Happy Independence Day!

Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July celebration.

We are headed to my parents' house to celebrate, and we will be having a late celebration of Father's Day and my birthday as well. It's going to be a good time!

We will be out of town for the next 8 days, so I won't be able to post anything while we are gone. I'll be back the end of next week with something new to post.

For now, in honor of the holiday, I thought I'd post a card. I actually made this one last year, but you haven't seen it, so it's new to you! :o)


Pretty simple card - torn cardstock; I printed the sentiment on vellum and attached with buttons by Dress it Up. I don't remember exactly where it came from, but it was something I had downloaded from a website.

Well, I'm outta here - "see" you all soon!

My Sweet Valentines

Yes, I realize it's Officially May, and Valentine's Day was in February, but I think the fact that I have already scrapped these pictures is a big accomplishment. Especially considering I have hundreds from before February that are patiently waiting to be scrapped.
I had a little time on Saturday and decided I needed to play. So these are the pictures I worked with. I made a 2 of these 8x8 layouts for the kids' books. (They are exactly the same, so I'm just showing one) My favorite picture is the enlarged one, and the smaller pictures are all the "outtakes" of my little photo shoot.

I then created a 2-page 12x12 layout for my book. On this page, I stamped the title with my foam stamps from Paper Studio. It's a little uneven (I never can line these things up right), but I don't mind. I created the saying in the heart using parts of various stamps and my handwriting.

And here is the companion page. I kept these layouts pretty simple, as I wanted the focus to be on the pictures.

Easter Bunny

Thought I'd share this cute LO I did of Ruthi on her first Easter. I did it a while back, and it is really simple, but I just think it is so cute. The cute paper-pieced bunny was made by Pam - an online friend of mine. I literally put this together in just a few minutes since the bunny was already made. I added letter sticker letters and some fibers to the little tag, and voila! Easy peasy!

Easter Peeps

OK, I've GOT to get better about posting more regularly on this blog. I've gotten a handle on my main one, but this one is still getting neglected. Thanks to all of you who have made such nice comments, it really does a girl good!
I'm actually going to busy working on some things for my friend who is getting married in less than 3 weeks, so I'll be busy until after then, but I'll try to get some more stuff on here. After the wedding, maybe I can get back to creating more regularly too!

This project is one I saw on Splitcoast Stampers and just fell in love with and had to try it. I seriously wanted to do these and try to sell them, but I really cut it too close to Easter. Next year I'll have to start much earlier (as soon as they start putting Easter candy out!) along with another idea I saw and try to sell them then.

The hardest part to this was getting those bunnies in there right! It didn't help that I had the wrong type of jar - I needed one with a wider neck. But I figured it out anyway. After searching information about the recipe I decided to follow some of the advice I read, but it didn't work as I had hoped. Some were saying that when you bake them that they come out too crumbly and adding a little more butter did the trick. So I went ahead and added the extra butter. What I ended up was a gooey (though very yummy) mess. They were far too gooey to cut into bars. So I'm including the recipe here with the original amount of butter. I plan to try them again soon and see if it makes a big difference.

In the jar: 1 sleeve of graham crackers, crushed
8 peeps
1/3 C. brown sugar (pressed into the center of the peeps)
1 1/2 cup Easter M&M's

Peep Bars
Empty contents of the jar into a bowl Snip the bunnies into bits with kitchen shears or cut up with a knife. Return the bunny bits to the mixture and mix well. Add 1/2 cup softened butter and 1 tsp. vanilla and mix well. Pat into a greased 8x8 baking dish. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.
Option: leave the bunnies whole; combine remaining ingredients and place the bunnies on top. Bake as directed.

I also found this recipe:

Peep Ice Cream Topping
Same as above, but omit the vanilla.
Pat into a greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake at 350 just until peeps melt. Cool. Break up with a knife. Sprinkle over vanilla ice cream.

Valentine Cards

Well, since Valentine's Day is only 4 days away, I thought I'd share the Valentine cards I made. I am a member of a Scrapbook message board, and we have challenges we participate in to help us get things done. I am very competitive when it comes to these and get as much done as possible. This is the second year we've had a 'Superbowl Challenge'. We are divided into two teams and we scrapbook for points. I was scrapbooking almost nonstop for 4 days. I slept very little (about 4 hours a night) and stopped only when absolutely necessary. I got the most done very late at night when the kids were asleep. I wasn't going to bed until 4 or 5 am! One of the things to make to add up points was Valentine's cards. So I made 16 of them! I usually only send cards out to our parents and grandparents, but this year a few others will receive them too! I made them all in the same design so that I could put them together in an assembly line fashion. It only took me about an hour to make 16 cards. Anyway, this is how they turned out:

These are a super simple design. The stamps are $1 stamps from Michael's. I stamped the background with the heart. Then I tore the patterned paper (Provo Craft) and adhered it. I stamped the sentiment on white cardstock and punched with my square punch. Added a little pen stitching, and adhered with pop dots to lift it off the card. So easy, but I think they turned out kinda cute!

During the Superbowl Challenge, I also got 24 12 x 12 layouts completed. In the spirit of Valentine's, I thought I'd share a Valentine one I created. I'm trying very hard to get caught up on older pictures, though I don't think I'll ever truly be caught up. These pictures were taking in 2005 on Ruthi's first Valentine's Day.