Merry Christmas!

As you might be able to tell, we've been quite sporadic with our posting. Between the last few weeks of school, Christmas crafting, and working on orders, we haven't had very much time to make new projects. However, we wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! We hope your holidays are filled with time spent with loved ones. We will be spending some time Skype-ing with the family tonight. Hopefully they don't start karaokeing while we're talking. We shall see what tomorrow brings. All we have planned is to make our cinnamon roll tree in the morning and talking to our parents and brothers.

We wanted to share some holiday lights with our readers. Here's a little picture of our cute little tree in the corner. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, but as you might be able to tell, it's a gingerbread theme. We made a bunch of gingerbread cookie ornaments and hung them up on the tree. Every once in a while it smells so good! We also made some adorable matching garlands and wreaths for the mantle and windows. Maybe we'll get around to post pictures of them. 

As we said before, happy holidays from us to you! We hope everyone has a very (pleasantly) memorable holiday. Have a great day!

Merry Christmouse!!

Good morning! We hope everyone is having a superb week. And that everyone back home is trying to stay warm. We hear it's supposed to be quite cold there. Anyway, it's been a few days since we've posted a new project up. We've been keeping uber busy, trying to get all of our holiday gifts done.Hopefully they'll be done in time to get them out on time.
So, on to today's project. This is a gift made for a teacher friend who absolutely loves Mickey Mouse:

This adorable set was so fun to create! It includes two wine glasses and four coasters. One glass is full of Mickey Mouse's silhouette. The other is a "gauge" of the day. It has three lines to describe the school day- "Oh boy!", "Aw, Phooey!", and the one for the hardest of days, "Up to My Ears", with Mickey ears. Here are some pictures of the side-step card that went along with it:

There's quite a bit going on in the card, including some glitter and rhinestones, although those are a bit hard to see. And, of course, there's also Rudolph on the roof, with his nose so bright! And the greeting says, "Merry Christmouse", which pops up off the card. The picture below is of the set all spread out, which shows each of the coaster designs (hope she doesn't mind us using her picture!)

How cute is that gift?! Who wouldn't want to get this set? It was so fun to make and we're already planning  sets for ourselves!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Twas the Night Before Christmas, Part 1

So I should totally be doing some work, getting ready for this week, but with just two weeks left before break, well, I don't really want to right now...

We've had the same stuff up on our walls since we moved in, and it was definitely time for a change, at least for the holidays. A couple of weeks ago, when canvases were on sail at Michael's, we picked a couple up for this project. along with paint and vinyl. Our color-scheme/decor is pink and green gingerbread (very fun). We painted two of them bright green, and with Design Studio, cut out part of the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas." I think these are going to look great when they're up on the wall together!

Back to school work, now, I guess. Part 2 of this project will be up tomorrow, and hopefully the last one on Tuesday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ugly Christmas Sweater

So today's post isn't a Cupcake Saturday post, and is definitely deceiving, but I couldn't help but wanting to share it with you. When you hear "Ugly Sweater Party," you might think that it really is supposed to be ugly. Well, I don't do ugly, I do cute. And special effects.

So, I took a plain red sweater, some light brown felt, a white boa, a light up nose, a reindeer headband, and some battery operated lights. Everything, except the lights, were hot glued onto the sweater. The lights were poked through the bottom of the sweater.

The reindeer nose has a string that you pull to light it up. And of course there needed to be a little bootie on the back.

Updated: Needless to say, I got lots of compliments and won the competition! I already have ideas for next year!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sweet Holiday Wishes

Happy Sunday! How crazy is it that it's already December?! It's been pretty crazy, how fast this year has gone by. We hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. We definitely had a much-needed, enjoyably long weekend.Now it's time to get back in school mode. Luckily it's only a few more weeks until our next break. (There's a plus side to having such a late Thanksgiving, huh?!)
Now that we have to catch up on all of the work we didn't do this weekend, today's card is a quick holiday card:

This card is themed after a gingerbread house. We were originally going to make a card that featured a gingerbread house, but after a few changes, this is what we decided on. The bottom of the card reads, "May your holidays be sweet!"And we added a few rhinestones to make it sparkle a bit.

This is the inside of the card. It, too, underwent a few changes from the original design. After realizing that the patterned piece had to go on the bottom (so it wouldn't show through the hole), we realized that the sentiment would have to be on the outside so there would be room on the inside to write a little note. Fortunately, it still looks good to us!
Thank you so much for stopping by! We hope you have an enjoyable end to the long weekend.

Happy Saturday!!

We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend so far. We hope everyone has gotten all the best Black Friday deals and all their holiday shopping done. We have not. We prefer to "celebrate" Small Business Saturday. It pretty much means that we make all of our holiday gifts. However, as small "shop" owners, who could blame us?! ((Holiday cards, anyone?) So, instead of having a Cupcake Saturday post, we have an adorable little holiday card to share with you today:

How stinkin' cute is she?! She has been adorned with her googly eyes, along with some little white pom-poms on her hat and shoes. Santa's little helper is holding a mighty large present, all wrapped up with ribbon. It is actually a gift card holder.

Who wouldn't want to get to get this little card?! It's such a cute little way to package a gift card! And to add a little more character to the inside of the card, we created some accents using the same paper:

This card is just too cute! We can't get enough of it! There will be a little boy to go along with her soon enough. Gift cards (and cookies) for everyone this year!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day and remember to support the little guys in the neighborhood today!

A New Meaning to "Black Friday"

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their family and friends. We spent the morning talking with the family on Skype. Not the best, but you have to take what you can get. Since this was our first Thanksgiving by ourselves, we had our own little dinner.

There's Robyn, trying to get a bit more work in before the turkey kicked in. And yes, we have our Christmas decorations out already. Who said we had to wait until Thanksgiving was over?! We made a little turkey in the slow cooker, which made the whole apartment smell delicious. We also made the necessary sides, including the stuffing and potatoes. Everything was done in two pots and a cookie sheet, within an hour.We just had one slight issue, which is the reasoning behind the title to today's post:

The sweet potatoes were the last thing to be done, and they were well done. I set the timer for the broiler, thinking to myself that it was indeed too long, but I'd take them out before it was over. So much for that. The timer went off and when I opened the door, there was a poof of smoke. I'm most thankful that the smoke detector didn't go off last night. Fortunately, the marshmallows came right off the top and the potatoes were eatable. We also made a fall sangria, with wine, apples, and pears, which we enjoyed very much! And on top of it all, we've been having nicer than average November weather- today was 50 degrees and sunny. Last night, we turned our Christmas lights on and can now not be made fun of for having our Christmas decorations up! All-in-all, it was a nice, relaxing day.
Now it's time to get cracking on our holiday projects. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of our family, friends, and followers. We have so much to be thankful for this year.
Starting off with our family, thanks for always being there for us. Even from far away, we love you and know you are always there with us. We love you, miss you, and know that even Skype sometimes isn't enough!
For our friends, old and new, we are also thankful for. To our old friends, even though we are far apart, you know how to make us feel loved and important! The old saying, "Close together, or far apart, you'll be forever in my heart," is definitely true! For our new friends, that we have been making over the last year and a half, thank you for making the huge move across country worth it. For helping me realize it's okay to miss home, and still have someone to count on and help me through the tough times, even if you don't know it, thank you.
And last but not least, our followers and customers. Thank you so much for making Two Early Birds more than just a hobby. It has been an honor working for you and making all of it worth it.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

"Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

It's finally Wednesday! Although this is the shortest week of school so far, today is most welcome. It's the day before the long holiday weekend and it couldn't have come sooner. One of the things that we do miss, though, is that today would have been a half-day at home. Oh well.
Anyway, we are sharing our Thanksgiving cards today. Since we've been so busy, we wanted to keep them short and sweet. I guess they're more like note cards...

 

We added a little poem, too. I'm pretty sure we've used the same poem in years past. Oh, well. It's a good one that says it all! Here's a close-up of the little turkey:

He is about 2.5" tall and fits in the corner perfectly. We added little googly eyes, of course. And because we had to add a little pizzazz, we added a layer of ribbon feathers.
Thank you for stopping by. We hope everyone has a fantastic day! We hope everyone gets their last minute necessities!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Happy Sunday afternoon! We hope you are all having a superb day so far. We've been getting ready to enjoy the short school week. Hopefully the kiddos will be on their best behavior this week. Today's project is another birthday card we made. This one is for our sister. It fits her personality quite well- bright and bubbly! And who doesn't like a cupcake on their birthday?! (Especially if you can't eat them in real life.)

The cupcake is layered, to pop out a bit. The little banner is also positioned to pop a little. The inside of the card has a 'sweet' saying, "Your birthday isn't about the number of candles you have to blow out, it's about the number of cupcakes you get!" Finding the right sentiment was the hardest part of making this card.
The paper we used is actually from a super-adorable new Christmas stack. It's called "Fa La La La " paper stack from Recollections. It was one of those purchases that was just calling our names. ( And on top of that, it was on sale! How can you go wrong?!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We know it's been a while since we've popped on here, and now it's late (still Saturday, though, so it's all good!) It's been a crazy few weeks. There have been lots of random projects to work on and short afternoons after work. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to work on many of our own projects. Anyway, today's post is a cupcake in honor of the last (unofficial) weekend of fall- everyone knows that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of the Christmas season! (Yep, it has it's own season!!) So, here they are:

These are our 'fall leaves' cupcakes. They are chocolate cupcakes with toffee bits baked inside. They are frosted with a green buttercream.

The trees were made with melting chocolate. They were a little hard to make- trees can be tough to draw, let alone make them with chocolate. We added some colorful sprinkles to them before they were set. Then we stuck them into the center of the cakes and added more sprinkles to the frosting. From the pictures, it's a bit hard to see, but some of the sprinkles are actually blue. We are fully aware that there aren't any blue leaves- but that would be pretty awesome! These would be a pretty cute addition to any fall-themed party.
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Have an amazing day!

Santa's Coming?!

Happy hump day! We hope everyone is having a super day so far. Luckily, it's already Wednesday and a few days closer to another weekend. We have never been guilty of rushing anything. The weekend, the holidays. Nope, not us! So, while taking a few minutes out of our orders, (and a need for change), we made a quick banner.

This banner matches the bags we made yesterday. It reads "Happy Holidays". The banner is pretty basic, with a few embellishments. We were fortunate enough to find the perfect paper to use in our scrap stash. It probably wouldn't have been used for anything else. Below are pictures of the letters, with some glitter on each, the Santa in the middle, that matches the bags, and the poinsettia on the ends, that match yesterday's tags.

 Santa has his googly eyes and spakley white trim, which is a bit hard to see. The poinsettia on the two ends have rhinestones in the center.
The plan is to create a few new matching items. Hopefully they'll be done before the holidays!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day.

Hey, Santa!

Good morning! We hope everyone had a great, long weekend and took some time to thank any veterans. We spent the entire day working on a ton of party favors, and after all this time, I think we have finally gotten everything down in order to bust them out. However, it's never too early to think about the holidays. (OK, maybe that depends on who you ask.) We took a break this weekend to make these little cuties: 

Our sister wanted us to make these gift baggies for her holiday gift list. We wanted to add a little holiday sparkle to Santa. We also used some rhinestones on the holly and poinsettia plants. And, of course, he has little googly eyes! We kept the tags nice and simple, since the bags are a bit more embellished.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

Turkey Party Tags

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is having a great weekend. We have been keeping super busy with party favors. We are fortunate to have two large orders to work on, which have taken up pretty much all of our long weekend. But, we were able to take some time out to do a few other quick projects. Today's project is a set of turkey tags:

These little cuties were made to match one another. Their little hats and bows have a little sparkle to add a little shine to the season. We added matching ribbon for the ties. They would be perfect favor or thank-you tags.
Thanks for stopping by! Now it's back to party favors and supplies, and hopefully more holiday projects. Have a great day.

Happy Birthday, Twins!

We hope everyone is having a Terrific Tuesday so far. Today's project is a birthday card we made for our friends, the Twins. Although we have (technically) known each other since before we were born, we have been friends since high school. It was always fun at track meets when we'd run a twin relay. Or when we ran in the same races and confuse everyone. Or told other people that we were really cousins, and have them actually believe us. And even though we don't see them nearly as much as we'd like, we know they will always be there for us. It's a twin thing, I guess.

Here is the front of the card. It doesn't look like much, especially with the white background behind the cake.To spruce it up a bit, we used some glittered paper for the flames and accented the cake with some sparkly ink.

 Here is the card, open. It is another easel card. We made the cake into an envelope, in order to hold a gift card. We were cliche when we made them the same card in different colors. Creative, I know ;)
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

A Saturday Night Treat!

Happy Sunday Afternoon! We hope everyone is having a superb weekend. We are having a gorgeous fall weekend here. Not to brag or anything, but our last few weekends have given us amazing weather! And we have some leaves changing colors, which is always a nice little reminder of a New England fall. The only thing missing is some pumpkins. We wanted to carve some last night, but couldn't find any at the store. It was a sad night.
So, what do we do instead? Watch Harry Potter and make these delicious drinks:

These are pumpkin pie milkshakes based off the recipe found at Our Best Bites for their Pumpkin Pie Milkshakes. (These two ladies are awesome! We'd try all of their recipes if there was enough time in the day!) This drink has a base of vanilla ice cream and pumpkin puree. I kind of went off track from there. I added some vanilla and a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice. Unfortunately, or fortunately I guess, we didn't have any milk left in the fridge. We did have some apple juice, so we improvised a little. It was probably close to a quarter of a cup of juice. It definitely adds a bit more "fall" to the drink!! We decided to rim the glasses with some crushed graham crackers and chocolate syrup, and then dripped some chocolate down the sides of the glasses. (You could also use caramel syrup, which would also be pretty delish! And last, but not least, we added some whipped cream on top, with a garnish of a grahammie square!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Hopefully we'll have a few new projects to share, and at least one more of Our Best Bites delicious recipes!!

Bone Appetite!

Happy Monday! We hope everyone is having a great start to the day. It was definitely one of those mornings that was tough to wake up to. And then once you wake up, you don't want to get out of your blankets. That's what a warm cup of coffee is for, though!! And, the second cup of coffee has really helped us be  productive today. (OK, or just me. Hopefully Sister is having a good day, too...) Now that all of our clothes have been washed and hung (which is a HUGE deal for us!) and the apartment picked up a bit (also an accomplishment...), we have a quick set of Halloween tags we made last night.

These little guys are so much cuter than I imagined! So, as you can tell, they read "Bone Appetite", with a little skeleton! And, of course, the little guys have googly eyes! We used an orange ribbon on these, along with a black tulle bow near the flowers. This is a little easier to see in the picture below:

These were attached to a small loaf of delicious pumpkin bread for Robyn's 'suite-partner', or her neighbor teacher. I'm pretty sure it's for all the pencils she's sharpened for Robyn because someone broke her sharpener...
Now it's time to get back to work. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Monday afternoon!

Happy Fallidays!

Happy Sunday! Wow, it has been a long time since we posted something. As you might be able to tell, then, we have been quite the busy beavers recently. With school and work, and everything that goes with it, there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to sit down and work on the fun things (obviously meaning the crafting). Or, the "fun things" turn out to be a set of wedding invitations (for a lady in Australia, getting married in Spain, with family in the UK. OK, so it's awesome that someone from overseas has seen our stuff!) And of course, more party favors than I care to count... But this weekend, we found some time to create for fun. (Update: We just spent about four hours looking up Christmas projects. Is it November yet?!)
So, today's project is a cute little fall banner we made for our sister:

(It was a bit longer than planned, but I'm pretty sure the pieces were a bit wider than I first thought. I hope she has room for it somewhere!)
It's a little hard to read, but it says "happy fallidays". It is accented with two super adorable little scarecrows on either end:

 And here is the spacer in between the two words:

We wanted to keep this one a little less crowded, mostly because of the background paper used. I think the best part of this banner is the use of non-traditional colors used. The background paper came from a fall paper stack that is full of blue, brown, and light yellow papers. To make it even more fun, we added some pink accents and ribbon (because pink makes everything better!)
Now to go make something with all of the extra orange paper this banner was supposed to use up. Or more party favors. Both have to be done eventually!!
Thanks for coming back to us after our little unplanned break! We hope you all have a superb end to the weekend!!

Cupcake Saturday!

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend so far. It seems as if this weekend will be a good time to be outside, see some color, and enjoy the weather. Hopefully. As long as it's nicer than last weekend, it's a winner! And we'll probably spend it inside...crafting. Oh well. We've been rather busy with orders. We finished two yesterday and have another three to work on now.
We have another cupcake to share with you today. It is an apple crisp cupcake:

We were having a discussion on whether it should be considered a cupcake or a muffin. The jury is still out, but under either title, they're delicious! One of our mom's favorite (and yummiest) things to make during the fall is apple crisp. We decided to make this one in honor of her. It has huge chunks of apples, to really get the flavor. They also help keep the cupcake nice and moist. We decided to top it off with a batch of crumb topping. We were always known to be the ones who would pick the biggest "crumbs" off the pies and crisps, and anything else that you could put it on. This was no exception! (We made a small cake and topped it with a good inch of the crumble, and then proceeded to pick off the top.)

These cupcakes would be perfect for those days when you are looking for a treat, but not something overly sweet. And it has fruit in it, so they have to be good for you, no?!
Thanks so much for stopping by! We hope you all have a great day!

Loads of Birthday Wishes

Happy Friday! We hope everyone had a wonderful week. We've had a super week and found some time to make a project or two for ourselves. Not much, other than a few cards here and there. But hopefully the weekend will be filled with something more exciting :)
Anyway, today is our little cousin's birthday. The little cutie is having a construction themed birthday (thanks Pinterest!), so we decided to make him a construction-themed card.

This card went through a few different phases- sizes, designs, shapes, etc. We wanted the front of the card to have his name and age on it, so that was a given. Our dilemma was what to do on the inside of  the card. We didn't want the words to be seen through the front of the card. So we added another layer:

We wanted to include the dump truck somewhere, so we chose this inside layer. And, of course, we added dots and layers, for that special touch! The third layer was the simplest one, with just a simple "happy birthday" note to the little guy:

So, here's a very Happy Birthday, cuz!!
Thanks for stopping by! Come back tomorrow for another Cupcake Saturday! It's been a while, but we have a very fall-ish cupcake to share!

Happy October!

Happy Tuesday! We know it's been a while, but we hope everyone had a great few days. We spent the weekend hunkered down. I know...we live in Washington, it's supposed to rain. But when it rains for three days and you get more than four times the monthly total in that three-day period, it makes it hard to want to do much, other than curling up in a warm blanket and reading. Or catching up on movies. Who could complain about that! So, now that the rain has finally stopped (for now), we can go back to our 'normal' schedules!
We can't believe it's already the first day of October- where has the time gone?! In our opinion, today starts the super-busy holiday season. It seems that we have a ton more projects to add to our always-growing list of things to do. So, for today's project, we have a quick Halloween invitation to share.

This invitation was inspired by the challenge at "Decorate to Celebrate" (a pretty awesome blog for some cute ideas). This is an invitation we came up with for an "over-the-hill" birthday party. It seemed like the most fitting thing to include was a little skeleton:

And why wouldn't he be wearing a little party hat?! We included some tombstones (hopefully they won't be needed!) And there isn't much that's creepier than a little spider making its way down near you...
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!!

One More Wedding Card

Where did the weekend go?! We hope everyone is having a great day. As we wrote yesterday, our cousin got married this weekend. We've been sharing the few cards we made for them. This is the card we madefor the couple:

This one didn't come out quite like planned, but it still looks pretty nice (we think!) We dry-embossed the background and included some more rhinestones (why not?!) The hardest part, or most tedious, was sitting there, punching out all the super tiny parts to the 'doily'. Each 'flower' has at least 6 teeny tiny holes that needed to be punched, and there were two colors. Once that was done, it was a piece of cake, pun intended :)
We can't wait to hear all the stories we missed! I'm sure we'll be getting a phone call later in the day catching us up on everything!
That's it for the wedding cards. Now it's time to keep working on all those holiday cards! Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!!

For a Special Couple

Happy Saturday! We hope everyone is having a great weekend so far. It looks as if today is going to be another wet day, but we'll see. It was supposed to rain all week, but the sun decided to come out most days. Hopefully it will today, for a little, at least. We are aware that today is, in fact Saturday, but today's post isn't a cupcake. Sorry! Back in Connecticut, our cousin is getting married today!

This is the card we sent to the happy couple. We went back to the blue and silver theme for the last two cards. We added a few special embellishments to this card, including some ribbon and tulle. We also embossed the flower petals (which looks cuter in person).
We wish we could be there to celebrate with them. Here's to wishing them many years of happiness together!!
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!!

Happy Birthday, Coach!!

Happy Friday! We hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Only a few more hours to get through to the weekend. Anyway, today's project is a card we made for our high school track coach. He is celebrating his 80th birthday today!! How awesome is that?! And he doesn't look a day over 70 (honestly, the man doesn't age!!)

Over the years, he has been such a huge part of our lives (we've kind of unofficially adopted him as our grandpa...) and the lives of so many other people. We have been fortunate enough to have him both coach us and coach with him. And now, we always look forward to going home and the hours spent talking with him about everything that has happened, whether it's about the track team or the neighbor's goats. So, Coach, here's a huge Happy Birthday to you!!

Happy Fall!

Happy Monday! We hope everyone enjoyed their first fall weekend. We had a typical western Washington wet weather weekend (say that 5 times fast). It was a good time to catch up with our projects so we don’t have to worry about them during this week and watch some football games. We got quite a bit done, but there’s always plenty more. In other words, it was a quite successful weekend. Today’s project is one that we created yesterday. And, might we say, it’s pretty darn cute!!

We had a lady order one of our recessed window cards last week, so  we wanted to make another such one, and figured the concept of ‘fall’ would give us many options to play with. Anyway, the card was inspired by the stamped sentiment in the corner (QKR Stampede digital stamp). It originally said “you have”, but we thought it would be better without that part. So, if the sentiment is “Something to crow about”, there must be a crow on the card, right? And if there is a crow, there has to be a cute little scarecrow. From there, the card kind of designed itself. As you might be able to tell, we went pop-dot-happy, again. (It just adds so much to the card!) And the final touch was the scaregirl’s little yellow bow! Here is another view of the card:

We had to make the card look more like a book. The last few cards we made like this, we made one fold in the center, but they just didn't look as good as we'd like. After a few, we realized this was the best way to do it. Here's to the best season of the year!! (Oh, how we miss fall in New England...as long as it isn't snowing...)

This card is entered in the following challenges:

{Pin}spirational Challenges: Fall Colors

Perfect Sentiment Challenge: Find Me Some Fall

Crafts4Eternty: Cute Kids

Pile It On Challenge: Pile it On #38- Cool of Warm Colors

Hiding In My Craft Room: Lots of Layers

Craftin' Desert Divas: Autumn/Fall

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!

A Bridal Shower Card

Happy Sunday! We hope everyone is having a superb Sunday. Today's project is another wedding/engagement/shower we made for our cousin. Our mom asked us to make a card for the wedding shower.

Unlike the other cards we made for the wedding, we made this one pink. (We're still not quite sure what color scheme they're going with.) It is similar to another shower card we made (not sure if that one ever got posted. We can't seem to find it). To jazz it up a bit, we added some rhinestones around the border. The inside was left blank, so our mom could write her own little note.
Thanks so much for stopping by!

An Engagement Card

Happy Friday! We hope everyone had a wonderful work week. Today's project is a card we made for our cousin. So, it's more for his fiance- we don't know too many guys truly appreciate all the hard work put into a card :) Anyway, the two are getting married in a few days, so this is a card we made for them to congratulate them on their engagement. (Apparently our family enjoys quick engagements, or at least surprise ones...)

We didn't want to make the card too fancy, because they aren't the super-fancy type. The invitation had a blue and silver color-scheme, so we just went with it for the card. The picture isn't very good, but the diamond ring does have some sparkle to it and does pop out.
We've made a few other cards for the upcoming wedding. Over the next few days, we will share them. And, unfortunately, the pictures aren't nearly as good as we would like. Guess that's what happens when you take them with your phone...
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day and join us tomorrow for another Cupcake Saturday!

A New (Delicious) Fall Drink

We hope everyone is having a wonderful, working Wednesday! On the bright side, it's downhill after today. Anyway, today's post isn't something we usually do. We're pretty sure the last time we did this was last fall. We are sharing our recipe for a *drum roll* Apple Pie Latte:

This drink is absolutely delish! Just looking at the picture makes me smile. There is a story behind this recipe, though. The other day, I was so excited to go the store and get the pumpkin spice coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. How can you go wrong? And especially when it's on sale?! When I got there, I was disappointed because it wasn't there. But they had this apple pie-flavored coffee. I was kind of weary about getting it, but went for it, mostly because we're deprived of it out here. (Washington's downfall). I also picked up some caramel creamer and whipped cream with the idea of making a latte (yum!)
I hurried (safely) home because I was just so excited! Now, we kind of cheat when it comes to making lattes. We used a gift card to make the most-awesome purchase: a Mr. Coffee latte maker. Unless you have a boat-load of money to spend on the machine, I wouldn't recommend it. Then again, if you're someone who goes out and gets a coffee every day, it might be worth it. We've definitely gotten our money's worth :)
So, here's how to make your own, without any fancy equipment. This recipe makes two drinks (or, just one really large one!) 

Apple Pie Spice:
In a small container, mix 1/4 cup cinnamon, 1 tablespoon allspice, and 2 teaspoons both nutmeg and ginger. Mix well and store in an air-tight container.
This is one of those mornings that this drink would be perfect. Needless to say, this drink was absolutely delicious! I was surprised at how "apple-y" this coffee was. There are only a few flavored coffees that have such flavor to them. After we finished the coffee (in like a week...), we had our first (and only) pumpkin spice latte from the "other" place, and it was so disappointing. It tasted like a regular ol' latte. Good thing we can make our own now!!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day!!