Sad Posting Today

It is with a heavy heart that our cousin's Charlie and Chau lost their beautiful dog Chase yesterday. He apparently got out of the house and the yard and was tragically struck by a car. Chase was such a loveable dog who was so happy to be petted and snuggled. Below is a picture taken a few years ago when we were all at the dog park in the winter. He was having such fun chasing the other doggies. He lived up to his name PERFECTLY.
This is a picture of Nolie and Chase at the top of Mount Mainsfield in Stowe, VT. Both of these dogs climbed the mountain from the base all the way to the summit. Chase gave us a run for our money though, leaving the group and leading us on an expedition to find him. After 2 hours of "chasing" him down, we found him at the mountain cabin just chillin' out.
We are so sorry to lose this beautiful dog. Here's a poem that I believe fits our lives with animals perfectly:

Fragile Circle

We, who choose to surround ourselves with lives
even more temporary than our own,
live within a fragile circle,
easily and often breached.Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we still would live no other way. We cherish memory
as the only certain immortality,never fully understanding the necessary plan.
- Irving Townsend

SC235 - Birthday

I (Maria) had a chance to QUICKLY participate in the Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge 235 before heading out to dinner tonight. I needed a birthday card to mail out tomorrow (hopefully it gets to the recipient in time!!) I loved the sketch they provided - using 9 circles or squares.I used Studio G stamps and colored them w/ prisma pencils. I used puffy paint for the beer foam "heads". It's fun seeing how each foam head comes out w/ the heat gun! Some of the participants came up with STUNNING cards if you wanna go check them out HERE. Thanks for looking!

New Stamp Wall !!!

Horray!! My stamp wall was installed yesterday! Yippee. This pretty much completes the room. I love it! Here's the before.......
And the after:

There are some blank spaces on the wall, but nothing a trip to the CHA Super Craft Show in Orlando can't fix!! YIPEE!!! Maria

Another Magnolia.......

I colored up another Magnolia stamp on Sunday and created this card of the SCS Sketch Challenge 167. I like how the green and pink came out. The background pink is VERY vibrant, but the Memory Box paper tones it down a bit. Her hearts have a bunch of glitter on them, but not sure if you can see it in the picture. I used the Cuttlebug swirls, MFT sentiment, ribbon and used the "out of the box" technique on "Tilda" coming off the circle! She's colored with prisma pencils and gamsol. Thanks for looking!

"Just Magnolia" Birthday Card

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a great weekend and are looking forward to the 4th of July! Here's a card I made following the Just Magnolia Week 11 Sketch. My friend's daughter (and my God-daughter) celebrates her birthday on the July 3rd so I wanted her to have a red/white/blue birthday card.I used my new Tilda with hearts and colored her with prisma pencils and gamsol. I used Cuttlebug swiss dots and circle embossing folder. Sentiment from MFT. Ribbon I bought from Michael's last year and embellished with Stampendous cupcakes and a few bling rhinestones. Thanks for looking!

2009 Summer Social Dessert Tasting

This is a non-crafty post but it is a CREATIVE post. Last night our friend's hosted us at their 2009 Summer Social Dessert Tasting. Nick makes all the desserts and is assisted by Jim. OMG - can you say DELISH?? We took some pictures last night b/c everything was just presented so well and it tasted awesome. So, on with the show:

Here is the full dessert table view (minus chocolate mousse)

Here is a closer look: (Note the dessert menus in the middle)

Fresh Peach & Raspberry Crisp

Peach and raspberry flavored with orange under a

crisp topping of oatmeal and brown sugar.

Summer Blueberry Kuchen

Fresh farm blueberries baked with a hint of cinnamon,

topped with fresh blueberries in a light and flaky crust.

Blueberry Almond Cookies

Light & airy cookie flavored with lemon zest,

blueberries and toasted almonds.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

Dark chocolate blended with fresh cream & eggs,

finished with a touch of sugar. Walnuts or chocolate flakes as toppings.

Fresh Fig & Grape Turnovers

Fresh summer figs & grapes tucked into a puff-pastry

dusted with cinnamon & lemon zest.

In addition to all of the above dishes they also had two passed desserts

1) Lemon-Rosemary Sorbet: Fresh lemon and rosemary

finished with a splash of Kettle-One vodka.

2) Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato: Dark chocolate gelato

with Italian "Baci" hazelnut chocolates.

This is the beverage table: It was such a terrific night but lemme tell ya.....I need some major exercise this weekend to work it all off !!

Thanks for looking!!!

Coffee!!!!!

Who doesn't love a nice fresh cup 'o coffee? I know Cindy and I do! French Vanilla with cream....we're like twins!

Today I stopped at my local print shop and asked for a few samples of their white cardstock. I wanted to see if they had something that would be better for prisma pencil blending than the Georgia Pacific I've been using. I know I can buy some on-line, but figured I'd stop locally first. I received four samples and decided to use the same stamp so I could compare coloring. The image I used is big enough to give me room to color and see how the color moves. Well, there was a #1 pick and it's actually 130lb coverstock. I ran it through my Big Shot w/ the Nesties and the embossing was awesome! So, I'll go back on Monday and see how much I can buy a bunch for!

On to the card! This is a Too Much Fun Rubber Stamps coffee cup image colored with prisma pencils. I used glossy accents on the "coffee" part (wasn't dry when I took the pic). The sentiment is from Inky Antics and I used Nesties and MS punch.
When I was watching So You Think You Can Dance results show last night, I got an idea for a card on craft paper. I pulled the ribbon out first and attempted to match the ribbon. I think it came out OK, but I honestly don't love it! I used Hero Arts flower stamps and stamped with white die ink. Colored in the petals with prisma pencils and used glitter pen for the centers. The sentiment is from MFT.
Thanks for looking! Tomorrow I'll share pics of our friend's Summer Social - which is a dessert party. Wait until you see all the yummy desserts we feasted on!!

Camp Postcards

TGIF Everyone!!! Take a look at what Cindy made for her nephew who's going away to sleep over camp for the first time! The kids aren't allowed to use any electronic devices (ipods, game systems, cell phones) or email (although they can receive email messages). So, to help him write home, she made these postcards to fill out and send home.

Aren't these great? Tell us what you think :)

Two-Challenge Thursday!

(oops - subscribers might get this twice! I hit "publish" too early!)



Wow - Can't believe it's Thursday! And I can't believe it's 7:00PM! Where did my day go? Well, when you spend four hours at the CT Humane Society walking dogs, then take a long walk w/ Cindy and our "blog mascots", then go outside for some Vitamin D (since the sun finally appeared in CT) and then participate in two sketch challenges....I guess I get my answer!

First up is the CPS Sketch Challenge 121. I actually made 5 cards this afternoon. Here are two of them. When I split up my paper packs, I forgot to note who makes the paper, so now, it's a mystery. But I used my scallop punches, Cuttlebug tag and Hero Arts and MFT sentiments. The flowers are from an old silk arrangement that I took apart a week ago. They had a touch of green on them, but I sponged them to take on a blue tone. Looks A LOT better in person!

This card was for SCS Sketch Challenge 234. I used MFT's "Let's Hear it for the Boys" set and Inkadinkado sentiment. I colored it with prisma pencils and blended with gamsol. The card is for a friend recently diagnosed with prostate cancer - so I added the light blue ribbon to the card as well.

So, that's the Two-Challenge Thursday wrap up! Thanks for looking!!!

Wednesday Triplet!

Happy Wednesday night everyone! Here's another 3-project post - but not all done by "Crafty Creations"

The first one is done by me (Maria) using Tilda with Puppy stamp. She's colored with prisma pencils and blended with gamsol. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado and the paper is from DCWV. I used Nesties and Cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder. I love this sentiment!
Card number two started as the CPS sketch challenge for this week, but I couldn't get it to look how I wanted it, so I abandoned the sketch challenge and went off on my own. But...I had a "guest" artist in the house....my mom Lois! She colored in the stamp as I put the card together! Didn't she do a great job! The stamp is from Lockhart, the sentiment from Autumn Leaves, Happy Birthday paper from DCWV and I used Nesties and Cuttlebug circles embossing folder.

Lastly...but definitely NOT LEAST....is a GORGEOUS "Garden Cake" made by my cousin Carl in Washington DC. Isn't it awesome? He actually held a "bake sale" at his desk at work as a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and he raised $750.00!! I'm so proud of him and I just LOVE looking at (and eating) his creations!! Great job Carl!!! (Make sure to click on the picture for an up close shot of all the veggies on the cake!)

If you got this far....thanks for reading!!