Fruit Pizza

This Fruit Pizza recipe has been a favorite in our family for many years. It can be made at any time of the year with your favorite fruits and whatever is available.  It's easy, delicious & always disappears quickly. 

Ingredients:

sugar cookie dough (16 pz prepared dough, store bought or homemade)
8 oz cream cheese
2 Tb plain yogurt or sour cream (light or fat free can be used, if you'd like)
2 Tb powdered sugar
1 Tb lemon rind
1 Tb lemon juice
approx 3 cups of sliced fruit (fresh or canned)


Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a pan - I use a large pizza pan. If you don't have one, you can use a large cookie sheet or get a round baking pan at the dollar store. 

Press the cookie dough into a circle on the pan for the crust.  Bake for 8-10 minutes and let cookie cool.

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, yogurt/sour cream, powdered sugar, lemon rind & lemon juice and mix well.  Spread the mixture over the cooled cookie crust.

Top with lots of delicious fruit.

Slice like a pizza, serve & enjoy!

Paper to Digital Scrapbooking

The Beginning

I started scrapbooking back in 1998. (I had a scrapbook back in the 80s, but it was different then.) Like many others at the time, I went to a few home parties & became hooked right away. Paper, stickers, photos cut into shapes - it was fun. I expanded my circle to include stamping & card making. Stamps, inks, vellum, brads - I started collecting supplies. The colors, the textures, I loved all of it. Soon, I had quite a supply of goodies to play with and kept amassing more. I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator to help others learn new techniques, create projects and collect supplies.

Collecting & Growing

I had a lot of stuff for scrapping & stamping. I went to day crops & scrapbooking weekends with friends, loading up my car with as much as I could fit. My craft area got bigger & my stuff found its way all around the house. By this time, I had created many books. These big 12x12 books filled with pictures & stories. I loved looking through them & sharing them with others, they were just so big to store. I also had a few 8.5x11 for the kids' individual books and some smaller, themed books. But, the 12x12 was the popular size for supplies, so I kept creating the albums. Plus, I could fit more pictures on the 12x12 page.

There were "rules" for scrapbooking back then. When I started with Creative Memories, I was only supposed to use CM products because they were "photo safe". With Stampin' Up!, I only used their products for my demonstrations. You were supposed to only use acid free, lignin free products on your pages to protect the photos for a lifetime. Work in chronological order. You must journal, you must mat your photos, use a title. Then, things went 3D & pages got bulky with metals, buttons, ribbons, and Jolees - oh, those Jolee stickers were awesome (ok, they still are!).  I got a Cricut & started cutting out my own die cuts & embellishments. The albums got so big, the seams were bursting & I couldn't close an album all the way.


Scrapbooking magazines provided the inspiration & ideas for layouts, embellishments and themes. I looked forward to my monthly dose of inspiration. I started noticing some pages used computer printed titles and photos with type on them. I dabbled in it a little, but felt like I was cheating by not using real scrapbooking supplies. Then, I saw pages that were done on the computer completely! Never would I do that, that's not "real" scrapbooking, I thought.



Changing to Digi-Scrapping

In 2011, I started looking at more digital pages. They looked like real pages that had 3D items on it. I decided to try it. I started with MyMemories Suite software - it was a free trial program. It had supplies already installed & a nice little shop that made it easy to download what I needed. I bought a book about digital scrapbooking & it included a CD of sample supplies. With a short learning curve, I was scrapping away pictures from 2010 quicky & easily. I could stop in the middle of a page, save it & come back later without having to clean up my mess.

supplies by Brittish Designs - Backyard Bliss

I was hooked on this new phase of scrapbooking, especially because of one word: Undo. With Undo, I could change my mind without losing a picture or that favorite piece of paper. In fact, I could use that favorite piece of paper over & over again if I wanted. I progressed to a trial download of Photoshop Elements and started learning it. Loved it, bought it. I learned more about shadows, effects, templates and more. There were so many benefits to digital scrapping, but I hated the thought of leaving my paper supplies behind. So, I used the supplies in my craft room for older pictures, card making & some other projects. I started letting the kids use more of my "good" stuff for their projects. But, the more I did on digital, the less I did in paper.

Supplies: Kellybell Designs - On the Frontier

The first digital album was finished and it was time to decide what to do with it. I could leave the pages on the computer, put it on a CD, print out the pages & put them in an album or have a book printed. I decided to back up the pages to a CD and upload it to Shutterfly to have a book printed. It came out great and not bulky at all. I realized that the 12x12 size may not be necessary. So, the next book I printed, a Disney album, was 8x8. Perfect! I could still fit a ton of pictures, decorated with embellishments & journaling and the book fit great on any shelf.

Supplies: Connie Prince - Rawr Collection

And Now

Recently, I have come to the point of deciding it was time to let much of my paper scrapping supplies go. I started out with purging the papers that I didn't really like and donated them. I put up some lots on ebay. Now, I am in full-force purge mode. I realized that if I want to go back & scrap my old pictures, I'll scan them into the computer. I have kept some supplies for the card making and for the kids' projects for home & school.

There are a lot of great designers and communities in the digital scrapbooking world. I've had the opportunity to do some marketing for an online store, participate in contests, online crops & games, and was a guest designer for Connie Prince Designs last year.  I have been learning how to create my own digital papers & embellishments, too, for my own pages and started selling some packs on SummerfallDesigns Etsy Shop .

Supplies: Connie Prince Designs - Winter Wonderland 

Digital scrapping makes it so easy to share pages with others. You can share pages with family & friends, make copies of books and post to galleries with just a few clicks. I'll be adding more pictures to the Gallery, so stop back & take a look. Feel free to share your pages, too!

Summer Begins with Free Photo Printables

For many, this weekend marks the beginning of summer.  It feels like summer, too, because it's the first hot weekend of the year in our area. It is also the time when people start heading to the beach areas again (a blessing and a curse to those living there throughout the year). Growing up in Jersey, we would say we were going "down the shore". Bruce Springsteen even references it in "Jersey Girl".
I miss being near the beach & I'm unable to get there anytime soon. So, with the beach on my mind, I am sharing some free photo printables with you. Both are pictures I took at the Jersey Shore. Click on the links and save to your computer. Let me know if you have any problems downloading.

For the artsy craftsy folks who want more, these pictures are part of my digital paper kit and collage sheets in my etsy shop SummerfallDesigns

Sand & Shells print

Down the Shore

Bridal Shower card and gift

I can't believe a year has gone by since I made this card and gift for my niece-to-be's bridal shower. It's now almost time for their 1st Anniversary!  Anyway, I thought I might share it for inspiration. 

I used some glittered pink paper for the card front and cut out the wedding dress from the Cricut Cartridge Sweethearts. I layered this over some swirl patterned vellum and added a few pearl heart stickers. Then I attached it onto a blank card and put the pearly heart on the envelope to match. Quick, pretty & I used a little more of my stash!

As part of the gift for the bride-to-be, I created a personalized decorative plate with their names, last initial and wedding date. I found the charger plate in Michael's and it was the perfect color for the wedding theme. I was fairly new to vinyl projects at the time, so now when I look at it I wish the placement was different and that I added something to the rim. I do love that M monogram, though!

I still have most of the personalized gifts I received for my bridal shower and appreciate the time and effort put into them. The framed, cross-stitched name & wedding date with a pearl border and a hand painted slate of a bride & groom with our name & date are both proudly hung in our home. 

What are some of the memorable handcrafted gifts you have received? I'd love to hear your comments!

Graduation Mini Albums

I'm sharing these two little 5x7 graduation mini albums I created. These are great as gifts for the new grad or even used as a guests book at a graduation party.

The first one is in shades of blue, green & tan. I call it "Words of Wisdom". As you'll see, it has encouraging phrases and definitions. There are some little tags to pull out, too.



 I wish I could remember the supplies I used, but it was all part of my stash.

 The second album is in black, white, silver & gold with classic symbols of graduation. There is plenty of room for pictures and notes.

These books are currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

Words of Wisdom for the Graduate
Graduation Mini Album


Maybe this inspires you to create your own Graduation album with your stash. I'd love to see what you create, so please share! :)