Stamp Simply Celebrates!!!

Today is the beginning of Stamp Simply Celebrates! Sharon Johnson (notimetostamp) has hit the 1,000,000 mark plus on her blog, and we're celebrating! You can find the link here to view Party Central to see some of the upcoming events December 1st-12th. If you go to Sharon's home page of her blog via some other link, make sure you look above the banner picture and click on the Stamp Simply Celebrates! Party Central tab. Scroll around and read for links to upcoming blog candy, projects and challenges, all to thank you for your support! Sharon will be opening the celebration with blog candy, as is Janine Orchard (see below).

The December 1st project and challenge are issued by Janine Orchard (2bKrafty). Janine is hosting a cookie recipe exchange and is giving away a blog candy treat as well! Such yummy fun! I was thrilled to be a sample maker for this challenge, (as were the guys around the house-- the cookies didn't last long--hehe) and chose the following recipe.

"Greatest Ginger Snaps on Earth"

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup dark molasses

1 egg

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. ginger

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. salt

Cream sugar and butter. Add molasses and egg, beat well. Combine flour, soda, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and salt. Stir into creamed mixture and beat well. Shape dough into walnut sized balls and roll in sugar. Place balls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake in pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before removing.

These are soft and chewy cookies and have been a hit with all who have tried them. Hope you like them too!

Most folks have received gifts of cookies or bars, and probably have old tins available. It's difficult for me to toss these used tins, and they sometimes clutter up my pantry. Thus, I wanted to decorate a recycled tin to place my "Greatest Ginger Snaps on Earth" in.

I began by covering the base and cover of the tin with Cosmo Cricket's Oh Joy Wrapping Paper dp, hot gluing tan trim from Walmart around the rim and base perimeter. I created a mitten template and made my mittens using Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy Yuletide dp. I added the tan trim to the top of the mitts to create cuffs. The large bow behind the mittens is May Art ribbon that I got from Sharon. I used a Martha Stewart snowflake punch and Michael's brad to decorate the Wordsworth sentiment.

Take a stroll through these links to see more Cookie Recipe Exchange samples:

Janine
Jennifer
Darlene
Barb
Jerri
A.J.

If you choose to participate in this challenge, and decide to upload it to Splitcoast Stampers, please use the code SSC08 to upload to the Stamp Simply Celebrates! gallery. Also, please link your photo back to Janine's blog.

My photo today should look different from past photos. I finally opened the "Photo Studio in a Box" that I had purchased about a month and a half ago. It was fun using it for the first time--I can see that some experimentation will be needed to rid some dark and light issues, but overall I am happy with the results.

What a wonderful start to Stamp Simply Celebrates! Hope you enjoy the celebration and are able to participate! Have a great week!