Monday, November 28, 2016

Weekend Wrap-up

Our weekend started on Wednesday before Thanksgiving so I'll cover it all in this post. We spent Thanksgiving with our dear friends who are also Darin's godparents. Her mom, left in photo, is our expert level chef and always always has an amazing spread for the holidays. This year there were 2 turkeys, one regular in the oven turkey and the other a deep fried turkey by Darin's godfather. The deep fried turkey won hands down...amazing! My contribution were the greens, 2 different salads, and rolls. Another friend brought the ham and mashed potatoes. We stuffed ourselves silly and spent the day just hanging out!
We stayed home on Black Friday and put up our tree and some decorations. We spent the rest of the day shopping online and started a Christmas puzzle. Jori and I did the majority of the work and Darin put in the last piece. Sneaky kid stole a piece and waited until we were done and hunting for it before he stepped up with it!!!
We also received our first Christmas card of the season from Jori's XC coach...so sweet of him to send one out to the team. For the first time ever, we had to have a do-over on our annual ornament tradition. We bought Jori a cross country runner ornament, to the right of the card, and he hated disliked it...so much so I bought him a new one to replace it. It's a White Mountain Laser original custom cut and designed for me/him. Check them out if you have any custom work you would like done. Dave is a whiz at designing items especially out of wood!
Last but not least, we spent some time at Holy Cross for the 10th annual Courts for Courtney 3-on-3 Basketball tournament. Both boys had their own teams and had a blast. What a great event...love seeing the community coming out to support a great cause.
It was a nice relaxing 5 day weekend spent with family and friends. There was hockey and baseball thrown in the mix as well as a few trips to the stores but mostly we stayed home. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend as well!

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Monday, November 21, 2016

Weekend Wrap-up

What a wonderful weekend at Purity Spring's Mom n Me scrapbooking weekend. We worked and we played and I fought a cold all weekend. The photo booth was a great idea and was enjoyed by all, including your hosts and the vendors.
I taught two classes, the crazy birds and canvas class. Both classes were a mix of Mom's and Me's. I didn't get a picture of the adults but I did get the girls with their canvases...their skill level was amazing and their work just incredible.
Thank you all for a great weekend! I am looking forward to next year and will have more fun stuff planned for you!!!

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Sneaky Sunday - You Did It!

It's not quite graduation season but I found some great paper and just had to put this one together. It came out better than I imagined and the sparkly shiny paper makes all the difference. I kept it monochromatic so it can be applied to any and all graduation photos. You don't want to miss this one!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Random Friday

It's been a while since I've posted a I Am post so here goes...
~ catching up on all my DVR'd shows especially Code Black and Criminal Minds
~ listening to an audiobook called The Assasins by Gayle Lynds
~ eating too much ice cream and chocolate...Halloween chocolate needs to get out of my house!
~ enjoying the beautiful fall colors on display by Mama Nature out there
~ playing catch-up with freezer meals for the family while I'm away at events
~ looking forward to the holiday season with family and friends
~ getting out daily with this handsome guy
 
~ designing a new distress ink technique card class with the crazy cats and crazy dogs. Look for it in January!
~ wanting to get back into knitting starting with a shawl and learning how to pick up stitches.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Weekend Wrap-up

Hello Monday! I spent the weekend with Ready Set Crop at the Great Wolf Lodge in Fitchburg, MA. It has been a while since I've had the pleasure of working with Ready Set Crop...it is such a fun crop! I managed to get a nice overview picture of my booth and it has definitely grown over the years.

Tiffany, RSC organizer extraordinaire, is always so good about documenting the weekend and sharing on instragram. Check me out teaching my very popular Crazy Birds card class.
And since I was only 30 minutes away at GREAT WOLF LODGE, I talked my boys into coming up for a visit and a swim! They had a wonderful time even if the park was a little tame for these teen boys of mine.
If you ever get a chance to join the ladies of Ready Set Crop, don't hesitate...it might be at a crazy water park but it was nice and quiet in our corner of the property.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Sneaky Sunday - Field Hockey

Another new layout kit I have in stock is this Field Hockey 2 page layout. It's a quick and easy layout put together with Bazzill swiss dots paper, Core-dinations kraft core paper and some Siewleng custom die-cuts.


Friday, November 11, 2016

Fave Finds: Cooking edition



With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I've been adding new recipes to my Recipes to Try Pinterest board and am sharing some of them here. We'll start with some appetizers...

Sweet Potato Casserole Bites - love that they are bite size and so easy to put together!

Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Spread - and this cheese spread looks healthy paired with apples and pears.

This Roasted Brussel Sprout, Cinnamon Butternut Squash, Pecan and Cranberry side dish 
looks yummy especially since I love roasted brussel sprouts.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bundt Cake - maybe this would be great for breakfast Thanksgiving day expecially if there are guests in the house.

Leftovers can be made into Warm Turkey Sliders, and I will admit I am looking forward to this. I'll have to buy extra rolls and hide them!

Drinks, can't forget the drinks...Cranberry Moscow Mule looks really easy and good.

And after stuffing myself silly, I'm going to need some of these mason salad (and maybe a few pasta) jar recipes.
Mason Jar Pasta Salad
Thai Salad in a Jar
30 Salad in a Jar recipes

Do let me know if you try any of these recipes. If/when I do, I will be sure to share.


Monday, November 7, 2016

Weekend Wrap-up

I had the privilege of spending the weekend with 125 Cool Croppers at the Radisson in Providence, RI. Firstly, I would like to THANK all the wonderful ladies that stopped by to chat and support my business as well as those that participated in my classes. I hope you had as much fun as I did. We sprayed some distress ink and I thought this was a cool shot and had to share...
A shout-out to the girls that joined me in my You Go Girl! canvas class. I am so amazed by the amount of talent and creativity every time I teach this class. I never in my wildest dreams thought this class would be so inspiring but at the end of every class, I just want to dig in and make another canvas. Great job!!!

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Sneaky Sunday - Zoo Adventures

This new layout kit is has TWO 2-page layouts that will highlight your zoo photos. There is lots of space for all of your Zoo or Busch Garden or Animal Kingdom photos. Paper line is by Bo Bunny Designs with plenty of Bazzill and Core'dnations cardstock thrown in.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Changing seasons

I pick Hello Fall for my favorite fall collection. Love the blue thrown in with the other traditional fall colors.
Carta Bella's Autumn line is my second pick...love the bright colors.
3rd would have to be Echo Park's "Fall is in the Air"...the colors with a hint of teal, perfection!
Photo Play has their own fall line called Falling Leaves.
Reminisce has their Best of Harvest collection. 
These next two aren't specifically fall  but would work for both fall and outdoor photos. The fox in Jillibean Soup's Mushroom Medley line (2nd photo below) is just too cute. If you're at a crop in November, I will be offering a two-page layout class using this line.

Plenty of Fall lines to choose from...last but not least, Authentique's Harvest
Bo Bunny's Farmer's Market
and Doodlebug's Flea Market

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Layout Share

This obviously isn't the best photo but I really wanted to share it. I'll try to take a better photo when I get back from Cool Crops Warwick. My layout looked really plain when I initially put it together so I decided to use some texture paste on it, it was a challenge for our Just Scrappin' crop. Armed with a stencil, a spatula and some texture paste, I went to town and love how it came out.
As you can see from this second pic, it's the imperfect circles that make it look so cool. The paste can be applied very thinly and takes very little time to dry. I will have to try this technique with colored paste (just add ink or distress paint) or even some of Heidi Swapp's really cool metallic paste!