Kimono Kids

Hello!  Greetings from Milwaukee!  I am still in baby land, playing with little Mason.  I had planned on coming home today and but now will be staying till Friday as Jen doesn't want me to go home yet.  The kids went out last night for dinner to have a date night and I watched Mason.   I went out for a few hours in the afternoon yesterday and I picked up some Christmas gifts, plus I did some more shopping on line today, so I am pretty well done except for the gifts that I need to make.



I made this card with Colleen's stamp set Kimono Kids while she was here visiting.  A fun cheerful card.  I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season.  See you soon!  Love, Elaine

Sweet Snowglobe

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!  I am still in Milwaukee.  The days have just flown.  I uploaded a bunch of pictures before I left home so that I would have things ready for my blog posting, but I find it really hard to get it done here.  It seems like if I am able to keep up with my blog reading and answering email, I am doing good.  But that could be because I play with Mason so much...ha ha.  He is so sweet and adorable, we all seem to gravitate to him, and enjoy making him laugh and smile!  Today we are headed to Clintonville to my sister's house for our family Thanksgiving.  Everyone else is busy getting ready so I have some quiet time to blog.  Not something that is easy to find around here.
This is a card we made at stamping with the stamp set Sweet Snowglobe.  We used the sweet treat cups and snow confetti for a fun look.  Piercing, the scalloped edge punch, new decorative label punch, Tags till Christmas and Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp sets finish off the cute look.
Have a wonderful weekend!  Me

Lovin' Babyland

I am in paradise, in Babyland!  Got to Milwaukee around four thirt;y this afternoon.  Mason was all dressed up in his little firefighting suit and looked so cute.  He was all smiles and giggles for Grammy.  Much to Grammies delight!  Diana and Jenna were happy to see me, I didn't see Diana the last time I was here as she was at her mother's that week.

I brought my left over cookies along and they loved them too.  A great recipe....try them out!

Mason is growing so fast and changing so much.  I can't believe how different he is since I was here two weeks ago.  I am so glad that I came.

This is another card that I made with the Ornament Movers and Shaper's Die.  So quick and so cute.

I am chit chatting with Colleen on the Im right now so better get back to that!  Have a great night!  Elaine

Devil's Food Fudge Cookies

Need a quick treat for your next get together!?!?  I made these cookies for my card box class tonight and they absolutely loved them!

Devil's Food Fudge Cookies

1 package of Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup of vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (I used peanut butter chips)
1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease baking sheets or use non stick baking sheets.

Combine all ingredients.  Mix till well blended, batter will be a little stiff.  Shape into 36 balls.  (I just dropped heaping teaspoon fulls.)  Bake for 10 to 11 minutes.  Cookies will look moist.  Do not overbake.  Cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, then on cooling racks if so desired, I just put them immediately in my tupperware container between layers of wax paper.  Makes about 3 dozen.

Notes:  For a delicious flavor treat, substitute peanut butter chips for the chocolate chips and chopped peanuts for the walnuts.  Enjoy!  Elaine

Mover and Shapers Ornament Card

Hello peeps!  What a rainy, gloomy day here in Mayberry.  I guess we have to take a little rain with the rain bows!

I made this card with the mover's and shaper die.  I did a quick demonstration of how you do this at Maureen's stamping party.  The card stock can only cover half the card stock to make this work.  I called it my "magic card" as the ornament pivots back and forth when you open it.  Pretty cool!

This afternoon I went to the library board meeting to show them my progress with the scrapbook.  They are very happy with what I have done.  They invited me to their potluck in January and I will give them another report then.

I headed over to IGA while I was out and about, to pick up some groceries.  I picked up a new Create and Decorate magazine so I will be enjoying that later!  I do love my books and magazines.

Di stopped over while she was in town to pick up her stamping order, and after she left, I had some lunch, and finished cutting for tonight's card box class.  Now I need to go bake some cookies for it.  I found a recipe that uses a cake mix that looks yummy so I am going to go try that out!  Stay dry!  Elaine

Burp clothes for Mason

 

Hello!  Another busy day in Mayberry!  Today I have some pictures of some burp clothes I made for Mason and his mommy.  He is a spitter upper so she goes through a lot of them.  Today, I slept in till almost noon.  I was so tired out.  I worked on the library scrapbook from about 2 o'clock till 8 o'clock and got a lot done.  I got quite a few pages either finished or started, and I have everything that I currently have for the project all printed.  All the photo's and all the newspaper articles.  A very big job, and I am glad that part is over.  The rest should go fairly quickly, and smoothly.  The part that will take time is typing up all the captions for under the pictures.  I decided that I will wait till the very end to do that.  Soooo.....I just finished eating supper a little while ago, and packed up all my tools for tomorrow's card box class.  I still need to do the cutting for it, which I may or may not do yet tonight.  We will see.  Right now I need to lay down and relax awhile.  Until tomorrow.....adieus! 

Christ is Born

Recipe:  Stamp Set: Christ is Born.  Vintage Wall Paper Embossing Folder, Top Note Die, Card Stock: Night of Navy (and Ink) Riding Hood Red, Whisper White

Today was a busy, fun day!  I spent the day with Sarah in Reedsburg, at her home.  It was a busy crafting day.  Hmmm...where to even begin.  We started out cutting out suede flowers that we made into magnets, as she wants to give some of these as gifts.  We made a whole pizza pan full!  She needs to glue the buttons and magnets on them yet.  Then we decorated 9 International coffee tins to put them in.  Thanks Mom for continuing to save the tins!  They turned out adorable.  Then I cut out 16 white pieces with the Top note die and Sarah stamped them with Night of Navy snowflakes and is going to use them as tags on her packages.  I also die cut 24 large snowflakes for her that she plans on hanging from the ceiling in her home.  Both my girls are going to have a winter wonderland this year!  We took a break in the afternoon and went to two thrift shops, stopped and had ice cream and then got back to work.  We went to church at 5, and when we got back home Zach was home from hunting and we had supper that Sarah had going all day in the slow cooker.  She had bought some premade boxes on clearance and I showed her how to make belly bands for them, and she punched snowflakes out with my punch and decorated them.  Simply adorable.  The pile of tins and boxes all looked so festive together.  I was going to take a picture of them before I left but was so tired that I forgot!  Sorry!  I also die cut 15 pairs of mittens that we are making into dangling ornaments for her goodies bags.  I started tying bows for them and gluing buttons on them, but Sarah will have to finish them.  The dog and cat were quite fascinated with my supplies, and bags.  Whiskey, the cat, kept sniffing the rolling tote bag.  I am sure he could smell my cats.  Hunter, the dog, was thrilled with the treats I gave him, and he immediately ate a purple mitten that I had die cut when it fell on the floor.  Sarah and Zach thought that was quite funny, as I never gave it a second thought when it fell, as I thought it would still be there when I wanted to pick it up.  My cats do not eat the paper that falls on the floor!  I think I remembered everything that we worked on.  LOL  Any who...it was a very fun day!

Baby shower gift/tag

Hello-  When I was uploading photo's yesterday, I found this post that I had uploaded the pictures for, but never wrote the post for it.  For those of you who read the blog all the time, you probably remember seeing pictures of the baby quilt I made for Jenna's baby shower.  Well, I also went to the one that Edith had for Jenna in Milwaukee and I wanted to bring a little gift for that one too so I made up a basket of stuff for her.  This is the little tag that I attached to the basket.  It is attached to the brown lamp in Mason's room and looks so cute.   Tonight, Diane, Joanne and I went to the Quilt Corner in Sparta for a Kansas Trouble Tea and trunk show.  Kansas Trouble is a line of fabric that is made my Moda.  Moda has beautiful fabrics, I just love them.  A lot of the quilts that they showed us tonight were made with this line of fabric.  They had all the tables in their backroom set up with table clothes, nice dishes, and we had our choice of beverage and dessert.  The dessert was fabulous and was a recipe from the Kansas Trouble newsletter we received in our bag with our packet of charm squares, and free patterns.  The presentation of quilts was a lot of fun to watch, and to see the books and patterns that are for sale actually made up into quilts.  We all found some treasures to bring home.  New patterns and fabrics always inspire you and the desire to sew, sew, sew,....is there just like when you get new stamping supplies!  We all really enjoyed the tea, and I hope to make the one in the spring!

Upsey Daisy chalks technique

This is the other project we made tonight at Stamp Camp.  It was a fun night with the group.  They LOVED working with the chalks tonight!

Recipe:  Stamp Sets:  Upsey Daisy, Inspired by Nature.  Stampin' Pastels, White Craft Ink, Bravo Burgundy, Garden Green Ink, Card stock: More Mustard, Bravo Burgundy, So Saffron, and Chocolate Chip, Twill tape, Decorative Label and Wide Oval Punches, Dimensionals, Sponge Daubers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the cards we will be making at tomorrow nights stamping class.  Both project's will be using the Stampin' Pastels.  Come and join us and learn new ways to use this fun product.

Recipe:  Stamp sets: Lovely as a Tree, Woodgrain, and Heard from the Heart.  Card stock:  Old Olive, Natural White, Pumpkin Pie, Sahara Sand.  Inks:  Versamark, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, and Chocolate Chip.  Stampin' Pastels, Paper clip, Dimensionals.

Hello!  It has been a really busy week, and I finally had a chance to take some pictures so that I could do some blogging again!  I was gone from Friday till Sunday on a quilting retreat up at Silver Birch ranch near Silver Lake (Antigo area).  I went with Diane Dilworth, and Joann Dickow.  We stopped at the Cutting Edge Quilt shop in Antigo on our way to the camp, and stopped at Pinery Patches in Tigerton on our way home.  We had a delightful time at both shops, and we all found new treasures to bring home with us.  We got a LOT of sewing done.  I completed a whole quilt top, worked some more on my sweatshirt, and have a rag bag almost finished.  A great weekend.  Monday morning found me still needing more sleep after a full night's sleep, and I went back to bed and slept the morning away.  But after I got up I had a very productive day.  I unpacked, did laundry, prepped 12 towels for stitching, and prepped the "Jan quilt" to stitch that will go on the metal quilt rack I got at quilt expo.  I found an adorable book this weekend that has mini quilts for each month of the year that will fit it.  I am in heaven about that!  Tuesday found me packing up the stamping order that arrived, answering the phone, and people in and out picking up orders.  I got both projects for Thursday night, designed, cut, and the supplies packed up and all ready to go for that work shop.  I went to the Family Dollar, made a run through Mc Donald's then headed out to Sara Ricci's to help her with embossing, and different ways and products she could use to color her images.  I got home around 8 and talked with Sarah, and Diane and then headed to bed around 9:30 as I was pooped out!  Some TV watching and I was zonked out!

Veteran's Day Freebies

Veteran’s Day is November 11, 2010 and there are a number of freebies available to veterans, military and their families. As always, I recommend calling ahead to verify that the chains in your area are participating.


If you are a veteran or current serving military personnel, you and one guest can gain free admission to Knott’s Berry Farm starting November 1, 2010. Plus, purchase up to six additional tickets for just $15 each! This offer ends Thanksgiving Day.

From 11am to 11pm, Outback Steakhouse is honoring Veterans with a Free* Bloomin’ Onion and Beverage on Veteran’s Day.
Veterans and active duty military will receive a free entree from a select menu at Applebee’s on Veteran’s Day when they show proof of military service.

Veterans and active duty military will receive a free entree from a select menu at Chili’s on Veteran’s Day when they show proof of military service.

Golden Corral is offering a Military Appreciation Free “Thank You” Dinner on Monday, November 15, 2010, from 5pm to 9pm for anyone who has ever served in the United States Military.

Sam’s Club locations will be giving out 36,000 free Hugo canes November 10-12, 2010 to U.S. military veterans in need of mobility assistance.

Famous Dave’s is offering a number of specials from $15 off up to free meals. Please call your local location to confirm the promotion.

All Brown Bear Tunnel Wash locations are offering a free car wash. Just identify yourself as active duty or a veteran to the wash attendant and you’ll get a free wash.
On Veteran’s Day, beginning at 10:30am until closing, all Veterans and active duty military members who show any form of military identification or wear their military uniform will receive a free hamburger or cheeseburger at all five Dick’s Drive-In Restaurants.

Veterans and active duty military members can visit the Oregon Zoo on November 11, 2010, and not be charged an entrance fee.

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium will honor retired military with free admission to the Zoo with proof of military identification. All accompanying household family members will also receive $3 off general admission.

BJ’s Restaurant is offering all active duty military and veterans a complimentary lunch entree or a one-topping mini pizza for dinner. Must present military ID to your server.

Brides Across America will be giving away a select number of bridal gowns to qualified military brides at participating bridal salons all over the country. Check for dates and times at participating locations here.

The following two freebies are available to everyone (non-military included):

Visit one of our U.S. National Parks on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010, and you will not be charged an entrance fee.

From November 7-21, 2010, in honor of Veteran’s Day, anyone can download a copy of “Strength for Service” devotional book.

Veteran’s Day Freebies is a post from: Money Saving Mom

Lovely as a Tree Christmas Card

 

We made this card last night at Maureen Bruce's stamping party.  It is a fun, quick, cute card.  The Cherry Cobbler is stamped with Versa mark and the Simple Snowflake Stamp.  I ran a piece of Very Vanilla through the Big Shot and then stamp the middle tree with Soft Suede, and continued stamping the other trees with out reinking.  The reindeer is the stamp Dasher.  I love that little deer.  He is so cute.  Then I stamped more snowflakes with Cherry Cobbler ink and punched them out with the snowflake punch.  Ran a brad through them, and attached them to the card.

Today I sent in the stamping order, a tastefully simple order, did my bank deposit and went to the bank.  Then I started unpacking and putting things away from last night.  Jenna called and we talked for about an hour, and then I decided to take a nap as I was tuckered out.  I slept about 3 hours this afternoon.  I am having trouble with TMJ.  Could barely open my mouth to eat lunch.  :-(  Dragster.  But I managed to eat through the pain.  I made some Thin Mints after I got up.  I am sure I will be able to slide those through my lips being as they are thin!  Ha Ha!

Ribbon Owl Jar

 

I made this little jar full of tied little bows for Maureen as a thank you gift for having her stamping party tonight.  I hung a little tag off of the front of it that I made with the Stampin' UP! owl punch, little leaves die, and the scalloped circle punch.  We had a blast tonight.  Everyone was in a yacky, talkative, laughing mood!  I sure have a fun bunch of stampers!  Love it!

Tessalating Pinwheels

 

This is a little mini table topper that I made for Sarah and Zach for their anniversary.  They were married 2 years on the first of November.  Boy has that time flied by!  

I have been at Jenna's since Thursday, and we had a really nice visit and we were both sorry to see it end.  On Thursday night it was her sister-in-law Edith's birthday and we went to a Mexican restaurant that I had not been to before and it was a fun nice.  An interesting place, very colorful with murals, a food cart for decoration yet it had fresh fruit on it, etc., and they had things hanging from the ceiling.  I took a bunch of pictures.  Maybe I will put a few on here to show you.  I will have to see how they turned out after I get them loaded on to the computer.  I had a wonderful time playing with little Mason.  He is so much fun, and it is fun to make him laugh and smile.  Jen and I are already planning a return trip in a few weeks.  She would like me to come for the Dominguez Thanksgiving, and then go with them to our family Thanksgiving at my sister's in Clintonville, and then come back to Milwaukee with them.  So that sounds like what the plan will be.  On the way home today, I stopped at the booth in the Dells and took out the Halloween items and put in a few things.  Then I met Sarah and Zach in the Kohl's parking lot to give one another some things, then I headed over to Walmart, and back home.  The cats are happy that I am back!

From this....to that!

Hello-  This morning I worked on another class that I will be having on Sat. Dec. 4th.  I am going to teach how to turn a Stampin' UP! file folder into a portfolio for a junior legal pad.  It is really cute.  I will be showing an example of it, and the Box class that I will be teaching on Monday, the 22nd, at Monday nights stamping party.  Both will make great gifts for your year round and holiday gift giving.
This afternoon, I went to the Rapids with Lady Di.  Bernie had his haircut.  He get's his haircut more than I do....lol....but that is okay with me as it gives us an excuse to go bumming!  I saw that the flavor of the day was Snicker doodles (?) at Culver's so our first stop was a trip through the drive through.  It was yummy.  A very nice treat!  I looked in the Bethesda thrift store while Di was as Bath and Body works and I found a few treasures, 10 yards of cheese cloth for $2.49 that I plan on using for decorating Mummy candy bars next year for Halloween, a package of non skid material for twenty nine cents that you use on the bottom of children's pajamas.  Any guesses as to who will probably be getting some homemade pj's from Grammy in the future!?!?  And yes, Corinne, little Mason does have me wrapped around his little finger!  Hook, line, and sinker!  And I found a bag at the thrift store with a package of vellum baby boy items (how perfect is that!) and two sheets of dimensionals for $1.49.  Gotta love it!  Also a package of tiny notecards with old Santa's on them, probably from the fifties or sixties that I fell in love with, for 29 cents, and I plan on revamping them into something else. We also made a stop at Cotton Thimble (the fabric store) as Di was looking for a special ruler for a friend of her's which they didn't have, but Di found a kit that she decided that she needed to make a quilt.  Di ran into Staples, then it was time to pick Bernie back up.  We decided to eat at Arby's for supper and then headed back home.  A very nice enjoyable afternoon!

Last time I was at Jenna's she sent this little outfit of Mason's home with me.  She had bought it for him and he only got to wear it a couple of times as the pants were too short.  She said she would never buy a one piece outfit like that for him again.  I had the same problem with her as a baby, and toddler.  She was really long waisted and could never wear those type outfits.  So she asked me if I could make it into a shirt for him so he could wear it a little longer.  I just finished revamping it.  So here it is, the "before", and the "after"!  Gotta love that little raccoon!

Greenhouse Garden Thank You Card

 

Good Evening.  Today flew by on me.  I was working on a project for Sarah and Zach's anniversary gift.  They had their 2nd Anniversary yesterday.  I finished that up a little while ago.  I had a Tastefully Simple book party to put in, and Susie stopped over for a visit.  Mason asked his mommy when Grammy was coming to visit, that he missed Grammy.......(I knew I had the most brilliant grand child in the world....who can talk at a mere two and one half months old!)  Any who....how can Grammy say no to Mason!?!?!  So Grammy has been packing for another trip to Milwaukee.

Today's project features two stamp sets.  Greenhouse Garden and Thank You Kindly.  I also used the Petal's a Plenty embossing folder, which I inked first with Pear Pizzaz ink and then stuck a piece of Whisper White card stock in it, and wahlah....I got a beautiful background.  The word "Thanks" was stamped and punched out with the large oval punch and then matted with a scalloped oval (done with that punch).

Merry Christmas Dasher Card

 

Hello!  Another busy day in Mayberry.  We had our sweatshirt jacket class at the church and that was a lot of fun.  We got the back section of our jackets pieced and we will finish the rest of the jacket at home on our own.  They all look so different and they are really pretty.  I got home around 3 and was zapped out, so I took a nap and ended up sleeping till 5:30.  It was a good nap!

This is a card that I made for a sample this month with the stamp set Dasher, and All Holidays.  I used the Deck the Halls designer series paper.  The scallop was made with the Big Shot and the scallop circle #2 die, and I cut the circle with the Circle Scissors plus.  The verse is matted on the wide oval punch and scalloped oval punch.  The snowflakes were made with the snowflake punch.  A fun festive card!