Blah.

Today is a blah day. We drive Daddy back to the airport to leave. Never fun. Never easy. BUT, we're so thankful he only goes for 7-8 days now instead of 12 or 13!! Count your blessings, right! I thought I'd share with you my blah card. YUP, I have them too. :) It was a card I saw that I loved & tried to re-create it (k, mine is totally different) with what supplies I had brought with me. IT DID NOT WORK. At least it's not what I was going for. I'm not sure if it's just that I don't like all those scalloped squares, or that they are mounted on black, or that my white is stamped (I wanted white embossing powder)...I'm thinking it's the celery base WITH a celery square - too much. I dunno. It's just blah.

and I'm not sure I could do anything to "de-blah" it. LOL.

.j.

Simplicity Stuggle.

I struggled a bit with this page. I wanted to force myself to have some empty spaces. I found a layout in CK that I liked and used as a foundation to my pages, but then didn't know where or how to do my journalling (hmmm....one l or two?). It is in fact on the back of this page. Not good. I know, no one will really ever PULL out a page, but it's in there. Journalling is one of the things I struggle MOST with. Just not sure where to place it on a page, how much to say... I'm a rambler :). Bet you already figured that out! ANYWAY.... here's the spread:
Base is a rich regal blue textured paper from Stampin' Up! I used a rub-on (SUPER STAR) for the photo of Joshua running in the top corner. I also used a rubon from SU on little Sarah as a dressed up clown to add a little whimsy. The title is made from "Thickers" (love them and must buy more). Along the bottom I added little bits to a couple of the photos: stickers and rub-ons. What a fun day that was, the homeschoolers put on an amazing event!!

Here's a close up. I used a few buttons along the title bar, the date is on a little piece of vellum, and I used the threading water punch (fiskars) for the scalloped edge.

Hello Monday.

.j.

It's a girl! :)

My Mom's boss's wife's son. HA, how's that for a mouthful. My Mom knitted a beautiful sweater for her and wanted me to make a card for her. She said that Mom wasn't a too girly girl, but how could I resist pink! :) So I tried to tone it down a bit with some greens and browns. Anyone remember that design paper from Stampin' Up!? LOVE IT, still have some as I bought a bunch of it when it was retiring! :)

Stamp Sets - Bundle of Joy, In the Stars

Paper - Pink ?? (the new (now old) In color) -- KICKING myself for not buying more of this. I think this is SU's BEST pink THUS far. *sigh*, some mellow moss in there, and white.

I used the word window punch (folded over) for a little homemade embellishment with a brad through it. The ribbon is the gorgeous taffeta ribbon from SU (my favorite ribbon "series"). I ran the base of the card through the cuttlebug using swiss dots, again my favorite folder.

what do you think? Photo is a little off, artificial lighting in my room...

.j.

Found.

I finally found some time to scrapbook last weekend, what a treat! I loved this photo of the girls I took at the park randomly a couple weeks ago. Yes, it's the same photo, I just enlarged one to a half page size and then put the smaller one in the corner. I love layering and then adding embellishments until it looks and "feels" good :)
I had this paper that came with a few punch-outs. I didn't use them all as some of them said things like, my girl...not my girlS! :) But I did use the beautiful wordage, the 3 small circles on the side of the smaller photo (using pop-up dots). The smaller photo is also popped up a bit with stampin' dimensionals.

The brown leafy is a rubon from Cactus Pink letters I had. The circle/crown was in the punch out package that came with the paper. Love how easy it was to co-ordinate everything :)

I used my slit punch to make the scalloped edge below the enlarged photo, another little brown flower rubon from Cactus Pink and then the big flower is chipboard from Stampin' Up! I covered it with Basic Grey papers (oh I love their yummy papers!!) After trimming the edges, I took a sandpaper block and sanded all the edges smooth - prefer that look than the "trimmed" look.

It always feels good to get scrapbooking again....even in a very cramped space! :)

Is anyone else scrapping these days? What are you working on?

.j.

Hugs & Kisses Cheesecake

OK, I really should have a photo for you, but we ate it! LOL. We love cream cheese, but they can be so expensive to make. MOST of the recipes I have call for 3 packages of cream cheese - OUCH. I love this one as it only calls for ONE! :) And it's still the perfect size for company.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake a.k.a Hugs & Kisses

1 package cream cheese, softened

1 (14oz) can of sweetened condensed milk (I make my own)

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. flour

1 cup chocolate chips

oreo cookie crust (I'll use graham crust if that's what I have on hand)

chocolate glaze

whipped cream

chocolate curls

The process:

Preheat oven to 350. Beat cheese until fluffy, gradually add sweetened condensed milk - beat until smooth. Add egg & vanilla and mix well. Toss chips with flour and fold into cheese mixture. Pour into crust (use a spring form pan). Bake 35 min until center springs back when lightly touched. Cool. Top with glaze, whipped cream & chocolate shavings.

Chocolate Glaze:

Melt 1/2 cup of chocolate chips with 1/4 cup whipping cream. Cook & stir until thickened. Smooth over cake immediately. makes one pie or double for largest spring form pan (I use this recipe with the med. sized spring form pan)

enjoy! It freezes beautifully!

.j.

A new week.

Our weekend became a bit of a long weekend as we celebrated my younger brother's birthday last night. I hope you all had a wonderful father's day weekend. I am happy to announce that I *finally* found some stamping/scrapbooking time over the weekend... yeah, finally a few things to share with you. Now that I'm no longer a stampin' up Demonstrator, I am able to play with whatever I want & not care about whether it's retired or not! LOVE THAT! Still one of my favorite stamps it this set, The Art of Life. This is a very simple card. Simple layers, simple edge sponging and a simple photo punch (from Basic Grey paper).

During our transition here, I will need to make oodles of thank-you cards to everyone that has helped us along the way. We are hoping to do some planning this next week... very exciting!!! :)

have a great week!

.j.

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day weekend is here. Our Daddy is away working, so we celebrated last weekend. Had a great day! Slept in, lovely brunch (eggs Benedict) out on the deck in the warm sunshine, tennis with the kids in the afternoon, iced coffees soaking in the sun.... bliss.

Because I'm limited with what I was able to bring with me, I decided to make a card using a photo I recently took that I thought was cute. Joshua wasn't feeling too good, but he was a trooper to pose for the photo. I then treated it like a mini-scrapbook page and used accents, stickers & rubons to make it ours. All the kids wrote their special note inside. Of course we included some funky shorts & a big book of California to prepare for our upcoming CA/AZ trip.

I'm also DETERMINED to start scrappin' again, so I've been working on my first page in a LONG time and hope to have that to show you in the next few days.

Enjoy your weekend...and your Dad! :)

.j.

Very Bad Blogger....

I have been a bad blogger -- funny how I thought "moving" here would somehow make life slow down - HA. Guess when you have kids, you're busy no matter *where* you are! I have had no time to stamp, sure do miss it too. With homeschooling the kids now, my days are FULL... I think I need to start bringing a larger portion of arts & crafts into school - ha! I did make a Father's Day Card (I will try to photograph & share with you tomorrow...) using a photo. It's almost like a mini scrapbook page. In the past I've done books or some sort of scrap album for hubby, but this year, I just couldn't get to it. The kids were disappointed - they asked when we were going to the book. :( So I think I will work on a different book with the kids for his 40th this fall.... That will be fun & a little extra special. I've been pouring over my issues of Creating Keepsakes and am desperately wanting to do some scrapbooking -- hubby even brought my awesome canon printer with him on the plane this past trip {yes, he went through the storage units to find it! What a guy!!) -- So I have no excuse (except for lack of space), so that is my goal this week. My daughter wants to do a mini album for a friends birthday so we hope to get started on that tomorrow as well.... then there's gardening (our veggie garden is doing awesome!)... and some baking that needs to get done -- I love full days though - crammed packed with memories.
Our plans down south are slowly starting to come together.... as things are confirmed I'll begin to share -- looking forward to an amazing adventure ....
.j.

Hot Sunshine

Wow, are we ever enjoying this amazing Okanagan weather! Over 35 degrees today - beautiful. Love that heat & those WARM breezes (K, I love the air-conditioned house too!) Just popping in to say I am still here, just haven't been stamping. Inspire me. What have you been working on?

Stamped Vellum

This is the last card I had "on file" to share with you while I was away :) It's great when I have a full day to stamp out a bunch of cards, photograph & then save them to share with you on stamping "droughts"! I've been in a creative drought for too long. Anyone else get grumpy when they haven't had that creative outlet?! I do!! :) This was a *very* simple layered card. I used vellum cardstock (a lot nicer to work with I find) and stamped it with white stazon. Because I don't like the look of adhesive behind vellum, I always use some sort of embellishment to attach it and in this case, I used some light pink brads. The card is very soft, but I think it's simplicity is pretty.
I'm no longer a Stampin' Up! demonstrator - wow. It's strange after nearly 7 YEARS not be a demo. I haven't done a workshop in a couple years though, but still was a great customer to myself! HA. I did *finally* order a stamp set I've had my eye on, called Trendy Trees. So, hopefully in my stamping time I'll be able to play with this set and be able to show you a few ideas.
Hope you all had a great weekend!
.j.