Winner

I picked a winner for the csn | stores $40 giveaway! It is Pixie! Congrats. I will be sending her an email shortly.

Giveaways Ending Tomorrow at Midnight!

• I have two giveaways going on that end tomorrow! 
• They are both for csn | stores ($40 gift certificate) and can be found here and here.

Fasting, Fasting, Fasting

• We had company all weekend, and yesterday I made yummy feta cheese burgers with chopped up tomatoes, chopped green onion, worcestershire sauce and oat meal in them. Oh and sides of salad, cheesy potatoes and watermelon. 
• My supper consisted of couscous, tofu, plain lettuce and watermelon.
• Last week I learned that I have high cholesterol and my blood sugar is elevated.
• I have to go in today to get more blood work done. 
• Summer school is going on until the end of the week, so I wanted to get this lab testing rolling. My appointment isn't until 3:45 today-after class. I had to fast for 12 hours. Most people test in the morning.
• I stayed up late last night, and had an additional meal of couscous, tofu, plain cucumber and grapes. This might be my new life because I need to start taking better care of myself. 
• My cholesterol isn't too incredibly high. It's 206. I have a family history of high cholesterol, over weight family members and diabetes. I told my doctor that I want to lose weight, so that is the path I'm on.
• I have to say that I've never been too bad with food. I could be better. I make great baked things in the kitchen that I, or Daddy take to work. I don't devour them myself. 
• At this present moment in time I could eat a horse, and it's lunch time for most everyone, but me.
• I'm walking more during lunch time at work. It's a start, but I need to exercise more, a lot more.

CSN | Stores - Giveaway!

• I'm so excited because this is my first giveaway!
• CSN | Stores has so many things to choose from with their 200 + stores. 
• I had a chance to do a review for them on my family site, The Apel's.
• I picked out a clock and valance for my son Isaak's room.

• CSN | Stores has most anything you can think of! They have a great selection of furniture, lighting and cookieware.

 CSN | Stores is giving away to one lucky reader a $40 gift certificate! 

Include your email address if you do not have it public in your profile. You can enter if you are not a blogger.

1. For your first mandatory entry, check out CSN | Stores and tell me what you'd pick out with your gift certificate if you won!
2. For a second extra, entry copy and paste my Cookie Art button and add it to your site. 
3. For a third extra entry, {like} me on Facebook. Leave your Facebook name in your entry.
4. For a forth extra entry, enter my other CSN Giveaway on my site Milking the Issue.
5. For a fifth extra entry, Google Friend me.

• You do not need to enter all of the entries to be qualified, just the first entry.
• Remember to leave your email address if it is not public in your profile. 
• This contest closes in 2 weeks July 30 at midnight. 
• The winner will be chosen using random.org.

This giveaway closed on July 30.

Disclaimer: The opinions on this post are my personal take on the products. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I am not compensated to provide my opinion except for receiving the products themselves to test out. If you have questions about this post please contact me at: alissa4illustration@hotmail.com

Giveaway Scout

• Giveaway Scout is a very useful tool to get the word out about giveaway's.
• If you are someone that has giveaways, I strongly recommend using this connection.
• I entered the giveaway above into Giveaway Scout. 

Upcoming CSN Stores Giveaway!

• I'm hosting a $40 giveaway soon for CSN Stores! I'm going to start this giveaway tomorrow, so keep checking back!
• They have a lot to choose from. CSN has 200 + stores.
• They have dining room furniture, baking dishes, cake, cookie and pastry decoration! They have just about anything you can think of. 
• Browse through CSN | Stores to see what you'd like to win.

Just Art Today

• I've been working to add more character's to my son Isaak's tree in his room. 
• At first I was thinking of just making a bird's nest. 
• I decided to make a sleeping owl too. The owl has to be asleep because it's day time.
• These two characters are now made, but not attached to the wall yet. I'm still trying to figure out what the best way of attaching them is. Our walls and ceiling isn't dry wall. It's cement mixed with plaster. Something like that. Hard as heck! I'm sure structurally the walls are great to withstand a thunderstorm, but horrible to attach anything to them! 

 

• Here's the bird's nest. It will go on the bottom right branch.

• A detail of the nest. I just sewed in scraps of thread and I left the ends showing in a messy manner since nests are organized, yet cluttered at the same time.

• Here's the wise old owl. He'll go on the bottom left branch.

• This is a detail of one of the owl's eye's. They were sewn in.

•  I'm still in the process of making a puppy for a hill. He's going to be chasing one of the butterflies on a different wall. Isaak loves puppies, so I had to add one in.
• I was thinking of creating a puppy Doctor Seuss style. To be honest I think Max from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is kind of ugly. I'm going with more of a puppy look from The Poky Little Puppy.
• It will be a brown puppy, and he'll have a funky pattern for his spots. I thought brown will be better then white; just in case a little boy decides to touch him a lot.
• And last, but not least Isaak's going to have a kite on that same wall as the puppy.

Birthday Presents

• I got many things for my birthday. I'm spoiled! 
• I'm only going to post the baking things I got.
• First, I got this cookbook! I've been wanting this cookbook because the kids like to help me in the kitchen, and I like them helping me in the kitchen! I love the Pudding Cups I made from this cookbook!

• I got these cute little doughnut pans.
• I figured that I could make all kinds of things in these. Not just doughnuts.
• My ideas are spinning!

Another size too!

• I got a rectangle baking stone. Before I only had a circle one.
• I also got measuring spoons. I use them so much! They are always dirty. I'm always needing more.
• I almost forgot that I got a knife sharpener. That should be really handy!

BIG Cupcake

• My birthday was on the 21st of June. 
• With my husband having a solo art show, we just got around to celebrating my birthday last night. This is totally fine by me. Things were pretty hectic at home with having company and of course I made a lot of food for his show. My husband was BUSY!!!!!!!!
• I called my mom and asked her if I could make my own cake for my party? She said, "Yes." 
• I got a Wilton big cupcake pan last year from my mom, and haven't had a chance to use it. I really wanted to. You've probably seen these before. This is my first version. 
• The top of the big cupcake is yellow cake and the bottom is chocolate. 
• I used the left over cake batter to make little cupcakes to fit around the big cupcake.
• So I used not quite 2 boxes of cake mix. I did not make my cupcakes from scratch this time.
• I used flour spray in the pan. 
• The base of the big cupcake was cooked for 12 minutes since it was more dense. Then I took it out of the oven, sprayed the top side, poured the batter in and cooked it for the rest of the time.
• I'm glad I did it this way because I know they wouldn't of gotten done at the same time.

The top view looked a lot like a flower.

• The hardest part was cutting it.
• It was fun that everyone got two kinds of cake, and we could separate them if someone didn't like one flavor. There was frosting sandwiched between the top and bottom of the big cupcake.
• My kids LOVE cake. My two year old saw the box before it was made and kept say, "Cake Mommy, cake!"  He wanted some cake before it was even made.
• My four year old got worked up when I was decorating the cake. I had it all decorated, put it in the kitchen, and he saw an empty plate. He said, "Mommy where's the cake?" I said, "Mica I ate it all. I was hungry." He said with sad puppy dog eyes, "Mommy you're not supposed to eat the cake! That's for everyone at the party!" He's a smart boy! I came clean when I saw that he was sad.   

The Recipe I Use for Chocolate Chip Cookies

• I used this recipe for the previous post.
• I love that these cookies contain oatmeal!
• It's the recipe my mom used when I was growing up.
  

Start:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 Degrees.

Cream the following together:

1. 1/2 pound butter
2. 1 cup white sugar
3. 1 cup brown sugar

Add:

1. 1 teaspoon vanilla
2. 1/2 teaspoon salt
3. 1 teaspoon baking soda
4. 1 teaspoon baking powder

Blend in:

1. 2 cups flour
2. 2 1/2 cups oatmeal
3. 12 ounce chocolate chips (I have replaced the chocolate chips with cherry chips, or used both. This is really good and different.)
4. 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Finish:

1. Bake until light brown.
2. Place on a cooling rack when they've hardened up a little.
3. They taste good warm (out of the oven), room temperature and cold (we sometimes freeze them).
   

Pillow Cookies

Do you like brownies? Do you like chocolate chip cookies? Would you like them together? That's what this recipe is all about.

• I made a box of brownies just like the box instructed.
• Then I made chocolate chip cookies. I refrigerated them for about an hour. I'm going to post the recipe I used for my cookies early next week.
• I use a medium scoop to make my cookies about the same size.
• Put a giant thumbprint in the middle of them.

• Next I cut up the brownies and shoved them into the chocolate cookie dough.

• Cover the dough with more dough.
• The brownie should no longer be exposed.

• Bake!
• Cool!
• Eat!

Fun Follow Friday!

• It's Fun Follow Friday! 
• Click on the link above and add your blog. Other people will check out your blog and you can check out many blogs too!
• When you visit a blog that you like and want to follow, leave them a  comment with your link telling them you are following from the Fun  Follow Friday. Of course, they would love for you to follow both hostesses  blogs, Simply Stacie  and My Wee View,  but it isn’t mandatory. If you do follow them, just leave them a comment and they will follow you back.
• The main goal is to have fun and follow the blogs that interest you!
• If you like this blog you might like one of my other blogs as well: The Apel's and  Milking the Issue.