Shoebox Swap

Just to let you know I really HAVE been creating, but it's for CHA and I can't show it to you yet. Ü I do have some things in this post to show that I've been busy.

I've also been busy just working on the house. This is when I have time to do my "spring" cleaning. I am enjoying my time at home sooo much! I am able to cook full meals for my "boys" as well as many sweet treats that they like so much.

Edited to add: The theme to my shoebox swap was "Very Vintage"

I also fixed the link to the last swap I entered. Sorry for the confusion

LONG post...
I entered my second Shoebox Swap that Carrie and Monica host. I had so much fun with my first one (see details for that one here) that I just had to enter to play again. This time I was partnered with Monica. I don't know how Carrie does it, butshe matches up partners perfectly! Monica and I had so much in common and it was so much fun to create a pkg for her.

I had so much fun opening this package and going through all the goodies that Monica sent. I can't wait for the next one! LOL!!

Here is a picture of everything all together:

Monica made this ADORABLE bag! You can read more about how she made it on her blog here. Two fun books to read. I love reading cookbooks and old ones are especially fun. This one also has some yummy recipes I'm going to try.

We get a survery to fill out to know our swap partner so we have an idea of what they would like. I had mentioned to Monica that as a family we like to play games and watch movies and that DH makes the YUMMIEST popcorn. (we have an old crank style popcorn popper and he adds sugar to the oil after it gets hot with the kernels. Then when it all pops together it has a sugar coating...YUM-O) So Monica sent these fun popcorn holders for our next movie nite. I can't wait to use them.

oh my....be still my heart....a bag full of vintage lace, buttons and lots of goodies!
Some yummy flavored tea bags.
A beatiful frame with verse that Monica made for me.

vintage tray that I can use to carry tea and goodies when friends come over

Can't wait to play with this kit. These flowers will be perfect for Christmas decor projects.

I have to tell you a story about these star tins. I was in Grand Island in an antique store and had tins exactly like this in my hand. I knew what I wanted to do with them, but for some *reason* put them back. After I got home I was kicking myself for not getting them. Then I get Monica's pkg and here they are!! I think it's cool that God knew I wanted these and prompted me to put them back knowing they were coming in the mail. I will have a post later for what I plan to use these for with the holidays coming up.

Goodies to use to make invites for having friends over for tea.

Here is just a little bit of what I sent her. I think she will post the rest on her blog.

She mentioned that she needed notecards and I have had this Stationary Box tutorial saved in my favorites for a long time ever since I saw it on Jackie's blog. SCS now has a step by step tutorial and a video that you can watch. It really is so easy and quick to make.

This is what it looks like closed

and here it is opened when you take the lid off

the little pocket by the note pad is for postage stamps. I put some in, but forgot to take the picture with them in

a close up of the pocket with candy

here are the tags I made that she can attach to a gift with a card if she wants

and here are the cards. I made them very simple so that she can use them for any occasion that she needs them for

Here is the vintage tin I got her and put ribbon, buttons, books and other goodies in.

You can see what others sent by going here to Carrie's blog: http://watibg.blogspot.com/

Zentangle

Ever heard of it? I had never heard the word til the end of last month when Joanna with Tombow challenged us to create a project with this technique. Basically it's a fancy word for doodling, but with more detail. You can read more about it here.

Now, while I like to doodle, this isn't exactly my type of doodling. But I found some tutorials on YouTube and someone had doodled a paisley, so I went with that.

This month Tombow is also partnering with Basic Grey (I know!!! One of my all time favorite paper companies!!) and I rec'd a lovely Cappella packet. So very vintage and lovely!

For this card I used their paper, brads and some lovely vintage lace from my stash that matched perfectly! To keep with the scallop and circle theme in my "zentangle" drawing, I punched one edge of BG paper with an eyelet scallop punch.

Here is the inside:

I colored my image with Tombow's markers and put the whole card together with Tombow's Mono-Adhesive Dots. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Vintage Cappella

I love this new Cappella paper by Basic Grey. I received this lovely package with papers, stickers and brads from this line. To me it is very vintage.

Tombow is highlighting their Mono White Gel Pen this month. I used this on both of my cards today.

For this first card, I stamped with a versamark ink pad on a Basic Grey black paper then pierced around the image and then "connected" the dots with the white gel pen. I love how it looks like chalk on a chalkboard. The brads are from another Basic Grey line.

The stamp set is a retired one by Stepping Stones. I used the two smallest flowers and a sentiment.

For this next card I went totally vintage! All the papers are from the Cappella line. The ribbon is from my vintage stash and the lace was white. I rubbed peach ink on it and then spritzed it and rubbed the ink into it more evenly. I love how it turned out!

The mini tag is from SU! from long ago that I still had.  I stamped the "for you" with my Karen Foster snap stamps. The pin is from last month's Maya Road pkg. I wondered what I was going to do with those pins. They match the Cappella paper perfectly!

I used Tombow's Mono White Gel Pen to make "eyelet" dots along the peach scallop border.

Both cards were put together with Tombow's Mono Adhesive Dots.

Week 2 Pantry Challenge

This is what we ate for June 6-12.

Sunday:
lunch: Cheeseburger Pizza & Snickerdoodles
Nebraska has a buffet style restaurant called Valentino's and they serve a cheeseburger pizza that we like. I had a little hamburger and bacon that needed used up so thought I'd give it a try. Since it was still just DH & me, I used two flour tortillas for our shells. To 1/2 cup pizza sauce I added 1 TBSP ketchup and 2 tsp mustard. I fried diced bacon, onion, chopped dill pickle and hamburger for the topping and then added cheese (I think American shredded would have been better, but just went with what I had in the fridge).

Snickerdoodles:
1 cup soft butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cup sifted flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix butter, sugar, and eggs thoroughly. Sift together the flour, tartar, soda, and salt. Add the two mixtures together and stir. roll into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in mixture of 2 TBSP sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon. Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft @ 400* for 8-10 minutes.

supper: hamburgers on the grill, chips, veggies, cookies


Monday
dinner: we just had cereal. Aaron slept in til noon (very tired from being gone all week)
supper: grilled steak, veggies, tator tots, snickerdoodles

Tuesday:
dinner: pancake puff, fruit
supper: beef & noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, angel food cake

Wednesday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: BBQ meatballs, scallop potatoes, veggies, strawberry/rhubarb crisp

Thursday:
dinner: homemade egg muffins with egg, cheese, ham and homemade English muffins
supper: grilled pork steak, scallop potatoes, green beans, leftover strbry/rhubarb crisp

Friday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: lasagna, salad, garlic bread made with homemade English muffins, brownies

Saturday:
dinner: leftovers
supper: homemade pizza, scotcheroos

Pantry Challenge 6-3 to 6-5

The third was our 21st anniversary. DH made me deer steak for dinner and we went out for supper.

Day 4:
lunch: grilled cheese and leftover baked beans, raw veggies
supper: hamburgers and homemade french fries

Day 5:
lunch: french dip, potato chips, raw veggies
supper: roast and corn, homemade bread and leftover pear cobbler

Note: unless I post otherwise, Breakfasts are cereal, pancakes, scrambled eggs, waffles, french toast or muffins (banana or blueberry). If I make anything different than that above I will post with a recipe. 

c.r.e.a.t.e.

To create this fun wall hanging, I used a "page" from Maya Road's Wavy Layer Chipboard Book. I painted the front and back a creamy white color then sponged the edges with permanent brown ink. I hand cut a piece of Basic Grey patterned paper from their Porcelain line, sponged the edges with chocolate ink, machine stitched around the edges and adhered with Tombow's Mono Adhesive Power Bond.

I used Tombow's Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to adhere brown glitter to Maya Road's David Chipboard Alphabet. I used the Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to adhere the letters to the wallhanging.

The bird and leaf is punched from one of Stampin' Up's punches.

The flower is made by stamping several scallop circles, wadding them up in a ball

and then flattening them back out.

I made two holes with my piercer and threaded the vintage button with crochet thread for strength and knotted to the back.

I then spritzed the flower very lightly with water and one layer at a time started scrunching the flower up around the button. After the flower was completely dry, I brushed the edges with brown ink and ahdered the flower with the liquid glue.

I added a ribbon hanger with Maya Road's Pink Sophisticate Striped Ribbon.

Be sure to comment all week on the Tombow blog for prizes.

Missing U

This month Tombow is featuring their wonderful Dual Brush Tip markers. I colored Maya Road's chipboard letters with four of the markers (see supply list for colors I used) using the brush tip end. Then for the inside of the card I hand wrote "missing" with the pen tip end.

Tombow's Mono Multi Liquid Glue is perfect for adhered the jewel flowers (also Maya Road) as well as the letters to my card.

 supplies: Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue, Dual Brush Pens #873 (peach), #743 (pink), #452 (turquoise), #192 (green); Maya Road Clear Jewel Flowers, David Chipboard Alphabet; Making Memories Paperie Poolside patterned paper, EKSuccess scallop punch

Be sure to stop by the Tombow blog and comment to be entered to win a prize. Ü

Pantry Challenge Day 2

Good Morning! For today's pantry challenge, we will be eating:
lunch: tortilla roll-ups (sundried tomato tortillas with sourcream, salsa, leftover grilled chicken and lettuce, roll up and cut in half), carrot sticks, potato chips and for dessert we will share a LARGE blueberry muffin from Perkins (couldn't eat it yesterday and it came with my meal)

supper: grilled hamburgers, baked beans, veggies, pear cobbler

June Pantry Challenge

In January, I followed some others in a pantry challenge. The challenge was to eat as much as possible just from what is in your pantry/freezer and buy as little as possible. I knew I wanted to try it again this summer, so I've decided that June is that month. My goal is to only buy items that are dairy, fresh fruit and veggies and staples, like flour, sugar etc.

I will keep you all updated with our meals and share recipes when I can and also how much I spend on groceries for the month of June. If you would like to join me, please let me know and keep me updated on how you are doing.

The boys are in TX this week working at a camp getting it ready for campers. Meals have been light since they left early Saturday morning.

Today I ate out with mom (she paid) for lunch and I'm not sure what Bruce ate, but probably leftovers or cereal.

For supper I made grilled chicken which had been marinated in lite Catalina dressing, lettuce salad with tomato and shredded cheese and garlic bread made with homemade bread.

I hope to get back to stamping this week. I had big plans and they've all changed for what my week looks like.

Cherry Coke Gift Box

YAY! School is officially over! I am so ready to start summer vacation. I am having a garage sale this weekend (please come over if you live in the area), so will be getting ready for that and then hope to start doing some creating Monday. The boys are headed to TX early Saturday morning, so I'll have lots of time on my hands. Ü

This week Tombow is partnering with Graphic 45. Be sure to visit both the Tombow blog and the Graphic 45 one for chances to win product. There are some super fun ideas on both blogs too!

Do you ever make anything and love it so much you have a hard time giving it away? This is one such project. I had so much fun making this. The idea actually started out as a baby basket using this paper, but didn’t have any baby items to fill the box AND I didn’t know anyone expecting. LOL!

Then I remembered this fun paper I had received from Graphic 45 with the cherry drink on it (paper with the circles) and thought it would be fun to make a Cherry Coke themed box for a friend or graduate. (aqua), (cream scallops), (polka dots), (swirls), and (circle cherry drink paper).

Okay, let’s get started with all I did to make this fun box as there are a lot of details. I’m going to break up the details in numbers to make it easier to read. (I hope Ü)

1. The box. This is a 2-drink carrier from McDonald’s. (seriously!) We went to McDonald’s drive thru asked for 2 waters (we did order their 3 chocolate chip cookies for a dollar…okay getting off the subject here) in the 2-drink carrier. As soon as we pulled away, I had my son get the cups of water out of the carrier and put it in the back so I could use it later. I brushed all the edges of the box with tan ink.

2. I traced the sides onto scrap cardstock to make my patterns to cover the box. After I had decided on my theme, I went through the papers (and there were a LOT of them…Thank you Graphic 45!) that I had received and chose 5 coordinating papers.

3. I cut my pieces as I wanted them on the box and stitched around each piece (except for the scallop edge) and took a tan ink pad and brushed each piece WITH the ink pad to grunge it up. I went with the grunge look as the Cherry Drink paper has a vintage image on it.

4. For the scallop edge, I used my new favorite EK Success punch.

5. I adhered all the pieces with Tombow’s Mono Adhesive Power Bond.

6. Several elements of this box is inspired are inspired by my friend Michelle Wooderson (you SERIOUSLY have to check out her blog if you aren’t familiar with her work!) First element is using old pattern tissue for tissue paper. I found some old patterns at a shop for 5 cents each. Pretty inexpensive tissue paper! On one side of the carrier is a bottle of Coke and a Twin Bing candy.

The candy has a cherry nougat center. This candy is only found in a few states. It has a nutty chocolate outside. Very yummy!

7. On the other side of the carrier is this cup that I found at a local store for $1. How cool is this???!

The colors match my paper perfectly. I was looking all over for a Coke glass and found this AFTER my box was made. I was tickled pink…I know, doesn’t take much for this farm girl to get excited. I included a cello bag of chocolate covered cherries (if I would have had the time I would have made homemade candy, like Black Forest Fudge)

8. Another inspired item on the second side is a recipe card. Mish decorates her recipe cards so cool. I can just imagine how cool her recipe book looks! You can buy Cherry Coke, but I thought I’d Google a recipe for making your own and found this simple recipe and what fun that it uses cherry Kool-Aid…another decorating element I can use for my gift box. (hey did you know that Kool-Aid got it’s start in Hastings, Nebraska? I live some place famous. Ü You can read about it here.)  

I stamped on the recipe with Stampin' Up's Canvas (retired) stamp to give it a grungy look. I punched a scallop circle in aqua and hand cut a circle (dots) and taped it to the recipe card. (oh yeah, you can use this recipe for Sprite too. kids used to order cherry Sprites when I worked at Dairy Queen.

9. I couldn’t figure out how to decorate the front and it finally came to me to use the Kool-Aid packet somehow. Mish came up with a pocket card a few years back and recently has been making paper bag ones. BINGO! I have a BUNCH of “smaller than lunch bags” sized sacks and knew they would be the perfect size.

10. I folded the bag into a “pocket” shape and machine stitched the sides, then brushed edges with ink and inserted the cherry Kool-Aid. I used buttons to represent cherries and drew a stem. I hand cut a leaf from felt and sewed down the center.

11. To hold the pocket to the box, I used a clothespin (yet another Mish idea…I told ya she was creative!). I cut paper to fit both sides of the clothespin and distressed with ink. Using crochet thread, I knotted two Basic Grey buttons and glued to clothespin with Mono Aqua Liquid Glue and WA-LA ~ a lovely gift basket to give.

Congrats Graduate!

We are done with graduation here (May 8th) and had our first son graduate. I had lots of graduation cards to make for his friends and this is one of them. I used more paper from Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line and chipboard letter "g" from Maya Road to create this card. I'm going to be sad when I'm out of this wonderful paper!


I cut the star with my George Cricut cartridge. I cut 4 from scrap cardstock and one from the patterned paper from Cosmo's Early Bird line. I hand wrote "congrats graduate!" with the fine point tip of Tombow's black Dual Brush Pen.

Supplies:
supplies: Tombow's Dual Brush Pens #856 & N15, Mono Adhesive Dots, & Mono Liquid Glue; Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend & Early Bird patterned paper; ribbon and ric rac, Maya Road chipboard letter and Basic Grey buttons

congrats

It's been a long time since I've made a long card. This size (4" x 9.25") fits into a business size envelope. I used Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend line. This line is perfect for any projects relating to school.

I colored the alphabet black with Tombow's Dual Brush marker and the stars yellow. With the fine point of the black pen I doodled around the large cut star. The star was cut with Cricut's George Cartridge.

Supplies:
Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Multi Liquid Glue, Dual Brush Pens #N15 & #985,
Maya Road David Chipboard Alphabet
Cosmo Cricket's The Boyfriend patterned paper

Graduation and etc..

Hello! It seems that lately, I've been apologizing for not posting regularly here. I apologize again. I've been sick since the day before graduation and am just now starting to feel better. I ended up with bronchitis and because I'm now down to one antibiotic that I can have the dr. wanted to try something different. I think I would rather had the antibiotic! It's been a very LONG week.

Well, my 435 cookies got made AND not only that but it only took a little under 3 hours!!!! Can you believe it? Bet you don't, but it's the truth. I have a friend that has a convection (sp?) oven and we were able to bake 3 dozen at a time. We had a system going...fill cookie sheets, put in oven, take out, cool, put in boxes, repeat. Ü Now THAT'S the way to make cookies!

Here are a few pictures of our senior. He was one of 6 students that have been 4.0 since 9th grade, so he had to give a speech. He was the only one that stepped up to the mic and that could be heard and understood. For family that doesn't know...he is planning to attend Chadron State and major in medicine. Right now his goal is to become a doctor, so he has a lot of school ahead of him. Good thing he loves school! LOL! We are so proud of you Benjamin!!

Here are some pictures (alot of them didn't turn out and are blurry)...

table with diplomas

here he is handing out flowers. He had already given me mine. good thing there isn't a picture cuz I was crying. he is hugging his great grandma in this picture. my MIL is wearing black and white and mom is in pink

receiving a medal for 4 years of having a 4.0 GPA

receiving his diploma

I was so busy working that I didn't get alot of pictures taken at the reception. DH took this. this is of the food table. The "trays" the cookies are in are hubcaps (my idea Ü) from his Mustang (his idea)

this is my nephew "helping uncle Bruce make ice cream"...translation playing in the salt. Ü

I want to brag on Aaron too. He received honors for all A's for his freshman year and was chosen as one of four 
Students of the Year by classmates and faculty. We are very proud of you Aaron!!

Finals start Thursday, so it's going to be busy and crazy around here thru next Tues (the 25th) which is the last day of school.

I was able to get some stamping done for Tombow this weekend, so be watching my blog for when those projects go live this week and the next few weeks.

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and I have a fun project to share with you. I found this fun tutorial on Shannon's blog.

I used fun papers from Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird and The Boyfriend lines. These papers are perfect for a teacher gift. I used Tombow's MONO Adhesive Dots, MONO Aqua Liquid Glue, MONO Glue Stick, and MONO Adhesive Power Bond.

Here is a tip for how I cut the curve for the carton closer flaps. I inserted my piece into an oval punch like shown below. Super easy!

For the ruffles on the chipboard circle, I just hand-sewed a running stitch along one edge of ribbon and then gathered up and knotted and placed behind the chipboard. I glued it with the MONO Liquid Aqua Glue.

This was so much fun to make that I think I will make some more. I filled these with paper clips, erasers that go on the end of pencils, and candy! Ü

Graduation Count Down

Six days til Benjamin graduates! YIKES I'm not ready!! We ended up going and seeing Bruce's grandma yesterday. I didn't get as many things marked off my list this weekend as I wanted, but it was good to just relax for awhile. Now, I'm ready to get busy. Wish I didn't have to work as it only gives me very FEW hours a day to work on things.

Tonite is the senior slideshow. I've never been to one and am looking forward to it. I will have 2.5 hours after school to work on things, so hope I have a very productive time.

TTFN