Angel Ball Recipe and the Story of a Paper Ornament

As requested, here's my angel ball recipe, including the little tips that make it particularly melt-in-your-mouth.

Angel Balls

Ingredients
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/2 lb. (two sticks) butter, softened but not melted
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. vanilla extract (be generous)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. pecans, chopped fine in a blender
1 boatload of powdered sugar

I use an electric hand mixer to blend the butter and sugar well. Add flour, vanilla, salt, and pecans and mix well. Roll dough into small balls and place on air-bake cookie sheets (prevents burning), and bake 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While cooking, prepare a rimmed cookie sheet with cooling racks over it and get your sifter ready. (you could use a fine mesh colander).

Immediately remove cookies from baking sheet and put them on the cooling racks. Sprinkle GENEROUSLY with powdered sugar. When cool, move cooling racks off rimmed baking sheet. Before transferring cookies to a storage container, dip them in the remaining powdered sugar in the rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle more powdered sugar over the cookies every chance you get. The dough is not sweet...the cookies get all their sweetness from the powdered sugar.

Store in airtight container. Cookies are very delicate. Also, don't inhale when you take a bite, or you'll choke on powdered sugar.

And now for the ornament. 

Our Stephen Ministry group handed out our annual "Blue Christmas" ornaments. Many churches honor those who are not jolly during the holidays, either because they are grieving, have lost jobs, are burdened by stress or caregiving or illness. Here's this year's ornament and the presentation that was read at each of our church's three services.

The verse on the back of the ornament is 2 Corinthians 12:9, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"

Here's the speech:

Did you know that in Scandinavia, holly is called Christ thorn? In fact, many Christians believe that the prickly leaves of holly represent the crown of thorns Jesus wore at his crucifixion, and the red berries symbolize the drops of blood shed from those thorns. We deck our halls with boughs of holly for a jolly Christmas to celebrate Christ’s birth. What an appropriate reminder that we owe our hope, peace, joy, and love to a Savior who gave His very life for us.  

                                                                                  

For the past four years during Advent, Stephen Ministers have given away ornaments as a reminder that Christmas isn’t holly jolly for everyone, and that’s why this year’s ornaments have holly on them. For some, this holiday season is a time of worry or frustration, or a painful reminder of the loss of a loved one, a job, a marriage, health, independence, or even faith.

If you know someone who is grieving or in crisis this Christmas, we encourage you to reach out to them, listen to them, and encourage them. You might also tell them about Stephen Ministry and how a Stephen Minister can meet with them once a week to listen to and encourage them for as long as they need.  Ask their permission to give their name and telephone number to a Stephen Leader, and pass it along to Pastor Amy, Zandra Woody, or Susan Raihala.

God’s amazing grace is sufficient for each one of us, and His power is made perfect in our weakness. When someone is feeling weak and hurting, that’s just when Christians are called to step in and be agents of God’s amazing grace. God can work through each of us to heal the hurting, and Stephen Ministers are especially well equipped through training, through faith, and through love of Christ to serve those who are suffering.

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful Christmas present to connect someone who is hurting with Christ’s saving grace? Perhaps that person is you. Stephen Ministers are here to help.

Stephen Ministers will be standing at each exit after service to give one ornament to each family. If you would like an extra ornament to give to a hurting friend or family member, just ask.

We wish you a very Holly Christmas!

For those of you out there who are Stephen Ministers or Leaders, feel free to use our idea as you see fit. We love handing these out each year and almost always get several new care receivers as a result. 

To each one of you reading this, if you are hurting this Christmas, know that there are people of faith ready to help you. Reach out. Talk to a pastor. Talk to a friend. If you don't know of a Stephen Ministry group in your area and might be interested, email me and I will try to find one for you. 

If you know someone who's hurting this Christmas, reach out to them. Listen. Don't try to fix their problems or tell them what to do. Cry with them, listen, be there. 

I'll get off my soapbox now and wish you all hope, peace, comfort, and love this season and always.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey 
ink: Archival leaf, red geranium
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: corner rounder, red 1/8" satin ribbon, circle punch, Avery label sticker (for verse on back)

Soap Inspired IC575

Another IC card inspired by a photo on Anthropologie...this time soap packaging.

As you can see, it's a pretty literal interpretation that keeps the general shapes and colors or a portion of the soap package design. Very abstract, but I love the navy and gold! The images are from Altenew's Simple Flowers and the sentiment from Hero Arts' You Are My Happy. I tried to keep the font of the sentiment similar to the inspiration piece, but I wish it were a little heavier for balance. Still, not bad.

I hope you're playing along with this week's inspiration challenge at Splitcoast. Anthropologie has some amazing stuff to inspire paper crafters, and I'm so grateful to Audrie for sharing it with us!

And now for a couple of pictures that made me smile today. First, my son Jack plays trumpet in the 8th grade band, and their holiday concert was tonight. Jack, who has sensory issues that make him extremely hostile toward collared shirts, dress pants, and dress shoes, loves playing trumpet but hates dressing for concerts with a hot hate. He cleans up cute, though!

And yes, he's wearing a Loony Toons Christmas tie, but he liked it because it's mostly blue.

I rarely like pictures of myself and even more rarely like a selfie, but today I wore this extremely fun apron while baking a double batch of my famous angel balls (my family's name for Mexican wedding cookies...yes, go ahead and laugh...my husband does...as he's stuffing them in his mouth because they are divine.). The apron was a gift from a dear friend who lives in Idaho and protected my purple sweater from flying powdered sugar.

Everyone needs a polka-dot apron. Even people who only bake once a year. Like me.

Hope, peace, joy, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Altenew Simple Flowers, Hero Arts You Are My Happy
ink: Versamagic night sky, Delicata golden glitz
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: gold metallic marker, metal ruler

IC575 Again

I made a dreamy card inspired by this packaging from Anthropologie for this week's Inspiration Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers. Audrie continues week in, week out to find amazing inspiration all over the place!

The dreamy background is Tim Holtz Distress ink in salty ocean and chipped sapphire, applied with the Tim Holtz mini inking tool, which is pretty wonderful to work with. The sentiment and stars were clear embossed before inking, and the edge features gold metallic marker because the inspiration photo has a gold necklace on it.

The stamp set is a new one from Hero Arts called Dreams Are Made. It came with my first order from my birthday money. Here's the rest of my loot:

So much goodness!

Anywho, I encourage you to check out the IC575 and play along this week. I continue to find inspiration from the yummy pictures on Anthropologie...but I would never pay $625 for a beanie, no matter that it's got crystals sewn into it. I'll stick with looking, thank you very much.

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan


Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts Dreams Are Made
ink: Tim Holtz distress salty ocean and chipped sapphire; VersaMark
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: Tim Holtz mini inking tool, clear embossing powder, heat gun, craft foam, glue, gold metallic marker, metal ruler

IC575 Anthropologie...Oh, My!!!

This week's Inspiration Challenge blew my little creative mind. Four cards in a few hours, and two of them have *GASP* colored card bases. The Anthropologie website has an abundance of inspiration, and I'll be going back for more.

*happy sigh*

First up, the only Christmas card I made for the IC575. It was inspired by this product label.

This strip looked silly on a white card base...just too much white white space and visually boring. (Remember "white" space can be any color...it's just empty space.) The celery base unifies the two borders and helps the sentiment stand out as the focal point.

I masked the central area of the panel, leaving half-inch borders. After sponging with Distress Ink (old paper), I stamped images from WPlus9's Silver Bells in Hero lime green and Archival leaf green. The berries are Archival red geranium, as is the sentiment.

More from the IC575 in the coming days. Thanks to Audrie for yet another amazing challenge. Why don't y'all play along!

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts Christmas Messages, Wplus9 Silver Bells
ink: Distress old paper, Hero Arts lime, Archival leaf and red geranium
paper; StampinUp celery, Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, gold metallic pen

Botanical Birthday

Thank you to all who commented on Treezilla. It's truly magnificent, and we are enjoying it enormously!

I am on a birthday-card binge, making them for my use, for my sister's use, and for Karen's Card Shop at church. Today's card is a spring delight for a relative whose birthday is in March. This relative is working on her masters to teach high-school English, so I combined Hero Arts' Shakespearean Poetry with Papertrey's Botanical Silhouettes.

I inked the blossoms with Memento rose bud and pounced some lilac posies on with a marker, spritzed with water, and stamped. The bright pops of color are so pretty!

This quotation is from A Midsummer Night's Dream, my favorite Shakespearean play and the whole reason I bought this set. I added some blossoms to the raised panel to unify the card, but the panel needed a little border, so a silver marker served nicely.

The matching envelope completes the ensemble.

I found the process of making a spring card at the beginnings of winter in Ohio to be delightfully out-of-sync. It pays to work out of season on occasion.

Hope, peace, joy, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Hero Arts Shakespearean Poetry, Papertrey Botanical Silhouettes, Simon Says Stamp Envelope Sentiments
ink: Memento rose bud, lilac posies; Hero Arts green hills; Memento Luxe black
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue, silver metallic marker, water spritzer 

Curves and Angles and Treezilla

Let's start with the cards so those of you who have no interest in my babbling, bumbling life will get what you came for and not feel like I've done an ol' bait and switch.

I need a bunch of birthday cards, and out came Ombre Builders to give me two pretty, pink cards...one for a girl with a curvy personality and one for a girl who's square.

I like how this raised panel looks a bit
like a whimsically decorated cake layer.

These types of cards, with lots of white, splashes of happy color, and graphic style, make me bounce in my chair and clap my hands like a kid getting ice cream with sprinkles on top.

It's too cold in Ohio for ice cream right now.

Note that the curvy card gets a curvy sentiment, and the square card gets a square, sans serif sentiment. That's key. Also note that, on the second card, the word Birthday is on a line with the next-to-bottom square. That subtle alignment unifies the card subtly.

But there's nothing subtle about the hot pink and bright green. Reminds me of a wrap-around skirt my mom made me around 1978-79. Pink and green print with frogs on it. So very preppy. Yes, I wore the skirt with a white Izod shirt and carried a Bermuda bag with matching cover.

Ah, to be young and stylish!

Anyway, let's get to Treezilla before I go winging off to Never-Never Land. If you read my latest post on the other blog, you'll know I'm in a verrrry weird mood this Advent season.

We have a tradition of going to Big Tree Plantation to cut our own Christmas trees. We didn't go last year because we spent Christmas in Omaha with hubby's family. Clearly, missing a year has turned us into idiots because we saw this tree (pictured with my cute and cold 14-year-old) and thought it would fit in our living room.

Seriously, it looked large but not ridiculously so.

Here's a gratuitous picture of my 17-year-old hipster son and six-year-old furry golden sunshine.

Aren't all three just the cutest?

Anyway, we cut down the tree (and by we I mean my husband and elder son), and the nice folks at Big Tree shook out the old needles, trimmed the bottom branches, wrapped the tree in twine for easier handling, and tied it to the roof of our car. It was a lovely experience, full of festive laughter and joy.

Then, we got home.

"Man, the tree is really heavy," said my husband.

"Really, it's way heavier than I remember previous trees. I'm not kidding," he insisted.

"It's giving me a hernia!" he continued.

"It's too heavy for the tree stand. It'll tip for sure," he worried.

"Let me go buy a bigger stand before we take it inside," I replied.

"Okay, that's a good idea," he agreed.

Forty minutes later, the two big guys carried the tree inside, we got it in the stand, cut the twine off, and out springs...

TREEZILLA!!!!!

Y'all, I laughed hysterically for about ten minutes. Hubs thought I'd never stop. This thing is ridiculously rotund. No wonder it was so heavy. We did have to trim the top a bit to fit our nine-foot ceiling, and the trunk is a bit crooked. But dang. Our furniture is all out of whack, and we'll need to take it out of the house in pieces, but what an awesomely great--and stupid--thing we did.

Here's the tree in its decorated glory.

Decorating this behemoth was intimidating, prickly...and exhausting, which is why I didn't post anything last night.

We will NEVER forget this tree. It's epic.

I love Christmas.

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Ombre Builders, Birthday Basics (second card sentiment), Gina K (first card sentiment)
ink: I can't remember
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: craft foam, glue

Glitter Is Good

The motto of Faber College in the movie Animal House: Knowledge Is Good.

The motto of today's card: Glitter Is Good.

I could jibber-jabber about it, but pictures make the point better.

Before glitter:

After glitter:

The sparkle and shine add distinction to the brown dragonflies, which before blended into the vivid background even though I used Memento Luxe pigment ink, which is pretty opaque. I applied Stickles and spread it around with a damp paint brush for more of a distressed effect.

And yes, the background was made with Distress inks applied with a stipple brush. I dropped water onto it with a brush to apply the splotches for a dreamy effect.

A great card to give to a guy, even with the glitter, don't you think?


Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Masculine Motifs, Side-by-Side Sentiments
ink: Distress wild honey, aged mahogany; Memento Luxe rich cocoa
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: post-it notes for masks, stipple brush, paint brush, Stickles