New Goodies in the House!

There are new goodies in the house!  I got the new catty today along with a couple of new stamp sets, and a bundle of the new color card stock and ink pads.  I've only had time to look through the catalog once but so far, I'm liking it!!  I'm sending one of the stamp sets back - I ordered the wrong Hostess sneak peek but tomorrow I'll be using the other stamp set (Because I Care) and I'll be sharing.

For now though, I made a card using Design Elements stencils that I got last week and just got around to opening them tonight!  I love them!  You get three stencils in the pack for $9.95 - very reasonable I think.  To see some of the other stencils, click HERE. 

Here's my card and my "how-to's" -

I temporarily taped the stencil to my Very Vanilla cardstock and sponged Crumb Cake (the old Kraft - now in an ink pad) over the fleur stencil.  Then without moving the stencil, I stamped some of the images from the Priceless stamp set over the fleur in Early Espresso (a very dark brown).  I dyed my taffeta white ribbon Early Espresso with a sponge dauber.  Then I stamped "wonderful" from Warm Words on the bottom.  I layered the Vanilla piece onto a piece of Early Espresso.  I stamped the swirl from Priceless on my Crumb Cake card.  I love it!!

July Monday Mailers

I got a call yesterday from my daughter.  She had arrived at Ft. Polk (Louisiana) safe and sound.  We all thought (as did she) that she would be roughing it out in the swamp land of Louisiana battling mosquitoes, but we were wrong.  Her group got assigned to barracks which are air-conditioned!  She is in the officer's quarter with 4 other women who are all a lower rank than she is.  She said 4-5 of the guys all told her they would get some lumber and build a partition for her privacy.  She assured them that she was ok and didn't need a partition!  While I was talking to her, someone came into her quarters and issued her a weapon ... but no magazine or ammo!  Luckily while we were in Texas, she went out with her Dad and his friend, Don, so they could teach her to shoot and she did real well.  She'd never shot a weapon before!  She never went through Basic Training when she joined the Army - it always conflicted with her Medical School classes so she's had to learn Army stuff as she's gone along.  She found out more details about her deployment - she won't be going to Ft. Hood until Aug. 25 and will be leaving for Iraq early in September.  She will be going to  Mosul.  She said most of the soldiers are disappointed that they will not be on the frontlines of the action.  Not me!!  I'm quite pleased with safety if such a thing is possible with a country at war.  When my son was over there 5 years ago, he worked in one of Hussain's palaces!

Another month of Monday Mailers.  Seems like I'm not the only one who struggles with making masculine cards.  I asked the gals what they wanted the theme to be for July and I got a couple of requests for masculine cards.  When I was at Ashley's, my supplies were limited.  She has this "Cheer to You" stamp set that I don't have so I made my card with it.  I wanted to make the beer foam with a white gel pen, but she didn't have one.  I even went to Michael's and JoAnns in search of one but with no luck.  So ... I stamped the foam onto white cardstock and cut it out.  There's more than one way to skin a cat!!  I used Brillant Blue, Creamy Caramel and More Mustard.  This was my card for the first week of July.

So, this weekend when I wasn't feeling so good, I managed to made this card.  It's pretty simple and uses BoHo Backgrounds which will be retiring in a couple of weeks.  I used Bordering Blue with Creamy Caramel and Close to Cocoa on this one with a brown Jumbo Brad.

This is the card I received last week from my MM partner, Danielle.  These colors are great!  She used the Butterfly Punch making it easy!!

Card Challenge 411

Sorry my posting has been sporatic.  Ever since I returned from Texas, I just have not felt good - allergies, vertigo ...!  I don't know how I lived in Texas for 22 years.  Of course, I had constant sinus drainage the whole time we were there and just thought that was normal.  And, every year, like clock work, I had sinus infections in February and October.  Since Ashley moved back there, we have visited her twice and I have come home sick both times.  Saturday, I was feeling good and thought I was on the road to recovery.  Yesterday, Sonny  & I went over to Concord Mills and then to Ben Franklin.  By the time I got home, I was so nauseous -  I crashed on the couch for a few hours and had saltines and butter for dinner!  Guess that was better than Sonny's dinner of ice cream & nuts!  Today I felt better so I took my decongestant and went to play bridge but I am dragging now. 

I did have a little time this weekend to make a card just for fun!  I did it for the Stamping 411 challenge.  I had seen this really cute flower and wanted to give it a try.  Here's the link to making the flower if you want to give it a try. 

This is the sketch I had to follow:

This is my card:

I used the designer paper from the Summer Mini, Island Oasis.  The piece of paper on the top actually has a white background but I sponged Rose Red over it (see sample below).  The flower is made with Rose Red cardstock; the leaves are from the Island Floral Die from the Summer Mini in Old Olive (I creased them down the middle and sponged them).

Here is a close up view of the DSP:

See, you can alter your paper any way you want it!

Well, Ashley left today for Fort Polk in Louisiana for her training for Iraq deployment.  She will be there for 2 weeks "roughin it".  I can't even imagine how hot and muggy it will be and I figure the mosquitoes will carry her away!  She'll be here late in July for a visit with us before leaving for Fort Hood in August and Iraq in September. 

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Whew, it's been hot the past few days!  When I got home yesterday after playing mahjong, Sonny was down at the boat chillin' (if that's possible when it's 90 degrees!)  I joined him about 4 pm with the hopes of the heat dying down some.  We rode around a little and then threw the anchor and he read his book while I napped.  The only problem was, I kept waking myself up with my snoring!  I'm still congested and was laying on my back ... otherwise, I don't think that I snore!!  We went to a restaurant on the lake - catfish for Sonny & BBQ for me - yum! 

This morning, I did a card demonstration for a friend's church group.  My sister, Marianne, came along to help out.  We had 12 ladies and I think they really enjoyed making the simple cards.  I always enjoy teaching others what I love.  Here is the card we made:

They had their choice of stamps from Pun Fun and Fun & Fast Notes.  We didn't emboss their cards - I did this one when I got home.  Simple, but cute.

After that, I stopped at a local produce stand in Mooresville and got some fresh veggies.  Sonny & I had good tomato sandwiches for lunch.  I know it's summertime when I can eat a wonderful tomato sandwich.  I have some tomatoes planted in one of the Topsy Turvy Tomato Hangers and I actually have 3 good sized tomatoes on it!  We went out again later in the afternoon on the boat but this time, there was not a breeze to be found.  It was soooo humid!  We kept moving our location trying to find a breeze.  It was another night of no cooking for me!  We went to a place on the lake and got a "to go" wedge salad with blue cheese and ate it right in our boat!  

I'm probably going to stay in tomorrow and work on getting my stamp room in some kind of order.  It's just a mess right now.  I need to make room for the new stamp pads and paper that I'll be getting next week along with a couple of stamps from the new catty.  I should also get a copy of the new catalog with the order too.  Can't wait!!

I've had a few people inquire about the designer paper I printed off My Digital Studio in THIS post.  If you don't have MDS (you really should get it!!) but want to print off the papers, you can do it with whatever design program you have - like Kodak, Photoshop, Corel, etc.  You just need to download the papers as a .jpeg file and download them into your program.  It's really easy and the downloads are pretty inexpensive.   Click HERE and look under Digital Crafting.

Designer Paper from MDS

I'm still not feeling my best but at least I didn't have the vertigo today.  I attended a Southern Living Luncheon today.  Each one of us make a dish out of a current Southern Living magazine and share.  After the meal, we critiqued the recipe - not the cook!  I chose a Two Cheese Summer Squash Casserole and it was delicious!  You can get the recipe HERE.  We started out the luncheon with two appetizers - Shrimp & Bacon Deviled Eggs and Stuffed Mushrooms w/pecans (both in April's mag.).  The salads were:  Greek Caesar Salad (April) and Picnic Potato Salad (May).  The entree was Lemon Chicken (June) with my squash and Oregano Green Beans (April) plus Herb Spoon Rolls (June).  For dessert we had Pecan-Peach Cobbler (June).  The hostess also served us Kentucky Mimosas .... yummy (March mag.)  Everything was delicious.  I don't like mushrooms but I was polite and tried one.  The only thing I didn't care for was the green beans - the flavor was good but the beans were tough.  It is a great way to try dishes you wouldn't ordinarily make. 

When I came home, I played around a bit in my craft room with My Digital Studio.  I was so pleased with the results!  I printed out some Designer Paper that is a recent download and I love it!  I was able to print out 4 to a page.  Here are the pages I did and a few of the cards I made with the DSP.  It is such pretty paper that you don't have to add anything to the card other than a sentiment.

 

 

Clearance Items

Stampin' Up is continuing to offer deals in the Clearance Rack.  The Crafter's Tool Kit is being offered now for $15.99.  It was $40 when it was offered in the catalog!  What a deal!

Other items include lots of Designer Paper, eyelets, ribbon and a new card kit.  Place your order by visiting my SU website and clicking on shop now HERE.

I got back home late Tuesday night with no problems.  We had a change of planes in Dallas.  We had an hour between flights but it was tight.  There were 5 wheelchair people on our flight into DFW.  So, we had to wait for each one to be brought off the plane; then wait for the cart to pick us all up and take us from Terminal C to Terminal A.  Just as we got to our gate, they were paging Mom to put her in the wheelchair to put her on the plane to Charlotte.  When I got all our stuff stored, I realized I'd left my electronic bridge game in the plane that I'd just gotten off of.  I love that game!  I've had it about eight years and would hate to lose it.  Today, I called the AA Lost & Found in Dallas and, of course, only got an answering machine so I left my message.  The flight was continuing on to Oklahoma City so I tried their Lost & Found.  Not only did I get to talk to a real person, but she had my game!!  Yay!  UPS will be delivering it back to me on Friday.   Today I haven't felt too good.  My allergies only seem to bother me when I'm in Texas and they really gave me fits last week.  I've been taking nasal decongestants, allergy decons, and Motrin. That on top of a touch of vertigo had me laying on the couch a lot today. I haven't had vertigo in a few years.  It's real weird - I get it every so often.  It always comes on while I'm sleeping and turn over, turning my head too fast.  Hopefull, I'll feel better tomorrow and be able to make a card to share.  It's been a long, dry spell!

Weight Watching Snacks and Tips

SNACK SIZE SWEET PINEAPPLE CORN MUFFINS
These muffins have a natural sweetness from the combination of corn and crushed pineapple. They are great as a snack or with a nice garden salad.

Serves 12
Ingredients
♦ 1 cup whole-wheat flower
♦ 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
♦ 1/2 cup ground flaxseed
♦ 1/3 cup sugar
♦ 1 tsp baking powder
♦ 1/2 tsp baking soda
♦ 1/2 teaspoon salt
♦ 3/4 cup buttermilk
♦ 2/3 cup fresh corn kernels, cut from 1 lg ear of corn
♦ 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple in juice
♦ 2 eggs, lightly beaten
♦ 1 egg white, lightly beaten
♦ 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Coat a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, flaxseed, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, corn, pineapple with juice, eggs, egg white, and butter. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the cornmeal mixture until moistened.
Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the muffins are lightly browned around the edges and have pulled away from the sides of the pan. Remove the muffins and let cool on a wire rack. ~~~Prevention Fiber Up, Slim Down Cookbook

100 CALORIE FROZEN TREATS
Frozen treats are good anytime of the year. You can indulge and enjoy without going overboard. It's a treat, not a meal.
♦ Nonfat frozen yogurt, 1/2 cup [2 golf balls]
♦ Light or fat-free ice cream 1/2 cup
♦ No-sugar-added ice cream, 1/2 cup
♦ Italian ice, 1/2 cup
♦ Chocolate ice cream, 1/3 cup [1/2 tennis ball]
♦ Super premium chocolate ice cream, 4 tbsp [golf ball]
♦ Sorbet, 1/2 cup
♦ Fudgsicle

How about those toppings? How 'safe' are they? Here are a few toppings listed with their corresponding calories per tablespoon.

♦ Whipped cream, 10
♦ Raisins, 27
♦ Granola, 28
♦ Chocolate syrup, 41
♦ Chopped almonds, 47
♦ Butterscotch topping, 52
♦ Chocolate chips, 52
♦ Strawberry topping, 53
♦ Hot fudge topping, 70
♦ M&M's, 71
♦ Chocolate sprinkles, 72
♦ Peanut butter candies, 75
~~~Heart Healthy Guide from Providence Hospital

DRIVE BY EATING!!

One thigh of Original Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken, 20 grams of fat. Make it Extra Crispy, and then it's 27 grams of fat. Oh heck, throw in the mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuit. That is a whopping total of 660 calories and 40 grams of fat in a single serving.

A Grilled Stuft Burrito with beef at Taco Bell, 680 calories and 30 grams of fat. Switching to chicken doesn't bring the totals down much, 640 calories and 23 grams of fat. (even though chicken is less fatty than beef, this menu item contains saturated and trans fats.)

A Big Mac at McDonald's, 540 calories and 29 grams of fat. The medium french fries bring in 380 calories and 19 grams of fat. Let's have water for our drink. Think it helps much? This meal comes to be a total of 920 calories and 48 grams of fat.

Burger King's Whopper, 670 calories and 39 grams of fat. Add cheese and the fat rises to 47 grams. Let's make it a combo, adding the medium fries, 20 more fat grams. With a medium coke added to your combo, your total calories and fat for this meal are 1330 calories and 67 grams of fat.

How about a Wendy's Baconator? It comes in at 830 calories and 51 grams of fat. Adding a medium order of fries and a medium chocolate Frosty and your eating a total of 1670 calories and 81 grams of fat in one meal!    ~~~Eat This and Live by Don Colbert, MD

Monday mailers for May plus a BD card

I have a few card shares for you.  These are cards I mailed out before I left NC.

This is the Monday Mailer I sent.  I used the die cut notecard and embossed it with a Big Shot embossing folder.  The paper behind the flower (die cut) is Pink Flamingo DSP and is on the Last Chance List.  The flower in the center is from Tropical Party (in the Summer Mini).  I made a Cameo Coral backing for the card using the Corner Punch and Scallop Punch.

This is a birthday card I made using some retired DSP.  The stamp is from Party Hearty (I think - I don't have my catty with me!).  The arrow punch (My Way punch) is being RETIRED and is on the Last Chance List.

This is a birthday card I mailed to my friend, Margaret's husband.  This is a Northwood stamp.  I will be teaching a class at Stampers Alley in a couple of weeks using this stamp and several other water/nature scenes similar to this one.

Two Weddings and a ...... Good Time Texas Style!

OK - I'm waiting for my mom to wake up so have a few minutes to tell you all about the wedding we attended last week.  For those of you who don't know, my nephew got married and they chose a CARNIVAL theme for the wedding.  A little different and I was really interested to see how they pulled it off.  The wedding invitations were really cute - using a carnival type font in Brillant Blue with a belly-band wrapped around it.  I think the only drawback to the whole thing was that it was held outside and it was HOT!  The location was near downtown Austin so there wasn't a lot of breeze blowing.  When we returned to our hotel that night at midnight, it was still 85 degrees so you can imagine how hot it was (90's) at 6:30!  Anyway, it is easier to explain it to you with the pictures.

This was at the Rehearsal Lunch which was held at a restaurant (outside of course!) last Thursday.  This is the groom, me, Ashley and my neice, Melinda.  Ashley, Sonny & I arrived early and decorated the tables with confetti and the carnival collage of pictures I had made.  We ended up supporting the pictures with empty bottles with mini multi-colored slinkies on them so they would look like the ring toss bottles that you see in carnivals.  It was cute until the kids that were there took all the slinkies!!

Ashley with my nephews.  Jake was an usher and Zach was the ring bearer.  They have on seersucker suits!

For the ceremony, we sat on hay bales that were covered with patchwork quilts.  There were jars with flowers in them on shepherd hooks down the center aisle.

After the ceremony, tables were set up for seating although not many people sat for too long.  The heat was pretty well trapped in there!  But the tables were decorated nicely with big rolls of tickets with jars holding flowers on top of them.

These were the table centerpiences.

This is a table tiered with candy apples!  What a great idea.  On each candy apple, was a tag with your name and table assignment.

A unique wedding cake!

This was the groom's cake.  My nephew is a big football fan .... unfortunately, he pulls for the wrong team (Dallas Cowboys) but guess I can't hold that against him!!  We give him plenty of grief for sure.

This was a wonderful idea and a great hit with the kids!  All different kinds of candies and little baggies with the happy couple's name on it and little twist ties so you could bag your own candy.  Above the table was a banner that read "Balloon Express."  My sister (groom's mother) owned a store years ago called The Balloon Express in Vernon, Texas.  She sold all kinds of candies and did a balloon delivery service.  She died 2 1/2 years ago so this display was a surprise to all of us.  It was definitely bitter-sweet and really got to my brother in law.

After the ceremony, waiters walked around serving mini corny dogs and there were machines dispensing cotton candy, soft pretzels, and popcorn.  For dinner there was a buffet serving Chicago Hot Dogs with all the fixins', pizza, fried pickles, macaroni and cheese and sliders.  Not your normal wedding reception fare!

The bride is wiping the sweat off the groom - it was pouring down his face!

They also had a photo booth available for taking pictures.  It dispensed 2 sets of the the pictures - one for you to keep and the other to go in a keepsake book for the couple.  Another great idea.  They had props for you to wear if you wanted to in the pictures - like fake mustach, boas, hats, etc.   Really cute.  They didn't do the traditional bouquet toss or garter mainly because Katrina forgot to put the garter on.  Why should they?  Nothing else was traditional???!  When they were ready to leave, we all had sparklers to light instead of throwing bird seed or rice.

Jack and Kat's wedding was on Friday night.  On Saturday, my neice had a "going away" party at her home for the couple (although they are waiting until August to go away on their honeymoon since they ran out of money!)  She served breakfast tacos, doughnuts, kolaches, bloody mary's, and mimosas.  We left around noon to drive back to Ashley's house, taking Melinda's two boys with us.  I understand the party continued on much later than was planned!

Jack, Katrina and Melinda - the bride & groom are opening their wedding gifts that were brought to the wedding Friday night.

We drove back to Austin on Sunday, dropped Melinda's boys off to her and continued on to Georgetown (north of Austin) for a second wedding of a dear friend of ours.  It was a bit more traditional.  It was also held outside but because of being outside the city, it was much cooler.  Plus, they had fans all around (which Sonny pretty much parked himself in front of!)  The bride was beautiful and beaming.  We are good friends with her and her family and were able to see a lot of our old Coppell friends that we had not seen in quite some time.  The cutest thing at this wedding was when the groom said "I DO", the bride turned to the crowd and exclaimed "HE DOES!!"  The whole place cracked up.  Also when she was walking down the aisle on her daddy's arm, I heard her say to him, "Daddy, everyone's crying!"  Yes, I was crying - she looked so beautiful.

Sonny has always called her "PITA" (pain in the butt) so this was a fitting picture of the two of them.  Plus, he dared me to put this on my blog!

I was having fun!  This is an old high school buddy of my son's who still calls me "Mom"!  He introduced me all night as his mom.

HE DOES!!

Save the Ransom ... I'm still here!

Sorry about the lack of posting lately.  I'm still in Texas and have been super busy!  Today was about the first day that I did absolutely nothing and had planned on blogging and doing some catching up this a.m.  BUT we didn't have any power.  A big storm hit the area last night with winds at about 65 mph and Ashley's neighborhood looked like a disaster area this a.m.  We were having dinner when the storm hit and had to make a dash for the car in the storm (not easy with my 82 year old mom!).  As we were driving home, all the traffic lights were out and  we saw the police blocking off some areas because of flooding.  When we turned down Ashley's streets, we had to maneuver the car through all the tree limbs and debris that was in the street.  We lit candles in Ashley's house and visited for a couple of hours when we determined the power was not coming back and we might as well go to bed.  The power came back on about 3:30 a.m. but went off again about 8:00 a.m. until noon.  Luckily, it was not raining today so Mom and I sat outside where there was plenty of light for her to see and read.  It was too cool to go in the pool - the temp. only got to about 75 today which is remarkable for Texas in June!!  Here is a picture of Ashley's neighbor's house that I took this a.m.

Luckily, when Sonny was here, he cut down a lot of branches off Ashley's trees so the damage at her house was minimal.  The worst part was all the "gunk" floating in her pool today.  Her cleaner is working overtime!

We have been busy doing a lot of yard work as well as eating some great food - BBQ, Mexican, Italian.  And it is time for me to go eat now!  I will be posting wedding pictures tomorrow so check back by.

Here is a Monday Mailer card I received while I was here.  It is great!  I just love the bright colors.  Each of the letters was run through a Sixxiz Folder.  I will be CASE'ing this one for sure.