Beautiful Blooms

Happy Wednesday! First off I wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes and comments that were left in the last post, they really meant a lot to me. The bag is now up for sale in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested in buying it. The weather here has been great the last couple of days. We even hit a record of 82 yesterday! We are definitely trying to enjoy it while it lasts.
Last week my friend Carol who is part of the Papertrey Peeps group shared this card on her blog in honor of my birthday and I totally fell in love with it. That is where I got the inspiration to make this.

Mine is a bit different though. First off I changed the size to 41/4x51/2 so it is smaller. I also did not have the punch she used so I found a flower image and cut them out with my Cricut. The background piece is the new Hawaiian Shores color which I am also in love with. I embossed the HS piece with the Quickcuts diamond embossing folder. I pretty much followed the rest of last weeks Mojo Monday sketch 131 and finished it off with some satin hibiscus ribbon. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the PTI Birthday Basics set and the butterfly is from the Butterfly Dreams set This card is on it's way to a special friend who's birthday just happens to be the day after mine. I hope she likes it.
That's it for now. Friday is Emilia's birthday so I hope to be back then to share her special day with you. Until then I hope you have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey March Bloghop And A Birthday

Tonight is the March Papertrey Bloghop.

This month the challenge was to use buttons! I have had this idea for awhile now and when I heard about this challenge I knew it was the perfect opportunity to make this.

I love making quilted rag bags and incorporating stamped images. When the button bit stamp sets came out I thought they would be work perfectly when making these bags. The stems for the cherries come from the original Button Bits set and Pure Poppy Buttons were added to finish them off. It took me 3 days to make this bag but I am really happy with how it came out and am so glad to see how well the button bit stamp sets worked. I will definitely be making more of these bags in the future now.
Today is also my 41st birthday. So far it has been a great day! The sun is shining and the snow we got on Tuesday is melting fast. My sister and niece came over this morning and brought me some beautiful tulips. I spent the afternoon with my mom and Emilia and we went to the Apple store so I could upgrade my IPhone to the 3GS model. I was one of those people that went out and bought one when they first came out and spent way to much on it! After Apple lowered the price on the new ones they sent the people that bought the original ones a gift card to use towards a new one. I have just continued to use the old one but today I decided it was time to upgrade especially since Rich graciously offered to pay the difference for my birthday present. Tonight I will be spending the evening here with my blog friends. I hope to be eating a strawberry yogurt sundae then too. That's it for now. I look forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with. As always thank for stopping by and I hope you have great night.

Peeps Challenge #4 and Poppy Seed Challenge#2

Happy Monday everyone!What a difference a day makes. When I last posted I was telling you all how beautiful the weather was here well by Friday we were having a mini blizzard! That's Colorado for you wait a minute and the weather will change. Thankfully it is all melting fast and is back in the 60's again.
Today I am sharing my entry for the 4th Peeps Challenge which is hosted by Peggysue. We are to CASE a card Nicole did from the last 2 releases but we have to use a stamp that was not released that month. This is Nicole's Card I chose to case from this months release and this is what I came up with
As you can see the first thing I did was change the flower. I used the Violet from last months release. Ted from the Papertrey Forum mentioned that you can cut out stamped images with an Electric Cutting machine. Since I just bought a Cricut a few months ago I decided to try it and was able to figure out how to do it using SCAL! I even made a video showing how it is done this weekend which I will share with you at the end of this post. If you already have a Cricut and SCAL this is a great way to save money on dies and space to store them. After I cut out the flower with my Cricut I stamped the violet with Momento Ink then colored it with Copics. I just bought the rest of the PTI colors from Carpe Diem as an early birthday present to myself. They have the cheapest price I found and great service too. I also colored the leaves with my Copics as well. The piece in the middle was made by using The Faux Ribbon Set. The sentiment is from Blooming Button Bits. Since the card already had polka dots and spring moss on it I decided to add a button to the bottom right corner so I can also enter it in Lisa's Poppy Seed Challenge #2
Before I go I want to share a photo of a Chocolate Trifle I made yesterday to help celebrate the March and April birthdays in my Homeschooling Group today. This is the first trifle I have ever made. I think it came out great and everyone loved it! If you would like to try it here is the recipe.
That's all for now as always thanks for stopping by and I will be back Thursday with my Papertrey Bloghop project.

Technique Tuesday

I hope your week has gotten off to a great start. It was in the 60's here today! It looks like spring is right around the corner and I am very happy about that.
Today it is time for another Technique Tuesday video. This month I am sharing how I made this card
All the details are on the video but if you have any questions let me know. I hope you enjoy it!

Wonderfully Whimsical

Happy Friday everyone! I can't believe another week has gone by. Where does the time go? The sun is shinning and it is suppose to be a great weather weekend though. Hopefully we can get out and enjoy it.
This month on the 15th is the release of Becky Oehlers first stamp set with Papertrey Ink called Wonderfully Whimsical. I am super excited about this set and can't wait to own it. These images are something that are definitely my style. Last month she shared a digital image for us to use during the Papertrey Anniversary release celebration. I have been eager to use it ever since but have not had the time until now. I finally got around to making a card with it this week though. This is what I came up with.

Everything about this card makes me happy! I can envision it in a baby's room. It also has a Suessical feeling to me too. I started by printing out the digital image on Gina K's pure luxury white cardstock then I colored the images in with Copic Sketch Markers. Next I cut a piece of patterned cardstock from the PTI Pretty Pastels Paper Pack and pieced it on the hill. When I was done with that I masked everything then airbrushed the background. After that I added white fun flock to the clouds to make them puffy,then I matted the finished piece on Hibiscus and Summer Sunrise Cardstock. Lastly I stamped and embossed the sentiment from The Boards and Beams set then I finished the card off with some machine stitching. I hope you enjoy this card as much as I do and it brings some happiness to your day as well!
That's it for now. I plan on making this months technique video this weekend and hope to be back to share that with you Tuesday. Until then I hope you have a great weekend and as always thanks for stopping by!

Peeps Challenge #3

I hope your week has gotten off to a good start. Not much new around here. Tonight is Idol night though. So far I am really disappointed with it this year. I have a few favorites (Crystal and Lee) but overall I am not impressed. I am not sure what to think of Ellen as a judge either. I really like her on her show but am not sure about her being a judge on idol. Are any of your watching it? If so I would love to hear your thoughts.
Today I am sharing my entry for the third Peeps Challenge. This challenge is hosted by Kimberley. She asked us for birthday card ideas for her sister. It needs to be a feminine card featuring orange zest. Bonus points if you work in Spring Rain, her second favorite color or a tea theme, since tea is one of her favorite things in the world.
I am not a big fan of orange so this was definitely a challenge for me. I do love the tea set and spring rain though.
I started with last weeks Mojo Monday sketch.

The background was made with Guidelines 2 and was inspired by Diane's use of it here. The sentiment is from the Birthday Basics set. Some orange zest satin ribbon and 2 tiny pearls finish it off. Inside the card you will find this

I created a little pocket to add a tea bag.
That's it for now. Feel free to join in the challenge too. I hope to be back soon with more things to share. As always thanks for stopping by and I hope your day is a great one!

A Passover Gift

Happy March! I hope it feels like spring where you are. The sun is shinning and it is in the 50's here right now but that is all suppose to change Friday. March can be an interesting month in Colorado. 7 years ago we had one of our biggest blizzards on St.Patricks Day. I hope that won't happen again this year and spring will arrive soon,I sure am ready for it.
Passover starts on March 29th this year. The EtsyChai Jewish Street team is having a Passover "Celebrate Freedom" event in honor of it. To find out more about this event check out the EtsyChai blog You can also find out more about Passover there too. Today I wanted to share a Passover gift idea with you.
One of the traditional things that happens at Passover are the Seders. They are special dinners the include prayers, blessings and songs before and after eating. I thought this box would be a great item to take to a host or hostess. It can be filled with lots of different things but I decided to fill it with Chocolate Coconut Cookies since they have no levening in them. They would be great for people that allergic to wheat/gluten too.
I got the recipe from an old nail client of mine. They are super yummy and easy to make too. Here is the recipe if you would like to try it.
4 egg whites
1 12oz. pkg semisweet chocolate chips
1 14oz pkg coconut
Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. In the meantime melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Fold the egg whites and coconut into the melted chocolate. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 mins.
The box was made using the My Time Made Easy In a Pinch Template. The base is Tempting Turquoise. The embossed pieces were made using a special stamping technique called Metallic Pop from the Dec/Jan2010 Technique Junkies Newsletter. I used a rectangle Coluzzle to cut a window in the front of the box and added a piece of acetate. On the top I added the Passover plate image from the Mazel Tov set that I embossed with gold embossing powder. The tag was cut out from the Boxes Bags and Tags cart using my Cricut. I stamped the Happy Passover sentiment on the tag and embossed it as well then I added gold dots with a paint pen. To finish the box off I added a piece of white grosgrain ribbon and attached the tag. I am also entering this box in this weeks JUGS challenge too. That's it for now. I hope to be back soon with more things to share. Until then I hope you have a great day and thanks for stopping by!