Chili Cook Off 2011

My final post for "Giving Back Week"! I wanted to post this yesterday, but I was so exhausted! I worked on our annual Chili Cook Off all week long. Much organization, some sign making and 3 days worth of baking! Normally I would have just made posters with some markers, but now that I have a cricut and the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, I was able to design these professional looking signs.

Here is some of the baking I did. I made some other goodies, but did not think to snap a picture.

Cake pops~

Mini Cake Bites~

Peanut Butter Dipped Fudge Shortbread cookies~

{Have you seen these Jif to go cups? Easy way to spruce up some store bought cookies.}

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Gourmet Cupcakes~

{These were amazing, the peanut butter buttercream frosting was to die for!}

Hershey's Chocolate Halloween Cake~

{This cake was auctioned off for $20}

Mojo for our Military

Giving Back Week continues with a sketch from Mojo Monday. A friend of mine asked to donate Christmas cards to those serving in our military. This way they can take the hand made cards, personalize them and send them home to their families that they are desperately missing over the Holidays. I pulled out 20 cards that I've been holding on to and decided to create a new one using this weeks Mojo Monday sketch. Check it out.

Lots of hand~made love. Hope these create some smiles!

Can Cozies

One last project for the Elementary school's Santa Shop. I wanted to do something for the Dad's and Grandpa's. I thought about these can cozies. They are useful and personally decorated for the man of the house. {well we ended up with just a couple pink & purple ones too for mom} I am also entering this first design in this week's Heart 2 Heart challenge. They wanted to see numbers on our projects...so how about that 1 cool Dad!

I have more to "Give Back" this week, come back soon!

Cap Magnets

I am continuing my "Giving Back Week" with another project for the local elementary school Santa Christmas shop. These are what I call Cap Magnets. I have been saving bottle caps for some time now. I simply spray paint them in black then decorate the inside with coordinating papers and stamped sentiments. They'll make a great gift to attach the kids pictures, artwork and those A+ report cards on the fridge!




I created an everyday and Holiday version.

Pin-a-Pic

I would like to dedicate this week as "Giving Back Week". I don't know about you, but I enjoy volunteering and giving back to my community whenever possible. If you have followed my blog over the years you know that I'm always posting my projects for school or church programs. I have hosted the annual Chili Cook Off at my parish for a couple of years now. This coming Saturday I will host it once again to raise money for our children's Faith Formation program. I will show goodies I've been making for that later this week. But first, I would like to share some projects I have been working on for one of our local elementary schools.

A couple of my customers, and good friends, have been responsible for the Santa Shop that opens every December for students of the school. They make several hand-made crafts to sell at a minimal cost to students so that they can give Christmas gifts to their parents, grand-parents and siblings. The money raised goes back to the school and ultimately back to the students. I was able to create a few items for them last year, but wanted to do more this year.

My first idea comes from the multi talented Nona Davenport. I created some designer clothespins and packaged them neatly with a cord of twine. The kids can give this as a gift and even choose some family pictures to hang from the line! I call them "Pin-a-Pics".

Be sure to come back all week to see more projects and inspiration to "Give Back"!