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

Spring Banner

Howdy friends!!  Wow!  Some crazy weather we've had around here!  One day we are riding in the 'Stang with the top down, and the next we are wearing jackets and have the heater on in the house!  Yikes!

So, if you happened to see my post yesterday, I had a picture of my mantel for a project I just did with the mirror.  On the mantel is a Spring Banner that I made with Little Yellow Bicycle's Twig line.  I was inspired to make the Spring banner for this week's challenge at Fantabulous Cricut since we were to make a Spring project. 

Fresh and Spring-like - unlike the weather out my window right now.  Gloomy and drizzley.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I love to read your comments and really appreciate the time you spend here!

Supplies used:

Cricut Cartridges (Storybook, Simply Charmed, Stretch Your Imagination) - Provocraft

Patterned Paper (Twig) - Little Yellow Bicycle

Cardstock - The Paper Studio

Stickles - Ranger

Twine, ribbon and other random embellies - from my stash

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall....

Howdy friends!  How are things where you are?  Life is great here, and I've finally gotten around to working on a project I've wanted to do for a while now.  I cannot for the life of me find the blog that I originally saw this concept on, so I'm very sorry that I cannot give proper credit to that person.  Basically, I've been visiting a few sites that focus on decorating homes on a small budget.  I've been trying to work on things in my home to make it more special for our family - but I don't want to spend a lot of $$$.  Even better is finding stuff I already have and make it fresh and new.

Here is what I'm talking about:

I really love this mirror!  My mom and her bestie Cindy found it for me and gave it to me as a house warming gift when we moved into our new home 7 1/2 years ago!  It kinda looks weird in this picture though (note to self - take a photography class, girl!!) and I don't know what those weird lines are in the mirror, but I promise they really aren't there.  I've toyed around with painting it black, but that's for another day.  So for now, on to the original plan. 

I have started to collect vinyl that I can cut with my Cricut.  I have done 2 projects so far as a test run - one is a peace sign for my daughter's room, the other is using the outline from said peace sign to make a t-shirt she wanted too.  Now, its been easy to work with so far and this project will test my patience.

  I wanted a saying cut out on vinyl and placed on my mirror.  Let me tell you, it really takes that patience - I probably worked on it from start to finish about 8 hours.  That includes getting the phrasing laid out in my Cricut Design Studio software, cutting out on paper to make sure the size is right, making adjustments, cutting out vinyl and CAREFULLY taking it off the mat. 

 By the way, don't let it stick to itself because you WILL have to remake it - trust me, I know these things!!  And then, voila!  Put it on the mirror, step back and admire yourself, er I mean your work!!

Probably should have used a ruler to measure the in between spaces, but oh well - for now that is enough.  I'll go back another day and scrape off the top line and start over.  I wonder how long it will take for hubby to notice - usually he will right away, but his week is busy!

If you feel inspired, look around and see what you already have in your home that you could make fresh and exciting again!  I'd love to see your results if you want to share.  Just leave me a link in the comments section so I can come visit you too!!  Happy crafting friends!