one was a scrapbook page for a picture of the musical that Blair and her friend was in.













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The second one was of Blair flipping off a dock. (We need to get some of Carly apparently! Haha!)






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Well...we hope you like them and we hope that Kristina does too!

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Monday, April 6, 2009

Blair's Birthday Surprise Post!

Today is Blair's birthday! So, happy birthday :) For her birthday we made a cake and decorated it. It was tons of fun and it came out looking pretty good in the end! Tell us what you think:

BTW: Check back tomorrow for more pictures of our cake and a Tuesday Tips! Thanks for stopping by! :)

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Ideal Meals

This is our first "Ideal Meal". We will switch off between having delicious meals that you can make for dinner or different ways you can prepare your food. This is Carly's absolute favorite meal and we were kind of rushed since school's tomorrow so we decided to put up a recipe. 

Chicken Piccata (or as she calls it...Lemon Chicken)
Ingredients:

*1 lb of chicken breast sliced thin
*2-4 cloves minced garlic
*1 large shallot minced fine
*1 cup of chicken broth
*1/4 cup of white wine
*juice of 1 lemon
*basil, oregano & pepper to taste
*flour
*1-2 tsp. of olive oil
*1 tbsp. of capers (optional)

Dust chicken with flour. Heat 1 tsp. oil on the oven on high and lightly brown chicken. Remove and set aside. Lower heat to medium. Add remaining oil. Saute garlic and shallots. Add seasonings and chicken. Turn up to high and add wine. Boil off alcohol. Add broth and lemon juice. Reduce until thickened. Add capers (optional). Serve.

This meal is rated with a:

@@  Medium

Enjoy this tasty meal. You'll love it! =)

~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

KWerner's Color Inspiration Challenge #48

This weekend, we had a little extra time to participate in Kristina Werner's weekly Color Inspiration Challenge. Here were the colors.






We didn't have much time on this challenge, but it turned out pretty cute. Tell us what you think! :)




~Baked with Love,
The Gourmet Scrappers

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Craft Corner!


Hey! It's our first Craft Corner! And so this week we tried something that could be given as a gift, used as a prize, decoration, etc. It's very versitile and it's called Cookies in a Jar! If you haven't ever made/seen anything like this, here's a picture of ours!

So here's what you will need and what you do:

Things you need:*

~quart size glass jar
~1 2/3 cups of flour
~3/4 tsp. of baking soda
~1/2 cup of white sugar
~1/2 cup of brown sugar
~1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips
~1 cup of miniture M&M's

*The things you need on the list above are what will be used to make one of these crafty jars. If you'd like to make two, three, ect... double, triple, etc the amounts.


What you do:

1. Combine the flour, baking soda, and white sugar in a bowl and stir lightly.
2. Put about half of this mixture in your jar and pack firmly.
3. Measure out 1/2 cup of brown sugar and drop on top of the white mixture in jar.
4. Spread out evenly and pack slightly this time.
5. Pour the remaining flour mixture on top. (Don't need to pack this layer.)
6. Pour the chocolate chips and M&M's in different patterns if you like.
7. Cover with the jar lid. (Screwed on pretty tight.)
8. Cut a piece of scrapbooking ribbon an punch a hole through an index card.
9. Include these directions on the index card:
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>>>Preheat the oven to 375*F. Empty contents of jar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl combine 3/4 cup of butter, 1 1/2 eggs, and one tsp. of vanilla. Beat until creamy, then add to dry mixture and mix. Drop by tablespoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

10. String the index card onto the ribbon.
11. Tie the ribbon around the top of the lid with a simple knot.


Here are a few more pictures:

*Special thanks to Macy for helping me make them!!

This craft is rated with a:

@@  Medium

Have fun with this! We know we did!
Send us an e-mail anytime! thegourmetscrappers@gmail.com
~Baked with love,
The Gourmet Scrappers