Card Box

One of the things I am really going to try to do in the new year is to gt my cards to people on time! I have gotten better about making the cards and having a "stash" of ready made cards, but they often arrive just a little late. To help with my organization problems, I decided to put together this box. I started with the photo storage boxes from Hobby Lobby, just the plain black boxes. I wanted to decorate them with my own paper since I wasn't crazy about the colors they had to choose from. (Enabler alert: these boxes are on sale half price this week). I just used some paper that I believe is from My Mind's Eye to decorate my box. Since my box is black, I used black construction paper and the Sizzix Twang alphabet to punch out the letters to label the box. I didn't take a picture of the inside, but the boxes come with index cards and I used the Card Categories from Clear Dollar Stamps to make my index labels. That is a really great set, it comes with 33 different categories for you to use. This is also the project that we will be making for craft night at church on Friday night.

Since I mentioned my marathon cooking session, several people have asked me to let them know how it went. I actually had four freezer, cook one day eat for a month type of cookbooks already. I decided to go with the 2 week plan to start since it is normally only the two of us eating dinner, but we still wanted to have leftovers to use for lunches. I decided to use the Frozen Assets Cook for a Day Eat for a Month book by Deborah Taylor-Hough. There were a couple of reasons that I decided to start with this one. The first one being that a friend had given me a couple of recipes to try and I enjoyed them and they tasted good when they were thawed and served. Another was that the recipes seemed to be a little more economical than the other books I have. Here is a picture of my fully stocked freezer:

So we are set for a while! It was a long day of cooking but hopefully I will be able to really notice a difference during the week when our schedules are more than a little crazy. That's pretty much everything I made, except the soup that is in the refrigerator. I do have a couple of suggestions if you want to try this:

1. See if your library has some books for you to look through so you can get an idea of the recipes, but the one I mentioned above is my favorite. There is also a Lite and Easy book with the same name that has different recipes.

2. Start with the two week plan.

3. Buy aluminum foil even if you think you have plenty!

4. Read all the information before attempting to cook. I am a fairly experienced cook and have made Thanksgiving lunches to feed 200+ and dinners to feed 40-50, but cooking like this was a little different and it helps to do everything in the order that it is laid out in the book.

5. If you have a small family separate your meals before you freeze them to keep from eating the same thing for three or four days.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Grandparents Anniversary

One of my goals for the coming year is to make my cards and get them in the mail in time for the occasion that I am making the card for! My grandparents will be celebrating their anniversary on Jan. 6th. I believe that it is their 62 anniversary. So the card is all done and ready to go in the mail. I am so happy with myself, at least I am starting off the year on the right track! The colors on this card match a little better IRL, the stamped part looks much brighter on this picture. I used CTMH With Love stamp set and CTMH inks Hollyhock, Spring Iris and Sweet Leaf. The Happy Anniversary stamp is from Michael's dollar bin and I have had it for a while. The paper is from My Mind's Eye, not sure about the ribbon though.

Several people have asked me to let them know how the cooking went. I will post more tomorrow. I got almost everything done today, except for one recipe. I grabbed tomato sauce instead of tomato paste so I will finish tomorrow afternoon and take a picture of my full freezer.

No Crafts Tonight

I don't have anything to show you tonight. Hopefully, I will get some crafting time in tomorrow. I have decided that I am going to try the cooking once a month way of cooking. Anyone done this before? I have tried a couple of recipes, but haven't done the whole bulk cooking thing. Basically, you spend most of one entire day cooking meals and then freezing them. During the month all you do for dinners is make your sides and then bake or defrost your main dish. I did all of my shopping and prep work today and will do the cooking tomorrow. Right now our schedules are a little crazy and we are eating out way too much. Bad for the wallet and the waistline! Hopefully this will work for us. I am starting with the two week plan since it is normally only the two of us eating dinners. Some things I am planning to freeze the full portion and some I am planning to make individual portions that I can grab and take to work or whatever. I will keep you posted as to how it goes and if you have any great recipes that freeze well, please pass them along. Have a great night!

Clipboards

This was the year of altering things for me. I did a lot of composition books and several clipboards. The one above is the one that I made for my niece Abby. She was very happy with it and I liked the way it turned out too. The pictures below are some of the others that I did, they were all different and most had a composition book to match.


Every year, I say I am going to start Christmas stuff early. I did this year, and I actually got more accomplished than I ever have, but I still needed more time! I am at least going to decide what I am going to make a little earlier in the year next year. Have a great weekend!!

Merry Christmas

Kip and I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!! We hope yours has been wonderful so far. Ours started at 5:30 a.m. this morning. We stayed with our friend Judy and the girls and they were so excited this morning. As we were laying in bed, you could hear the volume getting louder and louder as they came down the stairs and toward the tree. What a fantastic morning. I am so grateful to have them in my life. I have spent several Christmas morning's with them and it is the most fun that I have had since I was a little girl!

I can finally show you some of the gifts that I made for friends and family this year. I stamped and colored the bags above and filled them with bath goodies. I made bath fizzies and soap. I took a close up of the soap since it was layered with red and white layers. There was also a jar of the lotion that I made and showed you earlier in the month. Julie, yours is still at my house, sorry!

Wishing you the best as you are celebrating your holidays!

Prayer Journal Gifts

This is another composition book that I altered for a gift this year. I made several of these, but they were all similar. This one uses paper from The Paper Studio and ribbon from Hobby Lobby. The ribbon runs under my stamped image, starting the black border of the composition book and then I left enough on both the front and the back so that I could tie a bow to keep the book closed. The stamp set I used is from Clear Dollar Stamps and is called Prayer Journal. I love this set, the cross is beautiful and there are several options for personalizing a journal. Here, I embossed the cross with Espresso embossing powder and then stamped the words Prayer Journal with CTMH Cocoa ink. When I was putting the paper on the cover, it extended beyond the cover so on the bottom, I bent the paper up and then attached only the sides to create a pocket. In the pocket, I included this bookmark:

The bookmarks used the same paper as the matting on the stamped image. The Bible verse stamp is from Stamp LaJolla and was stamped with the same ink that I used on the journal. I am off until Tuesday! Hope you all have a great Christmas.

Altered Mint Tin

The last time I ordered from Papertrey Ink, I thought I hit the button to order nugget tins but I accidentally got these tins instead. I had thought about altering these at some point and decided now would be the time since I had six shiny, new ones! Every year I adopt an angel to buy Christmas gifts for. This year, I had a young girl that wanted very little. I got the boots that she requested and some necessities and then, to stretch my budget, I decided to include some things that I had made. I know when I was that age, I loved anything that had my name on it (and nothing ever did, because Gina was always spelled Jena and that just wasn't the same). Since I knew her first name, I made this little purse, a composition book and and apron, all personalized for her. The person filling out her paperwork said she liked all colors, but wasn't very fond of pink, so I went with purple and green. The paper is from The Paper Studio, ribbon is from Hobby Lobby, the tin is from PTI and the letters were die cut using Sizzix Wingo Zingo alphabet.

I went Christmas shopping today. Really for the first time this year. I had picked up one gift and Kip had gotten a couple, but the rest of my shopping was done today. Every where I went was busy, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The worst place was Dick's Sporting Goods. That place was a madhouse! I am not sure how much I will be around over the next few days, I am still trying to finish the homemade gifts! I have only been able to post of few of these since some of the recipients read my blog from time to time. Good luck to you, if you are like me and postponed your shopping until the last minute!

Teacher Gifts

This is what I ended up making for Jenna and Samantha's teachers for Christmas. This particular set belongs to Jenna's teacher and Samantha's teacher got the pink and black ones that I posted earlier. Each teacher got a composition book, 2 RSVP pens, a coaster box, a paperclip bookmark with their monogram and an altered binder clip. Can you see it behind the composition book? I took a 4x6 piece of white card stock and edged it with a silver paint pen and then had them write their teacher a note. Then I took (2) 41/2 x 6/12 sheets of the patterned paper and adhered them together and then mounted the note onto the patterned paper. I let the girls pick out the colors and then they gave me suggestions on what they wanted to give their teacher. Oh yeah, each teacher also got a jar of lotion because I made a little bit more than I needed. Okay, way more than I needed!

This is my cooking and baking weekend. Judy still needed to take the girls shopping to get their gifts for each other so she brought each one over here for an hour or so today so that she could take the other one by herself. While Samantha was here we made marshmallows. She has always enjoyed being in the kitchen and trying new things. I told her what we were making and she was very excited, until she found out that they have to sit until the next day! I have never made them before, but our spoon taste test was impressive! Have a great weekend!

Serious Bragging on my Hubby

Okay, so yesterday was our third anniversary. I got a phone call from Kip while I was at work asking where my Scor-Pal was. I thought he had probably ran out of blank cards so he was going to make his own and then I didn't think anything else about it. He has been making me cards for a while now and I love them. When we sat down to exchange gifts though, I was blown away. I couldn't believe what was in my bag. I think I explained before that we don't spend a lot of money on anniversary gifts. What we do, is go by the traditional gifts for that year. Year one was paper, I got a book I had wanted. Year two, cotton, and we both got each other shirts. I also took "cotton" and expanded on that, he got a fresh cotton air freshener and a bag of Cotton Candy. This year was leather and you saw the book that I made for him and here is my gift from him: He needed the Scor-Pal to make those little jewelry boxes. He made those completely on his own, he wasn't following a template or anything. The bracelet and necklace? He made those too! He took leather cord and initial charms and made them. You can't see the clasps, but they are in the shape of a heart. He said he got some help from other people at Jo-Anns that were shopping in the jewelry making aisle. I think he is pretty amazing and I am going to keep him! You can also see the card that he made me. I also got a Blu-Ray copy of Mama Mia that I can watch over and over and over again! What a guy I have, huh?

Happy Anniversary

Three years ago today, Kip and I got married. I can't believe it has been that long, the time has just flown by. The traditional gift for a third anniversary is leather. I covered a 4x4 coaster with a strip of leather that I got at the craft store. The coaster with the additional thickness of the leather almost did not go in my Bind It All. Then I stamped directly onto the cover with CTMH Cocoa ink using a journaling set that I got from Repeat Impressions. I also stamped the sentiment onto several of the pages and wrote lots of mushy, lovey stuff!! Actually, several of the pages mention specific things in our individual pasts that lead us to meeting each other and just imagine what would have happened if we skipped that one portion of our life. Anyone of those steps could have meant that we would have never met. Then the second part is imagining the rest of our lives. I love you Kip, more than I could ever express!

Black and White Challenge

The challenge for our blogger group was to use black and white on a card, and only those two colors. Great challenge Sue. I am so tired, all I noticed on this paper was the black and white, and not the gray. Oops. The stamp set is from CTMH and is called Joy Forever. I used black embossing powder on the flower and then stamped the sentiment with black Palette ink. The ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. I also got that paper pack from there, but am not sure who it is from. It wasn't one of the normal paper packs I buy, but it had some really beautiful paper in it.

The next week or so is looking to be incredibly busy. I will post as much as I can, but might miss a few days here and there. I am of course rushing to finish my Christmas cards, Christmas gifts and planning how and where we are spending the holidays. I also need to start my Christmas shopping. Normally I am finished with the majority of it by Thanksgiving and that just did not happen this year. I have a good start on the hand made items and that's about it. I did buy the first one today while my SIL and I were at Michael's. One down and many more to go! Have a great week.

I'm Back

I have been MIA for the past few days because of my work schedule. We have had an issue arise which meant that I have been digging through archived paperwork all week long. Lots of extra hours. I haven't had to be at work at 6:30 in several years, so I was wiped out by the time I got home. What crafting time I have been able to squeeze in has been Christmas gifts that I couldn't post because the recipients sometimes read my blog. This is something that I made for myself and some friends. Inside the container is homemade lotion. I got the recipe from Denise on Splitcoast Stampers. I made a simple band to cover my plastic jar and then used Marvy punches to make a plain circle and a scalloped circle. The snowman stamp is from Studio G and colored with Prisma markers. The ball on his hat is covered with glitter. The snowflake on the band is from the PTI set Holiday Treats. I love that set, you can make a variety of labels for all the homemade treats that you make. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Christmas Poinsettia

Real quick post tonight! I have been working some extra hours and I am so very tired. I bought this stamp at the Stamp Scrap Art tour that I went to in Chattanooga. I love the stained glass look that it has. I bought this poinsettia and a couple of more of the same style. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to paint it with Twinkling H2os. The stamp is from a company called Stamp LaJolla. I really wish I could get a good picture of the shimmer that this paint has. It is so much prettier IRL. First I stamped the image and then went over the lines with a black Sakura Glaze pen, then I painted the image. The Glaze pen gives a slight raised look, and a much bolder line that with just stamping alone. I cut the image out on the border of the image and then mounted it onto green card stock from DCWV. The Merry Christmas is from the TAC set, Just for You and was embossed with gold embossing powder. Have a great night! How is everyone doing with their Christmas gifts?

Oh Christmas Tree

Just a quick post tonight, I have to be at work at 6:30 in the morning so I am going to bed very soon. Early morning is not my best time of day. This was another card that I made this weekend. I have seen several wreaths made with the Martha Stewart branch punch. I wanted to make a tree and this is what I came up with. I just used the branch punch to punch out a lot of branches with some olive card stock and glued them down in a tree shape. I stamped the Merry Christmas from the Just for You set by The Angel Company and embossed it with silver embossing powder. You can't really see the shimmer in the picture, but I painted the tips of the branches with silver Twinkling H2Os. It is pretty subtle, but I really like the effect that they gave. I thought about putting some decorations on the tree but decided I liked the plain tree with just the shimmer. What do you think?

Merry Christmas in ASL

I have had a busy weekend! We had our first Christmas Showcase at church yesterday. Several people brought in items that they had made to display and then we also had crafting space available for anyone that wanted to stay. I was there from 9:00 a.m. until almost 10:30 p.m. It was a very long day but also very productive and a lot of fun. Our church has a regular group, a Hispanic group with a Spanish speaking preacher and a Deaf group with a Deaf minister. Kip and I attend then Deaf service. We have been a part of that ministry since before we were married. Actually we met through this group. This was the card that I made for our group. I don't normally make one design for my Christmas cards, but since I found this stamp that spelled out Merry Christmas using the ASL alphabet, I made a lot of these. Not all of them were exactly the same, but they were all similar. I stamped the image (which is from Lost Angeles Rubberworks) and colored the wreath and hands with Prisma markers. The little holly berries are drops of Christmas Red Stickles. We have boxes for Christmas cards in the lobby (to help us save on postage) and not only did I get all the cards done for this group, but I also got them signed, in the envelopes and sorted in the boxes!

Speaking of our Deaf group at church, there was a small awards ceremony today, to thank some people for their years of service. We also planned to surprise the preacher with one for celebrating his 10th year with us. My husband was so excited helping plan this, because Mike had no idea. Imagine Kip's surprise to find out that we were also presented one! I had gone to church with Judy and the girl's for Samantha's musical so he had to accept for both of us. I did make it to the luncheon, just after the awards though. Since I am a little on the shy side, they were all teasing me a little. I hope you had a great weekend and had plenty of time to relax.

Thanks Dru

Dru from Garden of Dreams gave me this award. Thank you so much Dru! Check out her blog, she has some really cool vintage Santa cards on there. The rules for this award are:

1. Pick 10 people and pass the award to them.

2. Contact them and let them know you have chosen them and their blog for the award.

3. Link back to the person who gave you the award.

Here are my 10:

1. Erica

2. Sarah

3. Katherine

4. Laurie

5. Kay

6. Breezy

The rest I am going to have to add later!

Wrapping Presents

So do you enjoy wrapping gifts? I do for about the first four gifts and then I am over it! Fortunately my mom normally visits some time before the holidays and she LOVES to wrap gifts. She also enjoys folding laundry. I know, weird, right? And you thought I was strange after reading those random facts the other day. Well they say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I made this card using that pack of paper that I got at Hobby Lobby. The Christmas tree is from the same pack, there is a page filled with trees, Santa, wreaths, and other festive images. I just cut this one out to use here. I decided to try something a little different here by not using matting around my main image. I couldn't decide for sure, but I think I like it for a nice simple look. Hanna is colored with Prisma markers. The gift and ribbon were also colored with Prismas but after they were colored I went over them with Spica markers. The ribbon is also from Hobby Lobby. Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? Normally I try to be done with the shopping by Thanksgiving, but this year I haven't even started. I have started on my homemade items though. Have a great day!

Another Ornament

I am madly making Christmas things now. You will probably see mostly Christmas items for the next couple of weeks. I started early, but doing things here and there, and now I am running out of time! I found these cute square ornaments at Hobby Lobby. I guess they are ornaments but I think they could also double as place card holders on a table because of the way that the top is made. You could easily slide a piece of decorated card stock into the top of the ornament. I colored the snowman's face with Sharpie paint markers. This is the first time I have used their paint markers and let me tell you, they are the ones I will buy from now on. I like the fact that they come in three different sizes. I also like that they had a larger selection of markers that could be bought as singles than the other paint markers. Pretty simple. I am going to add a ribbon at the top but I am not sure where it is going so I couldn't decide on my color yet. To give it a snowy look, I added those tiny little styrofoam balls, which was not an easy process. So this may be the only one like this that I make. The opening at the top is so very, very small.

This Saturday we are having our monthly crafting event at church. If you are local I hope you are planning to join us. Email me and I will make sure you get all the details. Normally we do a Friday night, starting at 6 and going until after midnight. Because Christmas is fast approaching we are going to try and work all day on Saturday, finishing cards and hopefully getting some gift projects done. We are also going to be having a "Christmas Showcase" where we will have several ideas on display (and directions) that would make great gifts. Hopefully we will have a wide variety of items to showcase. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Meow means "I Love You"

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We spent the weekend at my parents house. I got to spend some time with my niece, she had an art project due. We made an Arctic diorama. Kip taught her to make penguins using Sculptey clay. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it turned out very cute. We got home much later last night than we had planned, so I came in, started a load of laundry and then crashed.

There is a story behind my little cat card here. I have a friend, Judy that teases me, good-naturedly about my crafting habits. I tease her about a lot of other stuff. This weekend she had a cat that has been hiding out in her garage. Of course, her daughters are begging to keep the cat and have already named her (Hailey-because that rhymes with their puppy's name, Bailey). They are feeding the cat but she told them it could not come inside because it did not have a litter box. They came by here tonight and since we have three cats, Jenna wanted to know if they could borrow one of our litter boxes until the weekend! So I decided to make this card for Judy, just for kicks and giggles. I colored the cat above to look like the cat in her garage. I was looking through my stamps tonight looking for something that I wanted to work with and as soon as I saw this one I thought of making here this funny card. All of the stamps are from Clear Dollar Stamps. The "Meow" part of the sentiment is from the Cat Toys set, but the rest was computer generated. Images were colored using Prisma markers and the paper is DCWV. I hope you all have a friend like Judy that you can laugh with!

Candy Bar Wrappers

I have been working on Christmas gifts for the past few days. Here is my Santa Chocolate bar. For this project I took a large Hershey's candy bar and made a cover with red cardstock. Then I added the white trim and a strip of black down the middle. On top of that I used a square punch to pop out a silver square to make a belt buckle. I didn't really measure anything, I just used the wrapper that was on the candy when I bought it. Very easy and quick little gift! I will be adding them to a couple of gift baskets, but thought they would make something cute to give co-workers. Have a happy Saturday!

Coaster Box and I've been tagged

This is the coaster box that I made to go with my desk sets that I started the other day. I found the tutorial on SCS. I started with chipboard coasters, covered them with the paper that matches my composition book from the other day and trimmed the paper to fit. There are five holes going up the side of each of the four coasters. I laced them with ribbon and tied the bows at the top. there is a plain coaster glued to the bottom to make it a box that can be used as a pen holder or as a treat holder. I put two of the decorated RSVP pens in my box and on the front is a paperclip book mark. The monogram stamp set is from Clear Dollar Stamps. I really like this set because there are several options to make your monograms a little more versatile. I am making several of these desk sets this year.

I have been tagged by Tania! I am supposed to list 7 random or weird things about myself. I know the people that know me in real life are wondering how I could pick only seven, but here goes:

1. I collect Pez dispensers. I have hundreds and hundreds. I even had a Pez Bride and Groom on my wedding cake.

2. I hate celery in every way. I hate the way it tastes, I hate the way it smells, I hate the way it smells and I hate the way it sounds when other people are eating it.

3. I wore pink, high top Chuck Taylor tennis shoes under my wedding dress.

4. I read a lot. On average, I read at least 2-3 books a week.

5. I love John Denver.

6. I love Little House on the Prarie and the Waltons.

7. I have really odd taste in music, covering every generation and type of music. My husband laughs at the music I have on my iPod. It has everything from Aerosmith to Peter, Paul and Mary, from Nickleback to Merle Haggard. I also have lots of Musicals.

There you have seven weird things you know about me! I am going to tag whoever wants to play along, as I know several people that have been tagged already. Please play along and put a link to your blog in your comments!

We are headed out of town in just a few minutes to have Thanksgiving with my family. We will be back on Sunday but I have something scheduled to post tomorrow. Have a great weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving. I braved Wal*Mart this afternoon to get groceries and came home and did most of my cooking this afternoon. This year we are having Thanksgiving in town with Kip's parents. My contributions to dinner are Cranberry Chutney and Green Bean Casserole and the most amazing Pumpkin Cookies. I got the recipe from Erica's blog and they are so delicious and they make the house smell so good. My card here uses the sketch from today's challenge on SCS. Riley is colored with Prismacolor markers and I added some silver Gelly Roll pen on the buckle on his hat. I used about 5 different colors on the turkey. I think the turkey looks a little happy here. Maybe, Riley gave him a pardon? Pretty simple card tonight. Happy Thanksgiving is from Studio G and was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. All my paper is from DCWV.

I know I have a lot to be thankful this year. If you want to keep reading I will list a couple of them for you. Of course I am thankful for my husband and my family so these are some other things:

1. I am thankful for friendships that have gotten stronger over the last year.

2. I am thankful for new friends, especially three ladies that joined our Sign Language class this year. I am so thankful that I have gotten the chance to get to know Janet, Leslie and Vi. They are all crafters! All three are such beautiful ladies that have enriched my life so much in the short time I have known them.

3. I am thankful for my job.

4. I am thankful for this blog and the friendships that it has brought me.

5. I am thankful that Julie and Angela have encouraged my hobby and taught me so many new things to do ( my wallet isn't so thankful though!).

6. I am thankful that I don't have crazy in-laws! Mine are great enough that we go on vacation with them every year and it is fun! They will even sit outside of craft stores and wait on me for almost two hours!

Snowman Ornament #1

This is one of the ornaments that I have made. I started with the clear balls that all the craft stores seem to have out this time of year. I am not sure where this one came from, I bought some at HL and some at Jo-Anns. The snowman stamp is from Studio G. I stamped it on acetate with black Staz-on and then colored the scarf, hat and carrot nose in with Sharpie markers. I trimmed a smaller rectangle around the image. After coloring, I covered the entire image (staying inside the black lines with white pigment ink and then white embossing powder. Then I set the embossing powder with a heat gun and punched a hole with an 1/8 inch punch. I then pulled the top off of the ornament and filled it with fake snow, ran some red cord through the hole I punched and then slightly rolled my image to fit inside the opening of the ornament. To finish it off, I pulled the cord through to opening at the top, replaced the ornament hanger and tied a bow with the excess cord. Pretty simple, but I think they look really nice and when they are hanging you don't really see the excess acetate, it just looks like the snowman is sitting atop your snow! I found this tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers. Oh yeah, and you know all that beautiful shimmery snow? I had several bags left over from my wedding (flower girls threw snow instead of flowers) and I couldn't find them anywhere. A word of warning: be careful opening those bags, Tennessee had it's first snow of the season; in my craft room! I am finding little glimmers of snow throughout the entire house. Have a great night!

Kreativ Blogger

Wow, I am so happy to have gotten this from Tiffany. You know it is always nice to have people comment on the things that you work hard on, but to have people that are so talented doing it is just amazing. I started this blog about six months ago and I am amazed at the people I have "met" so far. I have started new friendships of people that I probably would have never met IRL. The blog began as an inspiration for myself, to get me to actually sit down on a regular basis to create something. I have gotten so much more from it that I ever imagined. So during this time of being thankful, I want to say how thankful I am to all my new friends and for everyone that encourages me on a daily basis. I love reading all the comments you leave, they really make my day.

These are the rules that go along with this award:

1. The winner may put the logo on their blog.

2. Put a link to the person that sent the award.

3. Nominate 5 other blogs.

4. Put a link to their blog on your blog.

5. Leave a message for the people you nominate.

The hardest thing of course is to pick only 5. Not one minute of time would be wasted if you looked at all the blogs listed on my sidebar. If you are ever in need of any inspiration it can be found at any of them! Here are the 5 I am listing:

1. Julie at My Little Scrapshop. (Julie is my real life friend that started me stamping and has taught me soooo much.)

2. Elizabeth at Elizabeth's Craft Room

3. Dana at Dana's Dabbling Studio

4. Katy at K's Card Creations

5. Lisa at Mainly Stamping...Sometimes Scrapping

Crafting Group Thanksgiving Project

We have a monthly craft group that meets at church. The Ladies Bible Class puts together Thanksgiving baskets for several shut-ins. Our crafting group have been working on these stationary folders. Each folder contains an assortment of greeting cards: Thinking of you, Happy Birthday, Get Well, etc, envelopes and stamps. We hope that since the recipients aren't as able to go out and buy a card when they need one, that these will come in handy when they need to send a card to a family member or friend. We made a bunch of these, and you can see a sampling in the picture above. These were put together by a wonderful group of ladies, a big THANK YOU to everyone that participated. I love our monthly get togethers and we had a lot of fun making these. One of the reasons I am so proud to be a part of this group: while working on this project our group ranged in age from 9 years old to 84 years young! I think that is pretty amazing to have so many people coming together from such different ages and skill levels to create something together. I hope everyone is fortunate enough to have great friends to craft with. Thanks for stopping by!

Gingerbread Man- Challenge #3

Here is my entry for Blogger Group Challenge #3. It was a sketch challenge. I stamped my gingerbread man twice, colored both with Prisma markers and cut one out and pop dotted it on top of the other one. I used Liquid Applique for the "icing" around his arms and legs and brads for his "buttons". I used Christmas Red Stickles on his cheeks and the little gingerbread girl button is from a set called Dress it Ups (I think). The gingerbread man stamp is from Stampabilities and the "Warmest Holiday Wishes" is from See Ds Christmas mini set. The paper is from Hobby Lobby. If you want to create something with this sketch too, leave and comment with a link to your blog/gallery. Here is the sketch that Danielle provided for us to use:

I have had a very productive weekend in my craft room! I have hardly left the room at all-only when I needed to refill my glass of Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. Boy, oh boy, I really do love that stuff. Of course it is a seasonal item so I buy it and only drink that until Christmas! I have made several ornaments, cards and some various gifty type items. We are having a Christmas Showcase and crafting day at church in two weeks so I am trying to get as much done as possible before we go out of town. I hope you had a great and creative weekend as well!

Altered Composition Book

This is my fist attempt at making an altered composition book. I am making Christmas gifts for the girls' teachers, they will be getting "desk sets", including one of these books and the matching pen (I think you can see it at the bottom of the book). I haven't decided what else I am going to add, I know a bookmark and a post-it note holder. There will probably be some type of notecards as well. I bought a bunch of these books before school started while they were on sale pretty cheap. My stamp here is from the teacher set from Hanna Stamps, I stamped the image with Brilliance ink and colored with Prisma and Copic markers. I have mostly Prismas but most all of the skin colors I use are Copics. My papers are from The Paper Studio and the ribbon is from Hobby Lobby. I love the sentiment in this set. I think that is the mark of a great teacher; if you can spark a child's curiosity and teach them how to satisfy it, you have given that child a true gift. So what do you think of my desk set? Any suggestions for other items to include?

Sympathy Card

I try and keep a supply of cards on hand so that if I need something quick I can grab one instead of having to go to the store. Except with sympathy cards for some reason. I usually wait until I need one to make one of these. I generally make them pretty simple. A friend of ours from church lost her Mom this week so I needed to make a card to send to her family. The "pearls" down the left side of the card aren't really pearls, I used Tulip dimensional Pearl paint in Snow White. That paint dries fairly quick and gives me the ability to create any size that I need. It is actually fabric paint, but when I saw that it was dimensional, I decided to give it a try. Not bad, I got a good size bottle for, I think, $1.39 and it comes in several colors. The stamp is from SU and was stamped with CTMH Garden Green and Petal. The sentiment stamp is from My Sentiments Exactly and was stamped with the Garden Green ink also. Paper is DCWV. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Happy Birthday Kip!!

Quick post today because today is my husband's birthday. Happy Birthday Kip! This is the birthday card that I made for him. I embossed the background with a Cuttlebug folder, I knew I wanted a more distressed look so I made sure that my card stock from DCWV had a white core. After embossing, I went over the raised areas, lightly, with a sanding block. Changito was stamped with Palette ink and then colored with Prisma markers. I stamped the birthday message with CTMH Olive ink. I wrapped the bottom with some hemp around the bottom and bada bing, a birthday card for my hubby!

Sea Turtles

I love turtles, all kinds, but especially sea turtles. I think they look so majestic swimming through the water, so peaceful and serene. This was another stamp that I got when we were on vacation in Indiana, and I think one of the last ones that hadn't been inked up yet. The stamp is from Great Impressions.I wanted to create a background that looked like water. I painted with Twinkling H20s, using several shades of blue and a couple of greens, then after that dried, I stamped my image. The turtles were stamped twice, colored with Prisma markers and then I used pop dots for dimension. You can see some of the shimmer in my water, but in person it is very shimmery. To finish off the card I attached some pretend dew drops across the top. Have a great night!

Oh, Christmas Tree

This week our blogger group challenge was to use four different patterns of paper on one card. I have a hard time matching one pattern and a coordinating solid at times and on rare occasions I can match two patterns. Four was definitely a challenge. I bought this pack of Christmas paper at Hobby Lobby the other day and that helped because they all match. Then I saw this tree on Julie O'Ds blog made using SU photo corner punch and decided that would be a great way to incorporate the different patterns. The background paper was a sheet so I pulled the matching papers to punch my photo corners out of. I love the way it turned out. I think I will be making several of these. It's great for a couple of reasons, one because it is quick and two, I can use up a lot of scraps of paper. The paper is Hobby Lobby brand, I used brads from The Paper Studio and card stock from DCWV. The "Merry Christmas" is from The Angel Company set, Just for You. I stamped that using CTMH Citrus Leaf ink and then went over that with a green Spica marker. I have one more card using more patterns that I am still working on, I can't get it quite right.

I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend. We had a nice morning with lots of crafting time for me and then we went and saw the new James Bond movie. It was pretty good. Originally I didn't know how I felt about the new Bond, but I think Daniel Craig does a great job with this role. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Snowman

The weekend is finally here! I hope everyone had a great day. I got to go see High School Musical 3 this afternoon. I know you are jealous! I did get some crafting time too. I am back to working on my Christmas cards. We send out a lot of cards every year and I don't send the same card to everyone. Not every one is an original and I do normally make several that are the same, I just don't do one design for everyone. The biggest reason I don't do them all alike is that I get bored making the same thing that many times. Plus I have lots (and lots) of Christmas stamps and I want to use them all! I did get an early start on my cards this year, for the first time ever, but it is time to really start getting busy. This is a set from Clear Dollar Stamps called Wagon Wishes. There are several different things that you can put in your wagon in addition the the snowman. The snowman is stamped using Palette ink and everything is colored with Prisma markers. I used Liquid Applique and glitter for the snow. For the first time, I decided to sponge in some color for the background. I used the Cuttlebug Snow Dots embossing folder and the snowflakes are punched with the Martha Stewart snowflake punch. I have seen several cards lately with pearls in the center of the snowflakes and I really like the way they look and I happened to have some in my stash. They came from Hobby Lobby, but not sure of the maker. Enjoy your weekend!

Blog Award

I got this award from Conni. I am supposed to pass the award along to 5 other blogs that I enjoy reading. I am going to pass it to some of the people on my favorite blogs. It is hard to pick only five though. They are in no particular and I am a little embarrassed to let you know how many I actually read every day. Be sure to check out their blogs:
1. Jennifer
2. Dru
3. Katy
4. Amy
5. Dana

Fall Fun

How much fun can one little girl and a small puppy have in a big pile of leaves? We had so much fun the other day playing outside. As soon as the pile would get spread out, Samantha would rake them back up and then start jumping and throwing them again. She kept trying to bury the dog, but Bailey wasn't cooperating with her!

In honor of all the beautiful fall leaves, I decided to make a card with this stamp. This is Charlie and he is from Clear Dollar Stamps. There are several Charlie images available, but I think this is one of my favorites.

I colored Charlie with Prisma markers. The paper is DCWV and the ribbon is from Jo-Anns. I love all the seasons and the changes that occur but I find the fall colors inspiring. I love watching these colors emerge every year. It is funny, but I have favorite trees that I particularly enjoy watching change. What makes my favorite trees my favorite? Definitely the colors but also where they are located and how they are situated in their surroundings. I know, I'm weird, right? I hope you have been able to get out and enjoy all the beauty outdoors.

I hope you have had time to check out some of the blogs on my sidebar. I am amazed by the talent I find every day. Check out Sarah's blog, she is giving away some cool blog candy.

Hippy Chick

Isn't this one of the most fun stamps, ever? I loved it as soon as I saw this new release from Hanna Stamps. In addition to these images, there are some accessory pieces, including a lava lamp that brings back memories for me. I had to wear glasses starting in kindergarten and my eye doctor had a lava lamp in his waiting room. I would sit there the whole time watching those globs of lava break apart and float around, I was fascinated. I made this card for my friend Angela's mom, tomorrow is her birthday. So Happy Birthday Rebecca! My Hippy Chick is colored with Prisma markers, the flower "iron-ons" are covered with pink fun flock and the stitching is done with yellow Liquid Applique. I went over the chains in her belt with a gold Spica marker. I cut out the image and used pop dots to attach her. I don't normally have tie-dyed paper, but the last time I took the girls to JoAnn's Samantha picked out this paper and I traded with her to get it. The paper is from Paper Pizazz and the card stock is DCWV. Those flowers are from the dollar bin at Jo-Anns some time ago and the brads are from The Paper Studio.

Another 70's memory for me: see the pink border on the bottom of the jeans? I colored that in honor of my mother who used to sew ruffles around the bottoms of my jeans when they would get too short! I am not scarred by that memory or anything! I was rather tall as a child and my pants would get too short too quick and that was her solution!

Baby Card

Happy Monday to everyone! This was the other card I made for the Hanna Stamps release party. The challenge was to make a baby card using no pastels. That was a little harder than I thought it would be. Every piece of paper I found that I wanted to use had lighter (pastel) shades in it. I used my Cuttlebug Numbers embossing folder on the orange piece of paper because it made me think of the hours of the night going by while Riley is pacing the floor with the baby. The sentiment is one I generated on the computer and printed out on card stock. The polka dots weren't quite the right shade of blue so I went over them with a Sakura Glaze pen. I really am hooked on the dots right now, I don't seem to be able to make anything without them. Riley is colored with Prisma markers. All paper is from DCWV, except maybe the polka dots, it was from our scrap stash.

Time for Football

We don't watch a lot of football at our house, but last weekend Kip happened to be flipping through the channels and found the Texas Tech vs. Texas game. Kip's family are Texas Tech fans, both his parents went to school there and if I am not mistaken, that is where they met. Football Riley is dressed out in the appropriate red and black uniform to celebrate Tech's victory. At the Hanna Stamps release party the other night there was a sketch challenge to use the above layout on a card. My circle turned out slightly larger than the one on the original sketch, but I am pretty happy with the card. Sketch challenges are my favorite, because I tend to do all my cards with just a small handful of layouts and the challenges do make me think of other ways to do my cards. Riley is stamped with Palette Noir ink and colored with Prisma color markers. The letters spelling out "Score" are from a Studio G alphabet set. I hope everyone has had a great weekend.

Bookworm Hanna

New Hannas and Rileys were released this week! For the first time ever, I decided to check out the release party on SCS. What fun that was! It was very fast paced and the two hours on the computer just flew by. In honor of the new releases, I decided to ink up this Hanna that I have had for a while and hadn't used. I am an avid reader so I really love this stamp. I wanted it to look like she was in her favorite reading corner reading one book and the next ones ready to go. It is very rare to see me without a book somewhere nearby. Even when we go on vacation, I have to make sure I have one book with me and then at least a couple of spares in my suitcase. I even read two books when we were on our honeymoon, because Kip sleeps longer than I do. The deets on the card: image was stamped with Palette ink and colored with Prisma markers and Copics. Hanna is stamped twice and I used pop dots to attach the two images. Everything else was cut out and then added to my reading corner. I love that the paper looks a little like wallpaper. I think it is MME, but I am not 100% sure. The area behind her was a little blank so I made a picture to hang on the wall with a SU butterfly stamped with CTMH Key Lime ink. This card took a long time for me to make, I think I will frame it and hang it in my craft room!

Thank you so much for all the get well wishes. I am feeling somewhat human again! We had our monthly craft night at church last night and had so much fun. I think our group was about 16 people. We always have so much fun. Next month we will be making some things for Christmas, if you are local, hope you can join us. Have a great weekend!

Birthday Cake

Hello everyone! I got this stamp back in the summer at the Scrapbook Super Center when we went to Gatlinburg. I thought that she was so cute holding that huge birthday cake. The stamp is pretty large and the Happy Birthday is a part of the stamp. Here, I trimmed around the image and then used SU word window punch to move the sentiment to where I wanted it. As you can see, I am still in the mood for polka dots. Actually this started as something else entirely. I was originally going to use the sketch challenge from SCS this week, and pulled out the paper I was going to use. The other was a floral print and every time I cut and positioned the flowers, it looked like she was sprouting them out of her head. Definitely a weird look. I ended up with this. I think it is a little pain though and I might go back and add something else. The stamp is from All Night Media and was colored with Prisma markers. All the paper is DCWV. I am going to go back to bed now. I have been there off and on all day because I am nursing a cold. Have a great night.

Polka Dots and Ribbon Challenge

This is my entry for the first challenge in our SCS Blogger Group. Sara issued the challenge to use polka dots and ribbon. I needed to make a card for a baby shower next week and decided to combine the two. I really liked this challenge because using polka dots is definitely not a hard thing for me to do! Even my cute little horse has spots. The horse stamp is from Clear Dollar Stamps and is part of a set called Cuddly Critters. The sentiment stamp is from the Inkadinkadoo baby boy set. Both are stamped using CTMH Lilac Mist ink and all papers are from DCWV. The ribbon is from my stash, not sure of the origin, but it probably came from Hobby Lobby. Speaking of Hobby Lobby, after we went and voted this afternoon, my husband took me there. He was looking for supplies to make a tabletop display for his business, but he let me look at long as I wanted. Their Nestabilities were on sale this week and they finally got some of the long scalloped rectangles in stock! I can't wait to use them.

The Morning Buzz

I am so very excited! I stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home tonight (NOT the exciting part) because we were out of coffee. That just cannot happen in my house. I am not a nice person without coffee. Anyway, I went to the coffee aisle and they had my favorite coffee in stock!!! Peppermint coffee by Millstone. I love that stuff and I can only get it in November-December. I try and buy extra to stockpile it, but often they run out of it. So in honor of finding my favorite brew, I made a coffee inspired card. This is a hostess set from The Angel Company called "The Morning Buzz". I stamped the coffee beans onto kraft paper with Versamark and the other images were stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. The mug is colored with Prisma markers. I used some Liquid Applique on the inside of the mug as foam and went over the mug with Glossy Accents to give it a shiny look. I thought the circles looked a little plain stacked on top of each other so I decided to add the brads to mirror the smaller circle. The photo corners were punched with a SU punch and then pierced. Life is good with peppermint coffee!

So this blog is called "Makings and Musings". I am going to muse for a while now standing up on my little soapbox. I won't be offended if you leave now and we can still be friends, even if we disagree. Tomorrow is election day. I would not even begin to try and talk you into voting for the candidates I support because that is a personal decision. I would like to talk about voting in general. I hope everyone has been paying attention to all the elections, local and national and that you are planning to vote. As women, we have not had the privilege of voting for the entire history of our nation. We have only had this privilege for 88 years. There are women in my life that were born in a time when women could not vote. Beautiful, smart, caring and strong women. That amazes me. Susan B. Anthony introduced a proposal in 1878 that among other things, would give women the right to vote. However the 19th Amendment was not signed until 1920, several years after she died. There are many woman who fought valiantly for this cause. They were ridiculed, patronized, were fined and sent to jail. For saying that our opinions mattered. Their lives made interesting history if you want to read about them. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Eliza Church Terrell are just a few. I for one, cannot let their work be for nothing by throwing my vote away. I want to leave you with a couple of quotes to think about:

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves--and the only way that they do this is by not voting.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Now more than ever the people are responsible for the characters of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption.

James Garfield (written in 1877)

Bad Politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.

William E. Simon

Voting is the foundation of political action.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Thank you so much if you read all the way to the end of this post! Thanks for stopping by.

You Aren't Old...

You're a Classic (inside sentiment). This is a fun set from Clear Dollar Stamps called Cruisin Classic. In addition to this image, the set also has the front view of the car and several sayings. I like the fact that you can put different sayings on the license plate. It is also great for making cards for men. I have a friend that I used to work with that was so upset when she found out she was the same age as my mom, so age jokes are heard often between us. I am a huge Elvis fan and so is the recipient of this card, so when I was thinking about colors for a classic car I decided mine would be pink. The car body is colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. The bumper is colored with that great Gelly Roll glitter pen. I love those pens and use it on a lot of things that need to shimmer. The image is stamped with Palette ink, paper is from DCWV. I originally had eyelets going down the other side of the image, but it looked like I put them on with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back, they did not match up at all. I was going to trim the paper and cut off all the eyelets then decided this looked like race lights; one, two, GO, so I left them. I like the horizontal stripes as well because it looks like the road ahead. I hope everyone had a great weekend and didn't eat too much candy.

Fun with Friends

I got a call from my friend Linda the other night inviting Kip and I to eat dinner with her and her husband. She also asked me to bring some stamping stuff over. Linda recently had surgery and told me that secretly she decided that since she was having to have the surgery at least she could look forward to a homemade card from me and one from our friend Elaine. She got one from both of us and one from our church crafting group, so she was happy. She is doing great from the surgery wanted some crafting time! We all know that is the cure for all that ails you. She also said that her husband was interested in learning to make cards, especially after he found out that Kip has been known to make a few cards too. This was the card that I made using a Sizzix embossing stencil. Linda has several embossing stencils so we were looking at different ways to use them. I was showing her how to color them in using pastels. I just have a short stubby brush that I pick up the color with and then color in the area I want. The DP is DCWV from the Fall pack and card stock is from CTMH. The felt flower and button are from Making Memories.

This is the card that Kip made. The ice cream sundae is from a Fiskars set and the sentiment is from CTMH. He colored everything with Prismacolor pencils. I am not sure about the papers here, he was using paper from Linda's stash. After his image was colored, he went over the ice cream with the glitter Gelly Roll pen. I think he does a great job on his cards.

We had a great time with Linda and Charles, and made several cards that night. On Friday, Linda and Charles dropped off this card, because they had made several more that day!

Can you believe it is already November? I have got to get busy making Christmas gifts. At least I have a good start on our cards this year. Have a great rest of the weekend.