With Sympathy

This card is for DH's gr'ma. His gr aunt (her sister) passed away and they were really close. I think they talked on the phone every day and this is really hard on Gr'ma Ruth. I wanted to make her a really pretty card. I love this verse for times like this.Flower diecut is cut from Cricut's Walk in My Garden.Ribbon is actually some vintage seam binding. It is 100% Rayon and I purchased a bag of 20 rolls at Goodwill for $3. There are 100 yds on each roll and most of the rolls were full. So $3 for about 1800 yds was a great find!

Jar orders

Here are the five jars that the owner from Twigs & Berries ordered when she saw the plum one when I was mailing it at the PO. The first three were made using Basic Grey papers. The ribbon is from JoAnn Fabrics. It was the perfect size for the side of the lid. The jars are from Dollar General. The images are cut with my Cricut using George, Walk in my Garden and Mini Monograms.

This jar was made using Signature Suite by Jen Wilson. The center of the flower is Basic Grey. The flower on the lid is Basic Grey with the center being Signature Suite.

And on this last jar I used Daisy D's paper. The ribbon on this jar is some I rec'd from my friend Lana a year or two ago. The color was perfect. I grunged it and all the ribbon and papers with basic brown ink by SU!.

French Bread

I love making bread and every now and then it turns out "perfect". Today was such a day-it rose nicely, the texture was just right and when it came out of the oven, you almost hate to cut into it, because it is so "pretty". LOL!! If you like making bread here is the recipe. It's almost fool-proof!

French Bread

8 to 9 ounces hot tap water

2 tsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tbl vegetable oil (I use canola)

2 tsp sugar

3 cups bread flour

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl in the order given. Mix well and then turn out onto floured counter and knead until elastic and smooth. Place in lightly greased bowl and allow to raise 1 hour or until double in bulk. Punch down. Let rest for 10 minutes. Turn out on a lightly floured counter and kneed lightly. Shape into a long loaf and place on a greased cookie sheet. Brush top with 1 beaten egg mixed with 2 tbl milk and then sprinkle with sesame seeds. Make shallow slashes at 1-2" intervals (depending on how thick you want the slices). Let raise in a warm place until double in bulk (about 30 minutes). Bake in 375 degree oven 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy! Ü

On a stamping note...I have been sooo busy! Between buying a car where the dealers lied repeatedly to us (note to those in NE, do NOT buy from Anderson Ford in Grand Island!!), Benjamin's track meets and getting ready for our church's salad buffet tomorrow nite for which I am the coordinator (so far we have 381 ladies coming!), there hasn't been much time to stamp. Oh and I have 5 jar orders with different styles, but similar to the plum and moss one I made. I will post a pic of them when I get them all done...3 down and 2 to go. Ü

Hope you all are having a beautiful spring day!

Swapping with Kendra

Note: Kendra, if you haven't rec'd your cards from me, don't look if you want to be surprised. Ü

My friend Kendra e-mailed me awhile back and asked if I wanted to swap some cards with her using the stamp sets from the SU! Spring mini. Here is what I made to send her...

This first card is done with the crayon resist technique. I stamped the flowers in black on glossy cardstock. Then with a white crayon made marks around the petals of the flowers. When I sponged the ink onto the images with a sponge dauber, the ink resists where the white crayon marks are. Set used is Doodle This.

This second card was made using the new patterned paper and Polka Dots and Paisley stamp set. I love this paper as it has designs on both sides. Card number 3 fits into a business sized envelope. I again used the double sided patterned paper and this time used Big Blooms stamp set.

This last card is my favorite. It used patterned paper from the Au Chocolat package and Doodle This. I stamped the flower, watercolored and then curled the edges to give it dimension. The paper is actually vanilla and brown. I sponged the paper with pink ink. The "hello" is from Paper Trey

Inky Baby

I am not only behind on sending birthday cards, but behind on ALL cards! Here is a MUCH belated baby card that will be going out in the mail today. The pink hearts are embossed with the Cuttlebug embossing folder. I then lightly brushed the raised image with SU!'s white ink pad. The argyle & "Sweet Baby Girl" ribbon is by DCWV and it is adhesive ribbon. I really don't like adhesive ribbon, but it was in my stash and worked well with this card since I wasn't making a bow or knot. The baby bunny is Inky Antics. I colored it with Prisma colored pencils and blended with Gamsol. Both can be bought at Inky Antics. I love the little safety pin by Making Memories and thought it would be perfect on a baby card. The sheer polka dot ribbon is from Wal-mart.

Butterfly Birthday Wishes

I love this butterfly set from Paper Trey. I stamped the butterfly once on the white oval and then again and cut out and adhered on top of the first stamped image using glue dots just in the center so the wings are free. Before adhering, I wanted the butterfly to have antenae things, so I just inked up the outline butterfly on the side between the top and bottom wings and stamped. It had the perfect arch and looks much better than if I would have tried to free hand it with a marker. The "happy birthday" is also Paper Trey.

The background of the card is used with all my scraps from DCWV thank you card kit.

Now if only spring would REALLY show up, so we could see the butterflies!

brother's bd card

I sent this late, but better late than never. Maybe I should have left off the ribbon, but it seemed to need something. The photo corners are cut from my Cricut with Jasmine cartridge that I borrowed at my crop and cut a bunch. I pierced around the edges and sponged to look like old leather. The saying is from a Rusty Pickle pack full of saying for cards and scrapbooking.

another birthday card

Here is another bd card done with the cuttlebug birthday embossing folder. In my cardstock stash was a BUNCH of the green, purple and white already cut for a swap I did years ago!! I don't know why I cut so many! Anyway on those that I did way back when, I stamped flowers from Watercolor Garden on the white part. I must have cut extra thinking I would make more??? So I decided to use them up and make some bd cards.

Thank you Melissa!

This ADORABLE card is made by my on line friend Melissa. Melissa and I "met" on line on a stamping yahoo group 5 (?) years ago. The group disbanned and Melissa & I have kept in contact. We have swapped off and on and I was sooo excited to get an e-mail from her a couple of weeks ago, asking if I wanted to swap again. We swapped 4 cards and this one just popped out at me. I absolutely love it! I love the colors and the striped paper is just adorable for the bunnies face. I also love the "bunnies..." stamp. How cute is that??! The pink is sooo much brighter IRL! On the right is the inside...I love how it opens from the bottom and how she added ribbon from the oval punch out. Here are the other 3 cards that she sent. We are going to do a fun swap next where you buy a pair of socks (we both wear the ankle kind, so are going with that) and then make a coordinating card and add coordinating embellishments~wrap up cute in a matching bag and fun, fun, fun! Can't wait to go to Target to find some fun socks! Melissa, thank you so much for swapping with me!

Birthday Cards

I was sooo behind on my birthday cards. So yesterday afternoon I took the time to get caught up (for now anyway Ü). I usually make all the cards different, but I just didn't have time to do that and after designing this first one, I liked it well enough to make lots like it. I made 18 of them with different colors and ribbons. Here are a couple the cards I made. I used my birthday Cuttlebug embossing folder that my secret sister sent me (this is going to come in soooo handy!).

Then I brushed the top with white ink to make the image "pop". I used my white signo gel pen (the best I have ever found and I got this from SU!) to make the white dots on the scallop punched oval and for doodling around the white stamped image. I used my watercolor crayons to color the flower image~spritzed a couple times with water~then stamped on the oval that was cut from my Coluzzle oval template. On the caribbean card I just punched the holes for the ribbon. On the plum colored card I added silver eyelets. I used eyelets on all the cards that I had matching colors for.

Wallet album

This is another item that is in the altered jar I made. It is called a wallet album that was made at a SU! gathering (I think it was leadership, but not sure). Anyway I tweaked the instructions that were sent to me a bit and this is what I came up with. I am going to be

teaching this at Scrap Happens in May. The only changes I will make is to make the piece that wraps around the album shut with velcro vs. sliding off. Papers used are Basic Grey's Baby Girl. Flowers are cut from the Walk in My Garden Cricut cartridge. The tab is from SU! new tab punch. I will post the instructions after my class.

WHEW!

What a week! It was very crazy last week. The crop I host was Friday and Saturday, setting up on Thursday nite. I usually teach several classes, but I had a tough week and needed to just take a break.

I joined a secret sister swap on SCS and needed to get the final item made for the "reveal" (where I tell who I am with what I send). So at the crop I worked on this altered jar...

I bought the jar at Dollar General, then wrapped patterned paper around the jar and decorated the front with flowers that I cut with my Cricut die cut machine. I pierced holes in the dark plum and brushed the plum flowers with ink and sanded the green flower/center. It still needed something, so I added a plum button tied with moss floss (hey that rhymes Ü). Anyway, I tried adding leaves cut with the Cricut and it just didn't work, so I layed the rickrack behind the flowers and liked it. I got the rick rack at Maranatha's crop and have no idea who the company is, but definitely need to get more when I go again in the fall. Here is the top...

I traced the lid and cut the cardstock to fit. The scalloped circle is cut from my Cricut also. The "full o' stuff" is cut from the Sizzlet font 'Girls are Weird'. I brused the letters with ink to make them pop and added rick rack to the edge of the lid.

Here is a fun treat that is in the jar along with lots of fun items in plum and green (brad, flowers, stickles, beads, etc) as well as a bag of pom poms and die cut bunnies for her to make. I got this idea off of SCS. I can't remember who posted it first, but she had made hers with a stamped bunny head. I didn't have a stamp that would work, so I used the Cricut cartridge Doodle Charms to cut the bunny head. I then doodled around the edges and drew the face. I sponged the ears, nose and cheeks with pink chalk. Using glue dots I adhered the face to one end of a Hershey Nugget candy bar and at the other end a white pom pom for the tail. I think I will make these for my Awana girls Wed. nite.