Masculine Travel Mini-album

Hi all!  I just wanted to post this masculine mini-album I did for my pastor.  I wanted him to have somewhere to record his travels should he even go on missionary trips or traveling as an evangelist!  I gave it to him today.  He really liked it!  I do, too!

Please excuse the not-quite-straight photos.  I was photographing this before work one day!!  I used a lot of supplies I had on hand, so some of them are OLD!  Most of the patterned papers are Paper Studio except for the cover- that's Karen Foster Designs from 2005!  Haha!!  Stamps are Stampabilities, Tim Holtz, Stampin Up, Making Memories, 7Gypsies, and probably some others I've forgotten.  I used so many embellishments.  Washi is from Le Box Boutique on Etsy.  

Thank you for looking!

Behind again! Lots of photos!

Hello!  I know. . .BAD BLOGGER!  Oh well!  This will be a picture heavy post just to catch you up!!

 First, Happy Mail from 2Peas! I've been looking for that SC stamp in the upper right forever!  So glad I got it!  Had to get a couple other Studio Calico items from 2Peas since they were out of stock at SC!  Love them all. . .just have to use them now!!! :)

 This is just a small card I made.  I sell them at Sublime (the chocolate shop where I work!)  I just wanted to share.  I think it is kinda cute!!!

The Livin' It Youth Conference at my church was fantastic!  Our youth pastor (who is also on the worship team with me) did a wonderful job putting everything together.  There were a few glitches, but all-in-all, it ran pretty smoothly!  It was awesome to see all the youth from the area alive and on fire for Jesus!!!!!

 

Last Friday was a crazy day at work.  Just lots of stuff happened that wasn't exactly as I would have liked it.  On top of that, I come home to this!  Yep, my 'precious' dogs were bored and decided to destroy a Netflix DVD!  ARGH!  We hadn't even had a chance to watch it yet!  I was so upset with them!  It just wasn't a good day!

 

 

My mom's birthday was yesterday, so I made her a card.  She LOVES hot-air balloons, so this was a perfect fit!  I got the idea on Pinterest; I would never have put those colors together, but they are stunning!

 

 For my mom's birthday celebration, we had her and my dad over for Tuna Steaks, Veggies, and Mashed Potatoes.  I also tried to make her a white chocolate cheesecake.  Well, it was a mess!  I won't even go into all the trouble I had, but you can see it came out of the oven (top) looking like a souffle.  Then it fell making it look like a pie.  Trying to get it out of the spring-form pan wasn't easy either- it was stuck to the bottom.  Oh well.  It wasn't pretty, however, it tasted good!!!!

My husband fell asleep around 5pm Saturday and slept until Sunday morning.  That gave me an evening to work on some scrapbooking items!!!  The top photo is a collage of some of the pages in a mini-album I made for my Pastor.  We had a guest speaker who prophesied that our Pastor will be doing great things for the Lord in different countries.  He said we need to send him to these countries.  Since I can't help financially, I wanted to do what I could- I made him something to record his trips in.  I finished that album and hope to give it to him this week!

The second photo is a collection of papers I'm going to put into a mini-album for my 30days of lists album.  I got most of that album done; now, I just need to put it together.  I can't wait!  It starts Saturday.  If you are interested, go to http://30daysoflists.com/

Lastly, we had some wonderful thunderstorms yesterday!  It started to put a damper on the birthday celebration for my mom until we saw these!  Double rainbows!  You can't see the second one as well, but they were both pretty bright at first!  It was a great ending to the weekend!

What have you been up to???

Two (small) cards

Good morning!  Yesterday, I made a couple small cards to go with some gifts I gave to my Pastor and his wife.  I got them chocolate from Sublime (where I work!).  These little cards are only 3x3, but I LOVE making them!

My Pastor's wife is a teacher, and she isn't really looking forward to going back to school this year.  I wanted to encourage her a little.

My Pastor is a very important person in my life, and I love him dearly.  I think I mention before how he was in an accident and totaled his car.  He is still in a lot of pain, and I figured chocolate fixes everything! :)  Here is the card that went with his chocolate

I tried to make it trendy by making a starburst pattern.  When I sprayed it with my Mister Huey's "Water Cooler," it came out darker than I would have liked.  I tried to match it with the green ink, but it just didn't quite work out.  I was in a hurry and needed to leave, so I decided he wouldn't mind the not-quite-right-colors.  I was excited that I was able to add a little bling to a masculine card!  Check it out!

That's it for today.  I'm off to work in a few minutes.  Enjoy your day!

Catching up

Ok, it has been a over a week since I blogged.  This will just be a bit of everything I wanted to write about but haven't had the time.

First of all,  I finished a new layout for the Studio Calico blog's Sunday Sketch.  Here is the sketch:

I turned it sideways, and use the large photo space to display three photos.

This will be the title page for the Disney World album from my 2010 trip!  I plan to do it in a project life style, so I can use all my photos and get it done quickly!

Next, I created a few cards.  The first one was for my Pastor (whom I adore).  He blacked out and totaled his car.  He has some injuries, but is still alive, thank God!!  The other two were for the chocolate shop I work at.

Now, onto non-paper-crafty things. . .

Lately, my husband has been creating these wonderful desserts by using whatever we have on hand. They are tremendous!  This was a chocolate/Nutella crust with a Blood Orange and spice Greek Yogurt and Avacado toppings.  Topped with honey and cinnamon.  It sounds awful, but it was delicious! (It doesn't look so good, either. . .)

I told him that I'm not good doing things by the seat of my pants.  I don't just come up with things, so the other night, he challenged me.  He picked out some ingredients, and told me to see what I could do.  He gave me a few suggestions, and then let me go.  It was interested.  He wanted me to include: bacon, graham crackers, almonds, Nutella, Paprika, cinnamon, Orange Liquor, and Golden Raisins.  He said Orange Liquor was optional, and I could just add the raisins to his if I didn't want them.  Ok, I was challenged.  Here are the ingredients.  Sorry for the bad photo- my phone was cooperating, and the better picture I thought I took, didn't come out:

He suggested making a crust with the bacon and the almonds.  I cooked and crushed the bacon and nuts and added Nutella and the graham crackers and a little honey to make the crust.  Then, I sliced some peaches and bananas and layered them on the crust.  I created a sauce with plain Greek yogurt, the cinnamon, the paprika, the Orange Liquor, and a little honey and put that on top.  I sprinkled it with raisins:

 

The sauce was incredible, and it went well with the other flavors! I was very excited.  Could I make it again?  I don't know, but it felt good to meet the challenge!

I'm still working on my art room.  I'm trying to make it as efficient as possible.  I've been trying to rearrange and/or purge my scrapbook embellishments.

 

 What a mess!  I had no idea I had so much stuff!  Crazy!  Now, I have to decide just how much I will use.  I'm trying to come up with ways to repurpose some older embellishments.  I have a few ideas, but what a mess!!!  I got overwhelmed and fed up, and I just stuffed it all into a box.  I'll deal with it later!

Recently, we've noticed on our drive from church, that a Bennigan's was coming soon!   I was ecstatic!  I was so bummed when they closed.  Well, we went last night.  I got an Emerald Isle Club!  YUM!!!  So glad Bennigan's is back!

Also, yesterday, my first 'kit' from Studio Calico arrived!  I put 'kit' in quotes because I didn't get the main kit nor do I have a subscription.  I simply ordered the Six String add-on.  It came yesterday!!!

Isn't it gorgeous??  I'm so excited to play with it, but I have so much else to do today!  Soon!  I will get to play soon!

I hope you have a great day!  I'll be back as soon as I can!!!!!!