More White Dots!

I know, I need help. I promise I won't make another thing today with Doodlebug's white embossed paper. I know that I can promise that because I need to spend the rest of the day doing other things...like work on Sharing Time for church tomorrow. Once I sit down at my desk again, I can't make any promises. I love this stuff. For a person who hated their white cards a month ago, I sure do seem to have a lot of them now. Maybe I'm making up for lost time. I think if the texture of the dots weren't there, I would still hate white cards. I think.

Well, that amazing Melissa Phillips is having another challenge on her blog. She's giving away another fabulous Jillie Willie item. Can I just tell you how much I love Jillie Willie stuff? If you haven't checked her out, you must. There is a bag there that would just be awesome if it had my scriptures in it. For those of you who don't know me from way back in the day...pink is my favorite color...Panther Pink that is, and Jillie Willie has a lot of it. It just screams JOLENE! This is the apron Melissa is giving away for her challenge.

Pretty cute isn't it? I'm telling you, you have to check out her stuff at jilliewillie.com

Say hello to my scripture bag while you're there would ya?

Melissa's challenge was to create a card that had some sort of pocket, buttons, ribbon, stripes, and the color pink. I love working on challenges but I get a little nervous when I start working on a challenge posted by someone who's work I LOVE. You know, like Melissa. She's only incredible. One day, I would just like to work up the nerve to ask her what her schedule is. It amazes me what she gets done. I would love to be a fly on the wall at her house one day and see how she does it. Anywho...I have had a crazy day with my little two year old and so it was nice to finally sit down and work on this. It was great fun. Here's what I came up with.

The little green ribbon"stems" are sewn down on both sides making a little pocket for the sucker sticks to slide into and the "leaves" are tied around the sucker sticks. I used glue dots to wrap the edges of the wrappers around to the back of the suckers, then the suckers are stuck to the flower backs with glue dots. I also used glue dots to attach the threaded buttons to the front of the suckers. All of the patterned paper I used was really old My Mind's Eye, Kaleidoscope. Yes, I still have that stuff in my scraps. I seem to use it alot. The letter stickers are Making Memories and the letter rub-ons are American Crafts.

I think it turned out pretty cute. Well, I had better clean off my desk and get to the rest of my list today. It's getting kind of late in the day. Have a Happy Day!

I Can't Stop!

Last month I did some Melissa Phillips challenges and one of them was on a white card. I love the cards that Danni and others have done on white but I have HATED everything that I have done on white in the past so I always avoided them. I guess that why they call them challenges. It's supposed to be challenging. So off I went to work on my white card. It was difficult and it didn't end up very white but good for me. Then I found Doodlebug's white embossed dot cardstock and gave it a shot. I can't stop using the stuff. I try, but I always end up with some white embossed dots somewhere. That's what happened on this card. I had already made a card yesterday with it and I tried to find something I liked with this strawberry but I ended up with white embossed dots. But hey, no jewels. Maybe I'm on to something else. This card is loosely based on the bonus sketch by Lulu at 2S4Y this week. I love those sketches. They are so much fun.

The patterned paper is We R Memory Keepers, Bo Bunny Press, and My Mind's Eye. The glitter paper (flower) and embossed cardstock is Doodlebug. The ribbon and rub-on letters are American Crafts. The glitter letter stickers are Making Memories. The strawberry is my own design.

Well, I'm off to make a salad for the scout's "Blue and Gold Banquet" tonight. What kind of "salad" do you make to feed a bunch of hungry boys, you ask? Why "Cookie Salad" of course! All of the Primary leaders who have responsibilities in scouts are bringing a salad to go with the boys' "Hot Dog Bar". Does that sound like scouts or what? They sure know how to have a good time. Have a good one!

So Happy to Be Back at My Desk!

I haven't been doing much creating lately. My sweet little guy has been sick. I've been the pharmacy 3 out of the last 4 days. As I pulled into the parking lot at the pharmacy, it was like I was living in "Groundhog Day". I have even had the same parking place each time. I had to stop and think if I was wearing the same clothes. Amazing. While I feel so bad for my kids when they are sick, I sure do love the extra snuggling. Sick kids are so sweet! Yesterday when I came out of the kitchen, this is what I found and if you know my son, you would know that his only use for the couch is to jump off of it not fall asleep on it. He must be sick. Ain't he cute?Yesterday was supposed to be my regular project day but I needed to take dinner to a family in our ward and between trips to the doctor and pharmacy and the cooking, I decided I wouldn't get much done. So I made a switch. I worked like crazy to cross of the stuff on two big lists so I could get back to my desk. Love it here.

I have been working on Laura's 2S4Y sketch today. When I first printed it, I was stumped. I couldn't get it together in my head, but last night as I looked at it right before I had to drag myself to bed, epiphany! I knew what I wanted to do. I love it when that happens. Except when I can't sleep thinking about my great plans. Gratefully, the two big lists made it impossible to stay awake.

I took a little creative license with the sketch, but I love how it turned out. The patterned paper is We R Memory Keepers. The glitter and embossed cardstocks are Doodlebug. The letter stickers are Making Memories and the rub-on letters are American Crafts. The yellow ribbon is Modex and the stitched twill is We R Memory Keepers.

Well, it's back to work for me. Dinner is in the Crock-pot so I can glue to my heart's content. Be back soon!

Jack's Back

How I wish I could take credit for this great card but I can't. It is an absolute blatant lift of one made by Debbie Olson. The only thing that I changed was the size (there was no creativity used in the making of this card). I saw it months ago and decided to make one but I just haven't gotten around to it. But since I had my Jack's World stuff out, I decided to get it done. If you want to be further inspired by Debbie Olson, you can check out her cool blog here:

http://www.debbiedesigns.typepad.com/

And on other amazing card fronts, check out Roree Rumph's latest here:

http://roreerumph.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-am-late.html

It's just about the cutest baby card ever! The "It's a girl!" card on it reminds me of the one I had as a baby. LOVE IT!

Hope you have a good day!

Revisiting Jack's World

This past fall, I made a mini album for my parents as a thank you for taking our entire family to Lagoon. I used Cosmo Cricket's line called "Jack's World". Jack's World is a bit of a departure from my usual style but I fell in love with the little characters and the bright, sunny paper. I even kicked down for the cardstock stickers, ribbon, and rub-ons, which I normally don't do. The album turned out really cute but I haven't touched all of my Jack's World leftovers since (and there is a lot). Mostly because I have to really think when I use them because they are so different from what I usually do. So for the 2S4Y challenge this week, I challenged myself to use up some Jack's World. 2S4Y posted a bonus sketch so I did that one in Jack's World too. I can't say that I am crazy about how they turned out but I find that if I don't take a few risks, I can spend FOREVER (we're talking days here, people) on a single project, then I end up disliking it anyway. I am learning to just glue it down and go with the flow. I'm developing the attitude, "you win some, you lose some" and that is a personal victory for me. Here's my card for Kazan's sketch on 2S4Y:Isn't this little elephant cute? It was one of the reasons I bought the cardstock stickers in the first place but I didn't use many of them in the album because they were just too big. Pretty much the entire card is Jack's World except the jewels (Darice and Heidi Swapp), brads (Doodlebug), string, and googly eye.
The next card was the one I did for 2S4Y's bonus sketch:
Pretty much the same story here except a little bit of My Mind's Eye paper, brads, and buttons. Well, I off to finish washing my husband's white shirts. He has to officiate at a wedding tonight and I don't think he'd appreciate not having anything to wear. Priorities dictate that my projects will be minimal today. Hope all of you have better luck. Have a good one.

Cupcake Pattern

A few of you out there have contacted me about my cupcake and whether it is a die-cut or not. The fact is...I am cheap! If I want to do projects (and we all know I do) then I have to find a way to be budget friendly about it. $400 for a Cricut is not exactly budget friendly. Therefore, I almost always draw and handcut all of my little accents on my projects. Until recently, I have finished a project and just scooped the patterns into the garbage with the rest of my scraps but my friend Jenny says I should save them. So I've started saving them and the cupcake is one that I still have. You are welcome to use the pattern but I will have to e-mail it to you. So if you want a copy, please leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will send it to you. All I ask is that you don't sell it or distribute it or anything. If you would like to use it for something and you're not sure if it's a problem or not, just e-mail me and ask....odds are I'll say yes anyway, but please just ask! Hopefully you won't have any problems with the pattern (I'm kinda challenged in the tech area). Thanks. You all are so sweet. Have a good one!

Did I Mention?

Did I happen to mention that I LOVE Valentine's day? Growing up, my parents always made a big deal out of Valentine's day and we loved it. We would have a candlelight dinner with all the "fancy" dishes and things. My mom had these inexpensive cut glass stemmed dessert dishes that she would put red Jell-o and Cool-Whip in and she has a red tablecloth (I think my parents received it as a wedding gift) that she would put on the table. We would all dress up in our nicest clothes and we would use our best etiquette. We didn't always have a lot of money but my parents would make it the nicest night of our year. After dinner, we would all exchange our Valentine's and treats for one another. Our parent's would always give us a gift and candy. We always felt loved and special and isn't that what Valentine's day is all about....love? So now, that's what you'll find us doing at our house tomorrow night. I need to help the kids finish up their valentines and I think I'll make some Chicken Parmesan. A few years back, I found a dish set on clearance that is red and white and I only use them for our Valentine's dinner...$14.95 for the entire set so it's not like it's fine china, but that's the lesson I learned from my parents. The things that I remember about our Valentine's dinners were not the things that were the most expensive. I'll always remember the "Jell-o glasses" and they were just the type you could buy at a five and dime, but to a kid, those were fancy. And last year, I finally invested in my own red tablecloth (I had been borrowing my mom's). I still make my own Valentine's for my friends and family and here's this years version:Just some cute wrappers for Hershey bars. The pink dot paper is Bo Bunny Press and I love this stuff. It's so cute. The pink glitter paper (the heart) is Doodlebug. I am getting a lot of mileage from the $1.99 per sheet I paid for that glitter paper. I can't think of a single project I haven't tried to use it on recently. I still can't believe that I actually kicked down $2 for a single sheet of paper, much less several different colors of it. I must have hit my head but I sure do love it! The pink and red polka dot ribbon is from the dollar bin at Porter's. It's American Crafts. The green and pink ribbon is from Michaels.
While we are speaking about love. Let me take just minute and thank you all for the kind words and support you have given me. Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

I {Heart} Recovery

Well, I have never in my life been hit with a cold like the one I have had for the past 2 weeks. Usually I'm annoyed when people whine about having a cold, I mean really, it's a cold, C'mon! And that's why I am usually being taught about having more compassion by getting knocked on my butt by whatever it is that annoys me. I have been so sick. I just haven't had the energy to do much of anything. I have done a few Valentine things and such but I have not worked on the 2S4Y sketch or any of my other usuals. Papertrey Ink is celebrating their 2nd anniversary and they have had some great prizes but I haven't had the energy to enter very many of them.

I did make some cute Hershey bars for my Valentines but it's too dark to photograph them so I'll have to post them later. I also made the most awesome sugar cookies ever tonight. They are soooo good.

My sister got the recipe from her friend Gina after she brought over a plate earlier this month and my sister raved about them, so I told her I needed the recipe. She brought it over on Monday and we had to try them. Here's the recipe:

Sugar Cookies

Combine in a medium bowl:

4 c. flour

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

Combine in a large bowl:

3/4 c. butter flavor Crisco

2 eggs

3/4 c. buttermilk

1 tsp. soda

Add the flour mixture to the Crisco mixture and chill in freezer about 20 min. Dough is pretty soft. Roll out about 1/4" thick and cut. Bake at 400 degrees for 7-9 min. Do not overcook. They do not turn brown unless they are overcooked.

Now at this point you could just frost them like you would regular sugar cookies and they would be great but if you want AWESOME cookies:

Frost with vanilla or cream cheese frosting and then pipe in a dam around the edges. Let the frosting set for a few minutes then spoon in desired filling. You can use pie filling, pudding, or jam. I wanted to make mine just like hers so I used raspberry pie filling and cream cheese frosting. And Jessie was right! These are the bomb! And by the way, if you live in my area (you know who you are) and you are looking for raspberry pie filling, you will only find it at Albertson's. Another little trick Gina uses is she just makes sour milk with 1 T. vinegar and milk to make 1 cup instead of buying buttermilk. That's what I did too, and it worked just great.

I learned a new hair trick for my daughter's hair for her Valentine party at school tomorrow from my good friend Chris. You should see her daughter's Valentine hairdo.

http://lovegrowsinlittlehouses.blogspot.com/2009/02/let-day-fun-begin.html

So ridiculously cute! Chris always has her daughters in the most amazing hairdos. It is so cool to me. I am (and I do not exagerate) challenged in the girl hair department. One reason is my serious lack of practice. My daughter does not enjoy having her hair done. She HATES sitting still and she wants a ponytail every day of her life. I get bored but it's not my hair and it's not a battle I choose usually. When I showed her the Valentine hairdo on Chris' blog though, she said she was willing to sit still while I worked on it. She's even willing to get up earlier than usual for it. It should be an adventure. I'm just excited to not be doing another ponytail. We'll see how it turns out. And on that note, I probably should be in bed. Tomorrow is going to be a really busy day and I'm still not feeling 100%. Goodnight ya'll.

"Hoo's" Having a Half-Birthday?

Well, I had a creative spurt last night and made this little owl Valentine box for my little guy ("I not a baby, I a big boy"). The owl turned out so cute I think.

Here's both my son's and daughter's together. I am loving these little boxes. Really, they are pretty simple and you just need a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and the Split Coast Stampers tutorial I talked about in my earlier post. Other than that, it's all scraps. I drew the owl and paper pieced it and the glitter letter stickers are Making Memories. And that's about it!

The other little project I've been working on is a little treat for my daughter to take to school for her "half-birthday". Since she was born in early August, I have thus far been able to focus all of my craziness on her birthday parties (I may have been know to go a little nuts for my kid's birthday parties, stop laughing Jessie) and haven't had to worry too much about school birthdays, but this year, her sweet teacher keeps track of everyone's birthday and if they don't have one during the school year, she celebrates their half-birthday. So we decided to make these little matchbook M&Ms treats.

And here's another of my "necessity is the mother of invention" moments. I had this cute cupcake stamp that I found in the $1 bin at Porter's, but I don't have anything to color it in. I thought I would need to invest in some watercolor pencils but it was late at night and I remembered I'm cheap, so I thought, "I wonder what would happen if I outlined in Crayola marker instead of watercolors, but painted it with water, I mean, if you get markers wet, they bleed. What could possibly go wrong?" I seriously didn't expect it to work but they turned out great. The color bled together and faded. For instance, the heart was a bright red marker but faded into this pretty cupcakey color. Plus I saved myself some pesos! More to spend later on paper, if I can ever burn through these scraps.
Anyways, there is a package of M&Ms stapled into the little matchbook. I am aware that they are 2nd graders and could care less about anything but the candy, but my daughter loves them and that's the important thing. And that's pretty much why I do this crazy stuff anyway.

More Papertrey

Well, maybe it's all the Sudafed, but this card was a challenge and not just for Papertrey. It's taken me far too long (which explains the bad lighting for the photo, it's getting dark) and I even had a sketch. I just couldn't get it right and even now, I'm not completely thrilled with it, but in this paper/perfectionist thing I suffer from, I just have to remind myself that it's the effort which is the reward. Oh, and speaking of rewards, Papertrey is giving away, to one lucky challenger, a spool of each and every color of ribbon they have. Like news like that will help me stay in bed and get better. I just had to submit, bad lighting and all. Plus, it doesn't even have to be good, they just choose a random winner from all the entries. So here's mine. It's a birthday card for my daughter's friend Yamilex.

The letters and flowers are on Doodlebug glitter paper but you can't really tell in the photo. The rest is scraps, of course. The patterned paper is really old My Mind's Eye. Well, it's back to the couch for me. Now my husband is sick and my little boy has developed a bit of a cough too. It doesn't look like Primary is going to happen for me tomorrow. I'm sure most parents would not appreciate me sharing the plague with their little ones. You know what would make me feel better?...besides being knocked unconscious...winning 95 spools of ribbon! Crossing my fingers. Hope you all have a good night and thanks for dropping by.

I Love Bags

You know, it seems like there's always a theme forming to my week and this week it's bags. First there was the Melissa Phillips challenge with the absolute cutest bag and now there is a challenge at Papertrey Ink and guess what?...it is some sort of altered bag. Well, I've been needing to finish some little valentines for my sweet little family, so I just had to combine the challenge with my to do list. This little gable is made from a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and is pretty simple. I found the tutorial on Split Coast Stampers and bookmarked it for later and today is later. I don't own a big oval punch, so I traced an oval shampoo bottle and cut it with my exacto knife. Little extra work, but turned out just the same. Anyways, here is the tutorial if you are interested in making your own: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/gablebox/
So here's my little bag I made for my daughter for Valentine's day. I have some kisses and wrapped mini candy bars to put inside.
Papertrey Ink is celebrating their 2nd birthday with 2 weeks full of giveaways and challenges. Now I'm not much of a stamper (budget doesn't allow for lots of stamps) but those girls at Papertrey are making me need more stamps in my life. Plus they have these templates that you can buy and print to make lots of cool little packages, boxes, bags, envelopes, more than you could imagine. I love those things. OK, enough already, I guess I kinda got a little too excited to share. Well, this little box uses Fancy Pants and Scenic Route patterned paper. Rub-ons are American Crafts and Daisy D's. Glitter letter stickers are Making Memories. Time for bed for me. I still have the crud. Thanks for stopping by.

A Fabulous Tuesday

OK, so without really meaning to, yesterday I made 2 "fabulous" cards. I started my bag card and decided that since that bag is fabulous, I had to use that word. But when I worked on my 2S4Y card, I ended up using another fabulous on that. I think those are the only 2 fabs I own so it's kinda funny I used them both in one day. Especially since I've been sick and not feeling real fabulous. Anyway here's my card for this week's 2S4Y sketch. I just love those things and the people there are the sweetest ever!
Patterned paper is Little Yellow Bicycle, We R Memory Keepers, and Basic Grey. The "fabulous" is Little Yellow Bicycle too. Ribbon and button are American Crafts and jewels are Kaisercraft. I'm on my way to the couch to see if I can't get rid of this gunk in my lungs and maybe get my voice back. No chatting on the phone for me today. Have a great day.

The Cutest Bag

Melissa Phillips posted this ridiculously cute bag on her blog with a little challenge to create a card inspired by something about this bag. It is made by Jillie Willie and I LOVE it. Anyways, she will choose her favorite card from the challenge and they will win the bag! I've certainly done more difficult things for a cute accessory so I absolutely had to work on a card for one of my Tuesday projects.

Here's what I've come up with:
I was in love with the colors and the dots so they had to be included in my version. I was inspired by the flower and used machine stitching and a buckle to pay homage (did I just use the homage? Wow!)to the fact that it was based on a bag. The sun is out here today and it has made for difficult picture taking but I think you can get the idea. The patterned paper is My Mind's Eye, Fancy Pants, and We R Memory Keepers. The scallop circle punch is from Stampin' Up (thank you Jenny) and the "fabulous" is from the Graphically Speaking cartridge for the Cricut. The owner of the scrapbook store in Shelley lets you use her Cricut when you buy paper there. She is the sweetest thing. The rub-on letters are American Crafts. Wish me luck because I am NEEDING that bag.

The Best Challenge and Some Great News!

Well, let me tell you a little story. Earlier in the year, I kicked down big bucks for the idea book "Embellish" (I'm sure I used Robert's 40% off coupon though, I'm nothing if not cheap). It is mostly scrapbook pages but there were a few cards in there and I LOVED them. They were just my style and that was my introduction to Roree Rumph. I immediately (and I have NEVER done this before) Googled her name and found her blog. I am in love with everything she does. I have followed her blog since before I followed blogs. I know I'm sounding a little crazy, but I cannot emphasize enough how much I love her stuff. Anyways, I have been doing Melissa Phillips' challenges and imagine my excitement when Melissa chose this Roree card for our next challenge:
http://www.createmykeepsake.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=42360&cat=500&ppuser=402
I didn't even have to look at it because I already had it memorized in my head. I loved the colors of her card and I tried to incorporate other things that remind me of her card, like the handstitching, buttons, and bow. Here's what I came up with:
Once again, I ended up with a white card and guess what?...I actually love it. Thanks for the inspiration Roree and Melissa. The embossed paper is Doodlebug. The patterned paper is Fancy Pants. The rub-on letters and ribbon are American Crafts.

And now for some MOST exciting news. For the first time, I participated in 2S4Y. I used Laura's sketch to come up with my "Smile" cupcake card and HOO DILLY...I am the card of the week. I'm so excited. There were some most amazing entries and I just can't believe I did it. Check out the 2S4Y site in my blog list to see the other talented people there. They are AMAZING!
Now I'm off to make some goodies for my family to enjoy while we watch the big game (or at least the commercials). Have a great day!