DoughEZ, Baby Girl Cookies and a Promo Code!

Ever want to make cutout cookies but drag your feet because you know there will be a big mess to clean up afterwards? I’m that way at Christmas time but with orders, I’ll make them but still go ugh, what a mess to clean up.

Well enter Facebook and a post from one of my friends talking about this product she had just bought for making her cookies. To say I was intrigued was an understatement. So off to the site I went and 20 minutes later I had ordered the DoughEZ! 

It came just in time for an order I had so I took step by step pictures to share with you after I had cut out a few batches as the DoughEz is just too much fun and I was impressed beyond impressed.  (keep reading as Promo code is at the end of post)

The DoughEZ pastry mat is made of a silicone fiber mesh and the guide sticks are made of food safe ABS plastic. The six guide sticks come in two different depths of 1/8” (2 sticks) and 1/4” (4 sticks) in thickness. They can be stacked for various thickness and the 4 – 1/4” sticks with notches, snap together to create a 9”x13”x1” pastry frame.


I wanted my cookies to be 1/4” thick so I used the 1/4” sticks. Slide them under the mat and place the dough on the mat in between the guide sticks.



Now bring the other side over and on top of the dough and get ready for some fun.


Using your rolling pin, start rolling your dough. What??!! No sticky dough on the rolling pin?!! Amazing!!  Roll dough till it is to thickness of the sticks you are using. (your rolling pin stays right on top of the sticks when rolling and the mat never moved. Loved that!)  

Once dough is to thickness, open the DoughEZ and place parchment paper or in my case, wax paper, on to the dough.

Now close the DoughEZ and flip it over so the wax paper and dough end up on the other side.
Start cutting out the cookie shapes!

All the cookies I cut out were all the same thickness!! Finally I can get them the same without eyeballing it or ending up with different thicknesses!

And here are the cookies all decorated and all same thickness! woo-hoo!!


Wait! What about clean up? It is so simple now. For one your counters are still clean and so is your rolling pin! All you have to do is wipe down the DoughEZ mat with a wet washcloth and a little bit of soap, dry it off with a towel and roll it up. So simple!

All components of the DoughEZ are FDA approved food safe materials. Perfect for making biscuits, donuts, or non baked confections like rice krispy treats or molding cake pop dough and so much more. Did you see the rings on the one side? Perfect for shaping your pie crusts and pizzas!  I just got a new bread machine that makes pasta dough, can’t wait to cut those out on this!

So I was so excited on how well this worked that I gushed on DoughEZ’s Facebook page and they gave me a PROMO code to share with my readers! Just enter "ambersantics" all lower case for $10.00 off your order. Promo code is good for the month of March only. Promo code has been extended till after Mother’s Day, 5/11/15!! And to help you even more, I have placed a button (Precision Dough Rolling System) that will take you straight to their order page on the side of my blog.

You will not be disappointed, believe me. I am so excited to make cutout cookies now and fondant for my cakes! I even have everything but marshmallows to make rice krispie treats for my kids. Which when I do, I will share how that works with you.

  Thanks for stopping by  
     and happy baking!!

               Amber

Paper Piecing with a digi

Time for another challenge over at Wags ‘n Whiskers. This is Challenge 115- Paper Piecing. I haven’t paper pieced a digi image in a long time and even though I thought I remembered how, I still looked it up just to be sure I DID remember all the right steps. In doing so, it got me to wondering if maybe you could use a refresher course too so I have a mini tutorial today on how to Paper Piece with a digi image.

For my card, I used Super Ryan. I wanted to paper piece his shirt, shorts, cape and socks. First I figured out how big I wanted him and after getting the right size, I copied and pasted him three times in Adobe InDesign and printed out the single sheet of printer paper.


Also printed him once on cardstock. Colored the non paper pieced parts with copics. (sorry, didn’t think to get a picture of that)

I had my paper picked out so I cut pieces small enough to fit over just the images I wanted to paper piece. (forgive me, I didn’t take a picture before sending it through the printer. oops!)

Attached the design paper with double sided tape (or use repositionable tape) to the shirt, cape/socks and shorts. Placed paper back into printer paper tray and hit print from InDesign. And I ended up with this:



Now comes the fun part…. cutting out all the pieces from the design paper and attaching it to the “real” digi image that you printed off on cardstock. (My sock piece didn’t stay attached so I skipped paper piecing those)

Here is a close up shot of “Ryan” in his paper pieced outfit.

And that is how you Paper Piece a digital image!

To finish my card, I cut come circles, of the same design paper I had paper pieced with, using Spellbinders. Added some fluffy stuff to the dog’s rear.

So head on over to Wags ‘n Whiskers and show us your paper piecing cards! One lucky participant will win a free Wags 'n Whiskers Rubber stamp! More details at Wags ‘n Whiskers blog.


        Thanks for stopping by!

                       Amber

Loads of Love bag and tutorial

Whew, what a week! I'm back to stamping after taking almost a 2 week break! Yeah, think i was sick. hehe So be prepared to be bombarded with posts today! For my first post, we have a cute little bag that I had started for Jan's demo stamp camp that got postponed to the end of Feb because of weather. (I can't take credit for this idea. There are plenty floating around on SCS that I got the idea from.)

I used SU's Top Note die three different times, cutting the design paper in half to cover the bottom white. The truck is paper pieced with the same design paper. Hearts were colored with water color crayons and a layer of crystal effects was added over top of them and over the windows. Small oval punch was used for 'handle'.

Here is a side view. You can see the bag sandwiched in between the two Basic Gray Top Notes. I found it easy to punch through the front top note and the bag together first then put on the back top note. Line up the punch to the punched out oval in the bag and punch the back top note. You can punch all four layers together but it is pretty hard. And incase you are wondering, I used plain regular double sided tape to hold it all together.

So where did I find a bag that small to fit my top note? I didn't, I made it! It's called an Envelopbag. And they are really easy to do (has to be or I wouldn't have made 16 of these for the swap! lol) But even though they are easy, I know some of you are like me and need a visual so I did a quick tutorial. Feel free to ask any questions if there is something you can't figure out.

Tutorial on how to make the Envelope Bags

You can use any size of envelope. For the bags above, I used a 5 x 7 1/2 " envelope (that opened at the side) and cut it twice so I got two bags out of it. For tutorial purposes, I used a regular size envelope. Make sure you seal the envelope before starting!



You want the sides/bottom to become 'walls'.

I then like to push in the sides so the bag collapes before taping on the Top Notes, as you can see the side view shot above.

Supplies used:
stamp set: Loads Of Love, Loads Of Love Acces.,
paper: SU's Urban Garden design paper, white, basic gray;
ink: black stazon;
accs: watercolor crayons, crystal effects, Big Shot Top Note die,
Small Oval Punch, dimensionals, envelopes

Another valentine card with a tutorial

For the limited supply 204 we were suppose to use black cardstock as our main card. I had found a card in my stash a while back that I decided to case for today. And then I got a crazy idea that I would make it into a tutorial too! So here is my card:
stamp: Framed Friends by Asela Hopkins by Gina K Designs; paper: real red, black, white, shimmer; ink: black stazon, versamark; accs: helmar liquid scrap dots, brads, prismacolor pencils, gold embossing powder, crystal effects

Score a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 piece of cardstock at 6 inches and 2 inches. Fold both sides in at the crease marks. Your shorter folded side will be the top.

Cut all four corners at a diagonal. I am cutting the bottom flap here. I just eyeballed it so you can cut off as much as you want or as little as you want. Depends on the look you are going for and how big your image is.

This is what it will look like after you have cut your corners. I placed a white top note cardstock inside so you can see the cuts better. (The ruler is just keeping it shut instead of my fingers! lol) Now decorate the front as you would like. I used the small heart from the Framed Friends by Aesla Hopkins by Gina K Designs on my black but did it in versamark so it is hard to see.

The closure can be any shape you wish. I went with a square as it fit my image. The image is colored with Prismacolor pencils. There is crystal effects on his nose and on the heart on his tag. As you can see, the dog and trees are popped up. I used Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots for that. (Don't forget the Helmar blog candy is still going on) I didn't attach it to the black with the brads as I don't like to see brads on the inside of my card so I used double sided tape.

close up of the Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots

I put a piece of real red cardstock for the inside my card. (don't know why it looks blurry, try clicking on it to bring it to bigger size) The sentiment says "Will you be mine?" At the bottom it is "XOXOXOXO" and then i stamped the heart twice on either side in versamark and embossed in gold.

Finished card.

Customer Monogram gift

Last month I promised the first five Stampin' UP! orders a special gift from me. I knew what I was going to do but was stuck with what to put on the front. Today's Ways To Use It 187 challenge was to use Monograms. Perfect!!

I used Letterpress Alphabet and Brushstroke Alphabet for my monograms. (I know they are retired but it's all I have) I'm stuck on Urban Garden design paper, Kiwi Kiss and Basic Gray. I also used Kiwi Kiss striped ribbon. Rectangle scallop punch and a few layers added to it for the monogram.

The orginal directions can be found here thanks to Patti. I am going to give you the directions here too as I changed most of the measurements but like two.

You will need a 7 7/8 x 5 1/2 piece of plain cardstock for the cover. Score at 3 5/8 and 4 1/8.

My basic gray was cut 5 3/8 x 3 10/16 and layered with Urban Garden dp that was 5 2/8 x 3 9/16. you don't have to layer, layer like I did nor do you have to use design paper. Stamp the cardstock instead if you like.

Inside:

For Calendar background you will need a contrast color (I used the same dp), stamp if desired. My piece was 2 5/8 x 3 1/2. I got my calendar from here on Splitcoast and added the brads all the way through the design paper too.

For the Paper Clip Holder you will need a 2 x 1 contrast piece of paper or smaller. (still dp for me) Fold 1/2 inch on either side and place about 4 down from top, lining edges up with the calendar paper layer. To make the paper clip, I use the smallest circle on the coluzzle for my monogram. The next size bigger for the back layer which I used the 3/16" corner round punch on. Don't forget a matching back piece. I attached them together with sticky tape.

For the Index Cards (Page markers) You will need 2 1/4 x 2 3/8 ( I think this is the only measurement I kept the same as Patti beside the main cardstock piece). Score at 1/4 inch on 3 sides. Attach beside the paper clip holder. Take care not to get it overtop of your paper clip holder or you will have a hard time getting your page markers in the pocket. To make the Index card page markers, cut the cards down to 2 1/2" x 1 1/2". Use the slit punch.

I cut down jr legal size notepads to fit. Covered the top with contrast color, Urban Garden dp, and attached to the 'booklet' with sticky tape just at the top. Pen holder piece can be made as big or as small as you want it. It's attached to the 'booklet' with sticky tape too.

To tie it all off (no pun intended!! lol) I cut two slits in the score and slipped my ribbon through it. The booklet doesn't try to stay open but I felt this was a way to keep it closed even better. Plus it just finishes off the project even more.

This is just one of the five done. I will post a picture when I get the other 4 done as I will be using the other pieces of Urban Garden design paper for them. Have I mentioned love that paper?

Now I have to get busy making cupcakes for my son's Harvest party at school tomorrow. Pictures of the cupcake cake will be coming soon!!

MFTeasers Haunted Trail and Extra

Yes, it is that time again.... MFTeasers!! MFT will be releasing some new fun sets Wend night during their release party in the MFT forum. Come join the fun! To see teasers of the sets that MFT will be releasing that night, check out the MFTSEPT08 gallery every day for uploads from the MFT Design Team.

I used "Who's that Ghost?" Flopsey. Embossed him in black and colored in just the ears with distress inks. Applied Crystal Effect over his 'costume'. Embossed the bag in black too and completely cut it out and looped it over Flopsey's arm. Watercolored with Garden Green. The word "BOO" is stamped with craft white ink and then Black over top to give a shadow effect. Bird in the grass cuttlebug folder used in the background. Used a dauber with ink over just the bugg'd part. Added faux stitching around the edges. Black rhinestones under the sentiment. stamp: Who's that Ghost? -MFT; paper: orange, black, white; ink: black, garden green; accs: crystal effects, cuttlebug, ribbon, artist pen, rhinestones


Today's TLC is Black Magic which I combined with the Featured Stamper.

Black Magic or Pencil Over Ink: You stamp your image in white ink (I used Craft White Ink). Then color your image with pencils but not over the white ink! It was suggested to dip your Prismacolor pencils into Odorless Mineral and then color your image but I found it easier to just color straight onto my image as i didn't see the Odorless Mineral doing anything to help my card. IF you don't use the minerals, then you can use any kind of colored pencils to color. (if you want to try this with the minerals and don't have any, baby oil also works)

I used another new image coming from MFT. Annie LaPoint is back this month with 2 more images! I cased this card of the Featured Stamper but changed colors, image, added an extra ribbon, some faux stitching and left off the sentiment.

stamp: Chill Out -MFT; paper: not quite navy, real red, black; ink: craft white; accs: white gel pen, prismacolor pencils, ribbon, photo corner punch, notched punch, cuttlebug

Old Revisited #2 w/Tutorial

Here is a card I did back in April '07 with a tutorial to boot!

stamp: weathered, canvas; ink: bashful blue, creamy caramel; paper: bashful blue, white, creamy caramel, designer paper; accs: brads, word window punch, 1 3/8 square punch, 1 1/4 circle punch

Tutoiral: I used the SU 1 3/8 square punch and punched a piece of printer paper for my template. Each corner is marked A, B, C, D. Cut each corner towards the middle. To get my cut lines, I fold corner to opposite corner and cut on the crease line.) Stop cutting before you get to the middle.

Now take corner A and fold it towards the middle, take corner B and fold it towards the middle and so on. Glue down tips and add a brad smack dab in the middle (or whatever you want to) after the glue has dried.




Here is another card with the same layout as above using pinwheels:

stamp: canvas, it's your birthday; ink: chocolate chip; paper: chocolate chip, cameo coral, mellow moss, spring flower designer paper; accs: vintage brads, 1 3/8 square punch, circle punch, ticket punch

Check back tomorrow... sneak peeks for MFT are coming!!!

Faux Suede Tutorial

I got the directions from diy network. I work better with a tutorial that has pictures so here you go.




Liquid applique
Rubber brayer
cardstock (I used Kraft cardstock)
paper plate ( I used wax paper)
Heat gun



Squeeze liquid applique onto plate or wax paper. A little will go a long way. Brayer your brayer in the liquid applique until it is covered.





Brayer onto your cardstock. Recoat the brayer if there is still some liquid applique left on your plate/wax paper. Keep brayering your cardstock until you get the coverage you want.





Heat the cardstock with your heat gun . This picture shows some of the liquid applique already heated and the rest of it not. Where my name is, that isn't heated. you can see the difference.





Keep heating until the entire piece is puffed up. Since it is spread on so thin, it won't get puffed up high.

Wash your brayer off with soapy water.

Finish into a card. (It feels like you are working with the real thing too!!)



Images are all My Favorite Things.

Valentine Suckers

Last night was MFT's release party in the member forums of Splitcoaststampers. What a crazy/fun time!

I had been working on a project but wasn't sure if i would get it done in time for the release or not. The stamping gods must have been with me as I actually finished with time to spare!

We all know Valentines is coming up, right? MFT just released a set called Happy Occasions that just called out to be used for a Valentine project and Digital paper called KISS. I decided to combine the release project with Allie's Valentines for school! (how is that for killing two birds with one stone??)

I went to the Family Dollar store and the Dollar General (yes, we have both stores within a few 100 feet from each other! crazy as we are a little town) to look for supplies. I didn't find anything Valentiny to go with what I had in mind BUT I did find stuff on their Christmas clearance that would work perfectly!! Now you are wondering how would Christmas items work for Valentines, aren't you? Well take a look:

How neat is that? She can take in the entire thing to school and the kids can pick their suckers right off the 'tree'. So what was the Christmas items I used, you ask? Take a look at the front view and see if you can figure it out.

See that green sucker? Well they didn't have any Valentine suckers out but had these Christmas suckers so i grabbed them and will trade them out for Valentine ones!! The tin actually had a picture of Santa on it! So I used the Kiss Black & White Digital paper that My Favorite Things sells to cover it. Added some pink ribbon and some shredded pink filler, a foam block or two and I was ready to stick those suckers in!

The sucker covers are 5 1/2 by 2 7/16. Scored at 3 9/16, 3 3/16, 15/16 and 11/16. Punch a hole in between the smaller score lines. Add a little bit of tape to that little lip so it will stay shut after the sucker is in. All frames are on dimensions to allow for the smaller piece to be tucked up in.

I had to cut the frames out by hand as I don't have the scallop punch that fits it! (it is on order though!!) I used glitter gel pen on some of the frames and also stamped and cutout just the heart to layer on top for those with the glitter.

This set has stamps for Birthday, Fathers day, Mothers day, Christmas, St.Paddy day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July and New Years. Just think of all the sucker trees you could make!!

Stamp set: Happy Occasion - My Favorite Things; Paper: Digital black & white Kiss collection by My Favorite Things, white; Ink: Variety of SU inks; Accs: glitter gel pen, dimensions, tin, ribbon, suckers

Embossing Marker Tutorial

I decided to pull out my Marvy Embossing Markers to use on today's challenge. No, embossing wasn't the challenge. Japanese Stab Binding was today's Try a New Technique! I know, I should be showing you how to do the Binding instead of Embossing. When I perfect it, I will. lol

I decided to use Home for the Holidays by My Favorite Things and picked out the Christmas tree. The lights are a seperate stamp which I placed on the tree using stazon black ink. (It doesn't matter what ink you use with the markers, I just like stazon)

I colored in the lights with an embossing marker that was close to bravo burgundy. The marker stays wet long enough to pour on clear (or metallic) embossing powder.

Here are the lights with clear embossing powder just sprinkled on. Heat with a heating gun to a raised, shiny finish.

Here the first string of lights have been embossed while the second string awaits the heat gun.

All the light have been embossed. I then took a clear marker and went over the strings so that I could emboss those. Here you can see the clear embossing powder on the strings in need of the heat gun.

I added a star, colored it in yellow and embossed it in clear.

I watercolored my tree in with peeled paint distress reinker. Distressed the entire cardstock with distress ink vintage photo and used a distresser tool on the sides of the cardstock to give it a worn look. I went back over the edges an sponged on more vintage photo distress ink. Merry Christmas is embossed in gold embossing powder on a long word window tag. The Japanese Stab Binding is on the side, looks close to a blanket stitch.
All items SU unless noted otherwise. Stamp sets: Home for the Holidays by My Favorite Things, Linen, Cardstock: Bravo Burgundy, Always artichoke, vanilla, Inks: Vintage photo distress ink, peeled paint distress reinker, Bravo Burgundy, Acc: Marvy Embossing Markers, clear embossing powder, ribbon, brad, word window punch, distresser tool