Star Spangled Fourth

Hello! Are you ready for the 4th of July yet? Here's a card to get in the spirit. :) This is the first time this stamp set has seen ink as I got it after the 4th of July last year, so fun to finally use it! The stars were stamped in Real Red and Night of Navy and stamped onto coordinating card stock (though the blue star looks black in the picture). They were cut out by hand and adhered onto a panel of Whisper White. The blue star is popped up with foam tape and also has the number 4 embossed in white on it.

I stamped the center firecracker first in red, then the two red ones to either side. That made it easy to fill in with the blue firecrackers last. Each of the sparks has a tiny rhinestone sticker in its center. Simple and fun! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!


SUPPLIES
Stamps: July Fourth, Somerset Alphabet by Inkadinkado (number "4")
Paper: Whisper White, Real Red, Night of Navy
Ink: Real Red, Night of Navy, Versa Mark
Embellishments: white embossing powder, rhinestone stickers, foam tape

Simple Grad Card

My husband's cousin is graduating from high school so I needed to make a grad card. Hmm . . . 18 year old boys are not the audience I typically stamp for and I didn't want to make something he'd think was totally dorky. Fortunately, my sweet mom, who is an awesome stamper herself and the the person at fault for my stamping obsession, just shared a grad card on her own blog. So when in doubt, CASE Mom! *wink* Here is her card that I copied and tweaked. Check it out!

SUPPLIES
Stamps: Eventful
Paper: Basic Black, White
Ink: Versa Mark
Embellishments: white embossing powder, dimensionals

Father's Day

I'm somewhat of a procrastinator and I just now have made my Father's Day cards. If you are like me and still haven't done anything about the big day on Sunday, maybe these come in time to inspire your own cards. :)

I don't have much in the way of masculine stamps, so I pulled out my go to set for guy cards Lovely As A Tree. The color scheme was kept very simple in kraft and brown. Both kraft layers were sponged around the edges with Basic Brown ink.

I tried something new with the twine at the bottom. A bow wasn't going to cut it for a "Dad" card, and there wasn't really room for a knot. So instead I set an eyelet on either side of the sentiment and wrapped the twine through the eyelets. It is knotted together on the back side of the panel. I kinda like it. Lastly, since there is a knot on the back of the big kraft layer, that whole panel is popped up on dimensionals.

I hope you all have a great time with your Dad this weekend!


SUPPLIES
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Kraft
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Basic Brown
Embellishments: jute twine, silver eyelets
Tools: Crop-a-Dile

Summer Flowers

Hello! I don't know about you but it certainly feels like summer where I am. It's been in the 90's all week! So I thought I'd go ahead and embrace it by making a summery card. :)

The stem and leaf image is actually all one stamp, but I wanted the flowers to go different directions and be at different heights. So I used a green marker to ink up just the stem then stamped it three times at various heights and orientations. Then with my stamp-a-ma-jig, I inked up just the leaves and stamped those to match up with the stems. The flowers were punched out twice for a double layered look and adhered with a silver brad. After stamping the sentiment I thought the top right corner looked a little lonely so I added a trio of rhinestones. I think it perked it up a bit. :)


And here is the inside finished to match!


SUPPLIES
Stamps: Flower Filled, Trendy Trees
Paper: Barely Banana, Summer Sun, Whisper White, Material Girl dp by Cosmo Cricket
Embellishments: goldenrod twill tape by Bobbin Ribbon, green marker, rhinestone stickers, silver brads
Tools: corner round punch, scallop edge punch, flower punch by Marvy Uchida, stamp-a-ma-jig, paper piercing tool

The Great Macaroon Fiasco

(Pretty picture of ugly macaroons.)

When I first started this blog I said that I would share the good, the bad and the ugly of my crafting and cooking endeavors. Thankfully, everything I have shared thus far falls under the good category (at least I hope you think so, too!). But now I have something that if not bad, I'd definitely say is ugly!

Recently a friend and I attempted to make macaroons for the first time. I'd heard they were hard to make but I kept seeing them everywhere (magazines, food blogs, more food blogs) and I was dying to try making them. And we had a whole day that could be devoted to a wild and crazy kitchen experiment. It was the perfect opportunity! Well, let's just say the experiment was fraught with dangers and crises and not go into too much detail, shall we? The end product actually tasted fine, but they certainly aren't going to win any beauty pageants. At the end of the day I said I was swearing off macaroons, they were out of my system. Done. Over. Finite. But today I came across some more pretty pictures of them online . . . uh oh, I may be in trouble. :)