Stuffed French Toast

A while back, my sisters and I went to IHOP for breakfast and Jennifer got the stuffed French toast. She let me try it and we both loved it! So for her birthday, she always has waffles and strawberries, this year she had stuffed French toast.
I got online and was looking for a copycat recipe to IHOP's Stuffed French Toast and all I kept getting for the filling was 'Philadelphia Ready to Eat Cheesecake Filling'. I finally found a homemade recipe and it is perfect. 

Start out with the French Toast itself.

Add the filling:

4 oz. cream cheese

3 TBS butter, softened

Powdered Sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the cream cheese and butter together.

Then add the sugar and vanilla.

Put this on top of 2 pieces of the toast, then squish together to make a sandwich.

Top with whipped topping and strawberries and you have a copycat of IHOP's Stuffed French Toast. =)

Have a blessed day.

Bethany

the 1st December Birthday

. . .to my favorite big sister! Jennifer is my only big sister, therefore she is my favorite. =) I have to say that we have had some awesome times over the years. From playing dress-up as girls, to singing together in church. From doing tea parties, to shopping. From her playing while I sing, to me playing while she sings.

She is a one of a kind sister. Jennifer has a heart to serve. She goes to the nursing home to visit with the folks there and just be an encouragement and help in any way she can, whether it be reading to them, or coloring with them.

Jennifer is our church piano player and holds the huge responsibility of the singing list and managing the many choirs we have. Many times I look at her work load just for church and I don't know how she does it. On top of that, she teaches the 8-12 year olds Sunday School.

I don't have many pictures of Jennifer from this year. I think we might just have to plan a photo shoot for some this year pictures. =)

This year Jennifer is hard to buy for. I don't know why its any different than other years but it is. So this year I made her birthday presents. I sewed an owl apron, and an owl pillow. I got the pillow pattern from Joanns but had it blown up to make it bigger.

Then I made the apron by looking at the pattern and free handing it: I think it turned out super cute!

 

Have a blessed day.
Bethany

Christmas Cards

It is getting to be that time of year when all you see are Christmas decorations, ornaments, and lights. The buying of gifts, the keeping of secrets, the joy of the holiday and the excitement in the air. Its here and I'm really excited! Although we first have to go through Thanksgiving an early start on Christmas is always good.
Every year we give Christmas cards to the families we love at the church. But this year is special. It has been almost a year since we've been at this church and the people really are like our family. Most churches we've been in, the people just go there; they were never really close like family. But this church there are several people, families, that love us and have taken us in as their own.
So the topic of cards goes, we are making them all homemade cards! Its a small group so it won't be many to make, but they will all be more special because they're homemade, thinking of them.
So here is the first batch of cards that I've made for the Christmas season.

Vacation

The last week of October Jennifer, Amy and I went to Bryson City and Pigeon Forge with two older ladies from our church. We had so much fun. Most times we get along with the older people than younger people.

On the way out we stopped by Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and donuts.

Love the coffee.

I am not going to post all the pictures of the mountains and all the miscellaneous pictures from our vacation. But I will direct you to my sisters blog here where she has all those pictures posted. I will be mostly posting pictures that I was able to edit and make the colors shine, but also some of my favorites that I can't help but love.
Mrs. Kathy keeps her camper up in the mountains all year so we stayed there for 3 nights.

We went to Deep Creek and hiked up to the waterfalls the first evening we were there. The trails were so beautiful! To my dismay, my camera started giving me problems and so I didn't get a lot of pictures. But here is what I did get. And thanks to Photoshop I was able to brighten the colors.

 

Behind her camper, as you see somewhat in this picture, is a river. The first morning we were there, I took my camera down to the bank and got some really beautiful sunrays.  

While we were in Tennessee everyday Amy and I took selfies together.

 ~Tuesday~

 ~Wednesday~

~Thursday~

On the way back over the mountain we stopped to get some pictures. The mountains are absolutely beautiful this time of year.

Have a blessed day.

Bethany

My Birthday

October brought many things for me this year. Many learning experiences of all different shapes and sizes. One trial was the acceptance of my not being a teenager anymore. Through many of these 'learning experiences' I've realized how I am not that teenager. I was looking at my situation and seeing how I enjoyed my friends (who are all teenagers) and I didn't want things to change. But Mama told me that 'I' didn't have to change. 20 is just another year. It's just another age. Anyways, in viewing the relationships that I've had this year I have seen how I am older in many ways other than age. I was thinking that being older would make me have to act like an adult and never have any fun at all, when in reality adults can have just as much fun as teens.
On the Friday before my birthday I received my presents. I had already gotten the BIG present from Mama, but Amy and Jen had me something. Amy gave me this beautiful necklace and earring set.

Jen gave me cash for our trip. I also got some fingernail stuff from Mama that I absolutely LOVE!!!
So, Friday night I was busy doing nails. The sad fact is, I wasn't doing mine, I wasn't having mine done; I was doing Amy's and Jennifer's. =) But no hard feelings, I mean it is my birthday why not do for others, right? LOL! We had loads of fun and their nails turned out gorgeous.

 Jennifer had some classy nails.

Amy's were bright and pretty.

In the set of manicure stuff, I got some templates. I thought they were re-usable, but they weren't. Amy's nail has the template design. All the others I had to do by hand. The kit also came with three colors of polish with small, thin brushes. Talk about great for design. With them, I did these.

Amy's patriotic nails. The thumb has fireworks that look really good. 

My converse!

Have a blessed day.

Bethany

As of Late

It has been too long since I last posted.
This week, Jen, Amy and I are going to stay with some adopted family. There is a revival going on in Aunt Becky's town, since its too far for us to drive every night, we are just gonna' camp out at her house. It's been a while since we've seen and spent time with them so we are really looking forward to out trip.
So before I leave out here is a post of what I've been making lately. =)
This past year we met a young girl named Abigail, at camp. she is 12 (I think) and very rambunctious. She's mischievous, and sneaky, and sweet. We got to spend a little more time with her at a camp meeting earlier this year where she saw some of my letter art and loved it. So I decided that I would make her a bookmark with special lettering and send it to her. It has been a few months since I decided this, but lack on my part puts me sending it now. She doesn't know its coming and I'm sending it out tomorrow.

My Uncle Mike's birthday is the day before mine, so I made him a birthday card. I sat down at my card table and had no idea what I was going to do. We don't talk except for on special occasions so I had no clue what to do. I knew one thing though, he loves the Steelers. So I got on the internet and looked up birthday cards for football teams. This is what I did.

What's cool about making cards, is that you can make them any size you want. A lady in our church has been sick and out of church for a couple weeks, so we decided to make a card and send it to her saying we missed her. This card is super small. It is adorable! Compared to the regular cards we make, this one would be the size of the label on the envelope. (maybe a little bigger)

My penmanship I am hoping to improve.

Sunday I did Jennifer's hair. Normally Sunday mornings are busy, but since I cut my hair I currently only leave it straight and pull back the sides or leave it all down. So I'm done early now. I saw this hairstyle on Pinterest and it looked really cute. Once I did it, I thought it looked REALLY cute. =)

Simple, yet beautiful.

Have a blessed day.

Bethany

My New Card Tools

This past Saturday, October 4th, Mama, Jennifer, Amy and I went yard sale-ing. It started out really good. The first yard sale we stopped at, the guy was selling this old Pentax camera with a lens, for $10.

 One of the reasons I like the old cameras is this reason right here, the colorful markings on the lens.

I've been wanting one of those since I started my photography course through NYIP. The reason why is because that was Chuck Delaney's camera, and the model camera in a lot of the lessons. So I was super excited to get this.

It works too. I have to get film for it though before I can take pictures.
In between the first and last yard sale, I found a really nice dress, Jen found an adorable, dressy, red jacket. and some little miscellaneous stuff.
The last yard sale we went to this lady was selling all her scrapbook stuff. She had gotten married and was expecting their first baby, so she didn't have the time anymore to scrapbook. She had corner clippers, templates and cutters, scissors and measuring mats. Lots of good stuff. She was also selling her 4 drawer organizer that had all of that in it. Amy and I are the major card makers in this house, so we were looking at it and trying to figure out what we could get for what we had. But we wanted all of it.

The organizer itself she was selling for $10, empty.

The cutters she was selling for $5 a piece.

And then there was the other stuff. All individually priced.

 Scissors, a straight cutter, a template cutter, ruler/hole punch combo.

 Oval and circle templates, size charts and cutters.

More templates, and cutting mats.

So we asked her how much she would take for the whole thing. . . . . And she told us, $40. What?! That is an awesome deal. So for my birthday present Mama bought me this whole organizer full of scrapbook utensils. Now I'm not using it for scrapbooking, I use it to make cards. In the next post I'll show you some of the new cards and designs I did with my new tools.
Have a blessed day.
Bethany

 

Quilting

A little while ago, I took on a task that I'd never done before; quilting. My Aunt Becky (by adoption lol) wanted her grandmothers handy work finished, so I took home a small topper and have since put it together. I am now in the process of quilting it and am having so much fun.

This quilt top was hand-sewn together by Aunt Becky's grandmother. I absolutely love the colors and pattern. Even though today we are all about matching colors perfectly, I think this color scheme is great. Old quilts just have that feel of 'this-materiel-is-not-just-materiel', it has the feel that is came from something special. You see where they take old shirts and dresses and make the patch work out of them. That's the kind of feel you get from old quilts. And then there is the fact that it was hand sewn together. Today we all use machines to sew the quilt tops together, and much of the quilting is done on machine not by hand.

Since this quilt top was hand sewn, I thought it deserved to be hand-quilted. And so here are some pictures, just for you Aunt Becky, so you can see the progress and how it looks.

Since I'd never quilted before, Mama told me the different ways you could quilt; like the different quilt patterns. Cross wise, on the seam, 1/4 inside of the seam, ect. I wanted something easy that way I didn't get frustrated and want to put it down, but I wanted it to be nice, so I chose the inside the seam by a  1/4 inch.

I am using a quilting square. I know you've heard of the quilting hoops but this is different and holds the fabric so much better. Quilting hoops tend to let the quilt slide and you have to keep tightening it. This is a plastic square that holds the materiel from the backside. I was putting it on the top but found that I could get closer to the edges it done backwards.

Here is a close up of the back.

 Hope you enjoyed seeing my project. I will be posting the finished project in the future.

Have a blessed day.
Bethany