Blog Candy Winner and Sally's SB sketch!

OMGoodness! Are the holidays over? Can I come up for air now? LOL! This past weekend I literally did NOTHING! I was so drained I stayed in my PJ's and read all weekend! Sorry I didn't post my blog candy winner on Saturday! Just call me lazy! The winner is...... Nancy! Congratulations! I had my son pull a name from a hat! Just email me your address, Nancy and I will send you the paperbag scrapbook, some primas, and some dewdrops!

I had some free time today, so I made this page for Sally's Friday sketch challenge found HERE. I have been hoarding this SS kit, and thought the colors were great with these photos. I also used some stamps from Unity's Middle School Madness kit. I paper pierced along the top and the bottom of the page. Head on over to SCS and upload your page if you get a chance to try out the sketch!

My oldest son (in above page) left today with my dad to go snowmobiling in Michigan's UP! He will be gone until Saturday!!!! This will be the longest he has been away from us. I think it is so awesome that he gets to spend this special time with grandpa, though! It will be just the two of them. They have over 2 feet of snow right now and since we are having spring-like weather here, he jumped at the chance to go play in the snow!

Have a happy stamping day!

Emily

Blog Candy!

IT'S MY 1 MONTH BLOGIVERSAY! YAY!
I have company arriving in about 30 minutes, but here I am! I wanted to offer up some blog candy to celebrate one month of blogging! Leave me a comment on this post and I will have my son pick a random winner on Saturday! The blog candy will consist of this Christmas paperbag scrapbook, and other goodies and embellishments! I will post a photo of ALL of the goodies on Saturday when I announce the winner!

I made several of these for gifts this year for friends who do not scrapbook. I included some tags to put in the openings for journaling, adhesive for photos and an archival pen for journaling. All they had to do is add there photo's and own journaling!

Have a Merry Christmas and hope to post on Friday or Saturday!

Emily

MaXimo inspired card

I made this card for the inspiration challenge over on SCS found HERE. We were to pick a product at the MaXimo site and use it for our inspiration. MaXimo products are all inspired by the artwork of Alexander Girard.

I chose the wooden blocks above for my inspiration piece. My seven year old son actually helped me to stamp the images for this card, and he did the punching. He LOVES to use my punches. I matted the colored blocks on a square of kraft paper and distressed the edges to help it stand out against the kraft base. Very easy and simple card to make!

Stamps: Fanciful Dots-Unity

Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise

Paper: Kraft, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise

Accessories: Paper distresser, Pumpkin Pie striped ribbon

Have a wonderful day!

Emily

Jumping on your bed in the dark will get you....

The other night, Max and Luke just would NOT go to bed! They were laughing, playing, and jumping around. Both my DH and I had been upstairs several times to quiet them down. Finally we heard crying, so DH ran up the stairs to break up the fight, so he thought! Instead he started yelling, "Emily, get up here NOW!" I ran up the stairs, and there was my Max (not the wild one) covered in blood. It was dripping off his face, and his hands where he had touched his face. Even as a nurse, it is a pretty horrible thing to see your kid covered in blood. DH does NOT do well with these type of bloody events, although he tries! I grabbed a sheet off of the bed and wiped all the blood away and found the laceration that was the culprit!

Max is not my climber. Luke is the one who is into everything and always jumping off of and onto things! The only thing we can figure, is he jumped off the bed and hit his head on the window sill. Since Luke is a climber, the only furniture in their room are their two beds! We thought it would be nice to keep them together in the same room for awhile, but I think we are probably going to have to seperate them! Bye, bye craft room! My craft room is currently (a mess) in the fourth bedroom upstairs. We are in the process of refinishing out basement, but I may just move it downstairs into the study for now. DH is gonna love that!

After a late night trips to Children's hospital, where he was happy as a lark playing with the oodles of cool toys they brought him all night in the ER, we came home with 5 stitiches over his left eye. My oldest son has the exact same scar over his right eye! BOYS! What is a girl to do?

I am going to work on Sally's sketch today, and will hopefully get it up and posted tomorrow!

Have a happy stamping day!

Emily

Hip Hop Hangover-Charming Gardeners

YAY! It's Friday! The last HHH of 2008! If you haven't checked out the UNITY site, you still have time to take advantage of some AWESOME deals! TONS of stamps are 50% off and there is free shipping if you use the code JOY!

I made this for the distressed challenge that Jeanne had for Hip Hop last night, and I won a $5 gift certificate to Unity for this project! YAY me! The DP is Basicgrey's Ambrosia (LOVE it) and the stamp is Unity's Charming Gardeners. I actually bought this frame for $1 at The Dollar Tree! I used my black pigment pad to drag across the frame to weather it. I also distressed the edges of my sentiment and then inked the edges too. I had this grey scrap of ribbon and tied it around the frame. I bent the phlanges off of decorative brads and then used my super sticky tape to stick them to the frame! Super easy-took me 15 minutes to make! The opening in the frame is 5 x 5 so that gives you an idea of how big that stamp is!

I MUST finish my Christmas cards today and get them mailed! No ifs, ands or buts about it! Will's last day of school is today and the twins are going to the sitter so that I can get some things done!

Happy Stamping!

Emily

Buckeye Bars, Hip Hop Thursday & A Scrapbook page!

We'll talk food first! If you love buckeye's, but hate the time it takes to make them, then this is the recipe for you...BUCKEYE BARS! Super quick and easy and they taste exactly the same! No more rolling, parrifin wax, dipping, etc. I made several batches of these to put on my cookie and candy trays I give out to neighbors. Here is the recipe:

BUCKEYE BARS

1/2 cup melted butter

dash of vanilla

18 oz. jar of peanut butter

1/2 cup of brown sugar

2 1/2 cups of conf. sugar

2 cups of chocolate chips

Mix peanutbutter, brown sugar, conf. sugar in bowl and then press into an ungreased 13x9x2 pan. Melt butter, vanilla and chocolate chips in a microwave save bowl and stir. Spread this mixutre on top of the peanut butter mixture. Put in the fridge or freezer until chocolate topping is set. Cut into squares and serve! D-licious!

Here is a page I did for Sally's scrapbook sketch challenge over on SCS found HERE. I made this page to go along with the page I made a couple of weeks ago found HERE. I used the same DP and diecuts from daisyd's Winter Fun kit. I created the faux stitched look with a black archival pen.





Don't forget that today is Hip Hop Thursday at UNITY. Go check out what awesome deals Angela will have today! I can't wait! I have some birthday money from my MIL that will be used on the hip hop deals today!

Have a happy stamping day!

Emily

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

Here is one of the Christmas cards I will mailing out to friends and family this year! I used Real Red and Wild Wasabi textured paper that were in kits SU sold last year (also the ribbon came from this kit too). I paper piereced the corners up top, and used a square punch for my main image and green square. I sponged Real red around the tree square and the oval sentiment.

Doesn't this tree remind you of the tree Charlie Brown picks out? I added stickles to the ornaments but it doesn't show in the photo. The tree is from SU's Mr. Twigster set.

Have a happy stamping day (or evening)!

Emily

Bird is the Word!

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days! Life is busy, busy, busy! I am trying to get my Christmas cards finished up, so hopefully I will have that posted for you soon!

This is a card I made about a month ago, but it is a favorite of mine! I figured I would share it with you, since the only thing I am making today is Christmas cookies, candies and dinner!

I have finished all of my Christmas shopping, except for my parent's and my MIL! I am so stumped on what to get them this year! I am holding out for some spectacular idea to hit me, but I don't want to be out running around the day before Christmas either!

Here are the card ingredients:

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Always, Sanded BG by Stampin' Up

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Ridinghood Red

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Ridinghood Red, Kraft

Accesories: ribbon from Michael's $ bin, hemp twine, decorative brad from HL (paper studios I think!)

Happy Stamping!

Emily

What's Cookin' Thursday-Potatoe Soup and Bread

Happy Hip Hop Thursday everyone! Go check out Angela's sweet deals over at Unity! I am in the midst of quite a few projects right now! Christmas cards and scrapbook pages to name a couple! So I am only posting Thursday's recipe today. It is a good one, though! My very own homemade potato soup. Yummy! It is perfect for a cold rainy day! The bread is homemade too, but I will share that recipe another day!

Emily's Potato Soup

8oz. of cream cheese

2 cups of milk

1 cup of half-n-half

1 can of cream of celery soup

2-2.5 lbs. of potatos ( I like the baby gourmet potatos)

chives and salt and pepper to taste

I boil my potatoes and peel them. I cut them up into cubes and take 3-4 of the baby potatoes and mash them. This releases the starch and helps to thicken the soup. Add the potatoes to your milk, half n half, cream cheese, celery soup, salt and pepper and chives in a large crock pot. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6 hours. My family loves to add bacon and cheddar cheese to the top. This is wonderful served with a fresh salad and homemade sour dough bread!

Enjoy!

Have A Fabulous Day!

I made this card for this weeks sketch challenge found HERE, and also for the color challenge which was very interesting! We were to use Taken with Teal, Baja Breeze, Ridinghood Red, and White! I had trouble with this one! I found this sheet of DP (have no clue what company) and made the card around that! I punched a circle in the midle of my Ridinghood red layer and then used dimensionals to create a raised frame for my sentiment underneath. It is hard to see in the photo.

It is such a rainy, yucky day here. I just want to curl up on the couch and take a little nap! LOL! No time for that! I have to wrap Christmas presents, and yes, make my Christmas cards. Every year I say I will start them early, and every year I wait until the last minute. I at least know what I am doing, I just have alot of cutting and stamping to do!

Does anyone else wait until the last minute for their cards? You would think I would be more on the ball, since I scrap and stamp EVERYDAY!

Have a fabulous day!

Emily

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Simply Said and Fanciful Dots - Unity

Paper: DSP is unknown, Ridinghood Red, Taken with Teal, Baja Breeze and White

Ink: Ridinghood Red, Baja Breeze

Accesories: dewdrops, rhinestones, circle punches, dimensionals, sponge (I sponged baja breeze over my sentiment)

Lucky...

I made this page for Sally's sketch challenge on SCS found HERE. I also made this for Jennipher's inspiration challenge found HERE. We were to use some type of embossing on our layout. I used my swiss dots CB folder for the blue vertical strip. I LOVE this photo of my oldest son. This was taken at my parent's cottage in Michigan.

I found a big bag of beautiful vintage buttons at an antique store over the weekend for only $5! I added those to the flower border on the bottom of the page. The antique shop that I found is full of wonderful things to add to scrapbook pages! Vintage, lace, ribbon, postcards, jewelry...you name it! I was very inspired after walking through this shop and will be visiting frequently!

Paper: White textured, black textured, blue (unknown), green polka dot (SU), flower border and journal boxes (Colorbok)

Embellishments: Vintage buttons, chipboard buttons (Colorbok), all ribbon is SU, Swiss dot CB embossing folder.

Tagged!

I was tagged by these three lovely ladies this past week:

Katherine

Tessa

Jacquie

1. I have MAJOR arachnaphobia! If I see a spider I literally will start to have an anxiety attack! I would rather come face to face with a man eating lion, then even look at a spider!

2. I LOVE Christmas! I usually put 6 to 7 trees up in my house! This year only 3 due to my 2 1/2 year old twins and their mischievous ways!

3. I was in a motorcycle accident when I was 6, and had over 500 stitches in my head! The wreck happened at my house, in my driveway! (My dad used to race motorcycles when I was young).

4. My favorite place in the whole wide world to be is at my parent's summer cottage, on a tiny island in the U.P of Michigan. I would choose the cottage over a week in the Bahama's any day of the week!

5. My husband and I will be celebrating out 10 year anniversary on January 9th!

6. I can't stand the taste of watermelon! The thought of it makes me want to barf!

7. I am related to George Washington!

Here are the lovely ladies I will tag:

Michelle

Susan

Tenia

Erin

Jan

Louise

Samantha

Snowflake Joy!

This is for the limited supply challenge over on SCS. Here are the details:

1. The only image stamps/embossing you may use are snowflakes. Yup! Only snowflakes (or something that looks like falling snow). No snowmen, snowwomen or anything, just snowflakes! The same goes for patterned paper . . . it must be snowflakes!! (Get the idea?)2. Your creation must be monochromatic.3. You need to add some sort of “bling” or sparkle to your card. Stickles, rhinestones, shimmery paper or ribbon . . . make it sparkly!!4. Last, but certainly not least . . . sentiments may be ONE WORD only!

Stamp: Unity-Snowflake Joy set

Paper: Night of Navy, White, DSP by The Paper Studio

Accesories: Rhinestone brad, small rhinestones, stickles, silver cord, dimensionals.

I only inked up the large snowflake from the stamp. I used my SU markers-Bashful Blue and night of navy to color it in. Once I stamped it I added the stickles. I sponged both bashful blue and night of navy around the edges of the image panel.

I am off for a day of shopping with my gal pals! It has been quite some time since I have had a girly day! We are going out to dinner, too. An evening with no boys...I hope I can act appropriately! LOL! This SAHM soooooo needs to get out more! I think that will be my New Year's Resolution for the year!

Have a fabulous Friday!

Emily

Crazy Christmas bow card and a holiday recipe!

I made this card for this weeks sketch challenge over on SCS. This card was made for a friend who is flashy and flamboyant! I had a hard time with that bow, because big huge bows are not me! I love ribbon but I don't usually do big bows!

I also am going to give you a yummy recipe! I think I may make Thursdays recipe day. What do you think? I will try to do recipes that are quick and easy since we stampers don't have much time for cooking! LOL!

If you like PAYDAY candy bars, you will LOVE this! SUPER YUMMY and very low calorie (NOT)!

Payday Bars

1 bag of peanut butter chips

2 sticks of butter

2 cups of rice krispys

1 yello cake mix

2 cups of mini marshmallows

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup liquid corn syrup

2 cups of peanuts

Pre heat oven to 350. mix cake mix with 1 egg and 1 stick of butter. Press into the bottom of greased 9 x 13 pan and bake for 15 minutes.

Melt peanut butter chips, vanilla, and corn syrup and butter. Mix in Rice Krispys and peanuts after removing from heat.

Pour marshmallows on top of cake mix. Pour Rice Krispy mixture on top and cool in the refrigerator.

Enjoy and happy stamping!

Emily

Baby it's cold outside...

Hi everyone! Well, I didn't get to scrapbook last night, but was able to this morning- thanks to Luke and Max! They have been the best 2 1/2 year olds EVER today! I made this for Peggy's Scrapbook Variety challenge over on SCS found here. Also for the Unity addicts challenge found

here. For the Unity challenge we were to use Unity stamps on our page. I used the snow and polka dots stamp from the set snowflake joy. I stamped it in baja breeze and then sponged some night of navy over it. I then outlined the snowflakes and dots with stickles.

For Peggy's variety challenge we were to pick from a list of wacky holidays for the month of December and use that theme. We were also to use clusters on our page. I have clusters of snowflake brads, buttons and flourishes. The holiday I picked was National Cut Out Snowflakes Day (December 27th). Can you believe there is a day for that?

I am pleased with the way this layout turned out! I love the vintage look of daisyd's, and have been hoarding this paper forever! I haven't written the date up on the tab yet, because I can't remember if this was taken in 04' or 03'! I need to get my photo CD's out to check on that!

Have a wonderful day and go check out these challenges on SCS! They are sure to inspire some creativity!

Happy stamping,

Emily

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Good evening! Here is a card I made a while back! Tis the season, so I thought I would post it. This is one of my all time favorite SU hostess sets (Perfect Presentation)! LOVE this set and the Dashing DSP! I still have a small stash of that DP tucked away! This is a fun layout to show off your favorite designer papers, too! I am anxiously waiting for hubby to get home from work, so I can do some scrapbooking! Hopefully I will have a page to share with you tomorrow.

Until then,

Happy Stamping!

Emily

Home for Christmas

This is a card that I made for my stamp class this past weekend. I adore this set, but it would have taken too long to color in for a stamp class. I decided to just stamp the image in kiwi kiss and then the sentiment over it in chocolate chip. This is a nice clean and simple layout, too. I wanted to demonstrate a Christmas card that would be easy to mass produce. I wish you could see this IRL, because stamped on the shimmer white paper, it looks beautiful!
I just love this sentiment! It makes me think of one of my favorite Christmas songs, "I'll Be Home For Christmas."

Stamps: Home for Christmas-SU

Paper: Kraft (base), chocolate chip, Kiwi kiss, white shimmer

Ink: Kiwi kiss, chocolate chip

accesories: gold brads
Have a lovely day and happy stamping!

Emily

Amazing

Good afternoon, everyone! I made this card for the FS95 over on SCS. This week's featured stamper is Dawn, (flowergal36). She has such an AMAZING gallery. You can check it out here.
The card in her gallery that inspired my card is here.

Stamps: Unity-Tiny Trinity and Simply Said

Paper: Wild Wasabi, Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White, Purely Pomegranate and Wild Wasabi DSP

Accessories: circle punches, Purely Pomegranate ribbon

Technieque: I paper pieced all of the leaves in the tree! (Yes...it took FOREVER!)

I sooooooo miss Wild Wasabi and Purely Pomegranate! Some of my most favorite in colors EVAH! It was fun to use these colors today!

Happy Stamping!

Emily

Christmas Tree Box

Today I had a stamp class and one of the projects we made were these adorable Christmas tree boxes. You can find Brenda Quintana's tutorial for this box here. These make great ornament's or table decorations. I plan on making these for my Christmas Eve dinner instead of place cards. I will fill them with home made candies. The bird is an image from Unity

The snowman is from SU's Mr. Twigster set. The paper used for the box is Kiwi Kiss.

I am off to spend some time with my family and put up another Christmas tree. I LOVE Christmas and put up a lot of trees! I will only be putting up three this year. No big tree in the family room or Luke (the mischievous twin) would probably try to climb it! LOL! We tied it down last year out the window and onto the vent, but I don't think that will work this year. The other trees he can't get to due to the multiple gates we have in our house.

Have a wonderful evening and thanks to all of you who came to my class today! Soooooo much fun!

Emily

Black Friday!

Happy Black Friday! I had to make a card today with some black to commemorate the biggest day of shopping in the calender year! I used the My Mother my friend set from Unity. I just love this spotted bird from this set! He is so primitive yet edgey! I thought this French Market DP from Daisyd's would be fitting. I paper pierced along the bottom and added the gingham ribbon across the middle band. The sentiment is from PTI's Out on a Limb set. Unity is having a big sale this weekend, so go check it out in the link above!

Stamps: My Mother my friend-Unity Stamp Company, sentiment-PTI Out on a Limb set

Paper: Kraft (SU), Black textured, DP French Market by Daisyd's

Ink: Black Staz-on

Accesories: Black gingham ribbon (SU), Paper piercing kit (SU)

Have a great day!

Happy Stamping!

Emily

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble, Gobble! Happy Turkey Day! I will be spending the day at my mom and dad's with family. My mom always fixes the turkey and I always bring corn casserole. This is such an easy recipe and very easy to make! I call this a dumper! Just dump everything into the pan and bake! LOL! Here is the recipe:

Corn Casserole

1 can of corn

1 can of creamed corn

1 stick of melted butter

1 cup of sour cream

1 box of jiffy cornbread mix

2 eggs

enough slices of swiss cheese to cover top of casserole (or provolone if you don't like swiss)

pre heat oven to 350. Melt butter in a dish or just melt it in your 9x13 pan (less dishes to do!). Dump the corn, creamed corn, sour cream, jiffy cornbread mix, and eggs in the pan. Stir until everything is well mixed. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. I usually set the timer to 28 minutes and add the cheese slices to the top of the casserole so that the top is covered and put it back in for 2 more minutes. VOILA! Pretty easy, huh? This is always a huge hit, and requested by family and friends!

Enjoy the day!

Emily

Gratitude=Joy

I made this card for Roxie's Sketch challenge on splitcoast stampers found here:http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=400454 I used DP from BasicGrey's Ambrosia collection. It seemed perfect for this week's color challenge which was to use Really Rust, Going Grey, and Very Vanilla. At first I didn't like this combo, but it really is classy and made me think of my Ambrosia DP. The color challenge can be found here:http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=400247
I stamped my image with really rust and then sponged ridinghood red around the edges. I don't have going grey ink, so I sponged some basic black craft ink around the edges. also stamped my gratitude sentiment with the black craft ink. I added some pewter brads on the strip in the middle and the satin grey ribbon is tied through a slot made with SU's slot punch. The stamp set is Gratitude=Joy, a new set from Unity!

Paper: Really Rust, Going Grey, Very Vanilla, DP Ambrosia from Basicgrey

Ink: Really rust, Ridinghood Red, Basic Black Craft ink

Accesories: pewter brads, grey satin ribbon, slot punch from SU, sponge

I am off to check out what is happening over at hip hop today! I am sure I will find more goodies to buy!
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow! I will be spending it with my family. I plan on posting the recipe of the dish I will be taking to my mom's house tomorrow!

Happy Stamping!
Emily

Embellishment Storage!

I am sure I am not the first person to do this, but I had this old spice rack and decided that it would be great for small embellies like buttons, brads, dewdrops, and rhinestones. I am trying to organize the oodles of stuff I have aquired over the years. I like having my embellishments out where I can see them. If they are in sight, they will get used, and I won't forget that I have them! I have organized them by color. I think that works best for me. If I need a brown embellishment, I know which jar to grab.

I am still trying to organize all of my primas and felt flowers and leaves. May just buy larger clear containers and organize those by color also. What do you think? I am open to any suggestions when it comes to organization! I used to be very organized, but now that I am a mother to three boys, that has gone out the window! LOL!

I am hoping to get some stamping done tomorrow. I will be checking out Unity Stamp Company's hip hop specials and also the super sales that Stampin' Up will be offering over the next week. Please check out my Stampin Up website for the Holiday Extravaganza for the super bundled deals! Some will be 50% off! This sale will start tomorrow!

Happy Stamping!

Emily

My First Blog Entry!

Hello! I can't believe I am blogging! I am so computer challenged, but here it goes! I will learn as I go! I would love to hear what you think! For my first post, I will share a scrapbook page I made for Sally's sketch challenge on SCS. Here is the link to her sketch:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=399500

These photo's are from the level 1 hurricane that blew through our part of Ohio on September 15th! It was pretty wild to have 80mph winds! The kids in the neighborhood were a bit apprehensive and nervous, so we all gathered at our house and had a hurricane party! No one had electric and wouldn't for quite some time. We gathered our perishable food that we knew wouldn't keep, and pulled a couple of grills into our garage that hadn't been damaged in the winds, and called it a party! When the winds died down we let the kids go out in the yard and play parachute with sheets. They had sooooo much fun and it helped to blow off some steam!

Paper: K&Company Wild Saffron, baja breeze, chocolate chip and real red

Ink: Chocolate chip, real red

embellishments: heart buttons, real red grosgrain ribbon,chocolate chip grosgrain ribbon, hemp twine, hodge podge hardware

Thank you so much for looking!

Emily