Big girls don’t cry

That’s a lie. Sometimes they do – like when their big girl moves out of state with her husband to start a new phase of their lives together.

My baby girl Laila and her husband Roy are moving down to the Virginia Beach area tomorrow so Roy can start his new job as a doctor (I’m so proud of him) at a hospital down there. Don’t they look wonderful and happy?
Roy’s family invited us out to a barbeque in Long Island yesterday to say farewell them. His mom Dottie cooked up a storm – incredibly delicious food that I ate waaay too much of!

I, of course, had to make a cake. It’s what I do.
That is a LOT of buttercream. Underneath it all is a dark chocolate cake filled with alternating layers of chocolate ganache and kirsch-soaked fresh cherries. I must say that it was very yummy, and very rich.

Roy’s sister Morgan made some beautiful (and very delicious) cupcakes. I confess that I was so full that I only tasted the little ones on the right – yummy little high-hats topped with marshmallow creme under chocolate coating. Well done, Morgan!

Anyhow, as I write this they are probably tossing things willy-nilly into cartons at the last minute before the truck comes at noon to pack up their lives and head down to VA first thing in the morning. And I’m sitting here with tears running down my face because I just realized that I never got a picture of us together yesterday. I know they’ll be back for visits, and I’ll go down there to visit, and it’s not forever, and all that stuff that people say, but still…

IHP DT August Challenge: Beat the Heat!

In many parts of the country, or the western hemisphere for that matter, August is the hottest, stickiest month of the year. This year in particular, we’ve had an especially brutal summer. So our challenge this month was to create a card/project using COOL colors and/or few layers.

I went for the cool colors, but actually ended up with a little more layering than I usually do. Overall, I think I ended up with a pretty cool card!
To begin with, I chose my patterned paper from the Basic Grey 6x6 pad Eskimo Kisses (it doesn’t get much cooler than that!). The branch and bird cage are from the Ashley’s Blooms set by My Cute Stamps. I stamped the cage and the sentiment (from an old Hero Arts set in my stash) in Memento London Fog to keep the cool feeling going. I outlined the branch with my Copic Marker BG11 to give the impression of the sky without coloring the whole thing, and to set off the white of the blossoms. The white lacy strip is some Basic Grey self-adhesive paper ribbon, also from my stash. The bird cage is popped up on Sticky Thumbs dimensional dots for some added depth.

The layout of the card was taken from this week’s Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 130, although I did kinda flip it around a little bit to suit the stamps.

If you’d like to play along with our challenge, we’d love to see what you do! Just upload your creation to the SCS or PCP gallery with the keyword “ihp0811” so we can find it.

Now go hop around and see what Kate and the rest of the IHP Design Team came up with for this chilly challenge:

• Deb
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Tracy
• Kate

Stay cool!

I love pink

Really, I do.

Stamps: Little Loveosaurus (MFT)
Ink: Memento Black, Copic R81 (for airbrushing)
Paper: A Fair Day (S.E.I.)
Other: Big Scalloped Ovals Nestabilities, Sweet Blush satin ribbon (PTI), self-adhesive pearls (airbrushed R81), Shabby Pink Smooch (TE)

Unity Hop-Along

Hi! Today the IHP DT is Hip Hopping along with the Unity Design Team. So be sure to check all their blogs for fabulous projects showcasing Unity! In celebration of this little hop, ALL full-sized Unity kits at IHP are $12 or less! But, there is VERY limited inventory and these past kits will not be restocked, so don’t wait or you might miss your chance to get them at this fabulous price.

Here’s my card:
It uses the Unity Itty Bitty set By a Thread, and paper from the Stella Rose Hazel 6x6 pad. I used one of the Copic markers that I colored one of the thread spools with to dye the white ribbon the same color, and added a little faux stitching with a white opaque pen. The patterned paper and the focal circle are cut with Nestabilities.

I don’t usually do any “dressing up” on the inside, but this time I did.
Go check out what the rest of the IHP DT did with their Unity stamps:

Kate
Tracy
Kendra
Lori
Deb
Lynn
Gretchen
Loretta

Happy hopping, and happy SHOPPING!

Two days in a row!

Here’s another card I made recently with some goodies I got at CHA a couple of weeks ago. It has sort of a rustic feel to it, which is pretty much outside my comfort zone.

The nice people at the Scor-Pal booth were kind enough to give me a Scor-Bug tool when I mentioned that I’d been wanting to try one. That was the launching point for this card, which uses a kraft panel edged with the little bugger.

At the Simple Stories booth, they had some samples of paper from the Days of Summer collection out for the taking. It was a piece that had circles of different patterns from the collection, so I punched some butterflies out of a few of them, and a circle out of another. I trimmed it with some adhesive paper lace from Basic Grey, and stamped it with one of my favorite stamps from Papertrey’s Signature Greetings set. The butterflies are blinged up a bit with rhinestones. Had to add some bling somewhere!

It’s a beautiful day, and I’m gonna head out for a long walk, ‘cause I think it’s supposed to rain later.

Let’s play catch-up

I’ve been stamping a lot, but not blogging a lot. Need to do something about that, since I do enjoy sharing my creations (even if the inspiration for them is often liberally borrowed from others). No excuse except for laziness, I suppose, and the fact that I don’t feel very chatty. So I decided that the answer, at least for the time being, is to set out to just post pictures of the stuff, and not put pressure on myself to be witty or verbose, and just see what develops.

There were a lot of friends’ birthdays in July and I realized I never posted pictures of the cards. Sadly, not all of these friends actually got cards. Blame it on Facebook.

So let’s start the game of catch-up with a couple of the cards that actually got made and mailed.

This was for my wonderful friend Kate (owner of i {heart} papers). Paper is from the For the Record collection kit, stamps are Technique Tuesday’s Stamping in Circles, and I used one of the Spellbinders fancy tags set for the scrolled medallion piece. I loved how it coordinated so well with the paper and stamp design! I colored in the white space on the circle thingie with a Copic marker to make it match the paper better. What I forgot is that Kate is not fond of red. Sorry!

Next up was my friend Jackie’s birthday. Jackie loves purple. This I remember because I do too. I used a stamp from the Stained Glass set by Flourishes, and paper from the Memory Box Enchanted 6x6 pack. I had fun with my Copic markers with this one. I even remembered to take a picture of which ones I used. Hmm, I see that I missed a couple. Sorry!

OK, I think I’ve used up my word quota for this post. Hopefully there will be more later. Words, I mean. And posts.

Later,

July IHP DT Challenge: Charity Logo Inspiration

For this month’s IHP Design Team Challenge, we were asked to use the logo of a favorite charity as inspiration for our card or project. I doubt there’s anyone reading this whose lives have not been touched in some way by breast cancer, and my family is no exception. I used the logo of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® as inspiration for this cute little phone message pad.

I love their whimsical use of the ribbon image to represent a person running, since the fundraiser they’re famous for is the Mother’s Day Race for the Cure. I used the whimsical-looking telephone from the Just My Type stamp set by Lawn Fawn, stamping it in Memento Tuxedo Black and coloring it with Copic markers for the main image, and stamping it repeatedly in light pink as a background as well as on the bottom corner of each page of the note pad. I used a piece of yummy Light Fuschia Faux Suede ribbon around the bottom of the top panel to visually balance it and give it a little texture. It’s all mounted on a layer of light pink over a base cover of PTI Raspberry Fizz cardstock.

If you’d like to know more about Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, simply click on the logo above. If you’d like to show us how a favorite charity logo has inspired you, we’d love to see your work. Just post it to the SCS or PCP gallery using the keyword ihp0711 so we can find it.

Now go check out what Kate and the rest of the IHP Design Team did with this challenge:

• Deb
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Megan
• Tracy
• Kate

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby’s Birthday Weekend

OK, she’s not a baby. But she’ll always be MY baby, no matter how many times she celebrates birthdays! This year my youngest, Annisa, set a goal to move into her own apartment (and out of the one she shared with her sister) by her birthday, and she did it! She found a gorgeous studio apartment in Manhattan, and christened it with a double-header birthday celebration – one for friends and one for family – since it isn’t quite big enough to handle everyone at once. This called for two cakes. And one card. Very clever of me: offer to make cakes for both parties and you get to go to both of them!

Here’s Cake #1:
I tried to tie the colors in with her apartment (the sofa is orange, the rug is black and grey, table is white, chairs are black). This was a 9” chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, raspberry jam and fresh raspberries. Covered in orange and black fondant. Very yummy.

Cake #2 was a 6” carrot cake with cream cheese frosting:
Very yummy as well. I ate altogether too much cake this weekend. And drank too much wine. I think I’m gonna skip my weigh-in tomorrow.

And here’s the birthday card:

Because she is my beautiful, ever-evolving butterfly. Wish BIG, my sweet baby! And fly high. Love you, Annisa!

 

(isn’t she gorgeous?!!)

New Improved Storage!

I had a very full weekend! Took a little road trip with my sister down to New Hope, PA to see my brother play with an awesome Steely Dan tribute band, and to celebrate his birthday. And on the way back, we stopped at Ikea. I’ve been keeping all of my PTI stamp sets in CD boxes on a shelf in my craft closet, but somehow the ones I use most end up sitting on the desk, cluttering it up. I had some space on the wall in front of me, and I found these fabulous wall-hung CD racks at Ikea that would let me store all of my MANY PTI sets right in my face!

And see – I even have room for more! Each unit is about 34” long and holds 76 CD cases. It’s called Lerberg, and it was ridiculously cheap – like less than $6, I think! And they can be hung horizontally or vertically, whichever suits your space better.

If you’re wondering what is right below the racks, it’s a magnetic strip that I hung there so I could keep inspiration/reference things handy, like the printed out sketch challenges every week. There are little magnet circles holding the papers up.

To put it all in perspective, here’s what’s above my desk:
On the left is the ribbon rack that my Dad made me last year. The lower shelves are great for keeping my ink pads and Bow Easy handy, as well as my stash of buttons. Martha punches sit nicely on top of the unit, and a flex-neck lamp is clamped onto it. There’s another lamp you can see on the desktop at left. Can never have too much lighting, especially with these aging eyes!

Sitting underneath the ribbon unit are the plastic boxes with X-dividers that hold all my Copic markers.

It’s great to have everything at my fingertips. Now I just need to spend some time playing with it all!

Holy Macarons!

These little Parisian nuggets of decadence, made of ground almonds, egg whites and sugar, are all the rage in NYC now. I’ve heard nothing but how difficult they are to make, so of course I had to give it a try. And because it is the way I am, I researched the topic to death! Read every blog, every recipe, every tip sheet that I could lay my hands on that had anything to do with macarons over the last week.

Tonight, after aging my egg whites for 48 hours, I screwed up my courage and gave it a go. After lots of measuring, weighing, sifting and beating, the results are better than I expected for my first time. Slightly browned (they aren’t supposed to be), and slightly chewier than I think they should be, they are nonetheless BEAUTIFUL to me. Look at those dainty little frilly feet! They are filled with seedless raspberry jam. And for all that work, I only got ONE DOZEN out of it.

They’re supposed to get better, taste and texturewise, after aging a day or two.

Somehow I don’t think I’m gonna find out.

IHP Design Team Challenge – and a SALE!

This month, the i {heart} papers Design Team was challenged to create something based on “Sensational Summer.” Being that summer actually begins today, I think it’s quite appropriate!

Using some bright, summer-y papers (Echo Park’s Summer Days) and one of my favorite Chicken Girl Design stamp sets (Hugs from a Bug), this is what I came up with:

I paper-pieced the smiling sun in the corner using an old OCL set (Sunshine Cheer) and highlighted it with some yellow Stickles. The grass that the cute ant is walking on is covered with Flower Soft. The layout was based on this week’s Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge (which kinda gives away the fact that I waited until the last minute to do  this!).   

Before I send you over to see what the rest of the design team came up with to celebrate summer, let me tell you about the spectacular Pre-CHA Clearance Sale that Kate is having starting TODAY!

Even though new items are still arriving in the store (new Unity, OCL and Echo Park, to name a few), CHA is only a few weeks away! Starting today, IHP is having a HUGE Pre-CHA Clearance sale to help make room for new things that will be purchased at the show. Some highlights of the big sale:

• All Unity $12 or less, including store kits and co-brands
• Unity Itty Bittys $3.25
• OCL (except the latest releases) are all $11 or less
• All open stock 12x12 only 25¢ per sheet
• Flower Soft only $4.50!
• Stampavie only $6!

But there is much, much more, so be sure to check out the sale page for all the details! And, as always, free US shipping with your $50 order!

Now go check out what these very talented ladies came up with for this challenge:

• Deb
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Megan
• Tracy
• Kate

And then GO SHOPPING!!!! Happy Summer, everybody!

It’s been too long

I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. No good excuses – just caught up in baking stuff and family stuff, so my downtime was really crash time. But I’m jumping back in with this little number. I think it says it all…

I used this week’s sketch challenge from The Sweet Stop (SSS111). When my mojo is stalled, sketch challenges usually get me started again. The typewriter stamp is from Just my Type from Lawn Fawn, but the message stamped on the paper is from the Talking in Circles set from Technique Tuesday. I love being able to mix and match my stamp sets! The patterned papers, the border and letter stickers are from the fabulous For the Record 12x12 Collection Kit. Of course all of these, as well as the Copic markers I used to color the typewriter and Nestabilities I used to cut it out, are available from i {heart} papers.

I have more to catch you all up on (those of you who are still following me after my abysmal posting track record), but that will have to wait a bit. For now, I’ll just say that I’m glad to be (hopefully) back in the swing of things, and I truly appreciate (more than I can say) those of you who are actually reading this.

Later,

IHP DT Challenge – Color Blocking

This month our fearless i {heart} papers design team challenge coordinator, Deb, challenged us to use the Color Blocking technique for our card or project. I know there are many variations of this, and some are more clean and simple than what I ended up doing. Anyway…

I’ve been wanting to make a Gratitude Journal for a long time. I bought the blank lined book ages ago, and decided that this challenge was the perfect opportunity to actually do it. So I grabbed a piece of graph paper and started sketching out block designs until I came up with one I was happy with.

Then I broke out my Echo Park “For The Record” 12x12 Collection Kit and started cutting. The rose, letters and words I added are all from the kit as well. The stamped words on the yellow block at the lower right are from the OCL set Big Thanks – I just selectively inked and stamped (with my favorite Palette Noir ink) the words I wanted, omitting the ones I didn’t. It’s a great way to get added value from the stamps you have.

The blocks were first arranged and glued down to a black cardstock piece cut to the size I needed to cover the ugly print that was already stuck on the front of the book. After it was all decorated to my liking, I used my i {stick} papers redline tape to adhere it to the book.

All in all, I’m pleased with how it came out. Thanks, Deb, for forcing my hand on this. Oooh – that can be my first entry for my gratitude journal! And of course, I’m grateful for all of you who are actually taking the time to look at this :-)

Now go check out what the rest of the IHP design team did with this challenge:

Kate
Deb
Gretchen
Kendra
Loretta
Lori
Lynn
Megan
Tracy

And if you’d like to play along and show us your Color Blocking designs, just load them into the SCS or PCP gallery with the keyword ihp0511 so we can find it.

Special Announcement from i {heart} papers

I just wanted you to know that there were some yummy new additions to the store this week, so be sure to check the new section in the store. And, LUCKY YOU…tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day so IHP has a 10% off coupon for you when you spend $40 or more, valid starting today through Sunday. Use code NSD2011DT. Plus, all single digistamps are only $1. And all orders of $100 or more will get a free extra gift from Kate as a thank you. It might be a paper sampler or a stamp or something else! It’ll be a surprise!

So what are you waiting for? Go shopping!

I {heart} baking

This is what I’ve been up to for the last couple of days. My grandpuppy, Sugar, turned 1 year old (in people years) yesterday, and my daughter invited some of Sugar’s doggie friends over today to celebrate. Of course, I had to bake some treats for the doggies, so I whipped up a batch of these yummies. All kinds of good stuff in there – banana, apple sauce, carrots, whole wheat flour, spelt flour and oats. Honestly, there’s nothing in there that I wouldn’t eat. But I didn’t try them. The dogs loved them, though.I packaged them up like this:
 

And we must have some goodies for the people, right? What could be better than some pupcakes? Got the idea from the Martha Stewart website. Very time consuming, but sooo cute! And very yummy. The ears and eyes are made of chocolate, and the noses are Raisinettes.

And because this past Monday was my son-in-law’s birthday, I baked a little something just for him – a Beer Batter Bread with Gruyere and Rosemary. It smelled divine when I baked it this morning, and I’m sure it will taste just as good. I got the recipe from the Bake at 350 blog, here. Super simple. Here it is in all its glory:

I just love the way my house smells when I bake. I do NOT like the way my kitchen looks afterward. I need somebody to stand next to me and clean up as I go. Any volunteers?