Recollections "Fashionably Chic Mother's Day Cards

I’ve confessed my paper addiction before. It’s not getting any better. I wasn’t even looking for paper when I walked past the paper stack section at Michaels and Recollections “Fashionably Chic” jumped off the shelf at me. Practically attacked me. It did!

The cover doesn’t do it justice. It repeats the same series of patterns in several colors and within a color family, you can mix the patterns.

I  made several different cards because I always like to recognize the special women in my life on Mother’s Day.

For the first card, I glued the scrapbook paper to a piece of cardstock to give some body, and then cut out the flower, hit it with a spray of adhesive and glittered it.

I used another piece of the same floral paper and a piece with a coordinating damask print for base panel of the card . Used foam dots to adhere the glittered flowers to the card.

For this one, I used a different floral pattern and dotted the inside of the flowers with iridescent Stickles. For the focal flower, I used Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Floral die and cut the flowers using my Cuttlebug.

I don’t like to waste pretty paper so I use scraps to make embellishments to use in cards and other projects. This double sided tape I got at my local stamp store and is by a company called Sookwang. You can also use this tape to make your own washi tape.

I also played with another color combination from the stack:

I'm telling you. Paper just jumped off the shelf at me. Really.

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BFF Open House Link Party #51: Wrap Up and Features

Thanks again for another fun party. I hope you all enjoyed meeting Karyn from Pint Sized Baker and her wonderful treats.

Here are a few things that caught my eye, all with what I’d call a modern and retro feel.

First up, Bethany from Pitter and Glink shared her new craft room lamp transformation:

Thrift store lamp meets chicken wire! Gorgeousness ensues.

Bev, from Flamingo Toes, shared another of her amazing jewelry creations:

I love the femininity of the pearls with the boldness of the chain. And the blue pearls with the silver chain is such  a stylish color combination.

If you are planning a trip to a Disney park and want to go with a shirt way cooler than any you’ll find there, check out this idea from Rachel over at Holy Craft:

Seriously. She made this! Rachel used her Silhouette and a retro Disneyland poster image. So cool.

Finally, Back for Seconds shared a modern interpretation of a classic. I mean Oreos are already pretty perfect but check these out:

Two words. Peanut. Butter.

Thanks everyone for linking up. Make it a creative week!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Celebrate With Chocolate

So first up , it’s not Mexican Independence Day which it’s commonly mistaken for. That’s September 16. Cinco de Mayo marks the unlikely defeat of the French by the Mexican Army at the Battle of Puebla. I am and forever shall be a history nerd.

Since we wouldn’t have chocolate ( shudder) without the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, how can we not include chocolate in Cinco de Mayo celebrations? I mean really! So here are a few recipes from around the web that might give you some ideas for your Cinco de Mayo celebrations . Haven’t decided which one of these to try yet! Maybe all of them!

Allrecipes.com has these

Cinco de Chili Chocolate Cupcakes with Chili Cream Cheese Frosting

But they also have these:

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Then over at About.com Candy,  I found this recipe for :

Mexican Chocolate Fudge

that looks pretty tempting. This includes a pinch of cinnamon and cayenne pepper.
Continuing my journey, I came across S’Mores Nachos at Kitchen Daily.com:

Which makes me feel good because I was noodling the idea of a chocolate quesadilla using cinnamon sugar dusted flour tortillas and dark chocolate cream cheese which I haven’t tested yet!
How about Strawberry Chocolate Nachos?

At least someone else is kooky enough to think of putting  tortillas and chocolate together!
Then there’s this Mexican chocolate cake

Or a fun beverage ( contains alcohol ) :

 

As you can see, there is no shortage of chocolatey ways to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! Enjoy !

BFF Open House Link Party #51 and BFF Pint Sized Baker!

Happy almost Friday and fair warning!

When you see the wonderful creations by  this week’s BFF, you are going to drool on your computer. So don’t say you weren’t warned!

This week’s BFF Is Karyn from Pint Sized Baker. You may remember her amazing Chocolate Cream Cheese  / Chocolate Peanut Butter confection from last week’s party.

Karyn started out on Facebook sharing her cake pops and pretty quickly outgrew that and started a blog. Look at these adorable “Chick Pops” she did :

But treats on a stick aren’t just for cake pops. Karyn also whipped up these won tons on a stick!

Or maybe you’d be tempted by her interpretation of her Grandma’s Brownies:

And wouldn’t these be perfect for Mother’s Day ?

When Karyn’s not busy baking up a storm ( did I mention she’s self taught?!) she’s busy being a wife and mom and I’m sure her family is more than thrilled when she decides to try out a new recipe! I hope you’ll go and visit. Maybe not on an empty stomach.

Now what's everyone been up to this week?!

PicMonkey, I Think I Love You!

In fact, I know I do. I try basically every free photo editing program I come across and have not really been loyal to one. But I think that’s going to change with PicMonkey. If you’re lamenting the loss of Picnik, lament no more!

We recently took a day trip to Port Townsend WA, a city north of Seattle which is on the National Register of Historic Places. As you can imagine there are lots of old buildings and I had fun taking pictures of several.

I had even more fun playing around with them in PicMonkey!

I used an effect called “Smudge” on this one and a film strip edge. Here’s the untouched pic:

I cropped out all of the construction junk and then "smudged" it.

This one is the Jefferson County Museum which I converted to black and white, applied an effect called “Paint”, added photo corners and changed the background. Here’s the before:

I have a thing for old doors. Don’t know what it is…they just fascinate me. These I used an effect called Daguerreotype to mimic one of the original photographic techniques:

And the original:

You don’t need to register for PicMonkey. You can just choose a picture and have at it. You can add text, embellishments, frames etc. This could be VERY dangerous!

To Everything There Is A Season: Damask Sympathy Card

A friend of ours recently lost his father so I made this card to express our sympathy.

I used a paper from the Paper Reverie line by Making Memories. Hard to see here but the damask design is glittered. The quote I used on the card is on a Hero Arts stamp that I have used before for sympathy cards:

This seemed appropriate because our friend’s dad struggled with age related memory loss and I wanted to remind him that while his dad is gone and may not have remembered some things lately, all the days they shared together are still with him.

The upside to being a stashaholic is that you have things on hand that may not have been intended to go together but do. Like this paper and these oversized brads by American Crafts.

I kept the design pretty simple with layers and clean edges ( mostly …had to use one torn panel and a decorative adhesive scrapbook border)

To everything there is a season…

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BFF Open House Link Party #50 Wrap Up and Features: Chocolate Edition!

Thanks as always for all of the incredibly fun links! There is no shortage of wonderful ideas out there in blogland.

There were some amazing chocolate
 treats linked up this week so I’m doing a chocolate showcase! I mean after all…what blog is this?!

Let’s start with these temptations shared by Karyn from Pint Sized Baker. Do they look incredible or what?

Yes, you read that correctly. Chocolate Cream Cheese WITH Peanut Butter! Oh my.

There must be a chocolate, peanut butter, marshmallow bug going around because there were a couple versions of these combos.

From Back for Seconds ( who wouldn’t be with treats like these!):

Jocelyn from Inside BruCrew Life also shared a chocolate and marshmallow confection:

I’d even go camping for these S’mores and those who know me know “I don’t do camping”.

Finally, with College Boy headed home for the Summer soon, this genius idea from Deana over at Country Momma Cooks, will come in handy:


She’s got a great series on bulk recipes from scratch that you really should check out. Better ingredients and cost effective. Even if you’re a small family like mine, if there are things you make frequently this is just a great time saver.

You can thank me ( or curse me lol ) now! Make it a creative week!