Monday, July 2, 2012

Thanks A Bunch!



Piper and I did a little baking for her grandparents this weekend.  These are Banana Bread Blondies with Browned Butter Icing --- little thank you gifts.

I found a great recipe online at Life's Simple Pleasures.  You can find it by clicking here.  Jess shows how to get the butter just right and notes in her post that she took the recipe from Christy at The Girl Who Ate Everything (click here for that one), where that blogger also gives baking times for using a regular loaf pan or mini loaf pans instead of the 10x15 jelly roll pan.  The brown butter icing is the cooked kind of icing and is perfectly paired with the banana bars (or any bar or the spoon or the bowl).  I like that wonderful brittle top quality matched with the creamy, melted-in part that lies on the very moist cake.  So easy yet all from scratch (perfect for giving), bakes in under 30 minutes... and a good one to do with a kiddo!  This makes enough bars for giving to two households as well as plenty for sampling here!



I made a quick little tag to go on them.


  • The bananas were cut from Wild Card 2 (page 41) at 3-1/2" on the Expression.  Inked in brown.  The top layer was popped up using 1/4" pop dots for the bottom of the bananas only; the top was adhered flush.
  • The scalloped circle tag base was cut from Art Philosophy (page 41) at 4-1/4".  The green base was embossed using the Cuttlebug.
  • The sentiment was printed from the computer using Microsoft font Exotic Island BTN at 18 point.  I hand-cut the little banner.

I also wanted to share a couple of fun birthday wraps from a recent birthday party for siblings.


This one is for a boy who is very obsessed with Dominoes right now.  He builds Domino rallies and requested more so this is  filled with hundreds of the black wood kind of dominoes.  I got a fast lesson in which dominoes are used for this type of application and found a great source for black, wood, double-six, "building dominoes" in bulk at EAI.  Click here for a link to their dominoes.  I used Birthday Bash for the letters and the Cuttlebug Dominoes folder to emboss dominoes on them.  I used a white acrylic paint and a dry brush to paint over the  raised areas to accentuate the pattern.


This is for his sister--one of my daughter's little friends from school.  I used their pirate pool party theme as a guide and the Imagine cart Buccaneer for the parrot, banner, and "Happy Birthday Matey" above the banner.  The child's name was cut using Cricut Blackletter.  I folded the banner according to the way it was printed and popped up the center 1/2".
Thanks for checking out my post today.   We are in the midst of a very hot, dry summer here in Kentucky!  I hope that you are keeping cool wherever you are!

9 comments:

MelodyR aka Ry&MysMom said...

Those are super adorable, Nadia! You've been busy! Thanks for sharing!

Tanya~Studio 5380 said...

What fun projects! I love the "bananas" card...that is just too cute and the blondies sound and LOOK yummy! Love the dominoes - they look like the real thing and I bet Cole truly loved this! And, that pirate bag is super cute - great colors!
It's been terribly hot here in southeast Alabama also. We had a major thunderstorm late, late last night - major lightning and heavy rain. We needed the rain, but today just feels heavy and sticky, and HOT. Planning to stay inside under the AC and cleaning house today (yuck), but maybe crafting tomorrow!!

Hrvatica said...

Wonderful thank you gift. That banana bar looks yummy and your bananas card is simply adorable.
Very cute gift bag too.

Sis Patterson said...

I am going to try those banana bars - they look scrumptious! And wonderful thank you gift!

Love the sibling birthday wrapping as well - Cole's is entirely perfect and Sidney's is wonderfully fun!

And I got my power back about an hour ago - yippee - just in time for 4th of July crafting activities!

Sara Andrews said...

Now I'm hungry Nadia!! ALL of your projects look fabulous.

Sandy from Ukiah said...

You have been one busy lady. Those brownies look so yummy, ,the tag is adorable, those bananas look so real.
I am so sure Cole is going to be loving his package. And his little sister is going to love her bag.. You are so creative..hugs from Ukiah

Sukie said...

Those look so yummy, I love the packing too! The gift wrapping is so fun, what a nice way to wrap up some gifts!

Diane said...

You're making me hungry! Those look delicious and I love the banana tag!

L.B. said...

Oh those treats sound yummy and your wrapping on everything was so cute and fun. Stay coll and Happy 4th of July.

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