Birthday Cheer

Howdy friends!  It is Friday and rainy here this afternoon.  I thought we could use a little cheery birthday card today.  I made it for a sweet little girl in our Small Church Group who is having a birthday in a few weeks.  I love sending birthday cards to my family and friends!

This card was made based on the challenge I saw at My Creative Time with Emma for her Throwback Thursday challenge.  We had to use Doodlecharms cartridge (or the oldest one you have if you don't own Doodlecharms) and the color blue.  This is what I came up with:

I'm thrilled with how it turned out and I can't wait to send a smile to our friend in a couple of weeks!!  Have a great weekend!

Supplies:

Cricut Cartridge (Doodlecharms) - ProvoCraft

Cardstock (Stash)

Patterned Paper (Stash)

Button (Stash)

Baker's Twine - Jillibean Soup

Perfect Pearls (Perfect Pearl) - Ranger

Shimmers (Pixie Dust)

Cuttlebug Embossing Folder (Happy Birthday) - ProvoCraft

Gelly Roll Pen (White)

Stamp (Hello Friend) - Papertrey Ink

Ink (Dark Chocolate) - Papertrey Ink

Adhesive (ATG) - Scotch



Trying New Things - And A Challenge

Howdy friends!!  I'm just popping in quickly for a short post.  I wanted to try out the Center Point button on my Cricut - and after a year and a half of owning the Expression, I've finally decided to give it a whirl.  I made a card for the Challenge Me Monday: Try This Angle Challenge at Fantabulous Cricut.  The butterfly on the inside of the card was made using the Center Point Button on patterned paper from Glitz.  Pretty close for the first time - OK, I admit that it was my 2nd try because I had the paper upside down the first time!!

 Inside the card:

Ok - enough playing around for me.  I gotta get busy on my Sis-in-law's baby shower party this Saturday - cookies, cake balls, and decorations - oh my!!

Supplies:

Basic Cake Cricut Cartridge - ProvoCraft

Cardstock (Gecko) - Bazzill

Patterned Paper (Polka, Butterlies, Plaid) - Glitz

Butterfly Clear sticker - Pink Paislee

Ribbon - Target

Ink (Amaretto) - Quick Quotes

Adhesive - Scotch

Yummy Strawberries

Howdy friends!  Its a beautiful Friday afternoon - girly girl has a friend over in the pool, and I'm outside enjoying the weather! 

Once again, I've been very busy doing stuff - we had our last Field Day at the school today - I've been to 12 in a row between both kids and I'm kinda sad.  I brightened myself up though by decorating these yummy strawberries that I baked yesterday.  Mmmmmm.....

Have a great weekend!!

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!