There is this great little grocery store just a few blocks from my apartment. Everytime I go there, I look at their amazing bakery and see these fabulous jam-filled heart cookies. But of course I never buy them, and if I did, they would probably be like 3 dollars a piece. So I decided in honor of valentines day, I would make some myself! They were so easy, and exceptionally good! You should definitely try them. 

I just moved and have barely any kitchen stuff, so baking presents quite the challenge. For these cookies you will need:

1. A Rolling Pin

2. 2 nesting heart-shapped cookie cutters (I found mine for $1 a piece)

3. Sugar cookie dough recipe + ingredients – or pre-made sugar cookie dough (I totally cheated!).

3b. Extra flour & powdered sugar

4. Red jam

5. Cookie Sheet

First step is to make the dough – or  pretend you made the dough. When I use pre-made dough, I always add just a little bit of flour so it doesn’t stick to everything. 

Next you’ll need to roll it out. I recommend 3/16″ (just a little less than a quarter of an inch) because you’ll be putting together two cookies in the end, so it gets a bit bulky. This also depends on how much your dough rises. 

Once you’ve rolled out your dough, go ahead and use the cookie cutters to cut the big hearts in the dough. At this point you’ll want to cut little hearts in HALF of the big hearts. 

I just made a few cookies because I didn’t want to eat a dozen or so. If you are going to make a lot of these, I would recommend making your own dough, that pre-made stuff is expensive.  But if you really need to save time, it only took me about 20 min from start to finish to make these awesome cookies. 

Next you’ll want to bake the cookies. Just follow the instructions on your recipe. The hardest part of this whole thing was transferring the dough to the baking sheet without ruining the shape. Here are the cookies after they were baked. I also baked the little inner hearts, but had to do it on a second sheet. 

I let the cookies cool for about a minute on the pan, then they are easy to move to a paper towel or cooling rack. The assembly of the final cookies is pretty easy. I had the cut-out hearts on one side and dusted them with powdered sugar. Then the whole hearts I covered with a thin layer of jam – a bit thicker towards the center.  

The final assembly consisted of placing the dusted hearts on the jammed hearts. Viola! Beautiful jam filled heart cookies! These were so so yummy, I’m going to make a big batch for Mr. Project to take to work on valentine’s day!

If you are wanting to make the dough from scratch, I found this super easy recipe online:
Raspberry Sandwich Heart Cookies

Happy Valentine Baking!

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. Card Nirvana has a great Valentine’s day card and a set of super cute kids valentine cards FREE to download at cardnirvana.com. The best thing is that they are so easy to use, just download, customize and print! 

Can you tell I love valentine’s day?? I’m really excited because tomorrow I’m going to post some valentine’s projects! So check back in tomorrow. 

Today was a great day at CHA. I saw so many great craft products and even more great ideas for projects to make with the projects. Lots of fuel for my blog. As promised, I took more pictures and I even compiled them into a top 5.

#1 My Mind’s Eye Of course my number one has to be My Mind’s Eye. Not just because I work there, but because they have truly beautiful paper. The giant tree with an owl was just gorgeous to see in person, and I loved the die-cut papers with Deena Rutter’s beautiful illustrations. And we cannot forget (cause she’ll hurt me) Carina’s beautiful Bella Bella. Love it all!

#2 Tim Holtz! (If you have watched Arrested Development, that’s even funnier) I met Tim Holtz this past year at a CKU, he’s such a great guy and a huge fan of just being creative. Everything that Tim does is with such great execution. He is so talented and I am constantly in awe of what he creates both as products and as beautiful art. I loved all the great touches in his booth like these stacked vintage suitcases.

#3 Silk Screen Machine. Provo Craft just released the YUDU — for those of you who have no idea how to pronounce that – its “You Do”. Yeah. Anyway, besides the interesting name, the product is truly amazing. I cannot wait to get my hands on this sucker and do some really awesome projects. 

#4 All things cupcake. The craze that has swept the nation, is now sweeping CHA. I saw tons of very cute cupcake papers, crafts, ideas, samples, projects etc. All were so very sweet (hehe). I took a few photos and this is my favorite! A glittery decorative cupcake at the doodlebug designs booth.

#5 Cute Desks. Utilitarian desks were all over the place. We saw a great desk with a glass top and full length drawers that fit 12×12 papers. And I got a photo of this adorable green sewing desk and super fabulous (and back-supporting) padded chair. My other favorite desk had collapsable panels and a cutting mat that fit the entire top surface. I really need to get something this functional for my space.

There were so many great products at CHA, but these were 5 things that I really loved. If you went to CHA please share what you loved, I know I missed so many great things!

Oh! I almost forgot! We had some space-visitors at CHA this year and they were nice enough to pose with Me & Carina.

If you are a scrapbooker or paper crafter, you probably know the company My Mind’s Eye. MME is an awesome paper company, we design, manufacture, and distribute the most beautiful paper out there. Its a great company to work for and I love it! I’ve been working for MME for more than 5 years. First as a product designer then a product developer and eventually a creative director. I’ve been going to the shows for the past few years taking care of a lot of details, but pretty much just having a lot of fun looking at all the great new trends out there. Yesterday Carina and I went to CHA to help set up the booth. I took a few photos, but i’m not too happy with them… I’ll try to get some better ones today. 

Here is an actual photo of me! and one of Carina at the bottom. The tower shows Carina’s new line Bella Bella that is debuting at the show. Its so beautiful, you really need to see it in person. Carina is so talented!

Fans of MME may know the sales guys who we lovingly refer to as the “Boy-hemians” (this came from our release of Bohemia(wasn’t it beautiful!) when they all had matching brown Bohemia t-shirts). They are some really great guys and here is a photo of them all taking a well-deserved break.

Also you’ll notice the awesome fronts to the towers of the booth. It was my idea to cut out tree’s from wood and put circles of patterned paper and a giant owl/bird in each. I think it turned out fantastic — I even want to do some trees just like them in my kids room some day. What do you think?

CHA starts today and I can’t wait! I’ll post more pictures tonight since there will be lots and lots of eye candy. What companies would you visit if you went to CHA?

I just happen to live in the coolest city in America – San Francisco! I just barely moved here though and so I’m just starting to venture out into the awesomness. This week, my friend Carina came to visit me. Both of us have blogs, so we grabbed our cameras and headed out onto the street!

What better way to start a day in california than at Sprinkles cupcakes! For some reason I didn’t get any pictures of the outside of the store or the cupcakes. But at least you get to see Carina sitting in a chocolate colored Bertoia Chair…

After we got over the inital sugar coma and did a little shopping in Palo Alto, we decided to find some fun shops in San Francisco. One of our most fun stores was a tiny antique shop called Cole Valley Antiques . They are close to Cole Hardware right around Cole & Parnassus. This little store had some really beautiful antiques. I loved the china, and all the gorgeous vintage jewelry. Its really a great place for vintage inspired brides! They even do appointments with bridal parties to pick out all matching jewelry. Of course no photo collage is complete without carina being goofy…

While in search of the perfect fabric store (for some drape project I’m working on), we came across a few great shops on Clement St. My favorite was Fleurt… They have all these great home accessories and they make the most beautiful fresh flower arrangements. Its definitely worth a visit when you just want a fun day shopping in this unique city.

Thats pretty much a recap of our fabulous day in the city. Be sure to check out Carina’s Blog to see her photos & commentary too! Also check back soon for some fun projects that i’ve done in the past few days, I just need to get everything sorted so I can show you!