Hello Shabby Shoppe readers, Rosy here, and welcome to Food Friday!  Are you wanting to hang on to these warm, sunshiny days for just a little bit longer?  Here’s a recipe that will give you another little taste of summer!  Awhile back I was looking for an orange recipe and couldn’t seem to find what I was looking for, so I decided to go the simple route of adding my own flavor to a boxed mix.  You could add any flavor that you like, really!  Here’s what I did…

Gather your ingredients, just to make sure you have everything before you start.

For the cupcakes I used:

• 1 yellow cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• zest and juice from 2 oranges (divided)
• water

First I carefully cleaned my oranges and then extracted the juice and zest from them.  I tried a few different ways of zesting an orange, but found that using the fine setting on my grater worked the best for me.

Press lightly, making sure to get only the orange colored peeling and not the bitter white underneath.  I used all the juice and half of the zest for the cupcakes, setting aside the rest of the zest for the icing.  You could adjust the amount of zest according to your taste, but a little does go a long way and this was more than enough orange flavor for me.

Add water to the juice to make 1 and 1/3 cup.  Pour all of the cupcake ingredients into a bowl and beat well.  Fill your cupcake liners and bake at 350F (180C) until nicely browned (about 15 -20 minutes).

Now it’s time to make your icing.

• ½ cup solid vegetable shortening
• ½ cup butter or margarine
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 4 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 2 tbsp. milk
• zest of one orange
• food coloring (optional)

Cream together the butter, shortening and vanilla.  Gradually add the sugar and the remaining orange zest.  Add the milk and beat it at a high speed until it’s nice and fluffy, adding food coloring if desired.  I added a tiny bit of red and yellow to mine.  Pipe the icing onto your cooled cupcakes using any method that you prefer.

I also made some pretty cupcake wrappers using papers from SP’s Sandbox kit and summer additions.

 And here is your FREE 4×6 recipe card.  You can CLICK HERE to download the card…or simply click the image below! Enjoy!

Thanks for checking in with the Blog today…we’ll see you all on Monday for the Layout of the Week!  Have a very special weekend!

…and, P.S. Just a quick reminder that the Easy-As-Pie Template Challenge 26 deadline is SUNDAY night (12 midnight US EDT), for all those still wishing to join in the FUN and have the chance to win a $25 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe!  Don’t forget to add your comment/link to the original blog post after you upload your layout to the Gallery!

RosyFood Stuff, Free (not desktops), Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hello everyone!  It’s Kim here today to share a little scrapping inspiration with you.  Ever want to stretch your scrapping style a bit and try something new?  I am in that place a lot and don’t always know where to begin.  But it is good to remember that inspiration is all around!  And with the Olympics just over, and the Paralympics just starting, there was a bit of discussion on the team about how that might inspire us in our scrapping.  So I took on the task of looking for inspiration as the games were going on.  And what did I see??  I thought I’d take a closer look at the prizes themselves… bronze, silver, and gold!  Let’s take a little color inspiration from the Olympics today, shall we?

Now I wasn’t quite sure how to start with metal colors.  I mean, I didn’t really think I wanted the entire layout to be metallic.  So here’s what I decided to do… First of all, I looked through SP kits and found all sorts of metal and sparkly goodies.  I decided I would try my best to get creative with these elements.  Second, I kept the rest of my color palette simple.  In each of the layouts, I used a neutral color and a few pops of another color to mix in with my metals.  I honestly wasn’t sure where all this would go, but sometimes that’s the fun of it!

OK, here we go!  Up first is my bronze layout.  I may have stretched a bit (depending on exactly what you define as bronze), but I think all of these metal elements could be labeled bronze!  With brown cardstock as my background and some pops of red, this worked great for these photos of my son (who LOVES anything with buttons)!

Next up of course is silver.  When I saw these photo frames in the Studio Chic kit, I decided to go with some darker silver elements, but then add in a little silver sparkle by applying a glitter style to a few other SP elements.  Gray seemed like the perfect backdrop for this one (along with the white sparkly paper from Winter Wonderland).  And a few touches of aqua brightened up the gray.  I’ve been meaning to do a layout about my scrapbooking, as almost every layout is about the kids!  This was a good time to finally put that idea to action!

And last, but certainly not least, is gold.  This one was the toughest for me, as I worried that too much gold could look a little gaudy.  But you know what?  I ended up with a special layout about a special guy… Daddy!  The title I chose seemed to make the gold in the layout make sense, know what I mean?  The black, white, and daffodil papers set up a nice background for the sparkles of gold.  And once again, I have applied a glitter style to a couple of SP elements to give them a different feel.

That’s all for my “inspired by the Olympics” post!  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my thought process as I created these layouts.  It’s good to remember that inspiration can come from anywhere!  All you have to do is look around and give it a try!

Be sure and stop back by the blog tomorrow, as Rosy will share some yummy treats with us.  Bye!

KimInspiration, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hi all! :o) Kylie here! …and, it’s FREE DESKTOP time!  I really enjoyed putting together this SEPTEMBER desktop to share with y’all!  Oh my darlin’…Clementine is, and always has been, my favourite Shabby Shoppe kit and it’s been an age since I’ve scrapped with her…ahhh, it was just like old times – she’s such a dear, dear friend!! ;o)  And I truly hope you enjoy her company (it’s guaranteed!!) all month long on your computer desktop!  You can find the download links below…and here is my little preview:

CLICK HERE to download the 1920 x 1080 version

CLICK HERE to download the 1280 x 800 version

As a lil’ reminder, the text/heart on the little tags and the pics of my sweet, sweet nieces…well, they are on my preview example only – your download will be blank, of course :o)  That way – you can personalise it with your own photo and messages.  And remember that you can always find our latest free desktop by clicking the FREE DESKTOPS category located on the right side of the blog!

If you are interested in our free desktops, but have no idea how to insert your own photos – please visit our TUTORIALS page and refer to the USING THE PIECE-A-CAKE .PNG FILES TO CREATE AN ALBUM titles :o) We offer this tutorial in both screen shot and video format, for both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. And, while the tutorial is not specifically for the desktops – the concepts are very much the same…and should help out a lot!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!  Have a lovely day…and Kim will see you all back here tomorrow for a must-read post! :o)

KylieFree Desktops, Uncategorized 7 Comments

Good Monday Morning!  It’s me, Casharina with the latest layout of the week!  I had one of the busiest weeks last week!  My oldest baby girl turned SEVEN on Wednesday, we partied on Friday, and then headed to Gatlinburg, TN to Dollywood with family on Saturday!  Although it was a BLAST I was wore out, even so, I found it VERY relaxing to browse through all the beautifully inspiring layouts in the gallery.  There really were SO many gorgeous layouts in the gallery but it was my job to choose only ONE.  So without further ado here is the layout I chose:

  I chose kkb42’s HenryJune layout for a number of reasons.  First of all this layout caught my eye in the gallery, the quilt-like look, the bright photos…it was just appealing to look at!  Once I clicked on it I found that I loved how she edited her photos; along with the patterned papers and title to all match the theme within her page.  Her play on the title is adorable too, “Son”shine ~ I love it!  The use of the stars from Sandbox, and flowers from Hopscotch used to create her flower clusters was a great idea.  I love that she was able to take inspiration from the Shabby Shoppe’s Gallery and create a page of her very own!

 Congratulations kkb42!  Thanks for sharing this inspiring layout with us, please check your email and spam folders for a $10 gift card to enjoy some shoppe’ing fun! 

 Thanks for stopping by…we’ll be back again on Wednesday! :o)

CasharinaLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 4 Comments

Happy Friday everyone!  Jenelle here today with an inspiration post that will hopefully have you firing up your creative software and getting some more fabulous pages scrapped for your albums and our gallery!

I absolutely LOVE digital scrapbooking – such a creative and fun hobby for me!  I used to really enjoy graphic and art classes when I was in school, even though I never considered myself to be naturally talented in those subjects.  I still remember learning about ‘rules’ of design in those classes and I found that by following those rules (and putting in lots of effort) I could create some pleasing pieces of art work.

Well those rules (or design principles you could also call them) I studied back in school, naturally transfer over to scrapbooking.  They are also closely followed in interior design/decorating, floral arranging, print advertising and even architecture – to name just a few.

Being aware of these design principles can really help you pull together an eye-catching layout and today I would like to explore in detail one of those design principles .  It is called the ‘Visual Triangle’.

The Visual Triangle is a concept that involves an imaginary triangle on your scrapbook page.  It is created by placing three similar elements (eg:- embellishments, clusters, photos, colours, text etc) at the corners, or points, of the imaginary triangle.  It helps create balance on a page (you could even liken it to the number and arrangement of legs needed for a stool to be stable.  3 = balance).

Our brains have a tendency to perceive images in familiar shapes and when you place elements on your scrapbook pages in a triangle, it allows your brain to see the page as a whole, rather than being distracted by one or two items on the layout. It brings your eye all the way around the layout.  It can also direct you to the one area of your page you want your viewer to focus on.  It’s a fairly simple technique that can take your pages from looking good to looking great in a jiffy!  I also believe it’s a technique you can use on every layout – it won’t get old or ever stop having an effect.

There are a myriad of ways you can create visual triangles on a scrapbook layout.  You could create them with:-

• Photos
• Clusters
• Colours
• Text (title, journalling, date)
• Repeated single elements or embellishments

I think the best way to illustrate what I am talking about is to take a look at some example layouts from our team gallery, that use the technique of the visual triangle perfectly.

I hope these 3 examples (remember 3=balance!) have highlighted this technique for you.  There are plenty more layouts in the team gallery that use this technique – next time you are browsing through, take a closer look and see what appeals to you about each particular layout.  It may well be that elements/colours/photos are placed within this visual triangle format!  Subconsciously, we are drawn to designs that use familiar shapes as they are visually appealing to us (eye-candy in a way!  LOL!!).

Why don’t you try this technique out yourself on your next layout – you might be very surprised with the end result!  We’d love to see you post some new pages in the gallery that use this concept.  You may have already been following this design rule and we’d love to hear your thoughts as well.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading along today, just as I hope you’ve enjoyed reading all my posts here at the Shabby Shoppe Blog.  I have loved being a part of this wonderful team, but it is now time for me to take on some new ventures and I will be signing off from here as a current team member.

A huge thank you to SP, Kylie and the fabulous team for having me here!  I’ve loved every minute!   I will still be ‘lurking’ around in the gallery and reading along with you all though – you can’t get rid of me that easily!!  LOL!!

Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you back here on Monday with our latest LOTW winner.  Until then, happy scrapping to you all, THANK YOU and bye for now :)

JenelleInspiration, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized 11 Comments