Alleluia.

Happy Sunday, Girls!

Today I'm sharing some pretty little cards I made for my son's church class teachers. Because I was "mass producing", I really didn't do anything special and let the cards be pretty just by virtue of the beautiful Prima papers. My little stamp is from Studio G, and I'm not sure if you can tell but I also used Studio G Glitter Glue on some of the flower centers and butterflies. I really love this Glitter Glue - and for $1, you can't go wrong. I've used Stickles before and I can honestly say that I like this stuff better - it's not as gooey or something and again, it's like what, half the price? And speaking of deals: be sure and check out the clearance going on at Pez-A-Doodle, Marti's got those Kaleidacolor Rainbow ink pads for $7! There's other stuff too, but I love those little pads. My popped-up butterflies are from Jenni Bowlin. These little babies went on sale and I got a package in every color - LOL

Thanks for stopping in today!

Home.

Happy Weekend, Girls!

I'm so glad it's the weekend and it's just the 4 of us. Don't get me wrong, I love having people over, I love entertaining, I love my family and friends, but we've had a busy last 4 weekends or so and sometimes it feels good just to sleep in late, stay in your jammies as long as you want and just be.

So I've got a couple little home cards to share with you all today. This first one features patterned paper by My Little Shoebox, a chipboard cloud from Collage Press and some funky mesh trim from A Million Memories. I was just trying to get another use out of my MLS paper before the new stuff comes out; they have this line called Imaginary Friends that I am jonesin' to get my hands on!

And this second card uses Terracotta Tile cardstock and Graphic 45 papers. That ric-rac is from a sweet little pack of Melissa Frances trims that I picked up from JBE last summer.

Hope your weekend is everything you want it to be!

You are my sunshine.

Happy Friday, Girls!

- and not a moment too soon. I have had the never-ending week from heckles and haven't felt like doing anything when I get home each night. Soooo looking forward to the weekend.

So just a quick card for y'all today - a no-stamping card. You know, I didn't use the Origins set from BasicGrey too much this year. Maybe twice, I think? I love BasicGrey so I just order when they have new stuff, but this set - hmmm....really hard for me to work with. Anywho - patterned paper and chipboard are from the Origins collection, a little New Leaf ribbon, some buttons and some stitching just because I thought I should put some effort in to this card - LOL

TGIF!

Friends.

Good Morning, Friends!

My eyes are still trying to adjust after the cards I posted yesterday *giggles* So today we're going with something really clean (for me). I've got some Bella Blvd. papers on Spring Rain cardstock, a little Heidi Swapp heart ghost topped with a button, a little strip of some pom-poms and that's all there is to it!

Happy day to you!

Graphic 45 square cards.

Happy Wednesday, Girls!

I've got a couple of busy little cards to share with you today. I'm still lovin' the square card look. But what I love even more: Graphic 45 papers. I just love the old-time nostalgic feeling that their papers bring to a project.

This first card totally reminds me of being back home in California. I used to love the summertime when we would get fresh produce: corn, strawberries, tomatoes, cherries...

...and this card reminds me of...um....goodness, a tornado? LOL I've got a lot goin' on here - probably didn't need those bits of Prima bling, but I sort of fancy this card and I can't really say why - ha!

Thanks for stopping in today!

Lil' Robots.

Good Morning, Dolls!

Today I've got a really fun paper collection to share with you - Lil' Robots from My Mind's Eye. Now I've seen robots before - who knew these little guys would be an in thing? - but I was totally drawn to this particular collection. So much so that instead of getting the sheets of paper, I got the paper pack and the coordinating chipboard. It's a really fun set - I'm thinking kid-to-kid cards, kid-to-teacher cards, adult-to-kid cards and more. And while it looks to be a little limiting on color coordinating, I was able to pair it with Scarlet Jewel, Orange Zest, Smokey Shadow, and of course white. And look - I even busted out glitter for this collection!; that's some serious love.

Have a fantastic day!

Hey there.

Mornin' Girls!

Just a super quick and easy card to share with y'all today. I love making square cards, but I find that I have these odd, thin pieces of cardstock left over, so I've been dabbling in this tall rectangular card size lately. I just punched out circles from some American Crafts Letterbox paper, tied some May Arts sheer ribbon around my card and then topped it with a Flair badge; how do they say? - easy peasy!

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Wish.

Happy Sunday, Girls!

Today I'm sharing a card that I made for my son's 8th birthday later this year. I wanted to work with some of the new St. Patrick's Day stamps from Pez-A-Doodle/Studio G, but I wasn't quite ready to make something St. Patrick's-ey, so I took just this WISH stamp and decided to work it on a birthday card. I've used the new Joy Ride collection from Cosmo Cricket, I highlighted the 8s for 8th birthday, and look - even got 8 candles on there from my EK Success candles border punch; clever, eh?

Thanks for stopping in today!

Join me for a drink?

(second post for today - there's a lil' card down below)

I'm crazy - I'll admit it.
So most of you know that I am a coupon fiend. Well the Albertsons grocery store ad on Wednesday said that on Saturday, Feb. 20th you could get a FREE 2-liter of diet Dr. Pepper (diet only - in regular diet or cherry) and no purchase necessary. So having my friend here gives me an extra body to score a 2-liter. So I researched all the Albertsons in my area and their hours - they all opened at 6am this morning. So we set the alarm for 5am, woke the kidlets up, piled in to the truck and headed out to the farthest Albertsons and got there at about 5 minutes to 6. We got in there, each of us got our 2-liter and off we were to the next Albertsons....repeat....that's (6) 2-liters so far.

Then there was 3rd Albertsons. We got there about 6:20ish. And as we're walking up to the store, we see these 2 girls coming out with 2 carts full of Dr. Pepper 2-liters. I'm thinking they work there and they are setting up an outside display or something...until they tell me: go in there, Dr. Pepper is free, you only have to pay tax. I'm like - they let you get all that?? They're like yeah, go get you some! My husband and friend didn't think they'd let us get that many - but I'm all for trying. So I filled up my cart with (25) 2-liters...in both regular and diet - LOL And the lady rings them up, scans the coupon 25 times and I'm golden. I call my husband and friend and tell them to come in and load up - and they do: 18 for my friend and 24 for my husband.

Add it up: (73) 2-liters of Dr. Pepper - regular, diet, cherry, diet cherry.
Total out of pocket was 6-cents tax each = $4.38.

I'm off to have a nice tall glass of diet Dr. Pepper on ice - ahhhh.

Friends are special treasures.

Happy Saturday, Dolls!

Today I've got a sweet little friend card to share with you using those great Prima leafy blings, some American Crafts chipboard & patterned paper to complete the centers, a little clip from Michael's with some scrap ribbon, and the perfect lil' sentiment from Hero Arts.

Hope your weekend starts off fabby!

Hey Girl.

Hey Girl(s)!

Got a fun 'lil card to share with you today with some fab-o Graphic 45 papers. I had to get a move on with the old stuff now that the new stuff is here. Have you seen their new stuff? So many fabulous papers to make really cool vintage cards for the men in your life. Nothing too off-the-chart fantastic about this card - the patterned paper really is the star of this show.

TGIF!

Genuine.

Yippppeee, it's Thursday!

I'm so happy because Heather, my bestest friend from college, is coming to see us this weekend. She comments here on the blog-o and she's not even in to cardmaking or blogging (pretty cool friend, eh?). Anywho - she's flying in tonight and will be here through the weekend and we're all so excited.

And to go along with that excitement - how about a bright and fun card? I've got some Orange Zest cardstock (see, Becca - not just for Halloween!), some pretty GCD patterned paper, and some Papertrey Ink buttons, ribbon and one of those fun sentiments from Top Ten Additions (I'm not a scrapbooker so the full Top Ten set wasn't for me, but this little set for $5 I actually have gotten quite a bit of mileage out of).

P.S.: Just a clarification on my craft area re-model. It's a craft AREA, not a craft ROOM. And it's shameful - for real. So there will be no pictures except for a select few sharing a new little product I've got which really helps me with the space issue.

Have a happy day!

Hello...

Just a quick hello today....

This week has been crazy. My craft area is undergoing a re-model and while that's happening I've decided to actually clean my room - LOL And then I didn't get to see Amazing Race on Sunday night, so we watched that on Monday and last night was American Idol - just busy busy.

So this card features patterned papers and chipboard by BasicGrey, stamps/inks/buttons/ribbon and cardstock by Papertrey Ink...and more of those fabulous Prima leaves that I {heart} so much.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

I Do.

Good Day, Girls!

All the talk surrounding the new American Crafts papers has been about the Dear Lizzy stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I love the Dear Lizzy stuff - however, I have to admit, I {heart} Botanique more. This line is so soft and pretty and in colors that are muted versions of the brighter, bolder colors; just really really sweet.

So I have a little wedding card to share with you today - again, filling up the stash with cards for occasions that only come up once or twice a year (if that). And I thought I'd do another little "how I made this card" in pictures post for y'all too.

I started with this pretty light green/dark green geometric piece of patterned paper.

And then with my new SU! punch, I punched a little edge for the bottom of it from the back side of the green.

And then I cut out some flowers from a piece of paper from the I Do line because the gray would go well with Smokey Shadow and gray/yellow are a hot color combination this year.

They don't have to be perfect; my cards aren't CAS, so perfection doesn't exist in my world *giggles*

Perfect why? We're just gonna crumple them up anyhow!

And now we have some cute lil' flowers with some texture, some more character.

Ooooo - isn't that nice? Love this look!

But I want them to still be raised and sort of disheveled/not perfect lookin', so I decided to sew them down the center instead of adhering each one down.

See that right side? A little stitching issue - but remember, it's not a mistake: it's an embellishment opportunity!

Since we're making this a wedding card, how about just using the "I Do" from the manufacturer strip on the paper?

Now no one knows about the little stitching issue - except for you fine folks...and you're not gonna tell, are you?

I tied some sheer ribbon around the top of the card.....

...it was flailing about so I tucked a Glue Dot on the paper right behind the center of my bow.

Tucked in a couple of pins, moved my sentiment over a tad, added some bling - and voila!

And because I love this card and the I Do papers so much, what the heck - let's make another card! I made this card using Danni's ribbon rose tutorial. I really love how this turned out!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Valentine's Day recap.

Happy Monday, Girls!

It's a holiday here in the US - do you have the day off?

I don't - I work in the media so we rarely close *frown face*

Anywho - I thought I'd share with you a few little bits from my Valentine's Day.
I'll start with the little gifts that I made for my husband and children. My husband and I are both working on losing weight right now (in 5 weeks, I'm down 34 and he's down 20 - holla!), so chocolates were out of the question this year. So I found this recipe for Chile-Honey Roasted Nuts and decided to make a batch for him.

These were surprisingly easy to make....and I don't cook. I don't do heat either, but I tasted a few and I thought I had a winner. First bite is crusty and sugary, and then wait for it, wait for it, wait for it - there's the heat. There was a recommendation to use raw sugar and kosher salt instead of regular sugar and regular salt and I took them up on both of those recommendations. My husband was so impressed that I made these; and he really liked them too!

Pricing for this gift was very inexpensive when bought from the bulk food bins at the grocer: $1.19 raw almonds, $1.23 raw cashews, .43 raw peanuts, .28 raw sugar, .02 cayenne pepper = $3.15; we had honey, and some left over kosher salt from Christmas.

In a cellophane bag....

....and all wrapped up.

For the kids, I made some Valentine "mom mix". Every time we have random things left over I dump them in to an old butter container and the kids have called it mom mix. Kix cereal, Goldfish crackers, chocolate chips, raisins, nut clusters - anything goes really. So for their Valentine gifts again I utilized the bulk food section at the grocery store and got 2 colors of Valentine Jelly Bellies, some of those pink & white frosted animal cookies, some yogurt raisins, and some yogurt pretzels in white and what little bit of the Valentine ones they had left. Cost me $6.13 - divide that by 2 and I spent $3.07 per kid; not too shabby.

Here's the mix in the clear cellophane bag.....



...and here they are all wrapped up for the kiddies.




Now that we have family here, I take every opportunity to entertain. So I decided to throw a little Valentine dinner party and had my mom, my aunt & uncle, and my cousin's kid over (he lives with my aunt & uncle - don't ask). And because we have a teeny tiny house, I have to do assigned seating putting the big (fat) people here, the kids there, and the less-fat people over there *giggles*

I made placecards for everyone using American Crafts' I Heart You patterned paper as my base. I wrapped a piece of lace trim around the top and then topped that with some cheap-o Valentine ribbon that I picked up on clearance at Michael's last year. And then I topped my ribbon treatment with an American Crafts Flair badge - love these little guys. I punched some hearts out of the same patterned paper, stitched on my red heart, printed names off in red from the computer, and finished off with some Hero Arts bling.

I baked some cupcakes and bought all sorts of fun stuff to decorate them with....

....but I am totally in love with these edible pearls and thinking next time I may go all Martha Stewart and just do pearls. They're so fancy!

I also got the kids involved in the party planning/decorating and picked up these cheap little wooden cutouts at Hobby Lobby for them to color. $1 each less 40% *wink* The first one is my daughter's - she's got love for buttons just like her mamma....

....my son colors like a boy.

Here's to a great start to your week!