I am not ashamed to say that I have a notebook obsession! I love them.  In addition to being useful, you can find some with some great cover designs! I use them for a variety of things like journaling, writing projects, writing ideas and planning among other things.

One of the hardest things about shopping online is the inability to touch and examine products.  Hopefully you find this post helpful in getting an idea about what the notebooks from Zazzle are like.

Society6 and Redbubble also have notebooks  The notebooks with the orange slices and the Monster Bear notebook above that are from RedBubble.   The mustard pattern one is from Society6. I originally was going to write about all three company’s notebooks in one post, but then realized there was a lot of information to cram into one blog post!  So each company will be getting their own notebook post.  Stay tuned for information about the notebook from RedBubble and Society6!

The two notebooks pictured below are the ones I ordered from Zazzle.  The ones featured here are Monster Bear Notebook and Love Ewe Sheep Notebook

Here are the backs of the Zazzle notebooks.  The one with the barcode on the back is Monster Bear Notebook, which I ordered in 2013.  The Love Ewe Sheep Notebook I ordered in June of 2018.

Here is what the pages inside of the Zazzle notebooks look like:

Some fun facts:

• • To some, the notebooks may seem a little pricey and that’s okay.  I bought all these while they were on sale!  Luckily all three websites have good deals.  If you’re looking for Zazzle deals you can always check out www.zazzle.com/coupons

• • I purchased the Monster Bear notebook in August 2013

• • Currently, I am using it for a writing project about a bear that has an adventure

• • I love it when the cover of the notebook matches what my writing project is about

• The sheep picture on the Love Ewe Sheep notebook I took while on vacation in Vermont

You can find more notebooks on Valerie’s Gallery at Zazzle here!  Also feel free to check out my notebook designs on Redbubble and Society6 as well!

Do you have any items you are obsessed with or that you find really useful?  Where is your favorite place to buy notebooks? Have any questions about the notebooks on Zazzle? Let us know in the comments!

One Christmas, I bought my husband this serving tray because of two things. One, the pictures on it were from a trip to London we took together a few years ago. Two, I thought it would be great for transporting our tea and snacks from the kitchen to the dining room.

Unfortunately, I bought the small size when I should have bought the larger size. Oops! (Snack time is serious business around here!) It was too small for our needs. Boo!

However, since it was a nice serving tray and had some sentimental value, I was hesitant to get rid of it. So, it sat in our kitchen cabinet for a few months.

One day, I was taking off the coasters and remotes from the living room table while cleaning and thinking about how there had to be a better way to store them. At my house, the coasters end up spread out all over the table and the remotes end up who knows where.  How could I keep everything in a central location and organized while still looking good?

That’s when it hit me! I could use the serving tray and why not? It was nice enough to use for home decor. I decided to try it out. Not only did it work well, it looked great!If you’re looking for even more ways to use a serving tray, you can always google “ways to use serving trays” and get a lot of inspiration! So, if you see a serving tray that you love, go ahead and get it! Even if you don’t need a serving tray for serving food and drink, there are many many other uses for them!

Since art is subjective and the Greetings from London serving tray may not be to your taste, as part of the Holiday Exchange on Zazzle, I’m going to introduce you to some other talented artist!  Don’t worry!  The following designs are ones that I really like and will have something to do with the topic of this blog post!

Please note:  All links in this post are affiliate links. Thanks in advance for your support of independent artist!

Northwestphotos has such a beautiful collections of serving trays!  This one happens to be one of my favorites!  They’re serving trays are so beautiful that you can literally hang them on the wall and use them as art!

How adorable is this Rainbow Hearts Serving Tray? Wouldn’t it look cute in a little girl’s room? It would great to put small toys, hair brushes or anything else you can think of!

How fun is this Candy Canes Serving Tray by Seasonal Showers? I think it would be perfect for serving drinks and/or appetizers at your next holiday get together!

What is your favorite way to use a serving tray?

These deals were accurate when I pressed the publish.  Some may contain affiliate links.

Valerie’s Gallery at Zazzle

• 60% off pillows and 30% off everything else with the code: ZAZCYBERSALE
  • Good until November 28, 2016 11:59PM PT

Cookie and Olivia at Zazzle

• 30% off everything else with the code: ZAZCYBERSALE
  • Good until November 28, 2016 11:59PM PT

Valerie’s Gallery at RedBubble

• 20% off with code: CYBERMON
  • Good until November 28, 2016 at 11:59pm PT

Valerie’s Gallery at Skreened

• 30% off sitewide!  No code needed!
  • Good until November 28, 2016 at Midnight

Valerie’s Gallery at Imagekind

• 50% off with code: CYBMON50
  • Good until November 28, 2016 at Midnight

Beautiful Cuteness on Society6

• 20% Off + Free Shipping on Everything
  • Good until November 28, 2016 at 11:59pm PT

Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas from all of us at Valerie’s Gallery and Beautiful Cuteness!

Animation by: Valerie Waters

Music by: “Jingle Bells” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Personally, I don’t go to the malls on Black Friday. During part of grad school I worked in a craft store and Black Fridays were awful! Oh, the stories I could tell! Cashiers and other retail workers work hard, so make sure to be nice to them through out the holiday season!

For those of you who are like me and prefer online shopping, here are some deals:

Where: Valerie’s Gallery at Greeting Card Universe

Deal: 50% off all cards

Code: 2014BLACKFRIDAY

Ends: Sunday, November 30

Where to go for more info: www.greetingcarduniverse.com
 

Where: Valerie’s Gallery at Cafe Press

Deal: 40% your order

Code: BF40

Ends: Friday, November 28 at midnight PT

Where to go for more info: www.cafepress.com

Where: Valerie’s Gallery at Zazzle

Deal: (See table)

Code: ZAZBLACKDEAL

Ends: Friday, November 28 at midnight PT

Where to go for more info: www.zazzle.com

Where: Valerie’s Gallery at Red Bubble

Deal: 15% off everything

Code: SAVE15

Ends: Friday, November 28 (RedBubble wasn’t really clear when it ended)

Where to go for more info: www.redbubble.com

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at ValerieWaters(at)gmail(dot)com

For those of you who are interested I ordered the Sugar Pattern Skulls from my Zazzle store.

Sugar Pattern Skulls iPhone 6 Case by ValeriesGallery

Ingredients:

• For Graham Cracker Crust:
  • 9 graham crackers (full sheets)        1/4 cup sugar     1 stick cutter

   

• Your favorite brownie recipe.  (If you’re interested, I used this one by Alton Brown.)

•  1 bag of mini marshmallows

Directions:

1. Make graham cracker crust

• To make graham cracker crust:
  1.  Crush graham crackers
  2. Melt butter
  3. Combine graham crackers, butter and sugar
  4. Place in pan and spread so that it covers the bottom of the pan
  5. Refrigerate while mixing brownies

2. Mix your favorite brownie recipe batter

3. Pour batter on top of the graham cracker crust

4. Bake as directed by your brownie recipe of choice

5. After the brownies are done baking, throw some handful of marshmallows on top.

6. If you haven’t already, turn the oven off and place the brownies back into the warm oven until the marshmallows puff.

7. After taking the brownies out of the oven for the second time, use a knife to spread the marshmallows like frosting.

You can serve these warm, but they will be very messy! Yummy, but messy.  I suggest putting them in the refrigerator for a little while.  They’ll hold together better that way.

If you try this recipe, don’t hesitate to let us know!  Do you have a favorite brownie recipe?

Baking is in my blood! My grandfather was a baker, my dad was a baker and my mom is a cake decorator. One of the things I love to do most is bake yummy goodies from scratch, especially on rainy days. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible every time we need baked goods for an event like a bake sale or a meeting.

What do you do? You use a mix of course! And why not? They’re simple to use and taste great too. However, sometimes you want something more than a vanilla cupcake. Here’s three ways to get a little something more out of your vanilla cupcake mix without a lot of effort.

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1. Prepare mix as directed

2. Add 2 cups of chocolate chips

3. Mix together

4. Put mix in pans

5. Bake as directed

Frosting Pairing: I put chocolate frosting on mine, but any frosting that you could imagine would probably be great on these.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1. Prepare mix as directed

2. Measure out 1 cup of peanut butter

3. Warm peanut butter in microwave for 30 seconds

4. Add peanut butter to mix

5. Mix together

6. Place mix in pans

7. Bake as directed

Frosting Pairing: I used chocolate frosting for these

Tips:

• Spraying the measuring cups and mixing implements with cooking spray will help the peanut butter stick less

• After adding the peanut butter to the mix, I started off using the beater to mix it in but soon found that a spoon worked better

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1. Prepare mix as normal

2. Add 1 15oz can of pumpkin

3. Mix together

4. Add 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

5. Mix into batter

6. Scoop into pans

7. Bake as directed

Frosting Pairing:

I put vanilla frosting on some of these and on the rest I put caramel frosting that I made from a can of vanilla frosting.

Caramel Frosting

Ingredients:

1. Place unwrapped caramel squares in a microwave safe bowl

2. Add water

3. Microwave for 1 minute

4. Stir until caramels are melted

5. Let cool

6. Add ½ can (8 oz) of vanilla frosting

7. Mix together

Note: I only let the caramel cool for a minute before I added it to the frosting which led to more of a glaze like (rather than frosting like consistency). I had some left over so I put it in the fridge and the next time I took it out, it had more of a frosting like consistency. So in other words, if you would like a caramel glaze let cool for 1 minute. For a caramel frosting, let caramel cool longer.

As you can see, spicing up a simple cake batter and coming up with your own creations is very simple to do!

If you try any of these recipes, I’d love to hear how they turned out!

Luckily, we were able to get a direct flight to Dublin, Ireland. Sadly, we were only there for about two and a half days, so we only got to experience a fraction of what this city has to offer!

If you ever get a chance to go to Dublin, I would recommend taking one of the hop on, hop off tour buses that drive around. It’s a great way to see the sites and learn about the city. Plus, the nice thing was our ticket was good for two days, so we were able to tour around the city and figure out what we wanted to see and do and then go to various sites.

Some of the highlights of our trip were:

St. Stephen’s Green

St. Stephen’s Green is located in the center of Dublin. It’s a beautiful park that’s very calm and peaceful. It’s an oasis from the hectic city. Don’t forget to stop by and see the beautiful swans and other wild life.

Book of Kells and Trinity College

The Book of Kells is located at Trinity College. Also, when visiting the Book of Kells be sure to check out the Long Room. Its said that the Long Room was the inspiration for Hogwart’s Dinning Room in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowlings. Also the current exhibition, Emperor of the Irish: Brian Boru was very interesting and I would recommend checking that out as well! (It is currently running until October 2014.)

Also, the campus of Trinity College is beautiful, so be sure to take time to walk around and enjoy it! For more information about The Book of Kells and Trinity College, check out: http://www.tcd.ie/visitors/

Phoenix Park

My husband and I discovered Phoenix park when we were riding the hop on hop off bus and knew immediately we would have to go back and visit. The park is awesome! According to the tour information on the bus, Phoenix Park is twice as big as Central Park in New York City and six times as big as Hyde Park in London. I can confirm that it is a huge park and we only got to explore a small part of it.

One of our first stops was The Dublin Zoo. There’s a large variety of animals to see and spent a good amount of time exploring the zoo. It was fun to see all the animals.

I’m a very big tea drinker and was excited to see a tea house! (Apparently, there are several through out the park.) Besides tea, they also serve yummy treats. I had a snickers muffin to go with my tea.

After enjoying the zoo and tea, we walked over and checked out the Wellington Monument. It is considered to be the second tallest obelisk in the world. (The first is the Washington Monument.)

To learn more about Phoenix Park, check out http://www.phoenixpark.ie

If your like me, when traveling deciding what sites you want to see isn’t a problem, deciding where to eat on the other hand seems to be a little tougher. One of my favorite things to do is try the local restaurants and local cuisine. Luckily, there seems to be a lot of excellent choices in Dublin. Good thing I did a lot of walking so I could work off all the calories!

A. I have one of the world’s biggest sweet tooth and am an ice cream fanatic. So, it should be no surprise that one of the first things I ate was gelato. This one was from Gino’s Gelato. Yum!

B. It was interesting that most of the time when I ordered a soda at a restaurant it came in a bottle (with a glass) vs. here in the US where it is normally served in a glass.

C. I’m lucky enough to have a good Irish restaurant/pub near where I live. One of their best things on the menu is their beef stew, so of course I had to try some while I was in Ireland! This one is from Harry’s on the Green.

D. Lots of traditional breakfast were eaten! This particular one was from Bewley’s. As I mentioned before I’m a big tea drinker so it was nice that the breakfasts often came with a pot of tea. It’s also interesting to note that during my time in Europe, fresh squeezed orange juice was served at breakfast, every time except once. Which is kind of ironic since I live in Florida. (It’s definitely something I think US restaurant should start doing more of please!)

E. When we were getting restaurant recommendations from one of the desk receptionist, she happened to mention that chicken wings were a big trend in Dublin. We decided to try some as an appetizer one night.

F. Irish Cream is one of my favorite drinks. I was very excited to have some while in Ireland.

G. When I was growing up, my mom use to make corn beef and cabbage every St. Patrick’s Day. So that was another dish I was interested in trying while in Ireland.

H. As I said before, I have a huge sweet tooth. If there’s a bakery, candy store or ice cream place around, I’ll find it! This mint chocolate cupcake was delicious and was from Johnnies Cupcakes.

I. These caramel toffee squares and hot chocolate from Butler’s were awesome! I wish I had had more time in Dublin just so I could have tried more items on the menu. Everything looked so good! Plus we were able to get a piece of chocolate to try. Score!

So if you’re looking for someplace interesting and fun to travel to, you should definitely add Dublin to your list. You won’t regret it!

It can be tough to lug souvenirs home, especially if you’re traveling internationally! Check out these awesome artist and their work. Maybe you’ll find the perfect item for yourself or someone special without having to worry about lugging it through an airport!

(Note: These are affiliate links.)

Wellington Monument Tote Bags by ValeriesGallery	Old Ireland Poem Card, Blank Inside Card by Olivia A. Kneibler	Kilkee Ireland White 24 Pane Open Window Poster by WindowToTheWorld
Celtic Knot Shamrock Shirt T-shirt by mazireland	St. Patrick’s Day Poem with Clovers and Rainbow Card by Ron Magnes	Green Irish LOVE Scarf Wraps by flagnation
Golden Retriever Travel Friendship Posters by AugieDoggyStore	Just put one foot in front of the other card by L.L.	Blue and White Stripes Bon Voyage Party Custom Invite by MarianCatesDesigns
Ireland Map T Shirt by MaigiDesign	Happy a beary nice St. Patrick’s Day-Bears, Irish Flag, St. Patrick’s Day Card by Lisa C. Weber	Celtic Knot Monogrammed Coat Rack by HoMeArts
Celtic Dog Hip Flasks by wheresmymojo	Irish Blessings Card by Great Scott Designs©	Irish Cheers Flag of Ireland Green Proud Patriotic Throw Pillows by alleyshirts