music monday.

This weekend, I was listening to my Praise & Worship station on Pandora. How Deep the Father's Love for Us by Nichole Nordeman came on. It's a truly beautiful song and I highly recommend buying it on iTunes. 

The lyrics have been stuck in my head all weekend! I thought I'd make this a Music Monday and share some lyrics with you. They are such a great reminder of how much God loves us.

If you would like to print this out, either click on the image, right click, select 'Save Image As', and save. Or you can go to the 'Printables & Posters' page and download it there.

Give it a listen! Hope your evening is blessed!

Annie

homemade granola recipe.

It's Friday! Thank goodness right?! 

Today I'm letting you in on one of my favorite recipes! It is for my homemade granola. I've been told it's quite the tasty little treat! I made a double recipe two weeks ago to take to my church's girls retreat. The container was empty by the end of the weekend!

Basically, I made these super cute recipe cards for you to just print out, but when I uploaded them to the blog, they were so distorted you could barely read it. Hopefully, I'll figure out what the problem is, but until then, I will just tell you the recipe here:

-1 cup (8 oz.) pure maple syrup (Grade A, Dark Amber)

-1/3 cup brown sugar

-4 tsp. vanilla

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 cup canola oil

-2 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted

-5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

-2 cups almonds, chopped corse

-Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (do not use foil). 

-In a large bowl, whisk in maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add in oil and butter. Fold in oats and almonds until thoroughly coated.

-Transfer oat mixture to baking sheet and spread into a thin, even layer. See diagrams.

Left: CRISPY & CHEWY- Cooked like this, the edges will be crispy and the middle will be chewy.
Right: CRISPY OR CHEWY- Cooked like this, the granola will bake more evenly.

-Bake for 20 minutes. Check granola. Continue to bake until desired. (If you like your granola soft and chewy, bake until middle is light brown. If you like your granola crispy and crumbly, bake longer.)

-Remove from oven. Let granola cool. Break into pieces.

-Granola will keep for several weeks in an airtight container.

-Enjoy!

Again, I apologize for not having the recipe cards up! Hopefully I can fix the problem soon though!

I hope you enjoy it! If the recipe isn't clear enough or you have questions, comment and I will get back to you! Also, let me know how your batches come out! Come back and comment-I would love to hear from you!

Annie

too blessed to be stressed.

Last week, I was beyond stressed out. I have a huuuge semester-long/the-whole-class-is-devoted-to-this-one project. It's due in almost one month and my team has a lot left to do. Besides that, I was practically losing sleep over potentially not being able to fit into my wedding dress [which ended up fitting just fine]. I just had so many things in my mind, I was stressing myself out.

Thankfully, I've been blessed with such a sweet fiancé. Brian is so encouraging when I am stressed. He makes everything seem so simple and not overwhelming. When I was trying to explain why I was so stressed out, I told Brian that the projects seem like mountains in my mind. They are these huge things that can never be conquered. They control me.

Reality is, I control the projects. They can be accomplished when I work little by little on it everyday. Instead of being mountains, they are like pebbles in my hand. When I am finished with one part of the project, a pebble gets thrown out of my hand, and the load is lighter. Soon, there will be no pebbles left.

I was reminded of the verse 1 Peter 5:7 during this time. God amazes me when He brings the perfect verse into my daily life to help me with what I am struggling with. 

Hopefully if you are stressed out you can realize how blessed your life really is!

Annie

hello [blogging] world.

Lately, I've been thinking about what's next for me in life. I'm moving twice in the next six months. Graduating. Getting married. And what's been on my mind lately....job hunting.

I know God has a perfect job lined up for me, whether it has to do with my college degree or not. But what I like to do in my free time, and what I find relaxing, is graphic design work. It is very much a creative outlet for me. I enjoy making posters and flyers and things of that nature. I make little motivational posters for myself and tape them up on my wall or on my mirror. I really enjoy them. So I thought other people might enjoy them too!

This blog will be devoted to posting the things I design. My hope is that the things I design can encourage someone else or just brighten someone's day.

Comments are always welcome and so are ideas! If you have a great quote or something that you would like a printable of, please let me know! You can email me at anniescreativeoutlet@gmail.com. 

Annie

[Bear with me as I adjust typefaces and colors on this blog. Don't be alarmed if you come back tomorrow and the page looks totally different. I am a creative person-which also means indecisive!]