SNOW Scrapbook Layout

We finally have had some spring like weather this week – I’m so excited!  This morning I saw that my daffodils are already up above the ground and will soon start popping their little heads.  All my bird houses are up, clean and ready for new home owners but until the workers leave the yard they probably won’t be ready to set up house in my yard.  But based on the title of this blog post what I’m showing you today is not Spring related – it is a SNOW scrapbook layout that I created for my January Scrapbook class.

I was planning to get my pictures printed from our big Snow Storm in January, but as you can see that hasn’t happened and with spring right around the corner I thought I better get this snow page out there for you to see.

The base is Soft Suede card stock and the other colors are Night of Navy, Baja Breeze and Very Vanilla.  The snowflakes are Vellum card stock.  The designer paper is the Elegant Soiree Designer Series paper.  Some vintage brads finished up the Very Vanilla snowflakes and staples hold the grosgrain ribbon in place.

Stampin’ Up! Supplies:

  • Card stock: Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Night of Navy, Very Vanilla
  • Ink: none
  • Stamp sets: none
  • Accessories:  Big Shot Die-Cut Machine, GoGo Boots Alphabet Sizzlits dies, Hearts & Brackets die, Northern Frost Decorative Strip Die, 1/4″ Night of Navy Grosgrain ribbon, Corner Rounder punch, 2-way glue pen, vintage brads, Elegant Soiree Designer Series paper, Stampin’ Dimensionals, staples.

To order Stampin’ Up! Supplies to make this project click here.

Stamping Together at Monika’s Place – February 2011 Newsletter – CLICK HERE.

February 2011 Ribbon Share – CLICK HERE.

 

 

Simply Adorned Owl

At the end of December I had a Simply Adorned class for a small group of ladies.  We had a nice afternoon stamping as we watched the Christmas snow melt away in the backyard.

The ladies requested an owl theme for one of the inserts because their school mascot where they work is an owl.  I wanted to use the cute owl punch.  He is just a little too big for this size charm – it is the 1″ x 1-1/4″ charm – the medium size of the three that Stampin’ Up! sells.

He is still cute in there – just set off to the side a little bit.  The background is from the Play Date Designer Series Paper.  The owl is made from the Autumn Spice Specialty Designer Series Paper.  I liked using it because it was heavy weight textured card stock.

I hope you like this little charmed owl!

I have been working on my swaps for the Stampin’ Up! Leadership conference.  I leave in 5 days!  I hope the weather isn’t bad because I’ll be driving up.  I’m signed up for four group swaps – I have two of them done and two left to go.  Then I also plan to make some card fronts for general swapping.  I’ll be busy the next several days working on all those swaps.

Almond Chicken Cheese Ball

I have been making this recipe for many years – it is always a big hit.  I recently made it at my Holiday Gift Making weekend that I had back in November and several people wanted the recipe.  I am making some more for Christmas – to have out our family events throughout the holidays and thought I would share it with you.  In the past I have given it as gifts to teachers and neighbors. It was such a great teacher gift – a ready made appetizer for a teacher to take home for the holidays.  I made them when Kyle was in Kindergarten (he is now a freshman in college) and wrapped them up in a dish with crackers and a spreader to give to his teacher.  Several years later when ever we would see this teacher (she no longer worked at the school) she always commented on how she remembered that gift and how good it was.

Today I decided to wrap up a few for gifts – I actually divided one larger cheese ball into two smaller ones to wrap them.

I used several items from the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini catalog.  First the Deck The Halls fabric – I cut a large square and then folded it into quarters and used the Big Shot and the Scallop Square die to cut the fabric.  I lined the fabric up on the die so that the cut edges after I folded it up where getting cut and the folded sides were inside the die so they didn’t get cut.  This gave me a large scallop square of fabric – basically the size of 4 of them together – but one large piece of fabric.  I hope that made sense.

My cheese balls were rolled in almonds and then I wrapped them first with wax paper and then with plastic wrap.  Then  I put it in the center of my scalloped fabric square.  I took two opposite points and folded them across the cheese ball then took the other two points and brought them together at the top.  I used a large needle, some Linen Thread, and a Big Designer Button from the Deck the Halls pack – I used the smallest Always Artichoke button for these.  I used the needle to pull the Linen thread through the front of the button, through both layers of fabric to the back, through both layers of fabric again through to the front and through the button.  Tied that in a knot and then added a tag from the Tags til Christmas stamp set.  Tied it in a bow and trim the ends.  It dressed them up nicely!

Here is the recipe:

Almond Chicken Cheese Ball

1- 1/2 cups cooked chicken

1 Tbsp A-1 steak sauce

2 – 8 oz. packages cream cheese, softened

Combine above in a bowl. Mix well.

1/4 cup minced green onion

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/3 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped almonds

Mix green onion, 2 Tbs parsley and celery with the cream cheese mixture.  Mix well, form 2 balls – refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.  Roll in “leftover” parsley and almonds.  Serve with crackers.

Here are some of my notes:

-I have been using canned chicken – just drain it well.

– I usually leave out the celery – my family doesn’t care for it.

– This time I left out the parsley because I didn’t have any – it’s mostly for looks.

– Forming the balls is messy on your hands.  I get out waxed paper and put a ball in the middle of each piece. Then roll that up and cover it with plastic wrap to put in the fridge.

– I was able to freeze one – but don’t add the outside parsley and almonds before freezing and do wrap in wax paper first – because when it defrosts it gets “wet” and the wax paper seems to absorb some of that.  Let it defrost in the fridge and then roll in the parsley and almonds before serving it.

Happy Holidays!!

Holiday Tags & a Tin

This set of Tags in a matching Tin is one of the projects that we made during my Holiday Treats & Tags class last week. If you are wrapping your gifts and need tags you can make them quickly using just scraps from you Designer Series paper – some stamps and punches.

I cut pieces of 3″x3″ card stock squares – for these I used Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, and Crumb Cake.   Then I cut pieces of the Holly Holly Designer Series paper – I used 2-3/4″ squares for mine, but you can use strips or other size pieces of scraps.  I used the Tags Til Christmas stamp set from the Holiday Mini Catalog and various punches to add the designs to the front of each tag.  I ended up with 16 tags to put inside this tin.

The tin is just a flat tin that was from some old Stampin’ Up! embellishments that they sold a few years ago.  For awhile they had them for sale on the Clearance Rack – you can find that in my online store on my website – check regularly since they are always adding new things and you never know what little treasure you might find.  To decorate the tin I just covered the front with a piece of the same Designer Series paper that I used on the tags.  I put a piece of the Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding underneath so that I could tie it in a bow around the top.  I added a little tag for a decoration.

All the tags fit inside the tin if you wanted to store them or give them to someone.  Once you use the tags you can then use the tin for a gift – like a gift card or money for someone.  There are only a few more days until Christmas – I hope you are ready.  I’m finishing my wrapping today and I have a few more cards to mail out – I ran out of stamps.  And I’m going to try to do some baking today – well maybe you can’t really call it baking – this is what we are going to try to make today – peppermint bark, oreo balls, snowflake sugar cookies (ok, those are really baking), and my almond chicken cheese-ball – which I need to share the recipe for because several people wanted it when I made it at the Gift Making class – I’ll post that tomorrow.

Snowglobe Tags & Bingo Winner

These are tags you could use for your Christmas gifts.  I used them as thank you tags on my customer orders but if you need them for your gifts leave off the “thank you”.

These are 3×3 tags made from Real Red card stock.

Then I used my scraps from the Candy Cane Christmas Designer Series Paper.    I just cut little strips or squares of the various papers and added them to my 3×3 squares.

The Stampin’ Up! Sweet Snowglobe stamp is an individual stamp in the Holiday Mini catalog.  I inked the whole thing with Baja Breeze ink and then used Stampin’ Write markers in Real Red and Garden Green to color the house and the trees.  Stamped it on Whisper White card stock and cut it out.

I also stamped “thank you” in Real Red – but you could leave that off for just regular gift tags.

Believe it or not I added some glitter.  I used the 2-way glue pen and put glue everywhere I wanted the glitter – then sprinkled it with Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

Punch a hole in the corner and add some white string to hang it from your gift.

Are you wondering about Monika’s Blog Bingo?  I have a new winner for Round 7!

Here is her email:

I have Bingo!

I have the “N” column filled.

N1 is #10

N2 is #6

N3 is FREE

N4 is #5

N5 is #1

Thanks for all the fun and great ideas.

Judy J

The winner is Judy from CA.  Congratulations Judy and I’ll be sending you out a prize.

Well ladies – that is it for Blog Bingo for right now.  I’m going to take a break and get through Christmas and New Year and then I’ll look at doing something again.  When I’m ready I’ll be posting it on my blog.  I hope you’ll continue to visit me for the stamping ideas and leave comments for me too.  I love to read them and try my best to reply to them all.

We have teeny tiny snow flurries coming down right now and I need to decorate my Christmas tree.  Luckily we bought it last night when the weather wasn’t so bad – before the rain started and now the temps are dropping – my fountain is starting to freeze again and there is a white dusting on everything that is somewhat “cold”.

Thanks for visiting today!

Seasons Greetings

One more card from my Holiday Stamp-a-Stack class.  This one was an idea from Dawn Olchefske.  Another simple card that is easy to replicate.   This is the Peaceful Season stamp set which is a level 2 Hostess set in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday mini catalog.  I love the big curly swirly font on the Season’s Greetings.  The little trick I used for this one (I’m not sure if Dawn did it the same way or not) is that I first inked the holly stamp with Always Artichoke ink.  Then I used a blender pen to remove the ink from the berries.  Next use a Cherry Cobbler Stampin’ Write marker to add the ink back to the berries.  Stamp on your card stock, without re-inking stamp again to create the lighter image next to the original.

Stampin’ Up! Supplies for this card:

  • Card stock: Always Artichoke, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White
  • Ink: Always Artichoke, Cherry Cobbler, Cherry Cobbler Stampin’ Write Marker
  • Stamp sets: Peaceful Season Hostess Level 2 set (from Holiday Mini)
  • Accessories: Scallop Trim Border punch, Blender Pen, Medium Whisper White Envelope

To order Stampin’ Up! Supplies to make this project click here.

I’ve heard from some of my Bingo players that they have 3 in a row and someone has 4 in a row.  Maybe today will be the magic day for someone.  Are you ready to play?

Here we go with Monika’s Blog Bingo.  This is Round 7!  The group is full and all the cards were emailed out Monday 11/29.   See this POST for more details on how to play and the previous winners and the players for this round.

And now for the next piece – Here is piece #10–the little mug from Itty Bitty Bits stamp set (stamped in Chocolate Chip).

If you have Bingo – 5 in a row be sure to email me.  Are you getting closer to Bingo?