A Recipe for you!

Today I am going to share a recipe with you - and a little fun information along with it. I LOVE the Elizabeth Bell images - so sweet and Whimsical. And I love participating in the monthly challenges. This past month the challenge on the Elizabeth Bell Challenge blog was to make RECIPE cards. So, I set about to find an image that would indicate some kind of food. Well, most of the digitals that she carries didn't quite say 'food' to me, so I went in search of some of her stamps. Now, what can be better than having the actual rubber in your hand? A gift card to purchase the stamps!! I have a friend who lives in the UK who won a gift voucher for Simon Says Stamps. Well, the shipping to her was so incredibly high that it wasn't worth it for her to use it, so she gifted it to me and I was able to find some beautiful Whiff of Joy stamps by Elizabeth Bell that fit the project theme. Thanks Deb!

So, once I got my stamp - JUST in time to complete my project for the month - I set about to decide what I wanted to do. Now, I LOVE chocolate chip cookies - however, not all chocolate chip cookies are alike. My kids call me a chocolate chip cookie snob - so my first part of the project was to create a recipe for CHOOSING a chocolate chip cookie. Of course, I had to use 'Cookie Girl' and my Parisian Breeze (retired) DSP as it has CHOCOLATE CHIP as one of the colors!! I colored my cookie girl with my prisma color pencils and then set about to make a pocket on the front of the card for my 'choosing' recipe. Now just in case you are wondering what that recipe says, I will tell you.

"The cookie must be brown but not burnt. It must be crisp but not crunchy. It must have nuts of some kind, walnuts are best. When warm the chocolate chips must be gooey, not the cookie. the cookie when warm must maintain a bit of crisp, but not be crunchy! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! eat pale looking cookies!! Don't indulge in the soft kind either! ENJOY!!

This is MY criteria for choosing a good chocolate chip cookie - I am sure there is a bit more to it than that, but when I first came up with this 'recipe' I didn't write it down - so, now it is written down and I can't say as it might get tweaked when my memory returns!! lol Now, before I take you inside my card, I wanted to show you a closer look at my bow. First, I LOVE the new seam binding ribbon that Stampin' Up! has in their mini catalogs. There are several colors to choose from right now and they are PERFECT for making beautiful bows. I added a small pearl to the knot on my bow just for added beauty. What I really want to share with you though is the way I made this bow. I have had a gizmo that I got a long time ago at a stamp club meeting I used to attend. It was fairly primitive and I really didn't use it all that much. Then I saw on a website that someone was selling something similar, only much nicer looking. I decided that I would get mine out and work with it - but I still wasn't satisfied, so I broke down and purchased this Magic Bow Maker. I am SO happy that I did. I have to admit, I liked the bows I was seeing from this cardmaker and I really wanted to know what her trick was. With the bow maker I got the directions on how she made the bows, which was similar to what I was already doing. I also got this nifty card holder - so I think the $15 I spent on this bow maker was WELL worth it - and I hope that if you don't already have one of these, you will purchase one from her - her shipping time is awesome too. (Now, just so you know, she isn't paying me to say all this - I am just sharing because I am a happy customer) So, back to the card - now that you have seen the outside, I decided that I might as well give you an actual recipe of a fantastic chocolate chip cookie - the recipe I have used for years. Now, rather than me writing out the recipe for you here - I will send you to a website I found with the recipe. when I was typing out the recipe to put in my card, I noticed that it was from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. Now, I do not remember where I actually got this recipe - I know it wasn't online, as that was before computers and I had never heard of this person - so that mystery remains. However, you will find the recipe here. You will have to scroll past the Toll House recipe that we are all familiar with - and continue reading through the recipe to the end - as you will see that she says something similar about a good chocolate chip cookie!! Honestly, I looked this up online after I finished my card and had NO IDEA there were other Chocolate Chip Cookie snobs out there! So, here's to the BEST chocolate chip cookie and all chocolate chip cookie snobs!! :)

I hope you have enjoyed reading my musings today - I will be posting this to the EB challenge blog and hope that I find some more chocolate chip cookie 'snobs' to join me!!

Have a fantastic rest of your day - wherever you are in the world.

~Paula~