Sites of the week

This is the present that I received on Mother’s Day…

Ellie is hoping for a little sister to arrive mid-January. I still have a couple more appointments before my ultrasound. I’ll keep everyone up to date as we know more

I never thought too much about this statement until this weekend. On Friday afternoon, I went into a new store in town called Scrapper’s Boutique {super cute!} and talked to the owner about teaching Copic and project classes. I will be teaching my Copic I & II classes there, as well as project classes. So far the dates set up are July 25th and August 29th. I am hoping to squeeze in another project class in between those dates, so stay tuned. On July 25th, it will the 2 Copic classes back to back {well, there is a lunch hour in between} and then I will be doing a pennant banner class {cuuute!}. On August 29th, it’s the same deal with the Copic classes and then I will doing an alterable project {haven’t decided which one, yet} with a Glue product. Hope to see you there!

So that was my one door opening. Of course, one door had to close to make that happen…

On Saturday night, I went to the farewell party for Imprints, the last rubber stamp store on my side of the metroplex. It was a bittersweet farewell, as I know that the owner, Tina, is retiring after 14 years to be with her hubby. Of course, I am sad to see the doors close, as this was not only a fun place to shop, but a great place to teach, too. Of course, we couldn’t say goodbye without food! It was a potluck farewell party and OMG was there a TON of food! I brought Berry Peach Cobbler/Dump Cake with French Vanilla Whipped Cream. It’s a recipe that I modified from allrecipes.com. You can make this as calorie loaded or sugar-free as you like…

Ingredients:
2- 16oz. can of peaches almost completely drained
heaping handful of raspberries and blueberries (I used frozen}
1/3 packet orange jello mix
1/2 box French Vanilla Cake Mix {you can use yellow or white, whatever you prefer}
1 T. ground cinnamon
3/4 stick of frozen butter {sshhhh, it will be our secret!}
Heavy Whipping Cream
1 container French Vanilla yogurt
1 T. sugar

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Mix together peaches, berries and jello mix and put into a 9×9 pan.
Combine cake mix and cinnamon and put on top of berry/peach mixture, pressing the cake mix lightly into the mixture.
Grate the stick of butter over the entire top of the cake mix.
Bake for 45 minutes.

For Topping:
Whip the heavy cream into a thick mixture with sugar and add French Vanilla yogurt. Mix until completely combined and serve on top of warm cobbler.

Happy Friday everyone! Today is going to be an ABC Friday, but without a paper project. I have a few pics and Ellie-isms to share with you. If you are not familiar with Ellie, let me tell you that she is super sweet, super kind and pretty darn funny. I really couldn’t ask for a better kiddo!! She has her moments, though!

Last night while brushing her teeth, I had to continually ask her to do something {can’t even remember what that particular something was now}. I had to ask her several times and was getting a little frustrated and said, “Ellie, I don’t want to have to ask you do something 3 times.” Very sweetly she looks at me and says, “Well, then ask me 4 times.” For that, I had no words!

Here are a few pictures from her last day at Little Gym. The first 3 are a series of her doing a forward roll, then there is the one of her getting her medal and the last one is her cheery smile that brings me so much happiness.

Now, for one last story. This one also comes from yesterdays adventures. We made a quick run to Albertson’s to get some groceries and I was getting ground beef from the butcher. She decided that she wanted some, too {of her very own}. When he handed the meat to me and asked if I needed anything else, she piped up and YELLED… “um, MAN…gimme some of that, too, please.” I know that it was so much funnier in person, but I can’t believe that my {almost 3yo} child just chimed in with this!! LOL!

See you tomorrow for a another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY!

Well, I didn’t get as much done as I needed/wanted to yesterday, but I do have a couple of things to show you today. I guess the pics of graduation fall under the “ABC Friday” category, but I told ya that today was gonna be a little bit of a catch up day, too.

Tony graduated from TCU with his MBA last week. We only went to the short ceremony…thank goodness! I don’t think that Ellie could have sat still for the 3 hour program on Saturday!! She was so cute! When Tony was on stage she yelled “YAY, DADDY!” so that everyone could here. It was, of course, followed by a crowd full of “Awwww”s. Here a few pics from the big evening…

Now, on to the stamping portion of this post…
Both of the cards that I have to show you today use Stamping Bella stamps. The first one is actually from last week’s challenge to make a birthday card. The second is a fun one that will be going to a “rockstar.”

Detail shot…

Have a great Friday! See you tomorrow for another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY!

TGIF y’all! Hope everyone had a great {and productive} week. I have been creating like crazy…as you all have seen! Today I have 3 {of the same} projects to show you. I got some of Jody’s die cuts and I can’t put them down…and I was already addicted to the dimensional boosters that she has. BTW-the boosters I use are the same shape as SU! ones, but basically made with red-line adhesive…AWESOME! The die cut that I used for today’s creations is the Candy Box {the first one on her die cut sale page}. Before I even got started creating, I brainstormed some ideas for these. Here are a few that I came up with:

-Just Because/Friend
-Thank You
-Wedding Favor
-Kid’s Party Favor
-Office/Co-worker Birthday
-Teacher Gifts {you know it’s that time of year!!}
-Sports Team and/or Coach Gifts/Incentives
-Any Holiday Theme
-Place Setting {put names on them}
…I am sure there are a ton more, but I stopped here because I had enough to get started on these…

This is one that I made with a sports team theme. When I played soccer in high school we had secret sisters and this would have been perfect to fill with goodies or even team colored hair bows. I forgot to anti-static my paper before I used super fine black embossing powder, but I actually like the way that it came out…kinda matching the distressed look of the PTI stamp…

Yep, I embossed the candy box with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. You have to be a little creative to do it since it is not a perfect fit, but it is definitely {and easily} do-able. I put the embossing folder over the center part of the candy box and then folded the end pieces/flaps on top of the folder and then ran it through. It isnt’ quite long enough, so you have to do it from the other side, too.

The next one I made can be for a wedding or party favor. The bright colors of this one say “party” to me, but if tone down the colors, these would make fab wedding favors. Again, where were these when I was making my own wedding favors 5 years ago?

See those glittery dots? I made those, too! I used Jody’s sticky dots and placed them all over the paper and then sprinkled pink glitter on top…viola, sparkle paper! Note: you only need to put the dots on 4 of the 5 sides because one them is tucked/adhered under to make it into a square shape. Here’s pic of the paper with all the dots on it…

Finally, here is one that would be perfect for a “Just Because” type gifty. You can always change up the sentiment and embellishment to make it for any occasion. I think that these would make cute place cards for a holiday dinner or wedding. The “Friend” stamp is from the new release “Because of You” from Verve Stamps.

Here are a few detail shots from when I created this…

Give the edges some “flair” by using a border punch {one of those new EK Success ones here}. I think that EK Success has one that has either or both ABC/123 and I think that would be SO CUTE for teacher gifts!

I covered each side with white embossed cardstock and then matted it with pink cardstock. Again, you only have to do 4 of the 5 sides, because you glue one under.

The dimensions of the cardstock pieces are: 2 3/8″ x 1 3/8″ and 2 1/4″ x 1 1/4″.

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So, on Wednesday I got some SUPER happy mail…

That’s MY card on the cover!! O-M-G!! That’s worth tooting my horn about!! lol!! See ya tomorrow for another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY!