I have Halloween fever!!!

Yes it's true! I haven't even completed the wedding favors yet, but I have Halloween on my mind.

This is my first Halloween project of 2011. It is an easy one.

Start with a frame from the $ store, add striped cotton ribbon, buttons, scrapbook paper, adhesive, glue gun, and the pennant punch from Stampin' Up.

You end up with this cute little decoration to put on a table or desk.

I think the possibilities are endless with the pennant punch, so come back soon for more ideas.

I hope you are having a great week!

I'll be back soon.

Homemade Wedding Invites & Favors

I am sure I really didn't to make invitations for our immediate families, but I thought it would be nice for them to have a memento of the occasion.

This card was made with paper from Joannes. The stamp, embossing folder and heart die cut are from Stampin' Up. We wanted simple elegance with a dash of color for our October wedding. John has a creative eye and helped me with this.

We accidentally discovered something pretty cool, if you use 2 sided, 2 color paper, the color on the back will show through when you emboss the paper, creating a very cool effect! Take a close look at the black paper.

Used the same tools from Stampin' Up for the petal cone and small pizza box. Again going for simple elegance. Used vellum for the heart with our names and date. Only change I will be making is to get more of the stamp on the petal cone and add a small gem in the flap.

If you need any dimensions, directions, or information on the Stampin' Up tools, please let me know.

See you soon!

Hope you have had a wonderful week!

Wedding Ideas -- I need some creative advice!

These are my preliminary (which means "rough") ideas for our wedding invitations and favors.
The scroll stamp in black is a keeper for sure, the paper will be a little more textured and not stark white. All because two people fell in love is a keeper too. I know the card has to be bigger and needs a little more detail.
The box size is good to put personalized M&M's in. The heart on the box is too plain.
We like the black and white and want to add a little bit of burnt orange or rust.
Help!!! Does anyone have any suggestions? Need to make these "pop" just a little more!

Thanks!
Hope you are having a great week!

I love Saturdays!!!!

Saturday 7/30 checklist

1. Cinnamon tea with honey! check

2. Make Sugar Donut Muffins (recipe found at Pintrest). check

3. Go for a 45 minute bike ride. check

4. Get a 1 hr massage and sugar scrub with a 50% off Groupon. check

1. Started my Saturday morning with delicious Mexican Cinnamon tea and honey!! I love this stuff just as much as my Starbucks Skinny Vanilla latte and it is less expensive! I found the tea at Rancho San Miguel Mexican market. So far this is the only straight cinnamon tea I have found. If you have found a good one elsewhere please let me know.

Then it was on to trying a new recipe I discovered while perusing pintrest.com. Had to make these Sugar Donut Muffins. We all liked them and I will be making them again! Perfect to make for breakfast or brunch! You can find the recipe here: http://bakingbites.com/2008/09/sugar-donut-muffins/

If you have not discovered pintrest yet, you have to check it out! I am totally hooked. It is a site for everything creative, photography, wedding/event planning, recipes, and everything else!!!

I am still figuring out how to navigate through it, but I have already found great wedding ideas and several recipes I have to try. I even found an origami star pattern for my son to make.

(pintrest.com)

Next it was on to a nice cool morning bike ride. I have been taking advantage of breezy mornings and evenings to get lots of bike riding time! I love riding my beach cruiser!!!!

Then after a quick shower I headed off to take advantage of a wonderful groupon that I purchased a few months ago. I got a total body sugar scrub and 1 hour massage for $40.00!! Score!!

It was wonderful and much needed!!!! Another site you have to check out if you haven't already, groupon.com. You sign up to get daily emails of great discounts in your area.

After the massage I noticed Kat's Cakes was accross the street and was able to order our wedding cake.

I love Saturdays!!! I hope you had a great one too and have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Talk to you soon!!

Getting back into the swing of things

I haven't posted since before Easter!!! What the heck?

I have let my job stress me out and keep me from doing some of the things I love!!

No crafting, no blogging make me a crazy girl!!!!!

I haven't even kept up on checking in on my favorite bloggers!!! Nor have I made any effort in the arrangements for the quickly approaching October 9th wedding!!!!

I can say that the big project at work is coming to an end!!! The stress should go way down by the end of the month!!!

Tonight I perused a few of my favorite blogs and this is what I found!

My friend Emily is back up over at Bunch of Scrap! Glad to see her back!

I also had to print out recipes that I must try from Crafty Sisters (Apple Toffee French toast bake, Blueberry Pecan french toast bake and Breakfast Egg Casserole) and Lick the Bowl Good (Chewy lime coconut sugar cookies)!

And I see my friend Julia at Julia Luvs 2 Stamp is making some great cards!!!

Hope you have been having a great summer!!! I am loving these cool evenings!!!

Hope to get back to you soon with some recipe reviews and some wedding favor creations!!!

Be back soon!

An elegant egg!

This picture just does not do justice to this beautiful elegant egg basket! Went to Lynn Hampton's monthly Stampin' Up club last night and made this beauty! This is gold paper with gold embossing powder. We added the egg tag with a couple of gem brads to finish off our elegant egg basket. I have been afraid of embossing with a heat tool, but found that it wasn't so difficult after all. All of the supplies were from Stampin' Up of course. We used an egg stamp, the lovely swirl stamp, heat gun, gold paper, double sided adhesive, gem brads and gold embossing powder. I think I have officially overcome my fear of embossing with a heat gun and look forward to using the technique to make wedding invitations. Have a wonderful weekend! Be back soon!

A Crafty Sisters Jelly Bean Topiary

Spotted this lovely jelly bean topiary over at Crafty Sisters Blog and had to try to make my own!

For this project I needed 1- 3" craft ball, floral foam, a wooden dowel, floral tape, 1 12" piece of ribbon, 1 small clay pot, off white paint, pink paint, 1 bag of jelly beans, hot glue gun and lots of hot glue!! The most time consuming part of the project was gluing the jelly beans. (got everything except the jelly beans at Joannes, purchased the jelly beans for $1.00 a bag at Super Wal-Mart)

It was worth the time! I have supplies to make 5 more! Can't wait!!!

A big thank you to the Crafty Sisters for all of the great projects they share! They have a great variety of projects and an Etsy shop! Head on over to their blog, you will not be disappointed!

Springy Pastel Mini Milk Cartons

Here are the finished milk cartons (batch #1). Didn't have any Easter stamps, but had some pretty flowery scrapbook paper and the butterfly stamp and punch from Stampin' Up. The die cut for the milk carton is from Stampin' Up as well. The die cut machine used is the Sizzix Big Kick from Michael's, purchased today with a 40% off coupon. Score!!! These little milk cartons are absolutely adorable! Looking forward to making many more of these little cuties. I am loving these spring colors!!! Really perk me up after all the rain we have had the last 2 weeks!!!!

Pancake Batter = Funnel Cakes who knew!!!!

My daughter loves to watch The Cake Boss. She recently saw an episode where he said that funnel cakes were pretty much pancake batter fried!!! I never knew!!! She wanted to give it a try and made some for dessert last night. She has a pic of the finished product on her cell, but I didn't get a pic!!! She made regular pancake batter per directions on the box and added a dash of cinnamon. She heated up the oil and then put the batter in a sandwich bag and cut off a small tip of the bag. Then she made squiggly messy lines of pancake batter in the hot oil and behold she had funnel cakes!!! We topped with powdered sugar and strawberries. The only thing we were missing was the whipped cream! Darn! Next time! I am sure that there will be many next times because everyone enjoyed them and they were easy to make!!! I will take pic's the next time! I had such a nice visit with my daughter! We did some shopping together and made dinner and dessert together. (We made a baked mac and cheese from scratch that was a big hit as well-- I will post the recipe and pic's next time I make it) Today I started working on these tiny milk cartons. Still looking for ideas for the embellishing. Do you have any ideas? I am going to make these in pairs. Come back soon for the finished product! Hope you had a great weekend! Be back soon!

The 50th Anniversary Cruise & Moving On

My parents 50th anniversary could not have been more memorable! The cruise was wonderful. The weather was great! Everyone had a wonderful time on Catalina Island and Ensenada.
The actual Renewal of Vows ceremony and celebration were beyond my expectations. Carnival took really good care of us! It was worth every penny and more!!!!
Here's to many more Mom & Dad!
John took all of the photos on our trip. We love this Catalina shot! Blew it up to 11X14 and it now hangs in our bedroom as a lovely reminder of our wonderful vacation.

I loved this one too!!! This is the sunrise in Ensenada taken from the ship.

The vacation is over. We are getting pretty settled in our new place. Garage is almost ready for my craft spot! Hoping to get to some Easter creations this weekend.

Now that life is getting somewhat back to normal hope to be posting more!

Hope you have had a good week despite all the rain!!

Friendship boxes and some catching up to do

Well my bloggie friends if I have any left :) 2011 is off to a bang for me. Very busy, lots of things going on good and bad.

I will only speak of the good This lovely couple is my parents on their wedding day March 4Th 1961. In just 7 days, 53 family and friends will be heading out on a 4 day cruise to celebrate this momentous occasion. I am down to the last few details this week before we set sail! Can't wait!!! Aren't they the cutest couple? Although the cruise is not a surprise, we have some special things planned during their renewal celebration that will be a surprise!!! We have this photo in

8 X 10 size within a large matte that can be signed by all their guests. They will love that!!! We also have a DVD presentation with lots of photos and several really cute and some hysterically funny Jib Jab's that John prepared!!! It is going to be a hoot!!!! Happy 50Th Anniversary Mom & Dad-- your love is inspiring!

We are also moving to a larger home this week. Good and bad again. The good is that it is a much bigger home, with a big kitchen with an island, and a big bathtub in the master bath!!! Yippee for me!!!! We start moving Thursday and the cruise is Monday! YIKES!!! I have most of the kitchen packed so I know we can do it!

I have a non profit group lunch on Wednesday. We haven't had a meeting in months and I fear that members are losing interest. So,,,, I offered a "surprise" for all members who attend. This small pizza box is the "surprise". Found the nice "Friend" paper at Joannes and I had the tiny friend stamp and tiny tag punch previously purchased from Stampin' up. The photo doesn't do these justice. (The box is filled with mints).

Sweet Valentines!

Thanks to my craft sister Julia, I have my Valentine craft mojo going!!
She sent me a picture of Hershey nuggets dressed up in scrapbooking paper and put into pretzel stick bags.

Items needed for this project:
6 Hershey nuggets per bag
Pretzel bags (found at Joannes or Michaels in the cake decorating section)
2 to 3 colors/patterns scrapbookking paper
adhesive
paper cutter
paper scorer
stapler
embellishments

1. cut 6 strips 1" X 3" of paper to wrap the nuggets with. Wrap paper around nuggets and glue or tape closed.
2. cut 1 piece of paper 2 3/8" X 6" and score at 1/2" on both long sides so you end up with a long sleeve that folds up on the sides. This holds 6 nuggets.
3. cut 1 piece of paper 2 1/2" X 4" and score at 2" on the long side, fold in half.
4. place 6 wrapped nuggets on the sleeve and slide this into the pretzel bag, fold the top of the bag over
5. staple the 2 1/2" X 4" paper over the top of the bag
6. embellish however your little heart desires

This is what you end up with! Very cute, very sweet :) This project can be used for any occasion or holiday. Easy and cute, my two favorite things!!!!
.

Here is my "batch" of $1.00 Target stuffed animals. All packaged up with Hershey bars or

mini pizza boxes filled with Reese peanut butter hearts! I am sure the recipients of these cuties will be pleased! (6" X 5 1/2" pieces of paper wrap perfectly around a Hershey bar)

A little Love! I'm back, anyone out there??

Hi there and Happy New Year! If you are reading this, thanks for coming back. I am so sorry for not sharing over Christmas. I figured it is too late to show you pics of what I made for Christmas, but I did craft A LOT! I even had an order of 30 favors for a Christmas dinner!! Woohoo! That is huge for a little ole' crafter like myself :)

Now on to love! My parents are celebrating their 50th anniversary on March 4Th.
They will celebrating aboard the Paradise Carnival Cruise ship with 53 friends and family!
These are the party favors. Sorry the picture isn't clear enough to show the embossing on the white paper, then a thinner strip of paper with the word "love" all over it! Topped off with a black ribbon and a hanging tag that reads: Stan & Emily- 50Th Anniversary-March 4Th 2011.
These were then wrapped up in a clear cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon. I am really happy with them!
Now I need to make a matching guest autograph book, so all the guests can write them a little note to remember and treasure this very special occasion! Thanks Julia for telling me about these cute little critters at Target in the $1.00 bin!
I am showing you 2 ways you can complete them.
1. The pink bear is holding a Hershey bar wrapped in 6" X 5 1/2" piece of scrapbooking paper, tied with a ribbon. A hanging heart tag is added. Then finish it off by putting it inside a clear cellophane bag and tying it up with a ribbon! And there you have an adorable inexpensive and cute Valentines day gift! Cellophane bags are available at most craft stores and dress up anything!
The giraffe is holding a small handmade box filled with candy. He too will end up all dressed up in a cellophane bag!