Sympathy In Brown and Gold

I’d love it if I didn’t need to make a sympathy card for a long while, but unfortunately, that need arose again .


For this one, I used a Stardreams brown metallic pre-made card , and Basic Grey’s “Hello Luscious”  paper along with American Crafts Brads and cappuccino baker’s twine from The Twinery.

The paper is reversible so I used both sides along with some coordinating paper scraps. Stamped the focal on white cardstock and embossed with gold glitter embossing powder.  Matted it on a brown scrap. The stamp is by Magenta:

I used the glittered gold brads from the package to coordinate with the glittery gold embossing powder, wrapped the twine around one of the panels and slipped the stamped focal between the twine.

The card is for my brother in law who just lost a good friend. I thought the “Friends” stamp was a good fit for this.

Memorial Day Birthday Card

One of our nephews celebrates his birthday this Memorial Day weekend, so I decided I’d make him a Memorial Day themed card. It was also the perfect reason to use some washi tape I recently ordered from Pick Your Plum!

I grabbed some striped red white and blue paper from my stash along with some matching blue cardstock, and stamped  cupcake on white cardstock w/ yellow ink. I stamped the cupcake again on a scrap piece of paper and cut out the bottom to make a mask. I sprayed the top of the cupcake w/ Elmer’s spray adhesive and “frosted” it with Recollections tinsel glitter.

What’s a cupcake without frosting? I trimmed the cupcake image and mounted it on blue cardstock wrapped with red and white baker’s twine and added some rhinestone swirls.

I used the red and white polka dot washi tape from my recent purchase to add to the card and then stamped “Happy Birthday” in the yellow ink on a white scrap, trimmed with deckle edge scissors and framed with a blue scrap.

Finished off with the rest of the rhinestones and baker’s twine.

BFF Open House Link Party #55 !

It’s Friday Eve again already? HOW?? I thought I’d beat last week’s crud but it’s back w/ a vengeance so no BFF to feature this week. Just the party. Keeping it simple!

Party on!

Big Girl Panties Printable

This one’s for the Mumster ( aka my Mom). She has a procedure this week ( routine but still not on anyone’s  Top 10 list of fun things to do) and in keeping with her always positive outlook, she keeps saying that she just needs to put “her big girl panties” on and get through it.

Dearest Mummy, please don’t kill me for putting this on my blog!  You know I’m unfiltered and anything’s fair game. Love you!!

Seriously, my Mom is one of the most upbeat and positive people I know. All. The. Time. Thankfully she’s kept me grounded , and making this printable helps remind me of needing to put my own big girl panties on and, to mix my sayings, take one day at a time.

I made it in her favorite color, purple, as well as a couple of other colors in case anyone else needs a reminder to put their big girl panties on.

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Why I Relate to nrelate...Great Plug In Tool for Blogger or Word Press

I love blogging tools that are easy to use and really become part of the fabric of my blog. nrelate is one of those tools and it is one of the easiest plug ins I’ve installed on my blog.

Well what is it you ask? nrelate is a related content plugin for your blog.  If you look at the bottom of each of my posts, you’ll see thumbnails of other related, posts. This is a great way for your readers to see other projects you’ve done that are similar to the one they may be viewing.  And for me as a busy and sometimes forgetful blogger, I confess I've forgotten some of my previous projects and  get a little surprise reminder “oh yeah, forgot about that one” when I see the thumbnail come up on a new post.

Why would you want to do this you ask? You have a lot of blog content beyond what may be visible on your front page at any moment that may otherwise go unseen. Sure you probably have your posts on your sidebar by month but this is another super simple way for your readers to navigate and explore your blog.


How do I install it you ask? Easy Peasy!

For Blogger: http://nrelate.com/install-products/install-related-content/install-for-blogger/

For Word Press: http://nrelate.com/install-products/install-related-content/install-for-wordpress/

My experience has been that you get very relevant post results linked within your post and you can decide what thumbail style, size etc you want. The one time I had to contact nrelate for support they were SO responsive. If you are looking for a tool to help manage your blog this is one worth checking out. And did I mention it's free?


I am being compensated for this post but the opinions are mine. I was an nrelate user for months prior to this post.

BFF Open House Link Party#53 Wrap Up and Features!

Happy Monday! Here’s hoping this week is more creatively productive for this chocoholic but last week was certainly very productive for the ladies I’m featuring from the most recent BFF Open House!

Jamie, from The Creative Imperative shared a wonderful teacher appreciation gift that’s both pretty and practical :

Everything a teacher could need right at her fingertips. And easily adaptable to a more carpenter's look for a male teacher.

Dorothy over at Crazy for Crust shared these amazing looking Nutter Butter Truffle Brownies. I could just stare at these all day.

The talented Bev from Flamingo Toes is known around the blogosphere for her incredible Anthropologie knockoffs, but she’s an amazing seamstress and whipped up these cuties to help keep her craft space organized: Pin cushion on top; elasticized holders around the wood block to hold scissors, pencils etc. 

Finally, Bethany from A Fish Who Likes Flowers came up with the absolute BEST gift for several of her mom friends but they are perfect for anyone. I mean this is essential!

One flaw….I’d have broken glass everywhere ALL the time! Thanks all. Make it a creative week!

BFF Open House Link Party #53 and BFF Decorating Cents!

Thrilled as I am to have College Boy home, I wish he’d come back without bringing whatever was going around his dorm with him. He managed to avoid it , but all roads lead to mom. So, my creative endeavors this week have consisted of choosing between the green and blue cold medicines and looking at the pretty colors on the tea box. Enough of my whining.

This week, I’d like to introduce you to BFF Andrea from Decorating Cents where you might guess, she blogs about decorating on a budget. You’d never guess “budget” from seeing the end results. You may remember her starburst mirror from last week’s party:



She made this from paint stirrers from Home Depot! And she did the wall behind it.

Want to be really impressed? Check out Andrea’s made over kitchen complete with painted cabinets!

If you’re up for a big challenge like this, Andrea’s got a great tutorial here.

If you’d like to try a little less daunting idea, you can see how Andrea made these great paper mache letters for her kitchen

and I don’t mean she found them at the craft store and covered them. I mean she MADE the letters herself. Go see.

Oh and that backsplash? Yup. She and her husband did that too. I hope you’ll pop over to Decorating Cents and pay Andrea a visit. When she’s not busy doing incredible projects like the ones above, she’s busy being a wife and mom.

So what’s everyone been up to this week? You know the rules: