Dec 23, 2010 | Big Shot, Christmas, Fabric, Holiday Mini Catalog 2010, Recipe, SU Buttons, Tags |
I have been making this recipe for many years – it is always a big hit. I recently made it at my Holiday Gift Making weekend that I had back in November and several people wanted the recipe. I am making some more for Christmas – to have out our family events throughout the holidays and thought I would share it with you. In the past I have given it as gifts to teachers and neighbors. It was such a great teacher gift – a ready made appetizer for a teacher to take home for the holidays. I made them when Kyle was in Kindergarten (he is now a freshman in college) and wrapped them up in a dish with crackers and a spreader to give to his teacher. Several years later when ever we would see this teacher (she no longer worked at the school) she always commented on how she remembered that gift and how good it was.
Today I decided to wrap up a few for gifts – I actually divided one larger cheese ball into two smaller ones to wrap them.
I used several items from the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog. First the Deck The Halls fabric – I cut a large square and then folded it into quarters and used the Big Shot and the Scallop Square die to cut the fabric. I lined the fabric up on the die so that the cut edges after I folded it up where getting cut and the folded sides were inside the die so they didn’t get cut. This gave me a large scallop square of fabric – basically the size of 4 of them together – but one large piece of fabric. I hope that made sense.
My cheese balls were rolled in almonds
and then I wrapped them first with wax paper and then with plastic wrap. Then I put it in the center of my scalloped fabric square. I took two opposite points and folded them across the cheese ball then took the other two points and brought them together at the top. I used a large needle, some Linen Thread, and a Big Designer Button from the Deck the Halls pack – I used the smallest Always Artichoke button for these. I used the needle to pull the Linen thread through the front of the button, through both layers of fabric to the back, through both layers of fabric again through to the front and through the button. Tied that in a knot and then added a tag from the Tags til Christmas stamp set. Tied it in a bow and trim the ends. It dressed them up nicely!
Here is the recipe:
Almond Chicken Cheese Ball
1- 1/2 cups cooked chicken
1 Tbsp A-1 steak sauce
2 – 8 oz. packages cream cheese, softened
Combine above in a bowl. Mix well.
1/4 cup minced green onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped almonds
Mix green onion, 2 Tbs parsley and celery with the cream cheese mixture. Mix well, form 2 balls – refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Roll in “leftover” parsley and almonds. Serve with crackers.
Here are some of my notes:
-I have been using canned chicken – just drain it well.
– I usually leave out the celery – my family doesn’t care for it.
– This time I left out the parsley because I didn’t have any – it’s mostly for looks.
– Forming the balls is messy on your hands. I get out waxed paper and put a ball in the middle of each piece. Then roll that up and cover it with plastic wrap to put in the fridge.
– I was able to freeze one – but don’t add the outside parsley and almonds before freezing and do wrap in wax paper first – because when it defrosts it gets “wet” and the wax paper seems to absorb some of that. Let it defrost in the fridge and then roll in the parsley and almonds before serving it.
Happy Holidays!!
Dec 22, 2010 | Christmas, Designer Series Paper, Holiday Mini Catalog 2010, Tags |
This set of Tags in a matching Tin is one of the projects that we made during my Holiday Treats & Tags class last week. If you are wrapping your gifts and need tags you can make them quickly using just scraps from you Designer Series paper – some stamps and punches.
I cut pieces of 3″x3″ card stock squares – for these I used Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, and Crumb Cake. Then I cut pieces of the Holly Holly Designer Series paper – I used 2-3/4″ squares for mine, but you can use strips or other size pieces of scraps. I used the Tags Til Christmas stamp set from the Holiday Mini Catalog and various punches to add the designs to the front of each tag. I ended up with 16 tags to put inside this tin.
The tin is just a flat tin that was from some old Stampin’ Up! embellishments that they sold a few years ago. For awhile they had them for sale on the Clearance Rack – you can find that in my online store on my website – check regularly since they are always adding new things and you never know what little treasure you might find. To decorate the tin I just covered the front with a piece of the same Designer Series paper that I used on the tags. I put a piece of the Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding underneath so that I could tie it in a bow around the top. I added a little tag for a decoration.
All the tags fit inside the tin if you wanted to store them or give them to someone. Once you use the tags you can then use the tin for a gift – like a gift card or money for someone. There are only a few more days until Christmas – I hope you are ready. I’m finishing my wrapping today and I have a few more cards to mail out – I ran out of stamps. And I’m going to try to do some baking today – well maybe you can’t really call it baking – this is what we are going to try to make today – peppermint bark, oreo balls, snowflake sugar cookies (ok, those are really baking), and my almond chicken cheese-ball – which I need to share the recipe for because several people wanted it when I made it at the Gift Making class – I’ll post that tomorrow.
Dec 21, 2010 | Cards, Occasions Mini 2011, Sale-A-Bration 2011, UDI Color Challenge, Valentine's Day |
It’s Tuesday and time for the Utah Diva’s Color Challenge – this is #15. Click on this link to go to the Utah Diva’s Color Challenge blog. This is the inspiration that Gretchen gave us this week –
These are not my idea of Christmas colors but I think you could do a Christmas project with them – but I didn’t – I went with a different Holiday. This was another idea from my issue of Paper Crafts magazine. With that in my hand, my sneak peek items from the upcoming mini catalog and Sale-a-Bration brochure in my craft room and the new Filled with Love promotion in my mind – I ended up with a card that has a Heart theme to it – perfect for Valentine’s Day!
There are several sneak peeks in this card – a new stamp set called Valentine Defined that will be in the Occasions Mini Catalog starting on January 4th. A new Designer Series Paper – Ice Cream Parlor – that is one of the Sale-A-Bration product choices beginning on January 25th. And another Designer Series Paper – Love Patterns pack – this one you can get now as part of the new Filled with Love Promotion.
The Filled with Love Promotion runs from December 17, 2010 – January 24, 2011. Valentine’s Day is the second biggest holiday for sending cards, and during the Filled with Love promotion, you can get an exclusive package of Designer Series Paper perfect for creating cards for family, friends, classmates, and more! And you get a FREE package of Bitty Buttons–a $4.95 value–when you purchase an exclusive Filled with Love Bundle. Contact me for more details or click on the picture below to go to my website.
Now for some more information about my card. The grid paper on the card is not one of the Designer Papers – I actually created it using a piece of Very Vanilla card stock, my Stampin’ Write Markers, a ruler and my Stampin’ Up! Grid Paper. I cut my card stock to size and lined it up on a piece of my grid paper. I used the ruler for my straight edge and varied the colors of the lines using the colors from the color challenge – Old Olive, Pear Pizzazz, Pretty in Pink and Melon Mambo.
Once my colored grid paper was created I added a strip of Melon Mambo card stock to the back that was punched with the Scallop Border Punch. I punched hearts out using all of our Stampin’ Up! Heart punches and various Designer Series Paper. These were all folded in half and then attached to my card front – only in the center. I used a marker to add a faux zig-zag stitch to the center of each heart. The punches make for quick decorating.
At the bottom is the Love You stamp – with the heart punched out and layered on top.
I hope you like this little sneak peek. Now it is your turn to play with these colors – then go to the UDI blog and add your creation to the linky section.
Stampin’ Up! Supplies:
- Card stock: Pear Pizzazz, Melon Mambo, Very Vanilla, Old Olive
- Ink: Old Olive, Melon Mambo, Stampin’ Write Markers: Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Melon Mambo, Pretty in Pink
- Stamp sets: Valentine Defined (Occasions 2011)
- Accessories: Love Patterns Designer Series Paper Pack (Filled with Love promotion), Ice Cream Parlor Designer Paper & Quick Accents Pack (SAB 2011), In Color Designer Series paper stack, Scallop Edge Border punch, Heart to Heart punch, Small Heart punch, Full Heart Punch. Grid Paper, ruler
To order Stampin’ Up! Supplies to make this project click here.
Dec 20, 2010 | Christmas, SU Ribbon |
When Stampin’ Up! sends a box they fill it with brown paper after all the product is inside. I always hate to throw away the paper. I have taken some to the Ronald McDonald House for them to use to cover the tables when the kids craft or for drawing on or whatever they might need it for. But I came up with another idea for this year. I decided not to buy any Christmas Wrapping paper and instead use all the brown paper from Stampin’ Up!
So far all my Christmas presents are wrapped in the plain brown paper. I considered stamping on them or rolling them with Stampin’ Around Wheels but ultimately decided just to use Ribbon – for these in the front it is the Wide Striped Grosgrain ribbon. The ones around the back is non-SU Ribbon. I plan to add tags to all of them – but haven’t done that yet – I did write on the back of each one who it was for though.
But here is my idea – I don’t know about everyone else but we seem to have several times that we open Christmas gifts. First here at home with just our family, then we will go to my parent’s house and open with my parents and brother, and then a third time we will go to Greg’s mother’s house and open presents with his family. These are on three different days and in three different locations so this year I came up with an idea that I thought might make things easier. First all the gifts are wrapped in the brown paper and tied just with ribbon and no puffy bows – so they actually stack up nicely for taking in the car. Second I used three different colors/types of Ribbon. So for each of the three events I have a different Ribbon and we just need to grab everything with the correct ribbon on it from under the tree on that particular day. I hope that makes things quicker instead of having to go through everything and read all the tags. What do you think?
We are off to mail the Christmas cards and do some last minute shopping!
Dec 19, 2010 | Cards, Christmas, Season of Friendship, Stamper's Club |
Are you still in need of Christmas card ideas? Here is a card using a stamp set you may already have in your stash – Season of Friendship. It is an all season stamp set and might not come to mind when you are thinking about making Christmas cards. But look at how beautiful this card turned out to be.
The idea for this card came from a non-Stampin’ Up! blog. But the idea translated perfectly to this Stampin’ Up! stamp set.
I started with a Cherry Cobbler card base, then a layer of Whisper White, then a layer of Crumb Cake. On the Crumb Cake card stock I stamped the tree from Season of Friendship using Early Espresso ink. Then the snowflakes using Whisper White Craft ink. The bird is stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink. I punched a heart using the small heart punch and then used the white gel pen to draw a string.
This sentiment comes from Heard from the Heart stamp set – it was stamped in Early Espresso ink on Whisper White card stock. Underneath is a strip of Cherry Cobbler that was punched with the scallop border punch.
We made this one at the Stamper’s Club meeting last week. Roxanne wanted an idea for this stamp set and this was it.
This year I’m mostly sending out Christmas Cards that I made using My Digital Studio – but I have some like this one that are hand stamped to send out too.
Kyle came home from college on Friday – I picked him up after my Treats & Tags class was over. Everyone is home for Christmas now! My decorating is done. My cards are mostly done – just adding the addresses, stamps and sealing the envelopes. Oh by the way – if you hate licking the envelopes – doesn’t everyone? – use your AquaPainter to moisten the strips! I even have presents wrapped and under the tree. I have a few more Christmas projects to share with you this week.
I used several items from the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog. First the Deck The Halls fabric – I cut a large square and then folded it into quarters and used the Big Shot and the Scallop Square die to cut the fabric. I lined the fabric up on the die so that the cut edges after I folded it up where getting cut and the folded sides were inside the die so they didn’t get cut. This gave me a large scallop square of fabric – basically the size of 4 of them together – but one large piece of fabric. I hope that made sense.
and then I wrapped them first with wax paper and then with plastic wrap. Then I put it in the center of my scalloped fabric square. I took two opposite points and folded them across the cheese ball then took the other two points and brought them together at the top. I used a large needle, some Linen Thread, and a Big Designer Button from the Deck the Halls pack – I used the smallest Always Artichoke button for these. I used the needle to pull the Linen thread through the front of the button, through both layers of fabric to the back, through both layers of fabric again through to the front and through the button. Tied that in a knot and then added a tag from the Tags til Christmas stamp set. Tied it in a bow and trim the ends. It dressed them up nicely!
