Wrong season!

Ok, I know we are no where near fall yet- but I love that season!  I love the colors, the weather, the comfort food, new episodes of TV shows- I love it all!!!  SO I dug in!  All supplies are Stampin up!  I made the pumpkin with my oval punch and some Tangerine Tango cardstock.  The green is Kiwi Kiss (throwback to ‘08-’09 In Colors! It was a good year for in colors!) and the brown is Chocolate Chip.  The ribbon is Chocolate Chip satin.  I also used my Top Note die and my Swirls and Scribbles die.  One of the teeny “scribbles” makes the stem of the pumpkin.  Of course I used For You from my Great Friends stamp set- because what else do you really need to say?

V is for Viola

Some friends of our had a baby recently and I COULD have just sent a normal baby card, but it just didn’t seem right this time.  For starters, Momma is an actress that my husband does some work with.  Secondly, Momma put pictures of the baby’s room on Facebook and noone knew the name but the colors were blue and brown and there was a “V” hanging from ribbon on the wall…… duh duh duh!   She made it so easy!  I made the card before the baby was born and they named her “Viola”…. so pretty right?  She has an older sister  named Bella so her parents are just great at named their babies!  I had just gotten the “Picture This” hostess set from Stampin Up! and I knew this sentiment would be perfect!  I had the stars and the letter already in my stash of chipboard pieces -doesn’t everyone have one of those?  Put together with some Bermuda Bay and Chocolate Chip cardstock and the card made itself!  I paint with craft inks (white and teal) and covered them with Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  I also used some Chocolate Chip satin ribbon, the scallop border punch, and my scallop circle punch.  I can’t seem t0 put that derned scallop border punch down!  All in all I was pleased! Voila!

Curry Anyone?

 Whew!  This card took FOREVER!  With the exception of 3 So Saffron brads, I only used two colors- Crushed Curry and Very Vanilla.  The sentiment is from Great Friends.  I didn’t really think the polka dots on my grosgrain ribbon would look right since I have 3 prints on this card so I flipped it and made tabs with the solid sides (like you couldn’t tell– its not rocket science I guess!)  Lets see, the DSP prints are from Razzelberry Lemonade and the Welcome Neighbor paper pad.  I layered, sewed the edges, and used my scallop border punch- AGAIN!  Thanks for stopping in!

Funky Retro Day

I think the purpose of sketch challenges is to try and get people to try and find new layouts.  Which is why I rarely participate!   I am very stodgy and stuck in my ways!  I am TRYING to explore new layouts… and, well… this is what we get!  I haven’t made a judgement call yet on this card- I definitely like it, but is it something I’ll recreate over and over again?  All supplies are Stampin Up!  I was inspired by the Sweat Pea DSP paper and went with the circle thing…  I layered my punches in the middle and along the bottom in Whisper White and Rose Red.  The blue is Bermuda Bay (a current favorite color for me) and the ribbon and brads are So Saffron.  I did some scoring along the top, but its hard to tell on the white.  The sentiment is from Whimsical Words (SAB right now!)  I definitely am drawn to the crisp feeling this card has…. we’ll see… this DSP has another page of this pattern in a different color palatte- I may try it with those colors and see how I feel then!

Nice DOES matter!

Well look at that… I take some vacation time and we get a winter weather storm!!  It made for good card-making times though!  I am pre-planning lots of crafting posts so we shouldn’t have any dry spells for awhile!  I am fascinated by this color combo- I love the red and teal together!  Plus I just got this ribbon from a Stampin Up! ribbon share and I have been dying to use it!  I swapped out Taken with Teal for Bermuda Bay (personal preference) and combined it with Real Red.  The stamps are Kindred Spirits and Sweet Little Sentiments, the brads and ribbon are Real Red, and the border is made using the scallop border punch.  All supplies are Stampin Up!  Enjoy!

Goodbye Andrea

One of my best cashiers at work had her last day Friday   She is the grandma to us all- she makes us all kinds of goodies and treats and tells us all to be nice to each other.. . naturally the traditional grocery store cookie cake wasn’t going to cut it this time!  I found a great cake recipe in the Rachael Ray magazine that I alway go back to.   So I started with the white cake recipe (which normally makes a four layer white cake) and made cupcakes with it… then I used my regular buttercream frosting recipe, but added a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice to make it nice and zesty!   Then, I busted out my ultimate cupcake trick- throw some chips (white, chocolate, butterscoth, it doesn’t really matter- coordinate to your cake flavor) into the food processor and grind ‘em up.  Next frost your cupakes and just roll them in your ground um chips…. add a ton to the texture and flavor and they look really impressive with minimal work! 

 

For the cake:

  http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-index/dessert-recipes/Golden-Cake

For the frosting:

 http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-index/dessert-recipes/Vanilla-Frosting

Christmas Coasters

I took a little month long hiatus from posting… but that means now I have new things to post!  I wanted to do homemade Christmas presents (right, who doesn’t???)  But I needed to be able to do it assembly line style and inexpensively since I had quite a few people on my list.   I saw a Stampin Up! project where some used craft ink top stamp on a tile and make a decorative coaster and I thought- I can do one better!!!  I found these tiles at Lowes for $1.74 for 4 and it took off from there!!  I stamped my Medallion stamp in Versamark (clear watermark ink) and then embossed the image with Chocolate Chip embossing powder and my heat tool.  Then simply stick on some felt furniture protectors (the little circle ones) and tie a bow around your set and voila!!!  They were a big hit!!  Start now and you’ll have enough for everyone on your list next year!

Christmas Ornament

Who DOESN”T need more Christmas Craft ideas?????  I spend quite a bit of time searching other people’s blogs for awesome craft ideas and card themes, etc…… a couple of days ago I was trying to come up with something I could do for our local doctors offices for Christmas and I found this post: http://www.addalittledazzle.com/my_weblog/2009/11/holiday-lounge-ornament-tutorial-and-more.html           

I did mine slightly differently- after I messed up a few times of course!  First I squirted my ink in the glass ball… I did not count drops.  Then I swirled my ink in the glass ball, popped the top off my re-inker and poured the excess back in the bottle.   I then set it upside down to drain for 30 minutes or so because no matter what you will get a pool of ink in the bottom if your don’t do this (I used the plastic tray that the ornaments come in).  THEN I funneled my glitter in and  swirled it.  I used Dazzling Diamonds glitter from Stampin Up.  WARNING!  These use a lot of ink and a lot of glitter!  Because they use so much ink, I chose to use colors I don’t use very often.  The pinkish one above is Marvelous Magenta and the green one is Wild Wasabi.  Even if your ink look to dark swirl it and let it drain, I made one using old olive (only one ornament because I use this color all the time, but I wanted to see if it would work).  It looked almost black but after it drained and the glitter was in it, it lightened up a lot and the deep green was really pretty!

Dasher Card

I did a Stamp A Stack workshop this weekend and I didn’t use this stamp! Can you believe it?!?!  I love this reindeer and have been trying to use it for a week or so and adapted on of my stamp a stack cards to use it….  I wanted to try it with different colors so I made another one with Rich Razzleberry and layered ribbon   The first one used Close to Cocoa and both use Whisper White and Basic Black.  The center shape uses the Top Note die cut from Stampin Up!  It has a perforated edge, so you can cut two, trim the top one, and layer them beautifully!  The ribbon is threaded thru two holes made with the slit punch.  This was a quick simple card… it would be easy to crank out a bunch of them for Christmas cards.   Happy Monday!

Fall Weather!

Oh, the weather outside is…. AWESOME!  Its a great day for a bike ride.  My husband is turning me into a bike rider and I have to say, its pretty fun!  Now is a great time to get a bike if you are thinking about it… the 2009 models are on sale while they make room for 2010 models.  For info on what to do with your old bike check out the Tulsa Hub.  They are a charitable organization here that does a lot to promote bike safety and make Tulsa a more bike friendly town- http://www.tulsahub.org/  This is my new bike… isn’t it cute?!?  You may notice the lack of gears, and brakes for that matter— it IS a single speed and it has coaster brakes.  I have taken it on a couple long rides (even on city streets) and while, a single speed is a lot of work… its really fun!  I’m going to put a basket on it and maybe a fun headlight!  That way in the spring I can ride it to the market and things like that.  Think about the times you could take a bike instead of a car… any ideas?  I work a long way from home (30 miles) so I’ll probably never ride my bike to work… but I WILL take it to get a few things from the grocery store or just for some exercise that doesn’t involve an eliptical machine and a television set.  I like to cruise the neighborhood and get ideas for my yard and check out other peoples decorations during holiday seasons.  Get on out there and enjoy these days!