Back to School Party

I was going through and cleaning out my photos and found several that hadn't been posted. These photos are from a fun little "back to school" themed party I hosted with a few friends in the "Friendship Patio" by our local flower garden on main street. It was fun to do a small intimate party of 5. Only one of the 5 had a child in high school, 2 of us had kids in college and the other 2 were grandma's with grandchildren in school

It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun visiting and enjoying the food, weather, friendship and conversation. Sometimes it's just fun to put together a small little party for any reason. I forgot to take a picture of the table I set! It was yellow with a gift at each place setting and in primary colors...red, blue, yellow and green. We brought apple/school themed food and a gift for each person for a fun exchange.

Here are a few pictures of before the food came. I just went "shopping" in my home for the decor with the exception of the alphabet printables that I made for this party:

I made apple pie roses:

my gift basket was a black chalk painted berry box filled with a notepad, card and candle.

apple roses recipe 
alphabet printable cards

BFB God Gave Us Thankful Hearts

Today I have a fun book review. This one is a children's book. I'm always looking for books to read to my nephews when they come, so now I have a new one I can read next time they come to visit.


God Gave Us Thankful Hearts by Lisa Tawn Bergren is a beautiful story in learning that there is always something to be thankful for. Little Pup was focusing on what he didn't have and his mom shows him to be thankful in every season. This is a great lesson for children and adults alike.

Mama says in the book "the trick to having a thankful heart, is thinking about the things that make us happy, rather than the things that don't." wise words for us all.

• More Info
• Author Bio

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

#1 Teacher

It's Back to School Week with the Cutting Cafe. With most kids heading back to school this week, we were challenged to use one of the following files to create our projects:
Pencil or Apple Treat Cup
Pencil Shaped Card
Apple Shaped Card

I chose the Pencil Shaped Card file for my project. I just used the top pieces and resized them to fit a small Michael's gift sack to make this fun gift sack for a favorite teacher.

To make the pencil a little more real like, I scored lines in to the yellow piece and ran some silver cardstock through my paper corrugator to give it some dimension. I know the ridges actually run the other way, but it still works for me.

 After layering the pieces, corner rounding the eraser points, I adhered it to the paper bag with some strong adhesive from Tombow. Xtreme Adhesive is perfect for this and I don't have to worry that it will come apart.

 Now I just need to fill it with some teacher goodies

Custom Stamped Cards

Have you heard the news? Regina over on the Cutting Cafe Shop can make you custom stamps. These can be with images she already has in her shop, or something original that you come up with.

I have created 2 cards using the first 2 stamp sets I've had her make. The first card uses the alphabet background in a set I had her create for me using her own images.

 The apple is a cut file from Apple Treat Box that I shrunk way down. I hand drew the stem and hand cut the leaf. "Thank you" is from another set I had her create.

My second card uses the jar from the set I had her create with her images. Regina wraps the stamp sets with tissue paper and inside is a bunch of confetti. I saved the flowers, knowing I would want to reuse them. I was thinking in a shaker, but then got the idea to use them for flowers. I just drew the stems and leaves with a Tombow Dual Brush Pen. I then added sequins to the center of each flower.

I stamped the jar in a light aqua ink onto watercolor paper and then using a Tombow Blender Pen, smoothed out the lines.

Here is a peek at the stamp set I had created.

BFB: Fraying at the Edge

Today I have a book review for one of my favorite genres: Amish. Fraying at the Edge by Cindy Woodsmall (also one of my favorite artists) is the second book in her series The Amish of Summer Grove. I was also blessed to have received the first book in the series Ties That Bind that I worte about almost a year ago here.

Ariana Brenneman was raised Old Order Amish, but finds out 20 years later, she was switched at birth. Her birth family is atheist and the baby she was switched with is Skylar. Skylar is addicted to prescription drugs and is forced to make a decision: rehab or go live with her Amish birth family.

Both girls struggle with their new families as you can well imagine. This was a different twist than is normally written about the Amish and I really enjoyed it. While I feel that most books can stand on their own in a series, it really seemed like I would have been lost a bit had I not read the first book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review

Book Review: A Heart Most Certain

I was introduced  to a new to me author via Bethany House in the book A Heart Most Certain by Melissa Jagears.


This is a historical romance story, which is one of my favorite types of books to read. Even though the stories aren't real, the authors tend to do lots of research of the time periods and that makes them enjoyable. It is set in Teaville, KS (just the name of the town lead me to believe it was going to be a great book!) in 1905,

Lydia wants to join the Teaville Moral Society, but maybe not for the right reasons. Her father is deep in debt and her mother is dying. Lydia has it in her head that if she marries into money her problems will be solved.

For her part in the Society, she needs to get the wealthiest man to donate to the cause. Nicholas refuses. He donates to causes that that are private and not to make a big show of  his generosity.

The two butt heads as you can imagine, but learn the true meaning of not only charity, but what happens when you judge others and their lives. Even though this is set in the early 1900's, there is so much we can learn from the story today.

This is the first book in the Teaville Moral Society Series and after reading this book, I look forward to the others in the series.

**I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for my honest review.**

Happy Notepad

This month for Tombow's Ambassador Program, I received . This Xtreme Adhesive is perfect for making my mini notepads in adhering the notepad to the inside cover. I know that the adhesive will hold the notepad for the duration of it's use.

These notepads are fun for me to make. You can get two from one jr. legal notepad (I get mine cut in 1/2 at Office Max), an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock and then use your scraps to decorate the front and top of notepad.

Wheelbarrow Cards

I had several FredSheSaid colored images printed before our computer crashed and decided to get them made into cards. I have such a big scrap pile that I wanted to try and dwindle down, so have been challenging myself to make cards every day.

These cards use FSS's Pre-Colored Wheelbarrow images.

Scrappy Tag

Last month as part of the Tombow Ambassador program, I received 2 Dual Brush Pens 761 Carnation and 533 Peacock Blue to create with. I created this tag by first coloring the two colors onto a piece of plastic, spritzing lightly with water and then pressing a manila tag into the ink to create my background.

Then using my scraps, I decorated the front. To get the pink to the bottom of the scallop, I just "colored" on a sponge with the Dual Brush Pen and then inked the edge of the scallop piece.

I also used Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to adhere the doily, Mono Adhesive Permanent to adhere scallop, and Adhesive Dots for the ephemera.

Christmas in August

This week at the Cutting Cafe, the design team is thinking about Christmas. Funny how fitting that is since this has been the coolest week we've had in quite some time. I haven't had to run the AC all week.

For my project I chose to create a Christmas Planner using the Holiday Planner Printable Set. I created the base of the planner with a manila file folder cut to size and then covered with designer paper. 

The front uses a snowflake cut from Christmas Boxes with Cutouts cut file, snowman image from Inky Antics 11118MC Decorating Snowman stamp set and the Christmas Planner is part of the printable file from Cutting Cafe's Holiday Planner set.

The inside shows the printable images I used to fill each pocket. The last pocket is an envelope I made a flap for to store receipts. I wanted to keep the inside very simple as it was already a bit bulky

I'm going to see if I can find a gray or white pony tail holder to use to hold it shut. I believe this would make it handier to have in one's purse that way.

Be sure to visit the Cutting Cafe Blog on the 7th and 21st of every month to see the design team's projects in which you can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win 3 FREE sets of your choice from the online store.

Lotsa Balloons

Today I have 3 cards to share with you using Birthday Party Fun rubber stamp set from The Cutting Cafe Shop. I was in need of some birthday cards and this set was fun to play with.

I used Tombow's Adhesive Tabs to the bottom balloons to give it a little lift over the top balloons strings. Mono Adhesive Dots was used to adhere all the rest of the pieces.

The clouds in this card is the top of the cupcake.