Another blog hop and Guest Designer News!

Hi blog hoppers!  Well if you haven’t figured it out by now (or seen my badge on the side), I am a Guest Designer this month for Creative Cuts & More!

Weren't Angie's projects great? (If you didn't arrive here from Angie's blog, you don't want to miss what our designers have in store for you! The CC&M Blog Hop starts at Die Cut Diva. If for some reason one of the links is broken along the way do not worry, HOP back over to Die Cut Diva where the complete list will be.

I have a couple of Fall projects to share with you today. I decided to do some scrapbooking and using CC&M’s 12x12 Color Block Page made it go so easily. I went with the DoubleMates cardstock as I like the two tone with this layout. My regular readers will remember these pictures as I just shared them not too long ago. See how easy it is to whip up a page using the color block page. I decided to use both the frame and the block pieces BUT I turned the block pieces over to get the other tone of the DoubleMate cardstock.
I used JustRite Brayton Font to stamp “Circle Farms” on the large pumpkin. Helmar Premium Glue was used to attach the ribbon that I just twirled while gluing it down and then I used Helmar Liquid Scrap dots to give the trio of pumpkins some dimension. I just happen to have a package of DoubleMates cardstock so I used brown to layer the photos and yellow for the tags. I used Helmar Quick Fix Adhesive to secure everything down.



I went with fall colors for the Peek-A-View Box which I stamped acorns and leaves on in Crushed Curry. The stamps are from Our Craft Lounge - Nuts About You.

I stamped the acorn and leaves on white cardstock and colored them with copics. Then cutting them out, I attached them to the top and bottom corners of the ‘lids’ with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots to give them some dimension. I attached brown rick rack to the lid using Helmar Premium Glue. Scalloped square nestibilities were used on DoubleMates cardstock to layer on the top.

I filled the box with a Thanksgiving Blessing Mix. This is what it says:

Thanksgiving Blessing Mix

Bugles: Shaped like a cornucopia or Horn of Plenty, a symbol of our nation's abundance.
Pretzels: Arms folded in prayer, a freedom sought by those who founded our country.
Candy corn: Sacrifices of the Pilgrims' first winter. Food was so scarce that settlers survived on just a few kernels of corn a day.
Seeds: Promise of a a future harvest, one we will reap only if seeds are planted and tended with diligence.
M&Ms: Memories of those who came before us to guide us to a blessed future.
Hershey's Kiss: The love of family and friends that sweetens our lives.


As part of our celebration, CC&M will offer 15% off the entire store. But act quickly,  this sale will end on 11-15. Make sure you enter this code ccholidaybloghop1109 during checkout.

As a continuing part of the celebration CC&M will be giving away a FUN Christmas Card Kit! After you have finished the blog hop, return to Die Cut Diva and follow the directions.

Did you know CC&M is now on Facebook? I’m a fan, why don’t you come join me?

Now hop on over to Carla Mayfield and see what she has in store for you. And don’t forget to keep checking back the rest of the month, you never know when I’ll post more CC&M items!

Creative Cuts & More Mega Apron Holiday Treats Blog Hop

Welcome, today is the second day of the Creative Cuts & More Mega Recipe Blog Hop which features the Apron Holiday Treats Recipe Kit. We have 24 designers who will be showcasing wonderful pages and yummy Holiday Treat recipes. Hopefully you just came from Jen Johnson’s blog. If not, here is the start of this mega recipe blog hop: http://www.diecutdiva.com



Here is what is included in the kit: chipboard aprons, bazzill candy apple cs aprons, doubleMates Grassy Green cs aprons, Doodlebuge Sugar & Spice paper aprons, Doodlebug Goody Goody Gumdrops paper aprons, Doodlebug Ribbon Candy Spot glittered cs aprons, book rings, red silk ribbon – 18in, extra sugar & spice doodlebug paper, Goody Goody Gumdrops Doodlebug cs, Candy Apple Bazzill Criss Cross textured cs, Grassy Green DoubleMates Linen textured dc, Miscellaneous die cuts & gingerbread/misc buttons. I also used Gingerbread Fun, Crafty Sparkles & SparklyFluff from Our Craft Lounge, rhinestones, lace and Helmar adhesives on the aprons.


This would be a cute project for a Christmas Cookie Exchange. Just think of all the recipes you’d come home with. Your little apron would be filled. As for my apron, I filled it with a couple of drinks that sounded yummy, our favorite cookies and candies I like to make during the holiday season. I’ll have to admit I wanted to go bake some gingersnaps while I was getting my apron album done!


Used oval punches for title and scallop oval nestibilities for the ‘rug’.

I wanted the recipe cards to be attached somehow to the aprons so I poked holes in the papers and threaded floss through them. Cutout a mini gingerbread man or girl from Gingerbread Fun by Our Craft Lounge and attached them over the hole with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots. The other end of the floss is then attached to the card. There is some give to the floss so the card can dangle onto the counter.



Brown Sugar Sparkly Fluff from Our Craft Lounge was attached to the spoon with Helmar Premium Craft Glue. Helmar 450 glue was used to attach the ‘cookie cutters’ that come with the apron kit. Oval punches were used for the sentiment which can be found in the Gingerbread Fun from Our Craft Lounge. I went over the “icing” on the word LOVE with a white gel pen.




Yellow Fluff and red Crafty Sparkles from Our Craft Lounge were used on the “cookies”. The red oval is from the bowl that comes with the apron kit. The little gingerbread man is from Our Craft Lounge’s stamp set Gingerbread Fun. The ‘cutting board’ was from the kit. The lace is from my stash and glued on with Helmar Premium Glue.

More SparklyFluff was used on the gingerbread men below. The heart is from Our Craft Lounge’s “Lola Love”. The row of gingerbread men from Gingerbread Fun are on Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots and the candy on the recipe card is also from that set.


My apron will not be staying in my house but will be going home with someone on Dec.7th when they bid (and win) on a basket filled with cards, altered items and the album of course. Yes, I’m talking about my post here, Cards for Paula request. (and yes, I’m still taking cards, still have time to get them to me by Dec.1st) I thought it would be neat to add my album to the basket and give someone a little helping hand in the tasty treats section of their Holiday baking.

You can find a few of the recipes that I put in my apron already on my blog! Dipped Gingersnaps and 5 Day Coconut Cake. Here is another favorite of ours that I included in the album:

Mountain Cookies

1c butter, softened 1c powder sugar 2tsp vanilla
2c flour 1/2tsp salt

FILLING: 1 (3oz) cream cheese 1c powder sugar
2T flour 1tsp vanilla 1/2c finely chopped pecans
1/2c flaked coconut

TOPPING: 1/2c semisweet chocolate chips 2T butter
2T water 1/2c powder sugar

In a mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar & vanilla. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Shape into 1-in balls; place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Make a deep indentation in the center of each cookie. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 mins or until the edges just start to brown. Remove to wire racks to cool completely. For the filling, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Add pecans and coconut; mix well. Scoop 1/2tsp into each cookie. For topping, heat chocolate chips, butter and water in a small saucepan until melted. Stir in sugar. Drizzle over cookies.

Yield: 4 dz




As part of the celebration CC&M will be having a great sale. For the next six days, we will offer 20% off the entire store. But act quickly, it is only for six days – this sale will end on Nov 14th. Make sure you enter this code recipebloghop2009 during checkout.

As a continuing part of the celebration CC&M will of course give away great gifts. Each day we will give away one kit. Here is the twist – go through the blog hop, leave wonderful comments for the great designers. After you have finished the blog hop, return to www.diecutdiva.com and instead of leaving a comment, you need to share a recipe to have a chance at winning the kit. Share the recipe on your blog and link it back and get another chance to win the kit. Help us also make this a great recipe swap. Now head on over to Carla Mayfield to see her apron album and what yummy recipe she has to share.

Card for a Cause

Today’s featured stamper is Miss Boo aka Jen. I got to met Jen way back in ‘07 at a stamping retreat so I had to do the challenge. I picked this card of Jen’s to case. I changed the image to another Thomas Kinkade image, changed colors and used a stamp for my sentiment.

This card will be going into the basket that mom and I are donating to the silent auction for Paula Lowry. A big thank you to those who have donated so far. To date we have over 70 cards for the basket with more coming in! Details are below if you would like to donate.

(on Sept 23 about 6pm just a few miles from our house, Paula had walked down her driveway to get her mail (on her side of the road)...a pickup pulling a flat trailer (narrow country roads)was coming up the road, the trailer somehow came off the truck, struck Paula head on and stopped in the neighbor’s yard about 100 ft away!!
Paula’s right leg, her tibia and fibula were broken and everything from her knee down was torn away. She also sustained fractures in her back which required screws to be inserted (c4-c7) and (t1-t5). She also had a brain injury at her brain stem.
She has been through quite a bit of surgeries since then and is now breathing on her own during the day. (To read more about her day to day progress, please see My Story) She has 2 young teens and runs the only florist shop in our town. The community is putting on a dinner and silent auction with the money all going to the family to help with doctor bills.)

If you have any cards/small altered items that you’d like to donate for the basket, we’d sure appreciate it! And of course the recipient will end up with the best ever basket!! (please include envelopes with your card) Email me at hillmanfam@woh.rr.com with Cards for Paula in the subject line and I will email you my address as I don’t wish to post it on here. We would like to have all the items by Dec.1st.

supplies: TK-It Doesn’t Get Much Better (CHF) & sentiment from MFT Let’s Go for a Walk, black ink, copics/prismacolor markers, brown, green, white cardstock, ribbon, hodgepodge

Published! Cards for Paula and the Sketch!

 
This will be a long post so please bear with me as I have something to ask of you, my readers.

First I’m going to brag a little on myself. Two years ago I sent in one of my favorite Thomas Kinkade cards to RubberStampMadness in hopes of being published. Never heard a word until this summer! It is in their Nov/Dec/Jan issue.

View Full Album

This past weekend I did a Stamp Camp for a friend of mine. She wanted a bundle of all occasion cards. I browsed through SCS and mixed cards left and right until I got 7 cards I was happy with to share with the ladies. The camp was actually 2 days as not everyone could make it the first day so I had double the cards for myself.

Now what am I going to do with all these cards you ask? Well  back on Sept 23 about 6pm just a few miles from our house, Paula had walked down her driveway to get her mail (on her side of the road)...a pickup pulling a flat trailer (narrow country roads)was coming up the road, the trailer somehow came off the truck, struck Paula head on and stopped in the neighbor’s yard about 100 ft away!!

Paula’s right leg, her tibia and fibula were broken and everything from her knee down was torn away. She also sustained fractures in her back which required screws to be inserted (c4-c7) and (t1-t5). She also had a brain injury at her brain stem.

She has been through quite a bit of surgeries since then and is now breathing on her own during the day. (To read more about her day to day progress, please see My Story) She has 2 young teens and runs the only florist shop in our town. But those bills will be piling up so as a community, we are putting together a dinner and a silent auction to help the family with the cost.

Mom and I have decided to donate a basket of stamped cards and altered (small) items to be auctioned off. So all those double cards I just made this past weekend are going into the basket. And this is where you come in. If you have any cards/small altered items that you’d like to donate for this basket, we’d sure appreciate it! And of course the recipient will end up with the best ever basket!! (please include envelopes with your card) Email me at hillmanfam@woh.rr.com with Cards for Paula in the subject line and I will email you my address as I don’t wish to post it on here. We would like to have all the items by Dec.1st. 

Here are the cards from the stamp camp that I am putting in the basket (just realized one is missing!)

  
inside of card (the stamps used on this card are from Our Craft Lounge – Autumn Garden)



For today’s sketch252 I used two sets from Our Craft Lounge; Giving Thanks and Nuts About You. I used the leaf border from Giving Thanks to make a frame that I colored with prismacolor markers and then cut out completely. It is attached with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots. The squirrel is from Nuts about You and is also attached with Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots. The nut border is from Nuts About You and once again I  cut it out completely. On the green strip I combined the images from Giving Thanks and Nuts About You and stamped them in Versamark.

Thanks for looking and please consider donating some cards to Paula’s basket. Life can change in the blink of an eye.

Weekend Get Away an a card

This coming weekend is our 16th anniversary. Two weeks ago, hubby surprised me by saying we could go away for a weekend. Well the only weekend that would work out was this past weekend. So I found us a bed & breakfast for the first night and a hotel for the next night. Now you may think this was easy to do but I had two things against me. One it was Sweetest day this past Saturday (did you remember?) and Two it’s peak season because of the leaves changing here in Ohio.

On Friday we headed off to Lucas, Ohio to a cute Bed & Breakfast called AngelWoods Hideaway. Let me tell you, if you ever need a place just to get away… this is it! The hosts, John & Vikki, put you right at ease. She gave us a tour of the entire place, showed us where coffee would be served right outside our door first thing in the morning. Even offered to cook us dinner that night but we opted to go out instead. They even have a movie library to choose from if you wish to watch something in your room that night. Breakfast can be served in your room or you can join the other guests in the dinning room and eat your fill. We decided to join the 2 other couples (also from Ohio) for breakfast which consist of Stuffed French toast with an Apple Cider syrup, scrambled eggs with mushrooms or without, bacon, sausage and fruit salad. I think all of us were so stuffed after breakfast because we sat around and chatted for half an hour or so before heading to our separate rooms to pack up.

Here is a slide show of AngelWoods and a lookout point just a mile or so down the road we went to when we left.

We then headed to Mohican State Park to do some hiking before heading into Amish country and our next stop for the evening. It even rained and hailed on us but we still enjoyed our time. Here is some pictures from that adventure.

Last stop for the day was Amish Door in Wilmot, Ohio. We stayed at the hotel and at the Amish Door. There was a line but it is so worth the wait! That pumpkin pie cappuccino was yummy! We also did some geo caching on our way home Sunday as there was on at the Amish Door and a few others I wanted to get. Here is pictures from Amish Country (including two buggies on the road in front of us! shhh)

Now if you are still with me, It’s time for the card!  Today’s Try New Technique was to make a Wiper Card. You can find the directions here for the Wiper Card. 

I made the card to send to the hosts of AngelWoods. (yes, I enjoyed my visit that much! Plus she is a scrapbooker and we talked about stamping etc)

I used Giving Thanks and Autumn Garden by Our Craft Lounge, Prismacolor markers and copics to color and Helmar Liquid Scrap Dots to pop up the wreath. The main card’s layout is from Beate’s Weekend Sketch.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed my pictures as much as we enjoyed our time away.

Pumpkin patch, Pumpkin Pie (recipe) and Thank You Card

About every 5 yrs or so our local library takes the Storytime program on a field trip to the local pumpkin patch. Last week was our field trip to Circle Farms. The kids get to take a hay ride through the pumpkin patch with Dale stopping and picking different kinds of pumpkins/gourds and telling about them. They then go back and get a story or two read to them and get a snack (usually a pumpkin cookie and cider). When all the activities are done, we pay our little fee and then the kids get to pick out a gourd and a pie pumpkin to bring home. They also get a coloring book on pumpkins. Here is a small slide show of our field trip.

This year, Jorden wanted to make a pumpkin pie from a pumpkin so we bought an extra one. Of course that day we had the field trip was cold and I already had the start of a cold so we didn't get the pie made until yesterday. We even made our crust from scratch! Here is the link to the recipe we used that will show you how to use a 'real' pumpkin and even has the recipe for the crust. (we used half shortening and half butter in our crust... will make sense when you read the directions) http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php The kids thought it was a little too runny when we ate it yesterday. But after letting it sit over night, it is perfect! I even had a piece for breakfast today!

Jorden cleaning the seads out of the pumpkin before we cooked it.

Jorden rolling out the pie crust.

Jorden mixing the pie filling. Notice our nice pie crust.

Our Pumpkin Pie (yes we had whip cream on it.. when we ate it that is) all done next to the other pumpkins Jorden got at Circle Farms.

I used today's sketch 249 to make a thank you card to send to Circle Farms for giving us a tour,etc. I used Nuts About You from Our Craft Lounge. The squirrel was colored with copics. Pumpkins, acorns, leaves are stamped on the green in versamark. (yes, the main card is green, not getting a good shot of it today and too windy to take a picture outside) The sentiment and image are on dimensions. Leaf brads instered into the ribbon.

Sickie with a late card and Sale link!

Last week my kids had the cold and it was only a matter of time that I got it. Guess what? I got it!! Boy has it hit me hard from Wend on. Of course it didn't help that I was outside on a field trip Wend morning when it was cold. (more on that in a seperate post)

So anyways Wend is Sketch day on SCS. I always try to do the sketch. I did do it but the cold hit me so hard that I just now have the energy to upload it!!

I used Jolly Ornaments from Our Craft Lounge along with the ornament cuttlebug folder. I added Champagne Mist (shimmer paint) to the cuttlebug piece and to the individual ornaments. Scalloped square punch was used on the green and Christmas Matstack for the design paper. A simple quick Christmas card that would be perfect for mass production.

I used Helmar's Adhesive Runner to hold my card together. I'll have to admit, I've been using it more then my ATG gun!! And guess what? Helmar is having a sale on the runners! So run over to Helmar USA Design Team and see how you can get your hands on some. Wholesale inquiries are welcomed!