Cocktail Crackers

Here's another great recipe that I've made a bazillion times over the years. This one gets rave reviews and is great for teacher/neighbor gifts at Christmas time.....slumber parties....ballgames....anytime! And no baking, that is a plus. You can even freeze it in large batches.For my recipe card, I used some of those same papers as my last recipe card from We R Memory Keepers. The circle accent for the appetizers is from JustRite's Recipe Borders & Centers Set 1-3/6".
If you like the idea of making recipe cards, here's an idea for you: Create a few extra of the recipe cards and attach them to bags of the Cocktail Crackers. You know they're gonna ask you for the recipe so you might as well beat 'em to the punch. :) With the JustRite recipe set, you can customize any type of recipes from salads to sweets...to soups and desserts. It's fun idea to try.

It's a glorious sun shiney day here, you gotta love that! Hope your day is great too.

Take Note Sketch Books

Hi friends. Thank you for your great response to the sketch books in my Etsy shop. The girls are at Grandma's house for the day so I'm planning on making more today. So be checking the shop later on today or tomorrow for more additions.

Here's the beautiful mess of creative goodness. I simply love to create like this, in mass production mode.

Here's my completed sketch book. I think I need one of these in every room of my house. I tried to keep all my ideas, thoughts, and sketches in one big book but it just doesn't work for me. I tend to doodle and sketch on old envelopes, notepads lying around, the backs of the girls' school papers, etc. These little sketch books are small enough to have a bunch lying around. I love them.

The base of the sketch book is PTI Kraft cardstock that has been inked with Fresh Snow ink. The cover is embellished with a piece of My Mind's Eye Quite Contrary polka dot paper, a scalloped cut piece of Green Boutique and a new Saddle Stitched Hawaiian Shores ribbon. All of these pieces in the kit are cut longer than the actual sketch book so that you can adhere them and perfectly trim the pieces to your book. The circle accent and *notes* accent were made with stamps from Take Note, using True Black and Hawaiian Shores ink.
The inside of the sketch book has 10 pages of grid and plain paper, with the middle stitched with my sewing machine and white thread. So easy but such a sturdy application for the spine.
And for the packaging of the sketch books, I used a large glassine sack that was fold over to the front. I attached a hand dyed tag that I stamped with images from Take Note and Trademarks. I attached that to the glassine sack front with a piece of Japanese masking tape. You can do an internet search and find it in tons of places.
I think I could become quite addicted to making these so watch out. :) Have a great day everyone and Happy St. Patrick's Day. Guess what? The grass is getting GREEN around here. That is my green thought for the day. I can't wait for the first grass mowing day of the season!

Microwave Sweet Party Mix

Hi friends. There's a party going on around here! My husband, Eric, turns 41 today! Happy Birthday Dear Hubster. We're taking everyone out to celebrate tonight at Eric's favorite BBQ joint. You've never seen someone skin a rib like Eric! And he waits til he's all done to use a napkin. It's quite a site.

To keep the party going, I have a sweet recipe to share with you today. It's called Microwave Sweet Party Mix. My crafty friend Carmen brought this to one of our first crops we attended together and I had to have the recipe right away. You prepare it in the microwave, usually double recipes when I make it.
Since this is one of the girls' favorite snacky recipes, I embellished my 4" x 6" recipe card with JustRite's *Family Favorite* stamp from the What's Cookin' Borders & Centers 1-5/8" stamp set. Right now this set, along with all the 1-5/8" stamp sets are on sale at JustRite for 20% off for a limited time. You can check out all the sets on sale HERE.
I love to create these hand made recipe cards so that my girls will have access to all of my favorite recipes. So many times, recipes get lost, tucked away in hard to find places, or we simply commit them to memory and don't write them down. Jordan, my little cook, has requested all of my recipes. Josey on the other hand just needs a map to the closest fast food joints. Maybe some day she will love to cook too. Maybe.

Anyway, my recipe card is embellished with papers from We R Memory Keepers, a great line I found at my local scrapbook store. I like to print off my recipe card, trim it down to size and then fill in the black spaces with embellishments. Machine stitching adds great detail too.
Hope you party like a rock star today! For us....probably more like a retired country western singer. We're pretty low key these days. But being with family is what it's all about!! Well, I gotta run....Jordan is painting Eric a KU Jayhawk for his office and I'm getting ready to wrap presents for tonight. Josey is still in bed. That girl. :)

Blooming Button Bits meets Beautiful Blooms II

Hi friends. Hope you all got some fun Papertrey goodies last night. Today I have a few cards to show you that I'm just in love with! I started my projects by die cutting lots of flower shapes from the Beautiful Blooms II dies. They cut like butter! I then created a stash of doodads by stamping flower images from Beautiful Blooms II in the new Hawaiian Shores ink. I topped the doodads off with circles punched from a vintage text book page and tied Vintage Buttons.
I also die cut some ric rac from the Pretty Pastels paper pad. Tip: The leftover side from a piece of cut ric rac is perfect for add grass to a stamped image. You'll see the effect on both of my card below.
Here's my card that's in the PTI gallery this month. The colors and layout and little elements on this card just make me happy.
I love the mixy matchy look of the flower doodads. And they work great on the flower stems from Blooming Button Bits. I love little discoveries like that! I tried using black thread in my sewing machine too, love that look! The sentiment is from Pine's Fillable Frames #2 stamp set.
I also tried something new with my Vintage Cream satin ribbon. I used Copic markers to color stripes down the ribbon. I will definitely be trying this in various color combos. And notice my scalloped cut Green Boutique paper. I used the small and medium dies to get two different looks on each side of my ribbon. Kinda quirky and I love it!
Here's a second card I made using the same basic elements from the card above. I combined more mixy matchy flowers from my Beautiful Blooms II die cut flower doodads along with the flower stem image from Blooming Button Bits.
More black stitching and the beautiful variegated ribbon. My papers are from Pretty Pastels and Green Boutique.
Stay tuned for more Papertrey release projects and brand new projects made from this month's goodies. Be sure to check my Etsy shop too, I'll be adding new items off and on. Have a great week everyone. We're off for a little Spring Break shopping. :)

Pinky flowers

Hi friends. Hope you're enjoying a nice, relaxing Sunday. We're on Spring Break so it's nice to just sleep in a bit and have some lazy days. Today I have some cards to show you using Papertrey's Year of Flowers: Violets. I got on a roll coloring the violet images, they're just so pretty. Have you had a chance to play with your new set yet? For my card, I used Stamper's Select White Cardstock and my handy dandy Copic markers. I matched my flowers to the pretty patterned paper from My Mind's Eye. The main image is finished off with Sweet Blush Vintage Buttons tied with Rustic Cream Twine and a small pink rhinestone. The sentiment is from Papertrey's Signature Greetings stamp set.
Hope your day is fabulous! I made a trip to the quilt shop yesterday and found some cute fabrics to make some baby burp cloths. I think I'll wash up all the diapers and fabrics for those today. It's kind of cold and cloudy here so I think I'll snuggle up under a blanket and find my book too. I'm reading The Help. Catch you guys later....at the Papertrey Release Party tonight!

Wonderfully Whimsical & Outline Alphabet

Hi friends. It's countdown time at Papertrey Ink and this month I'm working with Wonderfully Whimsical (Becky's first stamp set), Nichole's new Outline Alphabet and Pine's new Green Boutique patterned paper. Check out Nichole's blog for all the good information on these new sets and papers.

First off, let me start by saying that the little images in Wonderfully Whimsical are teensie weensie and oh so adorable. When I first saw the images, they reminded me of little fairy houses or images from little story books. That sparked some ideas for my projects. I colored some of the tiny mushroom houses with Copic markers, cut them out and used them along with the picnic basket from Vintage Picnic and the flower stems from Blooming Button Bits. I pieced together little scenes by placing all my elements on the little ledger notes that are pages in the Green Boutique patterned paper collection. You're gonna love them! I also added some paper ric rac that I made from the new ric rac die and paper from Pretty Pastels.
I used lots of pop dots to adhere the little mushrooms and sentiment circles. Aren't those little mushroom flowers the cutest? Mushroom high rises. Hee. Now, I could just stop here and use these as little lunch box notes, etc. But let's not. I've got lots more to show you.
Using the new Hawaiian Shores ink and the Outline Alphabet, I created some background papers for a few cards. I chose to stamp the word *happy* over and over on some patterned papers from Pretty Pastels. The set comes with additional vowels which is always great. But what if you have multiple consonants in a word. Here's what you. Place all the letters on a gridline stamping block. Make a spot for the missing letter, then stamp your word.
Then use a smaller stamping block and the missing letter, in my case the letter *p*. Ink up the letter and stamp all the missing letters. Easy peasy.
Here's my finished cards using both the little mushroom images and the happy background papers. I finished off both cards with Swiss Dot ribbons and some scalloped die cut Green Boutique papers.
I love the quirky color combinations paired with the Kraft card base. Kinda bright and cheery but also soft and subtle.
Now. I think I'll just sit and stare at my cutesy little cards for a while. They make me happy.
Still sitting here. Still happy. Hope you enjoy!!

Trendy Tabs

Hi there. Welcome to a stop on the Papertrey Group Post. This month we're showcasing Pine's new Mini Scrapbook Series: Tabs stamp set. The possibilities for this set are simply endless. You can use them for mini scrapbook albums, the lined notepads, file card dividers, cards and more!

Today I'm using the tabs to create an idea mini sketch book. I saw a version of this in an Ali Edwards book and knew it would be something right up my alley (or Ali if you prefer). My book is so simple to make and is a nice size to stash in my tote bag or to keep at my desk.
The front cover is cut from a half sheet of cardstock and scored in the middle. The inside pages are a combination of printer paper and grid line paper. I used about 10 half sheets of paper for my sketch book, alternating plain paper then grid paper. This way I can have the gridlines for sketches or notes and the plain paper for doodles, etc. The finished size of the sketch book is 4.25" x 5.5".
Once I had all my papers cut in half, I carefully stacked them together and sewed down the middle of the album with my sewing machine. This makes a great binding and keeps the pages nice and secure.
For my sketch book cover, I used Pine's new Fillable Frames #2 die and matching stamp set, stamped on paper from Pretty Pastels. The hand image and sentiment is from Take Note. Aren't those images perfect for a sketch book? The word *ideas* was stamped from the new Outline Alphabet stamp set coming out this month. The little pencil image is also from Take Note.
The background image on Kraft is one from the new Background Basics: Botanical set being released this month by Melissa Bickford. And the adorable tabs with the words *sketches*, *ideas* and *shopping list* are from the Mini Scrapbook Series: Tabs set. So neat, I can't wait to play around with some mini albums using the tabs.
To keep my sketch book closed, I added a rubber band around the outside. And do you notice a new color on my project? Yep, that's the new Hawaiian Shores ribbon and cardstock. I love. You will love too. And be sure to check Nichole's blog for more sneak peeks at all the new products this month.
The rest of the Papertrey gang has been busy too so be sure to check out their projects here:

Heather Nichols
Lisa Johnson
Betsy Veldman
Debbie Olson
Dawn McVey
Kim Hughes
Niki Estes
Melissa Phillips
Erin Lincoln
Maile Belles

Variegated Violets

Hey everyone. I'm busy behind the scenes preparing lots of new projects. Today I have some more cards I created using Papertrey's Year of Flowers: Violets stamp set. When looking at some of the flower images I found on the internet, I was intrigued by some varieties that have a variegated look. It was easy to recreate by simple drawing lines on my flower images using my Copic Sketch markers. I left the very insides of the flowers white so that the veins would pop. I love that look. For coloring images on white, my favorite paper to use is Papertrey's Stamper's Select White cardstock. My ink of choice is Palette Black Noir. If the images are really detailed with a lot of black lines on the inside, I usually heat set my stamped images by simply holding my heat tool over the images for a few seconds.

For the rest of my card I used papers from Amy Butler for K & Company, Vintage Buttons tied with Rustic Cream Twine and some velvet ric rac from my stash of goodies.
On a side note, Eric hollered into the bedroom at 5:30am this morning "You got any birthday cards, it's Sandy's birthday at work?" Um dear, I stamp for a living, of course I have birthday cards. But could ya have asked me this last night? I told him where to find a little stack of cards....the cards in today's post....and he was a happy camper. There were no envelopes sitting with them so I was wondering if he found one. He called from work and said "Sandy loved her card. I didn't put it in an envelope though." Question answered. Men are so simple and easy to please.