A Dirty Challenge

It is that time of the month, time for the Dirty Dozen past and present to do a challenge. Kelly (kmahany) is our hostess this month and in honor of Earth day this week, she challenged us to a make a card honoring earth or nature. Our required element was to use something recycled and our restriction was no buttons.

When I think of nature the first two things that come to mind are the color green and flowers. This gave me a chance to ink up another set I recently purchased from Our Craft Lounge, this one is called Dandy Days. I thought the sentiment was perfect for the challenge.

My recycled element is the bracket. It came to my house this week in the form of a cardboard envelope and I used a Sizzix die to cut it out and then painted it. The paper is Basic Grey, I love the earthy colors! I added lots of glitter to the dandelions, it is just the touch this card needed.

I think this would make a great encouragement card for someone. I can easily think of half a dozen people at church going through a tough spell right now. God is the ultimate transformer, he can take what is bad and use it for good. He can most certainly take our weeds and turn them into splendid flowers! He's done that times over in my life. Now I can't wait to send this card out!

The girls will be uploading their cards today, check them out here.

Blessings on your day!

Birthday Recap

We had a great birthday dinner with my son last night. The in-laws came in to help celebrate. I thought I would share the card and cake (with recipe card) with you today.

His favorite color has long been orange so I had to include that in the card. A hockey or lacrosse stamp would have been perfect but I am fresh out. Next best thing...a moose with presents, lol. The moose is from CHF's Cool Dudes set, the stack of gifts is from an SU SAB set and the sentiment flag is from Our Craft Lounge. I stamped some retired Karen Foster snap stamps for the "12" onto some cork. I love cork for the guy cards, it adds great texture without being frilly. I used a Quickutz embossing folder for the polka dots. He liked it.

He chose cookies and cream cake, a family favorite especially at birthday time.
The recipe is easy peasy. I made a quick recipe card for my files while I was at it. You should be able to click on the photo for a larger image.

Tonight we go bike shopping, I hope we don't come home empty handed.

Blessings,

Out for a Spin

Happy Monday! I hope you had a nice weekend. Thanks for all the gall bladder feedback. I don't know anything yet, the tests will come back this week. I find it interesting that some people said that after having surgery they had to watch what they ate and others said now they can eat whatever they wanted. Hmmm. No new attacks though.

Remember I told you I went on a little Our Craft Lounge spree? Here is another card I made, this time using an adorable set called Out for a Spin. It has so many cute elements! The basket reminds me of my friend, Sheryl, who has a one on the front of her bike. Totally fun!

I picked some Cosmo Cricket paper as my starting point, I wanted a fun color combo and this fit the bill. I added some clear Spica glitter pen to the flowers in the basket. Everything was colored with Copics.

Speaking of bikes. My youngest son turns 12 on Wednesday and we are planning to get him a new bike since he has outgrown the one he has. Oh. My. Word. When did bikes get so expensive?? We checked out one bike shop and the bike they sized him for was over $400! I should say that one was a step up from the base model that was only $370. Sadly, he would outgrow that in a couple of years and we would be doing this all over again. All I want is a durable kids bike at a reasonable price. Needless to say, we are still looking.

Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings,

TE Sketch

As promised, here is another sketch challenge. This is Taylor's sketch.

I flipped the sketch for my card. Quite some time ago I came across a t-shirt with a tree and the "play station" sentiment. I thought it was so clever and filed the idea away for another day. This is the day.

The stamps are from Our Craft Lounge's set, Swingin' By. They have so many fun stamp sets. On my last order I may have gone a bit crazy. No, that is a lie, I DID go crazy, so you will be seeing more OCL from me! After coloring the tree with Copic markers, I covered some of the leaves in Stickles. The sentiment was done with Just Rite stamps. The colors on this card make me happy ;), a bright spot in the gloomy, rainy days we have been having these last 2 days.

Happy Easter!

What a glorious day! We were up early this morning to attend the Sunrise service at church. We were reminded that Christ is the light of the world and what better way to experience that than outside worshipping as the sun rises?! I have a short break before I go back for our 10 am service and wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Easter!

Here are a couple of cards in honor of the day. This first one was made with a CHF set called "Glory of Easter". This second one uses some of those new stamps I got in the mail this week from Our Craft Lounge. I used this weeks sketch challenge over at SCS for the lay out.

Blessings on your day! Thanks for visiting.

View-Master Valentine

Valentine's Day is less than a week away now. Last week I did a class featuring all Valentine's projects and here is one of the cards we made.

You can get very good instructions for making a View-Master card here on SCS. I hadn't made one in a long time so this was fun. We used a clear set by Our Craft Lounge, the stamps are the perfect size. You can see the other images we used in the small pics in the lower right hand corner.
My weekend was filled up with a retreat at church and Monday was spent traveling to Rochester for a couple of workshops. Not much stamping has taken place but I have some things waiting in the wings.
Have a great day!

Be Mine

Happy Monday! I hope you had a restful weekend! I did very little stamping as I haven't been feeling all that well. Somewhere around 39 1/2 my body started to fall apart! What's up with that?? I won't bore you with the details.

On Saturday I cooked a turkey. Why? Cause we had one I bought for pennies before Thanksgiving and it seemed like a good thing to do. A few years ago I discovered a recipe for brining a turkey and it resulted in the most moist and flavorful turkey I had ever eaten. Before the words "moist" and "turkey" seemed like an oxymoron. Not any more! I don't think I will ever cook one another way. Here is a picture of my bird.

It is quite dark on the outside because the sugar in the brine caramelizes the skin but be assured the meat is incredible. I do think I should've left the tin foil tent on it a bit longer though, this is the darkest it has ever been. Here is a link to the recipe I use. Who knows, some of you may have one of those cheap birds in your freezer too! Oh and the gravy...to die for!! Yesterday I used the carcass to make turkey noodle soup. A first for me, actually. I used this recipe and again, holy smokes, one of the best soups I have eaten. DH asked me what made it so flavorful, said the flavors "danced in his mouth", lol! I am not sure, instead of the bouillon cubes, I used a chicken broth seasoning I get from an Amish store but is could have been many things. It was a weekend of good, soul warming comfort food!

Yesterday my youngest son and I had a Super Bowl Party for 2. DH and our oldest son had youth group last night and our youngest is not old enough to participate yet. So, we made all our favorite snacks and sat in our jammies cheering on the Steelers. Kaleb has been a huge Steelers fan for a few years now. Boy was it a nail biter until the bitter end!

I did make this card though

These girl stamps by Our Craft Lounge are so cute and fun to use! She is colored in with Copics and layered onto some Basic Grey Bittersweet paper.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the pendants. Someone asked about the adhesive for the bails. I use E600 glue and find it is very strong, you can get it at most craft stores. I also did some additional reading on pendants like these and some suggested good 'ol super glue. I think the E600 gives you a bit more wiggle time. I also read that it may be easier to apply the Envirotex drop by drop with a popsicle stick. I poured mine on but it is very easy to get too much on your project. I plan to do the drip method next time. One last tip- you will probably find air bubbles in the liquid after you apply it to your project. The easiest way to remove them is to lightly wave a heat gun over it, not too close though. The heat causes the air bubbles to rise to the surface and pop. You may have to go over it a few times. It will take 48 hours for the finish to completely dry, so set it out of the way in a safe spot where you won't be tempted to touch it or knock it.

I have been long winded enough, I will be back tomorrow with more!

Cuties!

I go in spurts with my crafting, sometimes I just don't have the energy for it and other times it flows in abundance.

I participated in another challenge over on SCS yesterday. It was the TLC one and the technique was called tacky glitter. I ordered loads of red liner products from Jody so I decided to use some of the circles. (check out her sticky products here) The glitter is from Doodlebug, it came in a 12 pack of little jars. The colors are delicious. The little girl is from a set called Anna Mae from Our Craft Lounge, isn't she adorable?? I don't have daughters and am not a girly girl myself, but I love this darling stamp. The set comes with different leg options and accessories so I went with the polka dot stockings to match my glitter circles. All colored with Copics. DH says she looks like Emily Elizabeth from Clifford the Big Red Dog. I kinda agree.

This is the card I sent to my sister in law for her birthday yesterday. I realize she is a grown woman, with children, but everyone needs some whimsy sometimes. At least I think so. Plus it gave me an excuse to use these new stamps. See how this one is holding a cake and has striped stockings? The versatility is fabulous. The set is clear so it makes stamping the various pieces easy peasy!
Blessings on your day, thanks for visiting.