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Our big family Christmases the first 40 years of my life were always the host supplied the meat dish and everyone else brought something. When I got old enough, I would make good old Rice Krispies Marshmallow Treats. So it wasn't baking but it was something very enjoyable to eat. Some years I would make a recipe that Mom & I got off a Rice Krispie box many, many, many years ago called "Choco-Scotch Clusters". Rice Krispies mixed into melted chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and smooth peanut butter. I would make either one of those 2 things for any carry-ins we would have a work (I'm not a cook at all and hate cooking for me let alone others). On Thanksgiving I asked my cousin's wife which one she would like me to bring on Christmas... she chose the chocolate so Christmas Eve I will be making a batch of those. Although I usually put them in a pan instead of dropping them on waxed paper in clusters. I documented the recipe in a layout.

In the 1980's, I worked with Gina, a lady of Italian descent, who always brought pizzelles for carry-ins. Although her family made them with traditional anise, she knew that many people don't like black licorice flavor, so she only brought in vanilla cookies. We became good friends, and I asked for all the details of how they were made. One Christmas season in the late '80's, I was in Chicago, shopping the Miracle Mile. I was looking around in Marshall Fields and I happened upon an electric pizzelle iron. But it was $50! (Worth about $145 today.) I really hesitated to spend that much. But I had never seen one in my hometown and didn't get to Chicago very often. (And this was before online shopping!) So, I bought it. When I told Gina, she made me promise to never bring in pizzelles at work, because it was her thing. But my family loved my pizzelles. Especially because I experimented. I've made chocolate, pecan, almond, chocolate/peanut butter, cinnamon, peppermint, orange, mocha, cherry, and even rose flavored pizzelles. This year, I'm painting them with luster dust edible glitter, to make them even more magical for Christmas! I guess that wasn't too expensive of a purchase, considering that it's been nearly 40 years that I've been using that same appliance!

The challenge on PSP maniacs is lens flare and I made this for that sight and figured I might as well post it here too.

I love to bake, especially during the holidays! The year before last I made Greek Kourabiedes, something I've never made before. This recipe used an ingredient I had never cooked with before, Orange blossom water. They turned out soooooo melt-in-your-mouth good!! They remind me of Russian Wedding Cookies. I may make them again this year. I will also add, I stored them in an airtight container then forgot about them until the following Christmas when I was going to use it for other cookies and these were still in there lol. I tried one and they tasted as fresh as they day I made them! I am so impressed with how this stacking food container kept my cookies, it's very old-fashioned but I love it! I made several kinds of cookies and was able to transport them easily to my mom's for our Christmas dinner.

Anne, beautiful sunset photos!

Do you tend to do holiday baking? Or maybe you used to but don't anymore? Do you have a favorite baking recipe? Would you care to share it? You can even make a layout with that favorite recipe! Let's chat.

Wow, so many great recipes! I also make things to give as Christmas presents. These could be cookies, truffles, jam, Bailey's liqueur, etc. I am always looking for new and unusual recipes. Last year, I baked these Lemon Shortbread Cookies, and the feedback was very positive. So, I'll bake them again this year. Sharon, you've got me interested in these Kourabiedes cookies. I'll start looking for the orange blossom water! Dan, I didn't know about pizzelles. They look so pretty and probably delicious, but I don't have a pizzelle maker, and the prices at Amazon are also not cheap.

Ann, you have created a lovely calendar about those beautiful animals all year round, and December is no different. 🙂 -------------------------------------------------------- I haven't had much time to work with PSP this month, and the little I am doing is finishing Lesson 7 of the Text Workshop and creating things for our Christmas. But I love to come by here and see what everybody is doing!

Happy December from the Nashville Zoo. It's Sumatran Tiger Time! The new, red logo (upper left) is for Critically Endangered species. Nashville is very active with a breeding program. My granddaughter, Jackie Thorpe, is a zookeeper there.

Same here, and I got another wrong as well.

Julian I had the same problem with that answer and I didn't quite understood that question.

15/15 for me. Did have to think a little more on 2 of them. Glad I signed up for it, learned a few tricks. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? LOL

I got 14 , my translation was not good so I clicked the wrong on 11

my day 5 , I think also that I need more practice with it,

Lesson 4 This was an interesting lesson. I created the background using the top right flower and kaleidoscope. I like what I got and have saved it into my backgrounds folder. The only flower I used the warp brush was the lower right flower. The practice lesson The tutorial lesson Thanks, Carole, I will need lots more study on shadows, I see. Jeni

My 1st attempt of lifted corners. I think I still have some learning to do.

Here is my lesson 2. Shadow setting 8 8 60 8. Reverse shadow 0 0 35 8. Perhaps it's personal choice, but I don't like to make my shadows to heavy and to dark, especailly on papers. As there is next to nothing in thickness in plain paper. On card stock and elements that is a different thing all together. My preference is to lower the depth and darkness. The colours of the papers also determine the settings I use. Is my thinking right or wrong? I almost always use the reverse shadow, to define papers.

I'm still in post move box h*ll, but excited to learn something new about drop shadows. I have used them plenty but I would like to be in control of what I am doing and not just guessing.

I wouldn't call it claustrophia for me, but there are situations where I'm not comfortable if the space is too small and over-crowded (waiting rooms). And I don't like any crowds at all.

Love the green. Don't see it much in layouts and it's so fresh! I had a friend years ago who had to stay at the table until he ate all his peas, and he hated them. Still does.

@Donna Sillia What an amazing alpha - really cool.

Very ingenious and I like what I see!

Day 6 - Fear of Heights The picture of the waterslide is from Canva, the coaster from Unsplash and the last one is from my daughter. I made the background and the waves from cass waves script. The border was me fooling around with directional tubes and vector tube. The pattern is from a cass preset. The title font is Ampera, a layered font from CF, and the text is Vintage Remington. The stars are from the template and put in a row using cass repeat script. The little black carnival objects are from a CF dingbat font called DBAmusement Park.

New stuff for me, especially the little pink ball. Guess the trend never made it to small town Ontario!

Can you try again? I had the wrong name on the updated file!

Day 1, finally. I've been working on it a little at a time for several days. (I still have a bit of brain fog and the heat is still kicking my butt.) I used an arsenal of Cassel's scripts to create the background paper and all the beads. One of her edge fonts helped me create the edge of the yellow paper. The story font is Sugarstyle Millenial. I'm not thrilled with my shadows, but that's par for the course.

That is a beautiful layout Corrie. Good idea to tie this workshop with the All About Me challenge. It will make a comprehensive book. I cant even duplicate my vector when it's made in a selection. It just automatically goes to a straight line. I think I'll start using 2022 if I feel like I want to do wrapped text in a selection.

I'm in.

I love this. I have been creating these to. I want to create more with generic sentiments (happy birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year etc). It's fun to decide which "counter"(the enclosed space in a letter such as; p, a, b, e, q etc) space to add or subtract when you select the top and bottom portions with the magic wand. That butterfly and the flowers works so well with your template/mask.

I am happy you posted it, Dawn! The flowers look amazing. Great work!

I made a couple of layouts for friends after they sent me some pix of things going on in their lives. Which tells you not much is going on in mine! 😁

I'm still stuck on vectors which I find fascinating. My latest little creature is an owl. The patterns are from FF, the feathers around the face are a'dozi feather brushes. Feathers on body, chest and wings are from feathers from CF made into patterns. Eyes and feet are from Canva.

It looks like the lion is getting a foot TICKLE to me. Another great calendar page as usual. I love seeing them each month.

Thank you, Doska for your comments. I'm glad to help with naming that font, no apology is required. I'm trying to remember what fonts I use, and I might have to name layers using font names. I have a few fonts with names ending in 'free for personal'. Your Chinatown scrap is great, Doska, you used an unusual 'frame' for your photograph, I love it.

Lab 12 Mod 6. Requirements: Mandala - back of the pictures; paint streaks 2 (Not happy with this) behind the gold butterfly; Gold Texture the frame on the background layer. I used Cass Circle Pictures for the pictures and then resized it for this layout (hid the original background layer).

Finally got to #4 - this took some time; I had a rough time getting the punches to work correctly. VERY interesting.

I like your watermark effect for you the designer. I might nick that idea, especially for the folded cards.

Nice card Michele and I like that font too and I have it as well. No surprise there as I live in the Netherlands and Amsterdam is the capital!

I was thinking that too about the Cockatoos!

Lesson 5 - I kept it simple and took a pass on the the stork and its layers and shadows. I have done a couple of baby announcement layouts in the last couple of months. It's a fictional announcement but the type I and my friends might make about saving rescue dogs. I have three of them already, which keeps me busy (and broke 😛). Cute dog from Pixabay. Ribbon from M. Lerin at DS. Pawprints from a brush.

Awesome! Same template layout, yet our pages couldn't be more varied.

Peggy,, glad you love my/our Teddy Bear:) I used free font HEATLAND REGULAR.

L2. Card2 corrected a bit thanks to AnnSeeber. btw, it's super fun so I've changed my work a little bit.

L2 Card2.

A beautiful colourful festive page. Is the font a layered or a coloured font. If it is a layered font, it is easy enough to colour them. Using all the fonts in the folder, including its shadow font. There is a tutorial, but I can't remember at the moment where it is located in the campus. Try the blog. I use layered fonts.

Beautiful Corrie. My eyes go right away tot he Mariposa Grove sign. Good thinking. Congrats on that awesome ticket script!

I'm on a roll! This is the last one of the intros and it is again a simple layout using a photo with a reduced opacity, except for the Mariposa Grove sign that I kept at 100%. There were information boards and I extracted them from the photos and put them here as info before the next photo pages in the album. I couldn't resist to make an admission ticket with my own script 😉. I will make another intro but that one is with the family photos and I will not show those here because my family doesn't want me to do so. Which I of course will respect.

Me too, i like greetingcards.

I'll check and see if I have this kit. He really is adorable. If I'm not mistaken, she found him in the stable. He was just a tiny, cute little thing. 🙂

I get these cute little ones in my yard and at the feeders too. You got a great shot and made the usual lovely layout with a fab banner!