Archive for June, 2010
June 21st, 2010 -- Posted in family, scrappy / stampy |
Sorry to be a little MIA on the blogging scene… I have been up to my eyeballs in thank-you cards for oh… about the last month or so! But of course I’ve enjoyed it very much, especially now that I have a new comfy chair just for me at my craft table! I totally appreciate anything that makes it a bit less painful to get little snippits of work done here and there in between my daily routines of resting and coping with chronic pain.
I was pleased as punch to get an order for a set of thank-you cards for a customer to use as Thank-You cards for teachers. The school year has now already wrapped up where she lives (in the U.S.) and it sounds like the cards were a hit. Such a nice feeling to know that my work has traveled far away and been appreciated by others. 
After making that batch, it was time to work on designing a set of Thank-You cards for my kids’ teachers. I hope they also go over super well! I find personalized cards really great to show people you wanted to do something special to show you appreciate them. This set turned out to be one of my very favourite card designs in a long time… the colours are bright, yet I find it still evokes a sense of beauty and serenity.
Cardstock: I combined my usual Stampin’ Up colours (in Certainly Celery for the base and leaf, with Pink Pirouette on the inside) with some new textured cardstock made by Bazzil (in pinks) and patterned paper (in blue). Stamp colours were Pixie Pink, Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise and Green Galore. I used stamps from 4 stamp sets! 
Life is Beautiful for the 2-step stamped flower and circle on the inside, Thank you Kindly for the “Thank You” sentiment on the front, small flowers and half of a “thank you so very much” stamp from Flight of the Butterfly on the inside, and the leaf stamp from the set All Through the Year on the front.
Embellishments: The dark pink ribbon is from Michaels (I think their Basic Narrows line). For a little accent touch, I used some light green rhinestones for the flower centers. Techniques used included rounded corners (just on the tops and bottoms of the top different pink pieces on the front, which I think brings them really “together as one”, don’t'cha think?). The blue paper was punched with the new scallop edge punch. The front flower was raised with a Stampin’ Dimensional.The inside writing block was paper-pierced on the side and of course I had my usual inked edges in there.
On top of those thank-you cards, I also created two other batches as well! I don’t know if I’ll have any left after I send out some cards to thank people for celebrating my 30th birthday with me, but if I do you may see them up soon in the KStar Store. I’ll post the designs and details in another post. Also stay tuned for a post with great Teacher Gift ideas, coming this week!
June 10th, 2010 -- Posted in KidsInTheKitchen, domestic engineering, family, pics |
For this “Kids in the Kitchen” baking adventure, I made the actual cake and the kids helped with the icing when they got home from school…
Avery ices our banana cake!
I have actually been baking the exact same Banana Bread since 1998! I was given the recipe at a parenting program way back when I was pregnant with Harmony. It’s a really super easy banana bread to make, and over the years I’ve added other ingredients to mix it up a little and experiment with new tastes. It tastes so fabulous with blueberries, strawberries or chocolate chips! It’s a very “kid friendly recipe” and kids of any age can help with different parts, like mushing up the bananas (they can’t really mess that up other than being a bit messy!), mixing it all up, or tossing in some of the extra ingredients.
Even though we’ve relied on this “stand by” recipe for over a decade, I was still tempted to try out this new recipe for Banana Cake that I found on a new Live Journal Community, “Amanda Bakes”. I loved that it was more of a cake than a bread, because I’d tried to turn my banana bread into cakes over the years with limited success (even with chocolate chips and chocolate icing, it was not quite cakey enough).
So this week, I tried out the Banana Cake and it was delicious! I think the cinnamon really helps add to the cakey flavour.
New banana cake recipe - mmm, cinnamon.
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June 9th, 2010 -- Posted in scrappy / stampy |
I created this card on the occasion of the birth of a new baby boy to a friend of mine from university. Her little son George arrived this spring and I definitely wanted to send along our good wishes. I had the perfect set of patterned papers to use as a jump-off point for the design. The papers included some with patterns (pastel plaid in blues, greens, and yellows) and some with puppy dogs and that little saying “Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails…”.
Materials: Stampin’ Up cardstock (So Saffron, Bordering Blue, and Sage Shadow), white brads (Making Memories), white ribbon (unknown), Whisper White ink, “Sweetness Unlimited” stamp (SU).
Techniques: I used my fave technique of paper piercing on the front strip. I also used a 1/8″ hole punch in each of the little scallops in my Scallop Circle punch (SU) to create an interesting border for the puppy dog punched circle (1 & 3/8″ punch, SU)
On the inside, I used more of the white ribbon and used a white gel pen to write out a message of congratulations. Probably my favourite finishing touch was the tiny safety pin. I got a small set of them years ago in a few different colours and they have been a great little “extra” to add to mostly complete projects. And I even have a pink one buried in a jar of rice (a project I made for a friend’s shower that I’ve kept around in case it’s needed at any future showers). I don’t think I’ve posted about it so hopefully someday soon I can find a picture (or take a new one) and include the “directions” on how to make one!
That’s all for today, but I’ve been working on lots of new cards lately so stay tuned for more ideas! 
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