Good Monday morning!

I run a local home school support group in our county and every month we load up and take our kids roller skating! Well, we found out a couple of months ago that the girl that owns the rink was expecting! We wanted to do something nice for her because she always takes such good care of us, so we threw her a surprise baby shower! We all showed up bearing gifts right before Christmas! She was so excited...made my heart feel all warm and fuzzy! This is the card I made to go with my gift! I kept it simple! I used letter brads to spell 'baby' in the corners of the focal point and a few beaded flowers to add a little something! I love the bunny from this SU! set! It has been over a week and a half since I made this card so the exact ingredients are long gone from my brain, but I thought I would share the card! : )

Whew! Made it!

Well we did it! We made it through all of the Christmas hustle and bustle!! : ) Well, almost! We still have one more Christmas celebration to have until we roll up the Christmas table cloths and undecorate the tree! My children are lucky enough to have a wonderful set of surrogate grandparents! We always get together with them shortly after Christmas for a nice visit! We tried to plan it early this year, but between our schedules Saturday was the best we could do! So, Sunday will be our pack up Christmas day! Saturday works well for me also because it will give me the chance to put the finishing touches on their Christmas gift! (Ok, we are all friends here...I can be honest! It will buy me enough time to start their gift! Shhhh! I make them a calendar every year! Complete with pictures of their 'grandkids'! They really love it! They keep all the calendars up and flip them all each month (those are truly dedicated grandfolks!) I have just been so swamped this year that I haven't had time to make one! I am excited about it though because this year there will be much stamping involved! : ) I will post a picture when I am done!

I hope that everyone had a full and very Merry Christmas!

I have been tagged...!!!

Ok, I must admit I was very excited to be tagged! I was tagged by The Lucky Clucker! (link on the right side of my blog!) If you haven't checked out her blog, hurry over! She does beautiful work! What a fun thing! Ok, here goes!

These are the rules of the game:


Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.

Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.


1) I graduated high school in Puerto Rico! The building that my graduation was held in is no longer standing due to a hurricane.

2) I married my first love! We met when I was 12 years old.

3) I make a pot of coffee about three times a week and make a great big cup, but usually only drink about three sips! I really just love the way it smells!

4) I am really freaked out by snakes! I am not a panic-y person, but snakes really, really creep me out!

5) I am a Navy brat! I have lived in the Phillipines and attended over 12 different schools!

6) I love chocolate, windy nights, sausage and mushroom pizza, sunflower seeds on my cottage cheese, the beach, the way play doh smells, fuzzy little animals, winged things, movie theater popcorn, hanging out with my kids and the color pink! I don't love fish (the smell or taste!), Monty Python movies, classical music, saying goodbye, when cashiers are rude, polyester or extreme cold!

7) I am allergic to vinegar!

Since it is so close to Christmas, I will refrain from tagging anyone HOWEVER...if anyone would like to be tagged just say so!

Thanks Lucky Clucker, this was fun! : )

Aaaaargh!!! Did ye say cookies, matey?!

I participated in a recipe card and cookie exchange with some of my fellow SU! demo's recently! It was so much fun! (and yummy!) We were supposed to decorate a 6 X 6 recipe card and make a dozen cookies per demo to exchange. I made hidden treasure cookies and decorated my card with the Ahoy Matey stamp set from SU!. I used the coordinating wheel for the background and rubbed the edges of the base paper with cranberry crisp ink to give it a tattered and worn treasure map sort of look! I mounted the recipe on black and sponged with cranberry ink. I also roughed up the edges to make it look old! I stamped the chest and cut it open and added a brad to make it look hinged! I used some bling from the Michael's dollar spot to add treasure to the chest and added some sparkle to the water with Stickles. This was such a fun project! I am hoping to do something similar in the future!

In addition to the paper recipe I will include the cookie recipe here! My kids all really love these cookies!

Recipe:
Paper: SU! Close to Cocoa, Cool Carri bean, Real Red, Basic Black and Very Vanilla
Ink: SU! Cranberry Crisp, Brilliant Blue and Basic Black
Stamps: Ahoy Matey! and coordinating Wheel
Extras: Stickles, Gold Brad, Bling from Michael's Dollar Spot and Silver gel pen

HIDDEN TREASURE CHEST COOKIES:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 14oz can condensed milk
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
1 package chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts

**Preheat oven to 375. In a small mixing bowl mix graham crumbs, flour and baking powder. Set aside. In a large bowl mix all other ingredients. Combine the two bowls. Drop by rounded teaspoons and bake 9-10 minutes one tray at a time. Enjoy! : )

Bagalopes!!!! What fun!!!

I know these have been around for a while, but I just learned to make them and couldn't be more excited!! What a fun idea! They are called bagalopes because they are made from envelopes and transform into the cutest gift bags ever! I took the idea and supplies to my Homeschool meeting and taught the moms how to make them! Once they made theirs I went around and filled them with Hershey's kisses and we tied them up with a festive ribbon added a tag that I premade and viola!! That was everyone's Christmas gift from me! : ) It was a fun project! You can make them from any envelope and the possibilities are limitless!

Just for funsies...!

Wanted to use a stamp this morning that had never touched ink, so I dug this one out!! How cute is she? She reminds me of my youngest daughter! I used purple as the card base because that is my daughter's favorite color! I used my coluzzle to cut the half circles and the vanilla circle. I took the guard off my corner rounder and made the scallops around the edges of the center circle. I folded the card so that the edges meet in the center and the top layer slightly overlaps the other layer. I used Stickles to brighten the centers of the flowers and added a strip of flowers along the edge. They were a clearence find in the fabric dept at Wal-Mart! It was a fun, happy project!

Recipe:
Paper: SU! Orchid Opulence, Very Vanilla, Old Olive and Pixie Pink
Ink: (markers)
Extras: Flowered ribbon, coluzzle and Stickles

Cone Ornament!

This morning while blog hopping I came across this really amazing cone ornament on Dannie's blog! (http://danniesdesigns.typepad.com/) I thought it was so pretty so I set out to make one of my own! I went through my stash and discovered that I have no patterned Christmas paper left, so I made my own! I sponged Very Vanilla front and back and cut it into the 24 necessary squares. In hindsight I think that the patterned paper would work better because it is thinner. I was pretty darn happy with the finished project though! Isn't it pretty??!!! Dannie did a great job with instructions on her blog...check it out! I am going to try a few more with some patterned papers.

Recipe:
Paper: SU! Very Vanilla and Old Olive
Ink: Wild Wasabi, Cranberry Crisp, Handsome Hunter, More Mustard and Real Red
Stamps: Perfect Presentation
Extras: Spiral Punch, Circle Punch, and brads

Ever wonder what your name would be if you were an elf?!

Your Elf Name Is...

Giggles Snowballer

What's Your Elf Name?

Just hear those sleigh bells ring-a-ling!!

Good morning! I woke up this morning with my Christmas to do list racing through my head! Does it seem to you that it gets more stressful every year?! I always cave in and try to do it all, but have decided to try to scale back some this year. I want to enjoy things more and stress less! I want to bake a ton of fun food with my kids because they will enjoy it and not because I feel obligated! I want to decorate leisurely and not feel like such a heel if I don't do a little something for everyone in the world! I mean do not get me wrong! I LOVE to do things for people and wish that I could do a little something nice for everyone I know, but this year I just want things to be a little calmer! In fact, I have decided that rather than try to complete my usual 1,000,000 thing full to do list that I will do much less and try to do lots of little things for people during the upcoming year! That being said! I made a single Christmas card this morning! Just one! I enjoyed it very much! : ) I will be making a few more and will share them once they are finished!

I sponged the So Saffron with More Mustard and paper pierced the border. I dug out some of my scrap booking punches and made snowflakes and holly leaves! I used some shiny baubles for the holly berries and the accents off to the side. These were a find from the Michael's dollar bin! I roughed up the edges of the Handsome Hunter to give it a distressed look and made two corners for color and mounted the top right corner against them. The gold ribbon came from the Dollar store and I used my paper crimper for the strip of Very Vanilla and added some green accent dots with a marker. I colored the stars silver and then added some Stickles shine to them! I love sparkle! : )

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Recipe:
Paper: SU! So Saffron, Handsome Hunter, Real Red and Very Vanilla
Ink: More Mustard and Handsome Hunter
Stamps: Stamp from Michael's dollar bin
Extras: Punches, Gold ribbon, Stickles, Rhinestones from Michael's, paper crimper and silver pen