Pumpkin Pie

This is my recipe card for my friend's "From the Garden" recipe swap on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com. She had slots for fruits and vegetables. I took two slots in the vegetable swap and did a squash casserole and zucchini parmesan soup. Then the more I thought about it, I decided to do a fruit selection also. I have lots of yummy recipes, and couldn't quite decide which one to use. I finally settled on Pumpkin Pie. I know that this recipe is on the back of every Libby's can of pumpkin sold in America, probably the whole world. But until this day I've never taken the time to ever write it down in my recipe collection. I'm hoping that other people haven't either, so that this might be useful to my fellow garden swappers. The cardstock is Bazzill and the designer paper is from the Die Cuts With a View Fall Stack. The stamp is from a new Hero Arts Thanksgiving stamp set.

A Giveaway!

Not from me, but check this out:
http://heatherscrapsnwraps.blogspot.com/2008/09/giveaway.html
Head over there and see what you've got to do for a chance to win!

Cuttlebug Challenge

I found a fun new blog that is all about challenges using the cuttlebug. My husband bought me my cuttlebug for Mother's Day and I love having it! It is such a fun tool to use. When I found this new blog, I knew I would want to play along as often as I can. I've got lots of recipe swaps to catch up on, but took the time this morning to complete my first cuttlebug challenge. The challenge was to use ink on the cuttlebug folder. I think this is a fun technique. It can add so much to the overall look of your card. For this card I used my snowflake embossing folder. The ink is from Colorbox and the color is Merlot. The large snowflake stamp is from Stampin' Up Nature's Secret. And the word joy is from Stampin' Up Small Script.
If you want to go and check on the challenge yourself, you can find the blog here: http://thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/

Paper Pretties!

A few weeks ago, the Paper Pretties website had an awesome sale. 45% off!!! I had been wanting a few of their stamps, and when I saw the sale, I finally ordered my favorites. They are based in Canada, so it took a while to get them. But it was worth the wait, they are so cute. Then today at church I was visiting with one of my friends. She was talking about how she is not much of a reader, but she's reading a new book and can't put it down. So I came home and decided to use my pretty little Sophia stamp to make her a bookmark. So I made the bookmark, and took the picture, and decided my little girl needs some color on her skin. I made this decision knowing I don't have a good skin color in chalk, ink, colored pencils, or paint. But, I decided to proceed with caution. Well, the first coloring job made poor little Sophia look like she sprayed herself with a really bad self-tanner. So I tried again. Then she looked like she had jaundice! So I'm keeping this picture up even though her skin is a little on the light side of things! For the back of the bookmark I used my cuttlebug blooms and dots embossing folder, and stamped some of the empty spaces with my Stampin' Up Little Flowers set. I also wanted to give my friend a little chocolate, so I put some M&M's in a bag, and stamped a little bag topper to go with the chocolate. The set Time Well Spent has an awesome saying, "Too much of a good thing is a good thing." I thought this fit perfectly with giving someone chocolate, so that's what I used for the bag topper. The flowers are also from the Time Well Spent set.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

We have some new neighbors, and I wanted to make a card to take over to them with some banana bread. I saw this paper in my Die Cuts With a View stack and thought it was perfect. We live on a hill that is very, very rocky and dry. And our neighbors have spent a lot of time already trying to get landscaping done. That is no easy task in this soil! I used my Stampin' Up Loads of Love set, and added the furniture in the back of the truck. The font is computer generated, downloaded from dafont.com.

Happy Anniversary!

We have a niece and her husband celebrating a very special anniversary this week. So I wanted to make them something special to let them know we're thinking about them, and that we're very happy for them. The fall colors here are looking very beautiful, and I instantly knew I wanted to incorporate the fall colors into my card. Now, I have to say, that I had to really stretch myself on this card. I get very comfortable doing pink cards, and so I had to really make myself think "outside of my pink box," as I like to say. I knew I wanted to use my Stampin' Up Artfully Asian set, and a lot of fall colors. So I came up with this card. It's not my favorite I've ever made, but I am keeping it anyway. I do like the fall colors, I like the brads, and I liked the dark brown ribbon I had to use ( it really is ribbon, and not black cardstock). So I am keeping the card but I'm open to any suggestions anyone has on what they might do different.

Blooming With Love

I had a friend celebrating her birthday earlier this week. For some reason I wasn't feeling like a card that said "happy birthday." I wanted to do something a little different. So I pulled out my Stampin' Up Blooming With Love set. I love pink, and sometimes tend to stay with pink, pink, pink. So I was trying to expand my creative side here, and used pink and green! And I really like the color combination. I stamped the vases in StazOn ink and then used my Derwent Aquatone coloring pencils to color the images in. I love these coloring pencils. I love that you can use them like regular colored pencils, and color your image in and then go back with a paintbrush or blender pen to blend as little or as much as you want for your image. You can also use them wet, but I haven't tried this yet. For the finishing touches of the card, I added an eyelet to the tag and wrapped ribbon around. I think I'd like the finished product better if I had a thicker ribbon to use, but this time I didn't.

Stamp Cleaner

I love this homemade stamp cleaner recipe I found on splitcoaststampers.com. I've been making recipe cards for swaps and decided I should get this recipe on a card as well. If you like to use rubber stamps, I recommend using this stamp cleaner. It's economical, and works great. The cardstock is Bazzill white, the designer paper is from our local scrapbook store. I love pink and brown together, and when I saw this paper, I loved it! I bought too many sheets of it, but I see so many possibilities for using this. The stamp set is Stampin' Up Pick A Petal.

Happy Pie Day!

At our house, we've started a tradition of having pie on Friday. So we call it Pie Day. The only thing better than Friday, is Pie Day! To share something creative today, it's a pie recipe card. I'm in a pie recipe swap, and love my mom's "Blushing Peach Pie." To make this card, I used my Stampin' Up Friendship Blooms set. It's a very versatile set that I love to use. I stamped a gazillion of the flowers, using Rose Red ink from Stampin' Up (my favorite color!) then cut them out. The designer paper is from Daisy Bucket Designs. And the background is Bazzill cardstock, and it was Strawberry Creme, or Strawberry Shortcake. I know it was strawberry, and then a food. I added an American Crafts brad in the middle of each flower, and had a fun finished product.

Recipe Card Swaps

Over at www.splitcoaststampers.com (a website I highly recommend if you love stamping or crafting), I've joined numerous recipe swaps. The basic idea is you make 6 or 8 or any designated number of recipe cards, then send them to a hostess who swaps out with all the other people, and you end up getting back cool recipes that other crafters have made. It's a fun way to be creative! When I saw a swap listed that was titled, "Tailgating for your favorite college," I knew I had to join. Then the swap expanded to include NFL teams. Woo-hoo! So here are the recipe cards I made for that swap. Each hostess in a swap decides what the requirements will be. For example, how many embellishments are required, and if stamping is required. This swap had stamping as "optional." So I tried and tried on the BYU recipe card to include a stamp, and I couldn't make it work. I really wanted to. But I liked the end result anyway. The Bengals recipe used my Stampin' Up Loads of Love set. How fun to have a cute little pickup truck! I put a Bengals flag in the back of the truck, because we are tailgating for our favorite team.

Welcome to my world!

Thanks for coming to see what is going on. I'm getting this up and running, so look tomorrow for some new things!