Tea

I love tea. With the mornings being cooler I get to enjoy hot tea again. My oldest daughter enjoys it too. While she likes all sorts of flavored tea, I'm a black tea sort of girl. Nothing fancy, just a good hot cup with milk and sugar.

I made up this cute teacup that I saw on Pinterest. There were no instructions (don't you hate that!) so I played around with it and came up with this. Over at Dynamic Duos, they are having a challenge with pink so I decided to go with those colors for the teacup.

cs: blushing bride, primrose petals, ink: SU primrose petals, stamp: IO

I'll post the instuctions later, once I get them figured out a little more. I'm still working on the bottom and how to hold it together better. I think it would be cute filled with candy or tea or hot chocolate... the possibilities are endless!  

I also decided to make up some tea bag holders. I think they will make nice gifts. Here is one of them.

      

There were a couple other challenges that I made a card for this week. One was over at Mojo Monday and the other was at CASology. The cue card for CASology was autumn and this is the sketch from Mojo Monday:

           

Here is my card for those two.

Photos by Bekah Joan

Sorry for such a long post! Hope you enjoyed a nice cup of tea while looking at it! 

Brenda

Summer's End

Well, it's official at our house. Summer is over. We closed the pool yesterday. It was sad watching the water drain out and putting the cover on. Even though I didn't use it a lot this summer, I will miss it, mostly because I know what comes next.

SNOW!!!!

I know, I know. Don't rush things. Autumn is first. But I needed a good lead in for the Merry Monday Christmas Challenge over at Always Playing With Paper. Snowmen!

So I went digging through my stash to see what snowman stamps I had, and came up with one I bought on ebay a couple months ago. Here is what I came up with.

I made a recessed window using a tutorial over at splitcoast stampers. I did it from memory, but I probably should have gone and looked again because I struggled with it a little. It's colored in with prismacolor pencils and gamsol blending solution, and the backgroud sky is inked using a sponge dauber. I don't think it shows up well in the picture, but I put liquid pearls on the stars.

There was a sketch challengeover at Paper Players that I did too. Here is the card I made for that one.

I love these stamps from Inky Antics. When you open them up they have honeyconb paper inside that just adds a nice touch. I think they would be great for a kids birthday.

photos by Bekah Joan

Thanks for stopping by today.

Brenda

Lunch Box Notes

My youngest daughter loves to write notes to put in her dad's lunches. She writes them with a sharpie on his sandwhich and snack bags. It's a nice way to let him know she's thinking about him, and I'm sure he enjoys it. I used to do it before I had kids, but when they came I barely had time to pack a lunch for him, let alone put a note in. It just fell by the wayside as they grew older, so I'm glad she's doing it.


The other day, while I was browsing through Pinterest, I came upon a cute idea for lunch box notes over at Simply Stamped using Papertrey Ink product.  I don't have any of their stuff, although my wishlist is very long, so I tried to think of a way to do something similar. Here is what I came up with.

photo by Bekah Joan

I don't have their nice die, but I do have a cuttlebug scorer that I snagged at a yard sale, so I cut a bunch of cardstock and scored it at the top. I then had a great time going through all my stamps to see what kind of notes I could come up with. I bundled them all together and put them in a little notebook that you can tear them out of and drop in someone's lunch box.  This is one of the sets I made that I'll be selling at the craft show. I have two others that I'll post later. 

It was a lot of fun making these up. Almost makes me wish my kids were in school so I could drop them in their lunches. Maybe I'll try putting one in my hubby's.

Thanks for stopping by.

Brenda

Friendship

The last of the girls have left from the wrangler reunion my youngest daughter hosted. A bunch of girls she worked with at a ranch this summer came up for a sleepover. A couple of them even traveled 3 hours to get here. They ate, played games, ate, stayed up late talking, watched a movie, ate, played more games, ate... well, you get the idea. I think they had a good time.

It got me thinking about friendships and how important they are. Where would we be without those special people in our lives who are with us through all the ups and downs, the good and the bad, and who love us even when we don't feel lovable?

As I watched and interacted with the girls, I thought about a stamp that I have had for years and has never seen ink. I bought it when my oldest was quite young (she's almost 20 now), thinking it would make a cute scrapbook page. So I decided to ink it up and make a card for girlfriends.

I just love the girls walking in step looking like they're having a great time. I colored them in with prismacolor pencils. The stamp is from Delafield Stamp Co. and the friends stamp is SU Love Matters. Paper is Pumpkin Pie and Pacific Point.

I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. Such a simple one and yet so vesatile. I made up another card using it too.

photos by Bekah Joan

This one uses the SU set Evergreen. I stamped the tree in Garden Green on white and the words on vellum in Stazon black. The dp is SU and Paper Studio. Black brads finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by and looking.

Brenda

Card Challenges

I have been enjoying some the card challenges that are out there. There are so many and I want to do them all! But alas, housework, homeschooling, and life seem to get in the way of crafting. 

I did manage to get one done for Mojo Monday this week. This is the sketch:

                                    

The design intriqued me because I couldn't think of what to do for that half circle. I really like what I came up with. The paper is all SU and the colors are Pacific Point and Wild Wasabi. It is a retired dp and I can't remember the name. I used the Tim Holtz rosette die and finished with a little pearl.

photo by Bekah Joan

                                                 
Well, I had better get back to my housework. I have a group of teenage girls descending on the house tonight for a sleepover so I better go hide the chocolate!

Thanks for looking.

Brenda

Pumpkins

I just bought my first pumpkin for this fall season. It's a pie pumpkin and every year I buy one or two thinking I will make pumpkin pie or muffins from scratch. I never seem to get around to it though. The pumpkins end up in the garbage because I got too busy or forgot about them. Maybe this year...

In honor of my pumpkin and inspired by The Shabby Tea Room's challenge using this picture

I made the following card.

It is supposed to be white/cream and neutral colors. My youngest daughter said it needed more color so I think I failed in my first attempt to do a totally neutral card. I think I should have sponged the edges of the pumpkins to give it more contrast. Maybe on the next one.

I used my Creative Memories oval cutter, which I bought years ago and never used till recently. Wow, am I ever finding it helpful! I only have one oval punch (how did that ever happen? Only one!) so I was glad to discover it at the bottom of my crafting stuff. 

Well, off to make more cards for the upcoming craft fair. Maybe even a colorful pumpkin one!

Brenda

Leaves

Although it's not officially fall, the leaves on my maple tree are starting to turn, the weather is cooler, and the sweet aroma of grapes is in the air. This is one of my favorite times of year. I love being able to get out the sweaters and snuggle down with a good book and a cup of tea. Ahhhh, bliss.

I also love all the colors of fall. So I got out some of my favorite fall card stock and ink and decided to play. Here are a couple of the cards I made.

This one I made for the Just Add Ink challenge. I think I got the idea from somewhere. Probably Pinterest. I want to play around with it a little more.

I used Stampin Up ink in cajun craze, old olive, raspberry ripple and old mustard (I'm really going to miss more mustard!). The stamps are CTMH and a Serendipity stamp. Card stock is vanilla and cajun craze. The leaves are fussy cut and I used a square punch to make the windows and pop dots to make it stand out. Finished it off with a raffia bow.

photos by Bekah Joan

I made this one for the SplitCoastStampers Challenge TLC447. It was to use a small stamp to fill up the background. I used the SU set Lovely as a tree and used the same colors as the one above (did I mention I'm going to miss more mustard). I used raffia in this one that I tried to dye with the cajun craze ink pad and a dauber. I think I got more on my hands than the raffia! There is probably an easier way. I'll have to work on that.

I'm sure I'll be posting many more fall cards in the next few weeks. Hope you enjoy!

Brenda

A Pair of Pears

I harvested our pear tree today. We got a pretty impressive yield considering our tree is only two years old.

We planted it two years ago and were very dutiful last year in removing all the flowers. But this year we couldn't resist letting the fruit develop. And we were rewared with a very nice crop. Not enough to can, but certainly enough to munch on for a week.

In honor of our bountiful blessing, here are two pear cards I made.

This card uses SU soft suede and pear pizzazz cs as well as some of their dp. The pear is a Sissix Big Z die that I got on sale (I love sales!). The embossing folder is from Darice and the tag is an old one I had laying around. I sponged the edges with early expresso ink.

This one I really don't know what the color paper is in the background. It was just laying around so I used it. The dp is SU and the pear is in soft suede. The folder is paper studio.

As always, photo credit goes to my daughter, Bekah Joan. Check out her blog. She has some great photos.

Grapes and Wine Tags

The weather has been really warm here (read hot!) the last couple days, making the grape vines that surround our house smell heavenly. I have been getting wiffs of them for a week or so now, reminding me that fall is coming soon.

The girls have been out stealing them to snack on so I've been seeing the skins spit out all over the driveway. They are concord grapes so you don't eat the skin or seeds, as my youngest informed me. You just suck the juice out. 

The wonderful aroma reminded me that the wine festival is coming and I have a craft fair that I am going to be in right around the corner. So I decided to make wine tags.

I recently bought the "Let's Toast" stamp and die set from My Favorite Things and decided to play with it. Here are some of the designs I came up with.

all tag photos taken by my wonderful daughter Bekah Joan

It was fun coming up with them, and I have orders all ready! Looking forward to making more for Halloween, as well as Christmas and New Years. Hope you enjoy.

Brenda