Feels Like Summer

 I don't know what part of the country you're in, but here in AZ it's beginning to warm up and feel like Summer. My wildflowers have bloomed and have created a sea of beautiful yellow, so I thought that I'd share a little bit of this beauty with the rest of you...maybe it will brighten up your day a bit :-)

You can see that the temps already heating up...and it's only around 10:30 a.m. It's hot here, but like everyone says here, "It's a dry heat!". Even with the heat I love living in the desert. Have a great day!

Button Christmas Card + Holiday Link Party

From Adriel:

There's a holiday link party at the end of this post! Link up your holiday goodies, and by that I mean anything you've been working on, be it baking, crafting, sewing... you get the picture! Here's what I've been working on.

I finished up this Christmas card last week. I was waiting on the snowflake punch, which came and it finished off the card. My mom was the one who said it needed the snowflake... she is a genius! =)

You can't tell in the picture, but I spritzed the snowflake with some shimmer mist. I think the buttons add some charm to this card. The color combo for this card is conducive to "charming" and "cute-sy". ;-)

It was kind of hard having to get into "Christmas" gear in August. My mom did most of the holiday creating. This was my small contribution. We'll be making this card and others at a card class coming up in the next couple of months. It is already September, so I guess it's about time to get ready for the holidays. =)

Linked up with:

New Friend Fridays @ Trendy Treehouse

Have you been working on anything related to the holidays coming up? Link up below! The only guideline is that submissions be family-friendly! No other strings attached! =)

Brayer Class Today

From Adriel:

Today my mom is teaching a card making class at Tumbleweed Rec. Center using various brayer techniques. This is the second installment of a brayer class that we have offered. My mom taught the previous class as well. She is definitely better at brayering than I am and her creativity with it really comes out in this class, I think. Here's one of the cards my mom will be teaching today to those of you who signed up!

I love this card and the other cards are wonderful as well (I just don't have pictures of them).

Enjoy your day! =)

Wowzer! Wednesday: Beautiful Card

Today we're featuring another stamper and card maker's lovely work!

This card by Jenn D. is just beautiful! It just pops with those colors and the layout! It's a wowzer! Beautiful! =) You can check out Jenn's blog by clicking on the picture below for all the details about this gorgeous card. While you're there, leave her a comment! =)


Hope you're all having a great week. We had a busy day yesterday with two SAT classes... those went great and the cards turned out beautifully! We'll be repeating this class two times tomorrow also. There's still room if you're interested in coming!

Have a wonderful day!

Newsy Tuesday: SAT class & Altered Memo Board

We have been busy mainly with getting everything prepped for the SAT classes today and Thursday, as well as designing for upcoming classes. We're also putting the last details together for our Preparation Scrap-together for Allison next month. It should be a lot of fun! =)

Anyway, today's Stamp-a-Theme cards are girly-themed. We'll be making 3 cards. I only have pictures of two of the cards... the other card we're doing is a dress card my mom designed that is super cute! =)

We'll be doing an altered memo board class at Tumbleweed in May. We're actually making 2 different designs. This is one of the designs. I just have to tell you that the other design my mom did is just GORGEOUS! Can't wait to get some pictures taken to show you... it's awesome! =)

We had a great time last week making our shabby flower brooches and boxes. There are so many things you can do with the Big Shot! =)

Don't forget that the THS Color Challenge #3 is still open until the end of this month. You can click HERE or on the picture below to get all the details!

Another Beautiful Card

From Adriel:

I'm writing the post for this entry, but I can't take credit for this beautiful card... my mom made it. She did such a beautiful job on it and I love her color combo... gorgeous!

Here is yet another card sample for the nature cards we (mainly she) was/were working on a couple of weeks ago. Mom made lovely lollipop flowers and they "pop" out at you, don't they? Really pretty... did I mention I really like this card? ;-)

Beautiful job, Mom! =)

Soft Butterfly Card

From Adriel:

Wow! It's amazing to say, but it actually isn't raining here (at the present moment)! It has been just raining and raining... I don't think in all the years I have lived in AZ that it has rained for so many days in a row like this. It's definitely been a lot of water and the kids were so happy to go outside and play today. =)

A few days ago, I told you about cards we were making for the gift shop of a nature park near us. My mom made most of the samples for this, but I didn't have any pictures of the cards she made. The other day, I spent most of the afternoon taking pictures of our items, including her nature cards.

This card she made is so beautiful! She used such soft colors and the style is so elegant! I'm designing one of our SAS cards for March after this card, I like it so much! =)

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend! =) Supplies for this card are listed below...

Supplies (all SU! unless noted) - Almost Amethyst CS, Perfect Plum CS, So Saffron (or Barely Banana) CS, Whisper White CS, Finial Press Textured Impressions Folder, Circle Scissors Plus, Scallop Circle #2 Die, Boho Blossoms punch, Scallop Trim border punch, Perfect Plum marker, So Saffron marker, Almost Amethyst marker, Mellow Moss marker, silver brad, small circle punch (size?), button (not SU).

Another Valentine SAS Card

From Adriel:

We had a great time Tuesday at our afternoon and evening classes! Everyone's cards came out wonderful and it was a great time.

Here is the card my mom designed for this class...

Isn't it cute? She punched the smallest blossom from the Boho Blossoms punch out of Razzleberry Lemonade DSP and adhered them in the shape of a heart. Fun idea! My daughter was watching me edit the picture today and she said that would be cute to do with small punched hearts and I think she's right!

We've got one more class left tonight and that's a wrap! Looking forward to seeing those of you who will be attending. Have a great day! =)

Apple Picking

From Adriel:

It has been AGES since I posted on our blog! I've been MIA for a couple of weeks... took a bunch of pictures today of new stuff! Will share that soon... today I wanted to share pictures with you of our apple picking last weekend. =)

We went down to Willcox to pick apples!

We picked Granny Smith apples.

Some of us sampled them while in the orchard (with permission).

Did I mention we picked apples? Yup! 100 pounds of them! =)

Afterward, some of us had homemade Pumpkin Pie ice cream.

Others in our party chose the homemade apple pie.

We also ate apple-smoked burgers under the apple trees, but I have no picture of that. ;-)

The next day we washed all of our apples and cooked a bunch to make applesauce (which went into containers and into the freezer), kept a few for caramel apples and baked apples, and the rest we used our handy dandy apple corer, peeler, slicer tool. It's an amazing invention and we wouldn't have done all that apple discecting if we didn't have one! Our sliced apples when into ziploc bags (8 apples in each) with a little bit of sugar and some absorbic acid (to prevent browning) and into the freezer. We were able to crank out 24 bags of apples... long enough to last us for awhile! Now, when we want to make an apple pie or an apple crisp (or something apple-y), we have the apples all ready to go! All sliced and peeled! =)

BTW, if you are into apples, you really should have one of these. It's a wonder! Watch it in action HERE. =D

Enjoyable Class

From Adriel:

We had a great time stamping with our stamping friends this past Thursday at our afternoon and evening classes. The response to our celebrate summer cards was very positive and our ladies enjoyed getting creative and making those "yummy" cards! It was fun and I enjoyed seeing everyone, especially some of those whom I hadn't seen for a couple of months. =)

We'll be seeing a lot of our ladies again this coming Tuesday for our special Stamp-a-Technique class where we will be doing brayering. I haven't done all that much with brayering, so this was fun to try something new and create for. Here's the card I will be teaching.

I used a circle template and brayered ink over the card stock and then stamped with a couple of the stamps from Circle Circus, along with some sponging. I don't usually stick to such a limited color combo, but it really worked nice for this card and I like the results. =)

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you're having a nice day. =)

It's Thursday Already?!

From Adriel:

Hi to all of you! This week has gone by quickly... it's Thursday already! Has this week gone by fast for you, too? =)

Right now we're a couple hours away from our afternoon card making class! I'm looking forward to making these fun summer cards with our gals. I think they will enjoy making them! =) Here's what we'll be making today!

My mom and I have been working on some fun stuff that I'm looking forward to showing you! We got our new stuff from Stampin' Up! earlier this week... the Build-a-Bear stamp set (so cute and it got us planning a new class!), the Gobble, Gobble stamp and the Autumn DS paper (can't remember the name)... my mom and I spent part of Tuesday evening designing for our Thankful Table class. We were very happy with our results and will share those soon! =)

We were also contacted by our city's Park & Rec. to see if we were interested in doing a nature journal class at a nature park near us. We've got a couple of dates for that class scheduled now and will be working on the design for that soon. Should be fun!

How about you? What's been happening with you this week? Let us know and thanks for stopping by! =)

If it looks like I had some fun...

You are right!!

We're doing a Celebrate Summer project class in August and I had way too much fun making this card for our sample!! I'm looking forward to teaching our ladies how to make this, because I know they're going to love it and have a lot of fun, too! =D

I did bubblegum, vanilla and mint chip for my ice cream scoops. I sent my "cone" through my Big Shot using the argyle texturz plate. We have a bunch of DS paper from Sale-a-Bration so I used that for the background paper.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to stop by our blog! Hope your day is going well and that you're staying creatively inspired. =)

Natural Beauty

We recently went on a camping trip with our families. We slept outdoors (in tents, of course!), ate outdoors, visited outdoors, amused ourselves outdoors... did I forget anything? =)

Thought I would share a couple of photos of the outdoors that we enjoyed!

BEAUTIFUL!!!

It doesn't matter how lovely man can create something... nothing compares with the beauty that God creates. =)

Happy Stampers!

From Adriel:

I took a few pictures Thursday afternoon of my mom (Heidi) and my daughter (Kayla) crafting. My mom was putting the finishing touches on her latest tea bag books (so cute!) and Kayla was just making a card for fun.

My mom loves to make these tea bag books! She looks like she's enjoying herself. =) BTW, I think her hand-cut apple is very well done!

Happy Stampers don't always smile when they're working...

...but they almost always smile when they're finished! =D

Kayla's finished card! She did a great job! She stamped the little border free-hand with a small stamp that didn't cover very much... I'm surprised at how even she got it! Wow! I did have to help her with her bow, but she will eventually learn how to do that herself. =)

Kayla wants to sell her cards like Mom and Grandma do. Maybe one day she will! =)

Razzleberry Celebrate

From Adriel:

I made this card before I left for my family vacation, but never got around to photographing it before I left.

I thought it came out okay, but it could have been better. I haven't been doing very well creatively lately, so the few cards I've made recently I haven't been very pleased with. Grrrr! =(

We did a class recently where we used the Daisies Flower #2 die on the Big Shot and I thought the cut-out that was left over would make a nice stencil to fill in with sponging. So that's what I did!

The colors for this card are Rich Razzleberry (new in-color available July 1st), So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White. I used the Top Note die, the Matchbox die and the Matchbox messages stamp set. Added a light yellow button and some Whisper White taffeta ribbon. Pretty simple and a great way to use the negative die-cuts! =)

BTW, I think this new Rich Razzleberry is going to be my favorite new in-color! I'm so glad they gave us a new purple to play with... we needed one!