More Cd Holders

for Julie...
She uses these for some of her proof cds. The blue and the red holders are from an old world designer paper pack I got for my birthday (last year??). The other 2 are stampin up papers, and the stickers are from SU scrapbook kits.
These are easy to make and are a fun way to store your cds.

Awesome Peanut Butter Cookies

Last Friday Jill was working from home (she uses the office in our outbuilding). Of course I get to spend the day with Bree! We spent the morning reading books, coloring, and playing follow the leader scurvy pirate style. After her nap I needed to find something to occupy her time until her dad and Papa got here for dinner. Any break in activity results in pleas to watch Dora or Max & Ruby. So we baked cookies. I wanted a recipe that didn't make lots of cookies and chose Awesome Peanut Butter Cookies. I got the recipe from a Better Homes and Garden Christmas cookie magazine. Gary told me these were wicked things and dangerous to have around the house. So I sent half of them home with Jill and Chris. The rest were gone by Sunday night!
Here's the recipe:
1 cup peanut butter (it may not matter to you, but the Snyder girls only use Jif.)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 325 F. In a mixing bowl beat peanut butter, sugar, brown sugar, and baking soda until combined. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Stir in flour and chocolate chips with a wooden spoon.
2. Shape dough into 1 1/4" balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet (don't use insulated cookie sheet); flatten slightly with fingers.
3. Bake in preheated oven about 10 minutes or until cookies are puffed and lightly browned around edges (centers will be soft). Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; cool completely. makes 24

I wish I would have taken a picture, but maybe for the next recipe. Anyway, Bree and I had "fun?" She gets to dump the ingredients in the bowl and help with the mixer. I think it was easier when she was 2. This was all new to her and she listened and followed instructions. Now she is almost 3 and thinks she knows how to do it all herself. It requires a lot more patience on my part...but it's fun and I the time we spend together is priceless! Take the time and bake some cookies, they may not be "good" for you, but they sure do make life more fun!

Read!

School supplies are on sale everywhere now. I love to stock up on composition books while I can get them at a good price. Covering them with designer paper transforms them into nice journals to use or give away.
So yesterday I decided to make a couple. For the first one I used designer paper from the Afternoon Tea series. The "friend" word and swirls on the chocolate chip binding is a rub-on. I used the same rub-on for the purple journal - except the letter colors are white.









Obviously I had someone in mind when I made this one in purple! I'm sure my kindred spirit friends will know who this is. The flowers, birds, and butterflies are stamped in versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. The swirls are stamped in white and also embossed with clear embossing powder.
The binding on both books are stamped with the Canvas background stamp. That adds some texture which I think makes them look better











Then I finished them off by making a couple of bookmarks. Now what should I do with them???

Today's Chat & Challenge

As you can see, I'm still choosing this year's "in colors" for card challenges. Next week - new colors (the man in brown should be bringing me a box this week! :)
I guess thinking of getting a package of goodies made me think of getting a Christmas gift. So I pulled out one of my favorite set from last Christmas used Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou colors to make my card. You can't tell from the photo but I embossed the tree by using my versamark pen, glossy glaze enamel, and heat gun. It's nice and glossy!
I know it's too early to think of Christmas, but for me it's time to think of cards and projects to make, especially ones for classes! And with Jill's baby due at Christmas, I plan to be way ahead...well, at least that's the plan!

Mini Card Assortment

Mini cards (3x3) are some of my favorite cards - the perfect accompaniment to a gift. I like to make sure I have a variety on hand not only for me but also for Jill and Julie. I think I like them because there's less space to write inside, so I don't have to think and think about what to say. So bad! Anyway, my mom's birthday is the 22nd so I made some of these to send to her.

"Emergency" Birthday Card Assortment

The idea of this collection is from another SU demonstrator, Andrea Walford. (Andrea saw these cards at a regional SU meeting she attended. She made them and shared the instructions.) Her card assortment is actually called an Emergency Birthday Card Kit. It is made using Stampin' Up Simply Scrappin' Kits. With 1/2 of the kit you can make 2 sets of cards and the boxes for them. The great thing about using a Simply Scrappin Kit is that it has such a great collection of stickers that coordinate with the papers. So you can make some really great cards - quick!

I didn't have a Simply Scrappin Kit that I wanted to use so I pulled out the Berry Bliss designer paper and made my cards based on those colors. That also meant that I didn't have a lot of those cute stickers and accessories to add to the card. So I stamped!
I tried to choose stamps that looked good with the designer paper. I used stamps from So Many Scallops, Think Happy Thoughts, Tagger's Dozen, Time Well Spent, and Live Your Dream. The base of the cards is made with close to cocoa, purely pomegranate, and textured pretty in pink. Of the 6 cards only 1 does not have designer paper on it.




There are just a couple more weeks to purchase the Purely Pomegranate card stock and ink. They are retiring. The double stitched ribbon is sold out. Time Well Spent is a hostess set that is retiring, so if that's something you want, you still have time to get that one with hostess benefits.
I will definitely make more of these with one of the new Simply Scrappin kits in the new catalog. And I think this would be a great project for a class.

Corner Rounder Scallop Edges

The scallop edges on the card below were made with the Stampin' Up corner rounder. The technique is great, but if I am not patient, I make a lot of mistakes. And it can be time consuming. So needless to say, I am purchasing the new Stampin' Up scallop edge punch. It will be available to customers when the new catalog comes out in August. There are at least 2 more punches in the new catalog. I can't wait to see them...and I will probably "need" them too. To see a great tutorial on using the corner rounder look Beate John's tutorial on SCS.

Another Sudsol Challenge

The latest Chat and Challenge for Sudsol. I don't have the new SU scallop edge punch, so I had to use the corner rounder to make the scallop edge. :( Hopefully I will be able to get one in the next couple of weeks. As you can see, the "thank you" is crooked. I was in a hurry. I probably will redo this card after I get my punch. The card base is in Soft Sky. This color is retiring this month. I really hate to see it go. This was the first year that I liked all the in-colors. I hope I like the new ones as well. Wait a minute...that would just mean I have to buy them all! Oh well!

Let's Go Bananas

My sister Becky called me Monday looking for help with a baby shower she is hosting. She was hoping for a jungle theme and wanted some suggestions. She was actually getting ready to go shopping for stamps. But, hey, I have a room full of stamps and paper and...stuff, so I made some samples for her. This is the one she decided on. She wanted the bright colors.
So being the nice sister that I am, I made 25 cards for her Tuesday and shipped them to her Wednesday. I even cut out 25 monkeys to "pop-up" on the cards.
However, I must tell you that Becky is also a "nice" sister. She purchases all kinds of hair products for me and saves me bunches of money. Becky teaches Tai-Chi at the YMCA (also teaches many other exercise classes). I am hoping that she makes a Tai-Chi dvd, it looks like fun...if exercise can ever be fun! What would be more fun is if she would come to the beach to film her dvd!
Oh, and since the shower is not until August 17th, I should have enough time to help her with decoration and party favor ideas.

Divine Verse Challenge

The SCS Divine Verse Challenge is to make a card (or whatever) each month with a Bible verse on it...and to memorize the verse. I loved so many of the projects: journals (but the ones I really liked used the Bind-It-All -don't have that...yet!), some using a rolodex, and different kinds of boxes. I decided on this design. It is like a recipe box and I had not made one before. In the picture the box looks a bit funky...that's because it is :(
I used an adhesive that was too "wet" - tried to compensate by placing books on top before I put the box together. But, alas, it didn't work. My next box will be nice and neat!
As for the verse, it's a great reminder for us to watch what we say. A kind word can make such a difference in someone's life. Try it today with your family, with the salesclerk or waitress, with the stranger you meet...

Chat & Challenge 123

Well, it was time to bring out the Mojo and play today! There was another chat and challenge this morning on Sudsol and this is the card I made. The challenge was to take a card that had some non SU elements on it and make it a totally SU card. I knew I wanted to make something with the current In Colors. They won't be around for long :(
The card base is regal rose. I used Purely Pomegranate for the bottom layers, pretty in pink designer prints and confetti white for the other layers. The swirl and flowers are from Baroqe Motifs and the butterfly, three small flowers, and sentiment are from Live Your Dream. Nice and easy card...just my style.

Flourishes Decor Element

When Stampin' Up! introduced their new line of wall decor, I was thrilled to see the flourishes set. It is like one of my favorite stamp sets, baroque motifs. I ordered the set in white (it also comes in chocolate). I think it looks great on the blue wall. My next challenge will be to put the "Create definition" on the wall in my stamp room. I believe that one will take a bit more work - I will have to get the definition level.
Next month SU will roll out phase 2 of the decor elements. I hope they have some great stuff for babies and kids.
If you want to see the current brochure look here