Happy New Year 2012!!

I'm wishing you a year of health, happiness and just enough of what makes you count your blessings, and not too much of what you weren't hoping for!

Let's begin with a new challenge over at Challenge Me Happy! Freehand Scraps is our sponsor this month and they ship internationally too!!

Our challenge this month was to lift the talented and lovely Trina McClune of New Zealand. Here is her gorgeous layout.

And here is what I did to lift Trina's LO.

Some details...

When you do this challenge, be sure and link it up at the Challenge Me Happy blog so we can lay some love on your lift, and also to have the chance to win the Freehand Scraps prize!

In the mood for some cupcakes? Some snowball cupcakes? These are seriously the best tasting cupcakes I've had in a very long time, boutique OR homemade!! I made some over the holidays to fill a cute cupcake box I'd decorated. Giving someone an empty cupcake box is just not politically correct. Even if it IS decorated as cute as this. So making cupcakes seemed the only thing to do.

The box is from Love is in the Details and I used the My Little Shoebox Winter Wonderland line to create the scene on the top. (Lori also has some very cute individual kraft cupcake boxes in the store and you need to see how Chelsea decorated them here!)

And here's the recipe:

Coconut Snowball Cupcakes


1 pkg white cake mix


1 C water


3/4 C Cream of Coconut (available in the cocktail mixers aisle at the grocery store.)


3 egg whites

Combine in large bowl, beat on low for 30 seconds, and on medium for 2 mins. Bake according to the pkg directions for cupcakes.

Frosting


1 pkg cream cheese


1 tbsp sugar (or to taste)


2 (or more) blocks white chocolate (melted in microwave)


1 C whip cream (whipped, with 1 tsp almond extract added)


1/4 C Cream of Coconut

Cream the cream cheese in a bowl with electric mixer. Add sugar, melted chocolate and cream of coconut and beat till smooth. Beat whip cream (with extract added) till stiff. Fold into cream cheese mixture and frost cupcakes. Sprinkle coconut and white crystal cake topping on top of cupcakes and watch them disappear! (Seriously. I watched two grown people fight over the last one!)

I also have some fun gift card packaging ideas to show you! These, as well as the cupcake box above are up at the Love is in the Details blog showcasing a few of the fun items Lori has in her store! This California Pizza Kitchen GC goes so perfectly in this Maya Road tin. I think it was alphabet sheers that came in it....

I just used the exacto knife to cut a partial line around the "Adore" shape, just wide enough for the GC to fit in and not slip down.

I used ONE sheet of paper from the Lost and Found - Sunshine line by My Mind's Eye, to make both the pillow box AND the tin liner. The designs on the paper work perfectly for that, and just minimal embellishments are all you need to add to call it done!

You can also find the awesomest burlap bags and muslin bags that make for fabulous gift card "envelopes"!

Right??

All I did to adorn this one was mat a big ol' honkin' snowflake sticker on brown cs, cut it out, tie it on and stick some buttons on the bottom!

(Totally in LOVE with these muslin bags!!) This one got stamped, an embossed chipboard frame, rosette and 2 leaves added to create something I'm finding hard to part with... The gift card is wrapped in French dictionary paper and tied up with jute and a little rusty snowflake.