I made Cupcakes today

Okay, so they are not "real" cupcakes and my kids probably won't like them much, but I sure am happy with how they turned out. They will be a little gift for someone special in my life.... could it be...... you?

Again today, I used a set illustrated by my friend Diane. This one is called cupcake occasions. I knew I wanted to cover a bunch of bases and this set has something for everyone. You can see it here. I stamped all the images on 2 x 2 1/4 pieces of white and colored them all (2 of each). Then, I grabbed my scrap bucket and went to work assembling and embellishing. All the tag bases are 2 1/2 x 4 1/4 except for one. After I took this picture, I went back and added matching embrodiery floss to each tag. When I was all done, I knew I needed something to present/hold them in, so I modified the top note purse I made yesterday and left the lid off. The box that holds the tags is 5 1/2" x 6". I scored the 5 1/2" side at 1", flip it around and score at 1" on the other side. Then score the 6" side at 2 1/2" & 3 1/2". Thanks for stopping in today.

Gotta love M&M's!

My co-workers have been working on an adorable M&M scrapbook page and asked me to cut some letters with my naturally serif die for them to use as a title. I ended up with a couple of extra "m's", so I thought I'd make my own M&M project. Isn't it cute?

A purse and some ducks

I had some time to play this morning and I thought I'd make some 3-d items with my favorite dp - raspberry tart. I LOVE this stuff and I also love how it coordinates with the current in-colors. I saw this adorable purse here and wanted to try my own. Almost every day I find something that I put into my Blog Ideas to Try favorites folder and rarely do I ever actually go back and try someting. I'm glad I gave this one a shot (a big shot lol) and made my own cute little purse. The one thing that I found that is not explained on Becky's blog is where to score my scallop circle to fit over the top. Not too difficult to figure out, but figured I'd let you all know that I just counted 12 scallops and scored from left to right. If you leave 3 scallops in the center, you'll end up with 12 scallops in the front and 12 in the back - get it? Thanks for stopping in today! Look who else stopped in today -

There were 2 ducks swimming in our pool this morning. The kids were just headed out to feed them some bread when they flew away. The brown one is hard to see, but is just in front of the pretty mallard (I think it's a mallard anyway).

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my mom's birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! This is picture of her with my niece doing what she does best - loving and playing with her grandkids:) My mom is the mother of 5 and grandmother of 14 - she doen's look it does she? What an amazing woman she is - married to a dairy farmer for almost 50 years, raising 5 kids (none of which ever spent time in jail) and still has plenty of love and energy for each of her 14 grandchildren and her garden! You rock mom - I love you!

Here is the card I made for my mom. As I said, we were a farming family and cows hold a special place in all of our hearts. I used Annabelle for this card - she's just too cute. The bashful blue mat is textured with a sizzix texture plate that was put through my big shot machine. The doodling around annabelle is part of the stamp. I doodled around the blue mat in an attempt to match the circle.

Matchbox Die treasure chest

I made time to play! The first thing I wanted to try was the new matchbox bigz xl die from the occasions mini. It makes this adorable little sliding box thing. I saw this on SCS and wanted to try to make my own. You make 3 matchboxes and stack them and then wrap with a piece of dp (cut to 2 5/8 x 10) around all three. Tip: Tape the dp to the sides of the boxes so they will pull out and their "case" stays behind. The drawer pulls are half back pearls from the pretties kit. The ribbon in the free SAB ribbon (love that stuff) and the tag is made using 3 new things...

1. The Yummy Stamp free SAB Set - stamped with certainly celery on white cardstock

2. The Brandy-New scallop oval punch (will be available in the mini) - yellow piece
3. One of the tags that is included with the matchbox die (3 tags on this die) - the blue piece

I filled mine with mini snickers, but I can see lots of different little treats in this quick project. Can't wait to show you more.....

My Occasions Mini Pre-Order is here!

While I have not had much time to stamp lately, I still had time to shop - lol! This is what was in my SU box yesterday... it's my Occasions Mini Pre-Order toys!! As a demo, I get to see the minis and catalogs a bit before they "go live" and even get to order from them ahead of time so I can make lots of samples and have product to show you when it becomes available to customers. I had time to mount all these sets yesterday (quick work now that everything is die cut!) Now to find a place to put all this new stuff and then to find time to play with it all!! Hope to have something new to show you soon! Thanks for stopping in - sorry I've been so MIA lately. I've missed you all!

tutorial - how to make a rectangle window with the tab punch

So I haven't been doing alot of stamping for my blog lately, but I have been working on some speical swaps for an upcoming gathering in Buffalo. Well, it's not until April, but it's HUGE, so I figured I'd better get a jump on things. This is a little sneak peek at one of my projects, and a tutorial borne of necessity to go along with it! I needed a "window" in a rectangle, but didn't have a square punch big enough, so I improvised with my large tab punch and it worked like a charm!! Here's what I did:

1. I started with a 3.5 x 3 rectangle

2. Centered my tag punch all the way in and and punched out a tag

3. Then I turned the paper around and lined up the edges to complete the rectangle. Easy Peasy, huh?!?

Hope you enjoy and find some reason to use a "window" in your projects! Wonder if anyone can identify this when we get to Buffalo?!?