Perfect Presentation Release and a Giveaway

ETA: The winner of the drawing is LAUREL! Please contact Leigh Ann at annie21211@yahoo.com and let her know which template you would like!

Today Leigh Ann Baird the creator of the Perfect Presentation Templates is releasing 7 new templates and cut files in The Wild Flower Patch Store
They are:
Perfect Parcel
Holding Pattern
Tombstone Treat Bag
Tombstone Place Card
Whimsy House
Whimsy House Card
Inverted Scalloped Border
You can see my sample of the Perfect Parcel in this post. You can also see samples of the rest of the templates on the other designers blogs
Leigh Ann
Chris
Kerri
Alyssa
Julie
Harriet
One random commenter from each blog will win a template of their choice. You have until Wednesday at midnight to comment on this post to be included in the drawing.
I will be back on Thursday to announce the winner!

September Papertrey Bloghop

It is time for another Papertrey Bloghop

This month the challenge was to show off any skills you might have learned from a fellow stamper, and perhaps even give them a little shout out to thank them for the inspiration they have provided. I love learning things from other stampers. I also enjoying making videos of techniques I like to do and sharing them too. I have over 30 videos made now with more to come. You see them all here.
When I saw this tutorial on Dana's blog I knew I wanted to make one. It has been on my list of things to try for awhile but when I saw this challenge I thought it was the perfect time. This is what I came up with.

I started by using a new SVG template from Leigh Ann Baird called the Perfect Parcel. I started with Sweet Blush Cardstock as the base. Next I added some Pattern Paper this is a digital download from Basic Grey called Rosie. When I was done with that I added a die cut from the Matstack #2 die on the the front then attached the rose. The rose was sprayed lightly with Copper glimmer mist and it matched the DP perfectly. Thanks Dana for a great tutorial and the inspiration! I will definitely be making a lot more of these roses in the future. That's it for now but be sure to check back on Monday because I am having a giveaway for the new Perfect Presentation Templates being released next month. I look forward to seeing what everyone else has come up with with now. Thanks for stopping by!

Birds, Technique Tuesday and Peeps Challenge #16

I hope you all are having a good week. It is finally starting to cool off here and feel more like fall. Something that we all have really enjoyed doing this summer is feeding the birds in our backyard and watching all the different kinds that come to visit. My husband recently started a blog about it with photos. You can see it here
It is time for another Technique Tuesday video as well. This month I am going to show you how I made this tag

It also qualifies for Rhonda's Peeps Challenge #16 which is to make a tag that focuses on sentiments. If you have any questions let me know. I hope the rest of your week is a great one and I will be back soon with more things to share.

Sweet Treat House

Hi Everyone. I hope you are all doing well. I can't believe almost 2 weeks have gone by since my last post. A lot has happened since then. Emilia and I started 7th grade full time after Labor Day. There is more work to do now that she is in the higher grades so my stamping time has been limited.
I finally got my new glasses. They are helping but since they are bifocals I am having a hard time getting use to them. I wish I would have gotten 2 pairs of glasses made now. One with the close up lenses and one with the distance ones. At this point I can't afford to spend anymore money on glasses so I will just try to get use to these.
I also have had some very strange things happen with potential new nail clients. The first one came for a mani/pedi. She seemed nice on the phone and was fine when she got here but after I started doing her nails she suddenly said she had to go. In all my years of doing nails I have never had that happened. She handed me $1.00 for what I did and left. Then on Monday I got another call from someone that wanted a set of real gel nails done. She had been going to Asian salons and did not like the product they were using. When she got here I proceeded to put the nails on but I could tell she didn't like them so instead of continuing she left also without paying me a dime. I sure hope this does not become a regular thing. Hopefully the third time will be the charm because I could definitely use some good new clients.
Yesterday ,I finally had a chance to finish a project I have been working on since I last posted. Lauren Meader just released the Shop Around Mega Template and coordinating digi and stamped images in her My Time Made Easy Store. As a lot of you know I love making houses so this new line was perfect for me. Even better she came up with pre-printed scenes to go on the houses too so you can print them out and color them by hand or digitally color them. You can also add or take out other images in the scenes as well. I think it was a brillant idea! This is what I came up with

I started by taking out and adding a few things to the pre printed bakery scene then I digitally colored the images in. After that I added the Ga Ga for Gingham Digital background paper from her store as well. Lauren has a great tutorial showing how it is done. After I had things the way I wanted them I printed them out then added them to the base of the house which was made with Hibiscus Cardstock. The roof was made using Harvest Gold Cardstock then I added more of the Gingham cardstock to the top. Finally I added a piece of Hawaiian Shores saddle Stitch Ribbon. The colors I used were from last weeks Color Throwdown challenge but it is to last to enter now.
Here is a photo collage showing all the sides

This template is great size and would hold a lot of different things but I think it makes perfect packaging for brownies they fit perfectly when stacked.

Emilia and I made these last night. She loves them. You can get the recipe here. I am really happy with how this came out. I hope you like it too. You will be seeing more of these in the future because I have a lot more ideas for things to make with them now. I hope to make this months technique video this weekend and be back to share that with you Tuesday. Until then I hope you have a great weekend and as always thanks for stopping by.

Cupcake Sunday

First off I wanted to say thanks for all the kind and supportive comments you left in my last post about my medical nightmare. Glad you all agreed that what I went through should not have happened. I am suppose to get the new glasses this week so I will let you know if they help.
I hope you all are having a good weekend. We went on a walk through Cherry Creek State Park yesterday with the dogs. The path we walked on took us to the lake which was a great surprise because we had no idea where we were going.

Today I wanted to start something new on my blog. As some of you know I use to have my own baking business and love to bake and cook. I am an avid watcher of The Food Network but this summer Emilia and I have really gotten into watching cupcake shows like Cupcake Wars, DC Cupcakes and Cupcake Girls. A couple of weeks ago we were at one of our local bookstores, The Tattered Cover and bought this great cupcake book.

We have decided to challenge ourselves and try to make every one of the cupcakes in this book. After that I will share them here with you at least once a month. I will also be including some sort of cupcake themed paper crafting project to go with them as well. Today we are starting off with the Key Lime Cupcakes.

These were suppose to have a key lime filling in them but I made a mistake and read the recipe wrong. I added the condensed milk and lime juice to the batter so they are a little heavy but Rich and Emilia say they still taste good. I can't eat them because I am gluten free but I can say they smell great.
It also just so happens that Leigh Ann Baird the creative genius behind the Perfect Presentation Templates just came out with the cutest cupcake stand, flags and cupcake wrapper cut files too which were prefect for the presentation.

The base of the stand was made using PTI Kraft Cardstock that I ran though my Cuttlebug using a SU wood grain embossing folder. I reduced the size of the flags to 25% then cut them out of PTI Bitty Dots and Hibiscus Cardstock. The top was also made with Hibiscus Cardstock too. The piece I attached the flags to was made with Vintage Cream Cardstock and the Scallop border file but I cut the scallops off. The cupcake holder was made with some Martha Stewart double sided cardstock that I had in my stash. The Topper was made with an extra flag that I attached to a toothpick with some Score Tape.
That's all for now. I hope you have enjoyed today's post. I will be back soon with more to share. Until then I hope the rest of your holiday weekend is a good one and thanks for stopping by.