Retro Sketches #81

Happy Tuesday Readers!

Today I have a sketch for one of my favorite challenge blogs: Retro Sketches #81.  They always have a fun sketch to play with there, and today is no exception!

Here is the sketch:

I thought about Christmas, birthday, little kid, flowers....anything would work with this!  I went for Christmas.  I really like how the Crumb Cake, Old Olive, and Cherry Cobbler work together in this sketch, and I am so excited about how my embellishment worked out!  Those Frosted Finishes are really fun and even better--they are flat on the back so they go on with just a glue dot! I also like that the washi tape gives a little pattern to the banner flag.

Hopefully you have enjoyed today's crafty creation! See you tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping in!

Nacho Average Freshly Made Sketch

Happy Monday Readers!

Did you have a good weekend?  The boys and my husband were very happy with the results of the Bears/Vikings football game.  Although, being the lone Vikings fan in the house, I wasn't upset with a 1 point loss on the home team's field.  Alex and Jack are wearing their Bears jerseys with pride today at school and day care.

For your crafty inspiration today I have my submission to Freshly Made Sketches 103 Challenge as well as Nacho Average Challenge 54.  I combined the sketch with the color challenge and came up with this:

I thought, oh, this will be an easy challenge, I love those colors and that clean and simple design.  It took me forever and gave me fits trying to get the trees lined up, and the corner punch to punch right and as you can see the I'm So Sorry is at a creative angle.  I have a couple other ideas in mind for this sketch, so I'll be sure to post them when I am finished and redeem the creative stamping!

Hope you have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by.

Thinking Of You

Happy Sunday Readers!

Two posts in one day!

Today I have my card for the Pals Paper Arts Color Challenge (PPA171).  Here's the color palette we had to work with:

These colors look so good together, it's a really warm and sweet color combo.  The first card I thought to do with these colors was a baby girl card.  However, then I came upon this little bird in the nest from the set For the Birds and I thought it worked just great.  I used a Calypso Coral cardstock background with a mat of Etcetera designer series paper.  I used the Chalk Talk framelits and woodgrain embossing folder in the Baked Brown Sugar cardstock and added a pop of color with the scalloped oval punch.  I punched out the very vanilla circle with the 1 3/4" circle punch and colored the bird with the Calypso Coral marker.  It still needed a little something so I added the large pearls on either end.

I really liked how it came together, simple and fun, yet cute, too!  

I'd love to hear what you think.  Thanks for stopping in today!  Have a great start to your week.  

Fall Harvest

Hey Out There!

I just finished up creating and taking pictures of my cards for this week, so stop back all week for new crafty creations!

Today, I am going to do a recipe share.  It's Fall here in the Northland, and with that comes zucchini, squash, cucumbers, and canning!  A friend of mine at work brought me a couple of the zucchinis from her garden, and so we sauteed some, and I am going to bake some zucchini bread with them, too.

I found this recipe from The Vintage Mother on Pinterest and it sounded really good, we'll try it and see.

Perfect Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. soda
• 3 tsp cinnamon (or 2 heaping)
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups grated zucchini
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla
• ½ cup nuts (if desired)

Instructions

1. Sift dry ingredients.
2. Mix eggs, oil, zucchini and vanilla together.
3. Add dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Bake in loaf pans for 35 to 45 or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
5. Enjoy! www.thevintagemother.com

Hope you've had a good weekend!  Thanks for stopping by.

Love a Good Quote

Hey Stampin' Friends!

Today I have a few of my favorite quotes to share with you.  I was thinking of things I'd like to put on Stampin' Up!'s customizable stamps.  I'll have to do the math to figure out which ones I can get to fit.  Leave me a comment with your favorite quotes--I'd love to hear them :)  Thanks for stopping in today--I hope you see some words here today that are inspirational to you.  I'll be back tomorrow with a crafty creation.  Hugs!

Simply Life

Good Morning! We made it to Wednesday!  Today I am featuring one of the new downloads Stampin' Up! has this week.  Tuesdays are Digital Download day, and there are new downloads for My Digital Studio posted each week.  You can find this week's downloads here One of the downloads included in this week's group is called Simply Life.  Scrapbooking the ins and outs of daily life is on trend.  As the mom of two young boys, I find the pictures I appreciate most looking back are the ones where I have caught their personalities doing what they do every day.   Here is the download:

Here is an example of what one of the concept artists did with a few of the different pages:

This would be a great way to scrapbook a weekend trip, picking berries or apples in the orchard, picking out your Halloween pumpkin, Thanksgiving dinner, or Christmas morning.  I was also thinking how cute it would be to do a page of all of my oldest son Alex's first day of school pictures.  Jack hasn't started school yet, but when he does, I'm ready! I just ordered this download today, I can't wait to create something with it, and I'll be sure to share when I do.  Remember, you can try My Digital Studio for 30 days absolutely free!  Click here to start your free trial!!  Hope you have a great day, thanks for checking in!

Heartfelt Thank Yous

Good Morning!

One kind of card I can never seem to have enough of are thank you cards.  I love to send a handwritten thank you note not just for presents, but for thoughtful actions as well.  Of course I could send a quick text or email--and don't get me wrong, a thank you is a thank you and appreciated however it gets to me, but there is something about opening up your mailbox and finding a note with a real stamp and someone's handwriting on it.

Today I have a card for Retro Sketches #80 It's fitting that this card is for Retro Sketches as it has soft colors and a vintage feel to it I think.  Here's the sketch:

Here's my take on the sketch-I love the Etcetera designer series paper, and again I used just ONE stamp set-this time it was Chalk Talk.  That set has a great bunch of sentiments in fun fonts, and cool details.  It also coordinates with several punches and has it's own set of Framelits.

Thank you for stopping in today.  I hope I've inspired you to send some fun handwritten mail to a friend, family member, or co-worker.  Have a great day!