A Very Important Birthday

Can you believe that December is almost over? What a whirlwind month it was for us! We had many wonderful holiday related things to do and partake of but we also lost one of our family members in mid-December. A tragic loss of a 20-year old nephew made us all pause and reflect on the specialness of family and the true meaning of the holiday season. Along side that tragedy, we celebrated the milestone birthday of my son who turned 18 on December 13. Having just experienced the loss of someone so close to his age made us realize how precious it was to be celebrating his special birthday. I must say that I am so very proud of him and all that he has accomplished in his 18 years. He is such a talented young man and was just accepted to the college of his choice to study music. I'm thrilled for him and even though I know I will miss him terribly when he heads off to school next fall, I am so happy he will be following his dream.

Here is the card I made for my son's birthday. The trees and train are stamps from the gorgeous Life is Good set by the very talented Theresa Momber. I stamped them using Memento "London Fog" onto Pure Luxury Ivory paper. I colored the train with Copics and sponged around it with Vivid "Tuscan Tan". The sky is sponged very lightly with Vivid "Cobblestone" ink. I didn't quite like the way the trees turned out when I stamped them with the London Fog. They were a bit too bluish looking or something so I decided to use a glue pen and some glitter to make them look frosty. The focal image is layered onto a piece of Basic Grey Granola paper and that is layered onto Pure Luxury "Tan Leather" and Pure Luxury "Smoky Slate" papers. The word "Son" and the "Explore. Dream. Discover." sentiment are stamped in "Cobblestone." This was a fairly simple and quick card to create but it seemed fitting for a young man's birthday, especially one who was a huge train fan when he was younger!

Life is good and I am thankful for being able to celebrate my son's 18th birthday and to know that he is becoming a very special young adult with dreams to explore and many new things to discover.

Thanks for visiting my blog tonight. I wish a very happy, joy-filled New Year for each of you!

Recipe Blog Hop

Several members of the Center Stage Spotlight Team have joined together to share a special Christmas Treat Recipe Blog Hop event with everyone tonight! They have whipped up some treats in their kitchens and their stamp rooms over the past few weeks so we could compile our very first Recipe Book for StampTV!

I created a modified pocket card for my blog hop entry. This pocket card does double duty; it acts as a Christmas card and it holds the recipe card for the Toasted Almond Toffee Bars. I created it this way because I'm actually using these greeting cards/recipe cards for the annual cookie exchange I'm participating in tonight with my Beta Sigma Phi sorority group. (Anyone else out there a member of Beta Sigma Phi?). The photos show the Christmas card alone, the card with the recipe inserted, and the recipe card. I forgot to include a photo of the back side of the recipe card, which has the directions for making the recipe. It has simple snowflakes stamped along the bottom in black with some bling from a clear stardust pen.

The card is made from SU Real Red cardstock. The white strip at the bottom front is Pure Luxury White that was embossed with two snowflake border folders from Cuttlebug. The gingerbread people are from the First Christmas stamp set by Asela Hopkins and the gingerbread house and trees are from the Holiday Cheer Stamp TV kit. I stamped the gingerbread people and house, colored them with Copics, blinged them up with Stickles and Spica pens and attached them to the white strip with adhesive. The Peace, Joy and Love sentiment is from the Holiday Hospitality set and was stamped in Versamark and embossed with white ep. The trees were stamped with Shimmer Paint from SU and the whole card was spitzed with Shimmer Paint mixed with rubbing alcohol to give it a shimmery, sparkly look. Unfortunately, it doesn't show up in the photos.


Here is the card with the recipe inserted in the pocket. The recipe is printed on white paper and layered onto red cardstock. I stamped the smaller gingerbread people onto the recipe and colored them with Copics and Spica pens. I also stamped snowflakes onto both sides of the recipe card and gave them some sparkle with a clear stardust pen.
Here's the recipe card. Don't worry about trying to read it here. It is included in the recipe booklet that wonderful Jessica put together for this blog hop tonight. See the note below for where to find the recipe booklet. The booklet also includes photos of everyone's treats. That's why I didn't include a photo of the bars here tonight.

Thanks for stopping by my blog tonight! Now, check out these designer's blogs for the sweet projects they've designed around their treats:

Carolina Buchting
Carla Suto
Deb Felts
Donna Baker
Giovana Smith
Jennie Harper
Jessica Fick
Joy Hadden
Karen Knegten
Kay Simmons(You are here!)
Lee Murphy
Linda Payne
Lori McAree
Melissa Cash
Pam Imholz
Selma Stevenson
Sue Morris
Sue VanDeVusse
Sue Walsh
Vicki Dutcher

Then, stop by GinaK's blog for a super sweet give-away she has tonight in honor of the hop!


The Recipe Book will be available as a free download PDF on StampTV tonight as well. Look for it on the Freebie Tab link.

Blizzard, Snow Day, and Stamping

We will not need to dream of a white Christmas here in southern Wisconsin! We had a huge snow storm last night that dumped 12-20 inches of snow on our area. The snow totals varied a bit depending on where you live in the area but everyone got over a foot of snow! Most of it came during the night Tuesday into Wednesday morning and pretty much everything was closed. All area schools were closed today including the University of Wisconsin which hasn't happened in about 20 years. My kids didn't have school and my husband and I decided we weren't going to try to make it out to work today since city and county officials were begging people to just stay home today. Well, you don't have to ask me twice when it comes to staying home in the middle of a snow storm! I had a fun day of making cards and doing some baking. I'll share one card with you that I made today but I'm also going to share some photos of all the snow we got. (Even though I hate snow it was quite beautiful!) This first photo is in our backyard.

This photo is of the pine trees that line our driveway. There was so much snow on them the branches were touching the ground even though they are normally about 4-5 feet off the ground.
This poor little guy was trying to find some food but the bird feeders were completely covered in snow. Isn't he pretty against the snow?

I hope you are warm, safe, and dry where you are tonight! Enjoy the photos and for those of you with the sense to live in warm places like California, Arizona or Florida, please send us some warm thoughts! The temps are going to drop here tonight to around zero and the wind chills are going to be -20 to -25! Brrr!

Thanks for stopping by. Here is my card made with the gorgeous Festive Frames set from Gina K Designs. I used gold embossing on Pure Luxury Cranberry Tart paper and, yes, I did cut out the oval in the middle. No easy task! I only made four cards like this and I don't think there will be any more! Other papers used are Pure Luxury Ivory and Good as Gold.

I'll share the other cards tomorrow when we have a special blog hop so be sure to stop back tomorrow night after 10 PM.