Make It Monday Challenge

Howdy friends!  I'm sitting in my comfy chair watching 'our' doves making a nest under our patio cover.  I call them 'our' doves because they've returned for the 3rd year to lay their eggs.  We started seeing them about 2 weeks ago, hanging around looking for a safe place.  Last year it was on the ladder on the back of our garage!   

Anway - Papertrey Ink has another wonderful Make It Monday challenge this week - line frames.  Check it out here.

Some of you know that I've challenged myself to make 5 Christmas cards every month to be ready to go in the mail at Christmastime without the stress.  Well, this month I've been delinquent and need to get busy!!  I have 2 from last month to do AND I need to get this month's finished before the end of the week!  YIKES!!  So, I used the challenge to make this card:

Thanks for stopping by today and taking a look!

Supplies:

Cardstock (Pure Poppy, Vintage Cream) - Papertrey Ink

Patterned Paper (Jolly By Golly) - Cosmo Cricket

Stamps (Tiny Treats: Christmas) - Papertrey Ink; (Borders) - Inkadoo

Shimmerz

Stickles - Ranger

Copic Marker (R29)

Ink (Dark Chocolate, Ripe Avacado) - Papertrey Ink; (Cherry Red) - Stampabilities

I'm Still Here....

Howdy friends! Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  We had a wonderful day starting with Church and then had our families over for Easter lunch, so it was great to see everyone together.

 I'm still here - just been super busy (but I brought that on myself!).  I cannot believe where April has gone!  Just thought I'd pop in to show you a few things I've been up to lately:

Let's start with our garden.  We've planted strawberries, zucchini, cucumbers, okra, several types of tomatoes, carrots, onions, banana peppers, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and various herbs.  So we've been busy tending this stuff:

We've also been helping with our son's Eagle Project this month.  He renovated the exterior of an old house on our Church property that is used by the Church.  Here is a picture of that project - yikes!!

Thankfully, he had lots of help and it was completed in 2 long weekends!  Great job buddy!  I'll try to post an after picture later - gotta find it!

Then, I've taken up a new hobby - cookie/cake/cupcake decorating.  I've been playing around with that and it is fun!  Here are my first attempt at decorating cookies with royal icing.

I made some Easter cookies too, but forgot to take pictures!  They turned out really cute too.  But, I did manage to make some yummy cupcakes with cookies - inspired by this post at Bake at 350.  Here is my creation with some help from my daughter.

Pretty yummy looking, right?


And, I cannot leave out house decor.  I saw this loverly wreath and H.A.D to make one myself!!  Let me tell you, it is a super easy project - but definitely time consuming and oh so worth it!!!

OK - so now that I've bored you with all the details of my past few weeks, I'll leave you alone - for now.  I've gotta get busy on decorations for my Sis-in-law's baby shower coming up in a few weeks!  Have a great Monday ya'll!!

Jennifer

Easter Gift Tag

Howdy friends!!!  It is Friday and that means a busy weekend for our family.  We have a volleyball game, Eagle Scout project, birthday dinner, Church, Scout religious symbol ceremony, Small Church Group Bible Study, finish planting my vegetable garden - and someone in here I need to craft!!  But, in case I don't get that chance this weekend, I made this:

Isn't she lovely?

I made the tag for Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday Challenge - using wet embossing techniques.  Unfortunately, I could not get a picture to show the embossing because I used clear powder over the bunny image.  I just love the look of the tag IRL - the picture doesn't really show its true beauty, but that's okay because maybe I'll frame it for a decorative item in my house for Easter.

Well, have a happy weekend and I hope you get to do something that you love this weekend!

Jennifer

Supplies:
Manilla Folder: Office Depot
Ribbon, Twine: Hobby Lobby
Pins: (Vintage Hip Trinket Pins) - Making Memories
Cardstock: (Sweet Blush) - Papertrey Ink, (Kraft) - The Paper Studio
Image - Tim Holtz (Seasonal Paper Stash) - Idea-ology
Stamps: (Vintage Ornaments) - Papertrey Ink
Ink: (Mocha Mama) - PowderPuff, (Dark Chocolate, Spring Rain, Plum Pudding, Hibiscus) - Papertrey Ink
Embossing Powder (Clear) - Zing
Distress Embossing Ink - Ranger
Embossing Folder (Script) - Provocraft

Like I Need Another Hobby....

Howdy friends!

Oh dear - I'm gonna be in trouble, I already know it!  This past fall I decided I NEEDED to take the Wilton's Basic Cake Decortating Class - I had a blast!  In fact, I was planning on signing up for the next 2 classes as well, but time has gotten in the way and my family schedule won't allow for me to do so.  I just decided that I'd be happy with my basic knowledge and I've had fun playing - here is the cake I decorated for my final class project:

I am totally happy and content with my basic knowledge.  That is what I've told myself over and over - until I signed up to watch the Cricut Cake Class last week.  If you don't know about this toy, then click here to take a looksy for yourself.  Now you see my dilemma? 

 Oh boy - dare I say it?  Ok, I confess.... I knew JoAnn's had the Cricut Cake Mini on sale for $99 - that's a 50% discount folks - would you pass it up??  Me neither - so I trotted my happy little self to JoAnn's and bought that puppy.  I finally got the courage up today to try it out and here is what I did:

Not sure how I'm gonna break it to the hubby yet, but I sure hope he's so mesmorized by 1) my cookie decorating skills, and 2) another use for all of those Cricut Cartridges I've been collecting - maybe he'll find it in his tummy, er heart to forgive me!  Oh yeah, and the fact that I can use it to make fun cakes and cookies for so many occasions instead of the bakery I've been using - which when you do the math that's only 4 'basic bakery' cakes, right?  Girl math people!

Thanks for coming by today and I hope to share more creations with my newfound hobby!

Sweetest Wishes

Howdy friends!  Happy Saturday to you!  I find myself in a quiet house at the moment, so in between laundry and vacuuming, I decided to come up to the Studio to play for a moment.  As you might know, I'm trying to make 5 Christmas cards each month so come time I already have the stress of that done - oh, and I'm trying to use my stash of stuff which seems to multiply like Gremlins overnight!  So, I visited Nichole's Blog at Papertrey Ink and got inspired once again.  Check it out here.

Here is my version of the card that Betsy did in her video - I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out!

After watching the video, this card came together quickly.  The longest part was the coloring of the candy canes, which I wasn't going to do but I needed more on the card after I looked at it.  So, this makes 1 down for April - 4 more to go!!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you get to do something crafty today!

Jennifer



Supplies:

Cardstock - The Paper Studio

Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Barn Door, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo, Forest Moss) - Ranger

Ink - Staz On

Stamps (Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers, Tiny Treats: Christmas, Background Basics: Sheet Music) - Papertrey Ink

Die (Limitless Layers) - Papertrey Ink

Markers (R29) - Copic

Gelly Roll Pen

Twine - The Twinery

Button - my stash