Happy New Year and an Announcement

First of all...

Happy New Year to everyone!

I trust that you had a safe and happy New Year's Eve?

Best wishes to you for a happy and healthy 2011!

2010 was a FANTASTIC year for my family and we look forward to everything 2011 has to offer!

Secondly....

I have some exciting news!

I've been invited to join the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Sketch Challenge Blog!

Every Saturday there will be a new sketch posted on the blog and I do hope you'll play along! Click the link above to take you there and find out all the deets!

My card below uses this week's sketch SSS89. I changed mine into a square to suit the adorable Eskimo Kisses digi image that I downloaded and resized to my liking.

The My Mind's Eye True Blue paper was sitting on my sewing machine and I thought it would be FUN to use something different to accompany this sweet image.

I think it works! What do you think?
Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve

 Here is what I see out my window today. Just remmants of snow.

Very mild,   almost spring like. I know it won't last  but oh what a nice break after an early  wintry snowy month . A touch of sun...




 Flowering indoors  yet again this tough orchid.......managed to kill  2 others but this one has survived and thrived.
For New Years Eve a quiet celebration  for us, shrimp, strawberries ,   a little wine , watch Royal Canadian Air Farce , not sure which  celebration    from Times Square or Toronto....or will I be asleep?
 For a little excitement, did buy   not 1 but  2 Lotto Max tickets.. tho I do wonder what I would do  with 50 Million..
  ROFLMAO

Puddle Jumper Emma MTSC106

Tonight I am recovering from an all day headache and what better way to cure it....than stamping!?! Right?!

Mercy has posted her last sketch and I said I would play along.

I love this sweet Puddle Jumper Emma image that I picked up from ATS a couple of months ago.

I liked that the sketch was fairly simple. This card took about 15 minutes to make.

I have a FOUR day weekend! Yahoo!

Friday night Karen and I are going to the Calgary Flames vs the Colorado Avalanche hockey game. Then home to celebrate the New Year with Brian and Chloe!

I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!

Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2011!

LRW # 61

Little Red Wagon's challenge this week is leftovers..
 I received a  gift with  a  lovely gift tag attached to it. It was too lovely to be thrown away..
 I wondered how I could reuse it..  perhaps as an ornament for next years Christmas tree..
This terrific  challenge   gave me the perfect    way to   recycle  .
The  only thing I did was accent winter white card base with  red and green layers topped with the   tag just as it came,one can see why I could not throw it out .
I did    raise the  mitt up off the card base.
Love it, in fact this card may be the   master of the cards I make for next Christmas....

Celebrate MFT

Happy Wednesday!

This week's MFT Wednesday Stamp Club Challenge is to celebrate the New Year with your best party card.

I don't have any real party images except this Birthday Princess but I figured she'd work :)

Some special details about this card...

I added some Stardust Stickles to her crown, some Espresso Dimensional Pearls to the icing on the cake and some Pink Smooch on her shoes. Fun eh?

This week Kim is making a special announcement on the MFT blog and it's a good one!

You'll want to check it out for sure!

Remember as always....

If you play along and upload to the SCS gallery please use keyword MFTWSC12292010 so we can see your creations!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Spring Trees CAS99

Monday's CAS99 challenge on SCS was a colour challenge. Fun!

Kraft, Choc Chip, Wild Wasabi and White

The only white came from the ribbon.

Pretty simple card that can be used for anything....like that!

Stamps: Trendy Trees; Cardstock: Kraft; Inks: Choc chip, Wild wasabi; Accessories: Mat pack and paper piercer, SAMJ, Wasabi ribbon, Dimensionals

Thanks for stopping by today!

Elegant Upsy Daisy

On Christmas Day I had some free time while everyone in the house was busy doing their own things to create a card for the Featured Stamper on SCS.

I chose to case LeisaJane's card HERE.

I was going to stitch all the layers as she had done but ran out of thread on the bobbin and well....I was too lazy to fill another on up....lol

Stamps: Upsy Daisy; Cardstock: Kraft, Choc Chip, Red, White; Inks: Choc Chip; Accessories: Embossing Folder, Sewing, Martha Butterfly Punch, Ribbons, Mat pack and Paper piercer, Dimensionals

Thanks for stopping by today!

Enjoy your day!

Cheers!!

This week over at Paper Playtime the challenge is to create a New Year's project. I could not resist playing with one of my new cartridges. Santa was good to me and I was gifted 4 cartridges (yay!!). One of them was Simply Charmed which is so stinkin cute!! Here is what I came up with:



The glass is cut at 2.5 inches, the bottle at 3.5 inches and "cheers" at 1". The faces on this are VERY small - I had to do some cutting and poking to get them to work. The paper is all a mix, but the patterned paper is from CTMH. I think it is a really cute card. I can't wait to play with the rest of my cartridges :)

Come on over to Paper Playtime and show us your New Year creations!

I wish you all a peaceful holiday season and blessing for the New year. May 2011 be wonderful for us all!


A la prochaine...

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Merry Christmas!!

I am only a day late... but Merry Christmas to everyone in the blogosphere :) I hope Snata found you all, and that you all enjoyed the blessings of the season - time with family and friends, beautiful music and some wonderful food. I am so late posting this card - it was my design team submission for this week's challenge at Cooking with Cricut. The challenge was the True Meaning of Christmas.



The angel is from Joys of the Season. I used my snowflake cuttlebug embossing folder to make the background and dragged my white ink pad across it to help showcase the snowflakes a little. The stamp is embossed with gold and says "O holy night the stars are brightly shining". It is from the Cornish Farms Set that I have used so mucg this season.

I hope you all head over to CWC and share with us, your meaningful creations :)

Many blessings to you and yours!

A la prochaine...

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Merry Christmas!

I hope today you are enjoying the day with your loved ones!

We will be kicking back, relaxing, playing games, watching some movies and eating turkey! YUM!

Yesterday I made a quick card for the Free For All Challenge on SCS and also Jessie's Forgotten Stamp Friday.

I can't recall the name of this designer paper but it was a favourite of mine from SU!

Enjoy the Moment is a set I haven't used in a long time either....fun!

This is a Stampin' Up! only card.

Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Merry Christmas to You!

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Beautiful Butterfly

One more sleep until Christmas!

Today we are just lounging around the house playing games and maybe a little stamping.

We are having spiral honey ham for dinner tonight...YUM!

Yesterday before I started cleaning the house I decided I'd do a little crafting...fun times!

Thursday's Ways to Use It Challenge was about popping it up. I also used Wednesday's sketch 312.

This is a Stampin' Up Only card.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Enjoy your Christmas Eve!

Dulce De Leche Macaroons and Cherry Meringue Cookies.

Well I did not stick to my plan of only making  5  Christmas cookie treats.... I do have a good excuse. The  store bought  Dulce de leche I had in the  cupboard and it needed to be used up and I had  egg whites left over from  a recipe. Couldn't be wasteful could I? Found  the Dulce De Leche recipe on line  at Taste and Tell blog.

Perhaps I should have stopped at the  first  5 items . Not happy with the way these look. I don't think it was the recipe I think it was the store bought   dulce.  If I had used  regular condensed milk and  made the dulce myself I think it would have been successful. They do taste good however.

Next I had left over  candied cherries to combine with the egg whites.
These are called Forgotten Cookies.
Ingredients;
2 egg whites


Pinch of salt

2/3 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Beat egg whites, to which salt has been added, until  very stiff. Beat in sugar and vanilla. Fold in candied cherries.
 
Drop spoonfuls onto parchment paper.  Turn off heat at once and leave for 2 hours or even overnight, thus the name" forgotten" .

These cookies are  delightful  . Light and  sweet.... Alternatively you could add chocolate chips and pecans.....

  I really am done baking cookies.  Now to package them up to share with  the neighbours and family....

LRW # 60 Challenge

The challenge this week is last minute table favours or place cards .
It so happened I was making favours to take to my daughter's for Christmas Day, a tradition we started many  years ago to take or make  little favours for any holiday  table. .
But they are definitely not  last minute. Time consuming but fun.
 My inspiration came from the Internet after a lot of searching .
First found Lavender Stampers  bird houses and then the tutorial from Stampin Stuff. Thank you both.
Made 11 of these little candy holders....     

It's a Die-Namic Day!

Yes it is!

First of all it's my birthday and I've been totally spoiled this year! Being surrounded by family and friends has been wonderful!

Secondly, it's MFT Wednesday Stamp Club Day!

In case you haven't noticed, I'm on a bit of a sunshine kick :)

This week we are getting Die-Namic! ;)

Create a card or project where die-namics take the spotlight.

Here is what I created with some fun die-namics and MFT felt.

In hindsight, I should have used the MFT Fresh Cut Grass die-namics :( Bummer!

Oh well, I think it still turned out cute with the Sunshine, Sheltering Tree and Flower Border.

On the inside I used the Textile Rectangle and Stamp Set.

Stamps: Textile Rectangle and Stamp Set; Cardstock: White, Prism Yellow, MME dp; Inks: Old Olive, Black; Accessories: Die-namics, Felt, Sewing Machine, Felt, Dimensionals

We hope you'll play along for your chance to win a MFT gift certificate!

Upload to SCS using keyword MFTWSC12222010 and I'll be sure to stop by!

Hope you have a FANTASTIC Wednesday!

Thanks for stopping by!

Believe card

As soon as I saw this bell cut on the Christmas Solutions cartridge, I knew I wanted to make a card inspired by the book "The Polar Express".

Packs of penguins and gangs of gingerbreadmen

I've now lost track of how many cards I have made this holiday season. These ones were mailed last week and should be almost at their destinations.

Winter Officially Arrives

Winter officially arrives today. Someone should have told Old Man Winter .
 We have had winter for the last month...Lots of snow so far..... Wonder what the winter weather will be like for the  rest of the season.......... Was up early , out my window ,just before the dawn  ..
The full moon   lit the night with  silvery light  No, did not stay up for the eclipse..
A light dusting of snow  covering the front step.

Now it is daylight , the sky is bright blue and the  sun shining brightly...making the shortest day of the year  cheery....  The sedum  , blue spruce and  hydrangea have a unique beauty when dusted with snow.......

I can appreciate the beauty  of winter and  a blanket of snow   but  I long for spring.
Already!

Fun in the Sun

I wish I was having some fun in the sun! LOL!

It is sunny here in Calgary but it's certainly not fun....with snow :)

They are saying it should be 5C or 40F on Christmas day! Yahoo! We aren't traveling this year so it doesn't matter too much but it will be nice for Chloe to go out sledding or using some of her new Christmas goodies ;)

Julee totally capped off my awesome weekend with her mojo-licious winners last week. I was one of them!!! Very cool!

This week she had another great sketch posted since I'm still on this bright colour kick, this is what I threw together. Pretty quick and easy!

Stamps: Verve Relax; Cardstock: White, Red, Yellow, October Afternoon DP; Inks: Memento Black; Accessories: Cork, MFT Sunshine Die-namics, Ribbon, Mat pack and Paper piercer, Stickles, Dimensionals

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great day!

Present for Andrew

Just a quick post today - I changed jobs a few weeks ago, and am back working nights. I jusy finished 3 - 12 hour nights this morning, so I have done NO crafting at all the past few days, and I have SO much to do before Christmas!! Any who... my son has recently developed a love of drawing. I decided to buy him a sketch book and some drawing materials for Christmas. The sketch book looked VERY boring for a little boy! I decided to make it look a little more fun :)



Cute eh? I used the Smiley Cards cartridge for the pencil, and Robotz for the letters. I LOVE that font! it is so cute, and made Robotz a VERY worthwhile purchase for me, given that I haven't cut out too many robots yet :) All I did was glue it all on to the cover of the sketch book with my Zig 2 Way glue. I bought the book at Walmart, it cost me about $7. I really hope he likes it :)

I must get back to crafting. I still have 4 tag boxes to finish, and I need to get some pages worked on for a Recipe book I am making for my mum and sisters. Hope you all have a wonderful day :)


A la prochaine...

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Fudge and Peanut Brittle

The final  2 treats I have made , brown sugar  fudge and microwave peanut brittle....  The long standing favoured  recipes I have posted  before. Blog post 12.20.08.
Will I stick to my resolution not to bake more?
Hum, did find a   Dulce De Leche Macaroon recipe would love to try , that way I could use up the coconut  that is left over.......

Sunshine

Even though I had a super busy weekend with birthday celebrations and holiday stamping, I still managed to whip up a non-holiday card!

In my last MFT order I received the Textile Rectangle and Stamp Set. LOVE this die cut shape!

Fabulous sentiments in this set too! The sun was created with some MFT felt and the Die-namics Sunshine.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Have a GREAT day!

Treat Boxes

Today I spent the day stamping with Karen! So much fun to craft with someone!

I think we were at it for about 4 or 5 hours! Fun times!!!

We picked up some Icy Squares at the store yesterday and decided to use the Acetate Box tutorial on SCS to package them. Here are a few that we created....

Thanks for stopping by today!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Margaret's Party Shortbread

This classic cookie  came   orginally from  an old  Mennonite cookbook. We  first  had them  when they were baked by my  son in law's Mother Marg. She baked  them every Christmas.  We renamed  these  light  melt in your mouth  cookies ; Marg's , after she died  much too young from cancer.

These cookies have become a tradition in the family  Sherry, Rosanne and I make them  every year.....

Ingredients;
1/2 lb. butter
1/2 c. icing sugar
2 c. sifted flour- less 2 TBSP.
2 TBSP.cornstarch
Replace the 2 TB. flour with 2 TB.cornstarch.ream butter , add sugar gradually  and blend in flour/ cornstarch mixture. May  need a bit more flour if too sticky.
Roll into cylinders and  chill in fridge.
Cut into 1/3 inch  thick  slices. Place on  buttered cookie sheet. Preheat oven to 300.
Bake 15-20 minutes . Watch like a hawk.  Do not brown!
Almond Icing;
4 TBSP. soft butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
pinch of salt
1-2 TBSP milk
1 tsp. almond extract
Mix  all ingredients together. Ice cookies when cool and  decorate as one likes....

Forgotten Stamp Friday - Beary Special

Well it looks to be another busy weekend! Love it though!

Today Karen is treating me to a hair appointment and then dinner at the Japanese Village for my birthday! Since my birthday is mid-week and only three days before Christmas we decided to celebrate today instead.

Last night I had intended on doing laundry but Brian said I should go stamp and he'll take care of laundry while I'm at the salon. Who's to argue with that?! ha!

Jessie has her Forgotten Stamp Friday FSF02 in full swing and I'm really enjoying playing along!

Do you have a stamp you haven't used in MONTHS? If so, join the fun and upload your card to SCS!

I pulled out one of my old favourites from Taylored Expressions called Beary Special.

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Sparky

I don't know about you but I'm soooooooo happy it's Friday!

My MFT order arrived last night but I was too busy to get inky :(

I plan on stamping tonight for sure!!!

The card below was made with the stamps that Denise sent me for my birthday!

Isn't Sparky cute?

She knows my love for snowmen...haha!

I used Mercy's sketch from this week for my layout too.

Stamps: Sparky from JR; Cardstock: Melon Mambo, Pink Pirouette, Cream, Cosmo Cricket DP; Inks: Memento Black; Accessories: Copics, Stickles, MFT Open Scallop Die, Rhinestones, Nesties, Dimensionals, Ribbon

Thanks for stopping by today!

Holiday card for the school bus driver

Does anyone else have a drawer of die cuts? This bus was in my drawer. I knew I was saving it for something.

How to wrap gift cards?

I have teenage grandchildren and what  do they want? Money or gift cards..
Can't say I blame them . The generation gap really shows when I buy something I think they would love and  it isn't a resounding success. Not that they say anything , one just knows.
I seem to remember some gifts I received   as a teenager that weren't just    the best est. 
Even tho I understand just giving a gift card seems  blah to me.  Yes I have made some pretty  gift card holders but still  it left me  wanting.
Decided to do a google search.Whatever did we do before google?
Found several what I think are fun ideas to disguise   money or gift cards........
These are the  3 I am trying this year.
The first is  a paper towel roll inside the money gift and filled with   butterfinger jingle bells  my granddaughters favourite  chocolate bar ;

Then   wrapped as a  Christmas Cracker .

The next is a simple ,   Santa bag holding chocolate covered pretzels  hiding  the movie  gift card   inside  behind the pretzels. This one is for my son in law.

This last idea is  from Schlosser  designs  Krispy Treats  Gift  Bags. This one I am hiding the I Tunes gift card  in the Rice Krispies bag. I wrapped the card in saran wrap to protect it.  

 

Tied together.

 I hope  the  little extra surprise of finding  gift cards or money make the gifts more fun to open.

I certainly  feel more satisfaction  trying to   make  this  kind of gift    a bit more special.

 Wonder if   the recipients will think I have lost my mind?