What's cooking?

Yesterday it was 90 degrees here. Today, it's been raining and gusting all day long, and it's freezing. I'm so not ready for icky weather. So I put soup in the crock pot, and would have made some bread to go with it, but my brain is too fried from test preparations; I don't think I would have activated the yeast properly. The bread will have to wait.

This card is made based on the Sketch Challenge on SCS today. I don't play along with too many sketch challenges anymore. Something about this layout, I really liked, so I decided to give it a whirl. Now, in hindsight, I would stamp the flowers and sentiment on creamy cardstock instead of white. The white seems really bright in comparison to the rest of the card. I even thought about restamping, and gluing down on top of the panels, but I have a 99% chance of messing the whole card up if I do that.

So, really...what's cooking? Do you have a great crock pot recipe. I love crock pot dinners, especially when it gets cold. So if you have a recipe you love, leave me a link to where it's at. I'd love to get some new ideas.

Stamps: PTI Life, Background Basics: Text Style, Clear Dollar Stamps Words Of Sympathy
Ink: PTI Chai, Chamomile, Enchanted Evening, Pure Poppy
CS: PTI White, Kraft, Pure Poppy
Accessories: PTI Enchanted Evening Ribbon, Offray Ribbon

Color Challenge!

Well, this card took a lot of twists and turns to end up where it's at. The clean and simple challenge this week at Split Coast Stampers is a color challenge: shades of pink, green, blue and cream or white, with chocolate optional. I won some cool Studio G stamps from Michelle a while back, and have been planning fun ways to use them. I love the whimsical look to the flowers! In fact, they remind me a lot of the Basic Grey paper I've used on my last few projects. So when I saw the Fall-to-Layout on the Clean and Simple Stamping Blog, I decided to use the color challenge along with the fall-to-layout. Well, I had my card finished, and I just didn't like the overall look of it. So I chopped it down, and just matted it on a layer of green and added it to a plain white card base. I'm happier now, but plan to go back and try the fall-to-layout again. Persistence!

Stamps: Studio G, TAC
Ink: PTI Hibiscus Burst, Ripe Avocado
CS: PTI Hibiscus Burst, Ripe Avocado, Spring Rain, White
Accessories: Scallop Circle Nesties, Circle Nesties

Favorite Teacher

I have loved working with September's Digiments. When I saw the line of "favorites" I was excited for all of the possibilities. I love these fonts together. So I decided to make a little gift card holder that could be used for a favorite teacher! I found a few tutorials for gift card holders, and just wasn't crazy about any of them. So I started measuring and folding and came up with this. It's just the right size to slip in a gift card, with not a lot of extra room. I thought it was a fun size to either tuck inside a card, or with some other packaging. I love this paper from Basic Grey, all the colors in it are great! I hope you've had fun seeing the projects I was able to work on using the newly released Digiments. You can head on over to the Digiments blog to see the full line of digital sentiments that officially went on sale today. There are 30 new Digiments, and you can get the total package for $15.00, which is a great bargain, or the single digiments are priced at $1.00 each. That is still one of the most appealing things to me about the digital world. Affordability!!! I hope you enjoyed my projects from this lastest release, and I hope you saw something that made you want to go get crafting!

A day late, and a dollar short!

So I know you all came back looking for my sugar cookie recipe yesterday! Well, you're going to have to wait a little longer. Monday, I had my week all planned out perfectly, except for I forgot that the kiddos didn't have school today. "What does that have to do with a post for yesterday?" you ask. Well, it meant that things that would usually get done Thursday night got moved to Wednesday night, and no playing around on Wednesday night to have a post for Thursday. Does that make any sense!? So you'll have to stay tuned for the sugar cookie post, but I have something else for you today.


My blogging friend Laurie has made a lot of these boxes in a bag. They always look so cool, and everytime she posts one, I always tell myself I should try one. Well, I finally did. I have to say, though: I always think these 3-D projects will turn out larger than they do. The first one I made, following the tutorial here, looked great, but it wasn't as big as I wanted it to be. So I did a little changing of the measurements to make myself a bigger bag. I was wanting to put soup, crackers, and a little bag of cough drops in my bag, and that definitely wasn't all going to fit in the smaller bag. But if fits in this one perfectly. My kiddos ate the crackers before I could snap the picture, so now it doesn't look as neat without the little bag of crackers poking out the top. I thought that this would be a nice thing to drop off if you find out one of your neighbors or a friend has a little cold. When you know they aren't feeling great and you just want to give them a little pick-me-up. Now, the Digiment that I used here will be released tomorrow along with all of the September Digiments. If you haven't headed over to the Digiments site yet, you'll want to take a few mintues today to do so. Just for checking out the fun stuff the design team has been working on, and leaving a comment, you can win a ribbon package, a bling package, or even the entire release for the month! Enjoy your Friday, and I promise that in the near future, I'll share my sugar cookie recipe!

Birthday Love

At Digiments, we all took a little bit of a summer break. But, we're back! I love the Digiments for September. Immediately after seeing the previews, I started churning all kinds of ideas in my head. I loved the thought of using the "Birthday love" for a little gift box. My daughter has her birthday in November, followed by my son and husband having their birthdays in December, 3 days apart. So I guess birthdays are on my mind. Well, I thought this little pizza box would be perfect for putting a giant homemade sugar cookie in. Obviously this box won't go to either of the boys.....a little too girly! I'll be back tomorrow with my sugar cookie recipe. And head over to the Digiments blog today to see more previews from the other designers. Just for taking a look and leaving a comment, you can enter to win a free bling package.

Digiment: Birthday Love
CS: PTI Ripe Avocado, Lavender Moon, SU Rose Red
DP: Basic Grey
Accessories: PTI Ripe Avocado Ribbon, Sweet Blush Button, Circle Nestabilities

Blonde Brownies

So I'm finally sharing my brownie recipe with you. These are the brownies I planned to make to put in my little tucked away boxes I shared with you here. I was really bummed that they didn't turn out. They were thick and cakey, not moist and gooey, like I like them! So I tried again. Now that I have my cool Kitchenaid Mixer, I don't usually worry about softening butter when a recipe tells me to, since my mixer just blends everything right up. Well, this recipe doesn't just tell you to soften the butter, you are supposed to melt it. MELT IT! It makes a big difference in the finished product. Oh, you can also add nuts to these. My mom always did, and has that listed on her recipe card. Since my husband and my son are allergic to nuts, I never add them to anything, or even put them on the recipe card.
Moving on to other fun digital news. This Saturday is the September release of Digiments. To answer some questions people have had on changing colors of Digiments, etc., Morgaine, who is a Digiments designer, made 3 videos showing you how to change the colors on Digiments, how to work with gradients, and how to work with different backgrounds. Also on the Digiments site, are 2 free challenge Digiments available. So head over there to check out what is going on. I can't wait to show you the projects I made using this month's releases.

Card Night!

A sweet friend at church decided to hostess a card night for anybody who wanted to come. Well, I'm definitely not gonna miss this activity!!! It was so fun. She put in so much work for all of us. Basically everything was ready to go. All the measuring and cutting was already done. All we had to do was assemble the cards. One card there was stamping and embossing, but the other 2 all that was required was to assemble the cards. I had so much fun. There were a lot of ladies that hadn't made cards at all before, and the set-up was so perfect for them, I thought. It was a super fun night. Here are the 2 cards, and the little project.



Since someone else did all of the prep work, I'm not really sure on any of the supplies used. I could have asked, of course, but was just having fun, and didn't feel like I needed all of the details. If you happen to see something you want info on, I am sure I could find it out. The one detail I did snag was the ink we used for all of the edging. SEI Tobacco. It was a nice color. And really easy to use. Not too inky, but not too dry; it was "just right." So, it was a really fun night....I hope she might do it again. It's so fun to get together with other ladies and make cards and chat. I haven't done that in ages, and definitely have missed it! I'm off to the bus stop, then back to blog hop in a bit!

Fall Birthday

You might be seeing several cards in the next little while using this layout. It's fast and fun, and I really like the look! I've got a few fall birthdays coming up that I want to be prepared for. I am thinking that maybe I should have stamped the sentiment in black so it showed up a little better, but I liked the brown because it matched the brown leaf. I am off to try and find my battery charger so that I can take some pictures of more cards. If I don't find it anytime soon, you'll be getting all digi this week until I can find it! Enjoy your day.

Stamps: PTI Fall Elegance, River City Rubber Works
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Melon Berry, Ripe Avocado, Scarlet Jewel, Summer Sunrise
CS: PTI Ripe Avocado, Scarlet Jewel, Vintage Cream
Accessories: Scarlet Jewel Ribbon, Top Note Die

Tinkerbell Party

My little kindergartener was invited to a Tinkerbell birthday party last week. She was so excited. She got off the bus carrying the invitation so carefully. It was wrapped in purple ribbon and she couldn't wait to open it. There were sparkly jewels on the invitation. It was really pretty. So while she was at school the next day, I made this card for her, trying to keep with the theme of the invitation and make it purple and sparkly. It was so cute when I showed it to my duaghter. She said, "Thanks, mom. It's pretty. But I want to make her my own card." So she did. And she loved every minute of it. So now I have a sparkly "tinkerbell" birthday card to throw in my stash. I'm hoping to not go so MIA this week. It seems that adding just one extra kid to the school activities mix has made life a lot more busy than last year. The kids are having a blast, but I'm already looking forward to fall break ;)

Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Text Style, River City Rubber Works, SU Botanical Blooms
Ink: PTI Plum Pudding, Ripe Avocado, True Black, Versamark
CS: PTI Vintage Cream, Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss
Accessories: Top Note Die, Plum Pudding Ribbon, Rhinestones

Is it really Wednesday?

I feel like I hit a huge wall this week. I tried playing along with the Clean and Simple Challenge on Splitcoast. I made one card, and really didn't like it all. I made some revisions, but still I'm not really crazy about it. I was going to post it anyway, but the longer I look at it, the less I like it. So instead I will share my latest little "tucked away" boxes with you.


I was meeting some friends for lunch today, and decided to make them brownies. Well, something happened, and the brownies tasted awful. I don't know what went wrong! I had no chocolate left to give, so instead they got salt water taffy. Definitely not what I had planned, but better than giving them empty boxes ;) I was going to wrap them with pretty ribbon, too. But something about a ribbon wrapped taffy box seemed strange. So I just left the ribbon off.

Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Text Style
Ink: PTI Fresh Snow
CS: PTI Dark Chocolate, Ripe Avocado
DP: Basic Grey, Scrapworks
My Timeless Templates: Tucked Away

Labor Day, a little early

My sister-in-law had her "labor day" a little early, and delivered her sweet baby girl on Thursday. I made these little treat boxes to take to my nephew and niece when we went to meet their new little sister. I got the Distressed Dots stamp from Unity after seeing some fun cards my friend Chris made with it. I love her cards she's made with it, but almost every time I go to use it, I just can't get quite the look I am going for. Well, since I needed a "boy" look, I decided to pull it out again, because it makes a much better background for a little boy than any of my flowers do. Enjoy your long weekend if you get one. I'm off to stamp and get ready for my fantasy football draft. Wish me luck!

"She started it."

I love color challenges. I think that they are challenging because I often want to add an extra in, or leave a little something out. I missed out on seeing the latest Raspberry Suite Color Challenge posted, but I saw on Miss Annie B's blog the card she made for it. Her card just said to me: "Hey, it's a challenge and they are asking you to use Kraft. Play along with us." Here are the colors to use:

I used an old Fall-to Layout from the Clean and Simple Stamping Blog. And I got to use my circle nesties. Michelle mentioned she doesn't see me using my nesties very much {which is true}, so I put them to good use for this card.
I've decided the thing about distressing that doesn't always work for me. Sometimes it seems like a good idea, so I distress some edges. But then, they don't really look distressed. They just look to me like I have shredded edges on my cardstock, and need a new trimmer. But I do love using the Text Style set for making a background that kind of looks old and weathered.

Stamps: PTI Background Basics: Text Style, Fall Elegance
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, Summer Sunrise
CS: PTI Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Vintage Cream
Accessories: Circle Nestabilities, Scallop Circle Nestabilities, American Crafts Ribbon, Ribbon Tags Trio

Substitute Bus Driver

So my day started out a little crazy. We were waiting at the bus stop this morning, and our bus driver was 30 minutes late.....yes, 30!!!! That usually only means one thing....substitute bus driver. Well, I knew there was no way the kiddos would be on time to school, but when it's the whole bus that's late, that's life, I guess. Whenever we have a day like that, it makes me glad that I give our bus drivers goodies on most of the holidays...they deserve it! Here is a little project I made for today. I have a cousin and a friend who both just celebrated birthdays. Now, I'll just admit this.....I am horrible at getting things mailed out on time. I don't know why, but I am. So, planning for my procrastination, I decided to make them little boxes I could fill up with chocolate or cookies. I went with cookies. Snickerdoodles, actually, cut into little bars to fit in the boxes better. I only ended up 2 days late getting those delivered, whereas if I'd have gone with cards, they would probably still be waiting on my desk.

I love this new little template from Papertrey. It is really easy to make. The thing that took the very longest was waiting for the background stamping to dry so I didn't smear it too much. And do you like the Kraft with Enchanted Evening? I do. I love this shade of blue, and I love it paired with Kraft. For my cousin's I decided to make a red one, since I know she likes red. She's not a pink girl, and that's okay. I can make red things now. Yes, the background stamping isn't very even on the red one. It actually looked okay until the flap got closed. Now it looks like I just forgot to stamp that section, instead of it looking kind of old and worn off, which is what it's supposed to look like.


Enjoy your day wherever you are. The kiddos have ballet and flag football tonight, so I'm sure by the time I get home I'm gonna be beat!

Stamps: River City Rubber Works, SU Upsy Daisy, PTI Background Basics: Text Style
Ink: PTI Enchanted Evening, Fresh Snow, Pure Poppy
CS: PTI Enchanted Evening, Kraft, Pure Poppy, White
Accessories: PTI Enchanted Evening Ribbon, Ribbon from Joann's
My Timeless Templates: Tucked Away

Oatmeal Bread

Here is a recipe that is a favorite at our house. I LOVE homemade bread. For as long back as I can remember, if it was Wednesday, my mom was in the kitchen making homemade bread. To this day that is one of my favorite smells and tastes. This recipe is a modification of one I found in an old church cookbook. The original had the oats soaking in water, and a lot of "extra" steps. I love to cook, but don't love to spend all day doing it, and I'll combine as many steps into one as I can. If you are not a fan of wheat flour, you can definitely use all white flour, and it's super yummy that way, too. Also, I have made this by hand, before my KitchenAid mixer days, as well as used a bread maker. Pretty much any way will work, and the end result is so good. This recipe only makes one loaf, so if you want more homemade goodness to enjoy, definitely double the recipe.