Sending Hugs and Kisses

The internet is a powerful thing, I have found so many wonderful friends through the world wide web. I'm blessed everyday to connect with woman around the world who love the art of scrapbooking as much as I do. These are funny, warm, caring women who struggle with everyday life, motherhood, and marriage just like me. There are days when we connect over kids, recipes, friendship issues, and loss. True friendships can be built through the keyboard and screen. The MB's and blogs are the modern day equivalent to the long letters my Gram used to get in the mail from her friends. The beauty of the web is that I get to keep up with these girls everyday, I know how they are feeling on any given day and I get to share what I am feeling. There are a lot of naysayers who think the web is only a dangerous place, but for many it's a life line to women around the world who are mothering at home all day alone or who are stuck in a town where nobody really "gets" who they a...

It's blazing hot here, and due to the fact that heat and I don't mix, I am slow to post this week. I just wanted to pop up these layouts I made. The first one was for the Studio Calico scraplift challenge... it's my lift of Scarlet's "Simple" layout. I'm really happy with the way it all came together, that Sassafras Anthem paper is rockin' but I wasn't sure how to use it... all become clearer once I cut it up and really started to play with it. I was finally able to use the soccer rub-on from Basic Grey that I had been hanging onto for the last three years! I loved that set, so much so that I accidently adhered part of it to the bottom of my foot yesterday! This second layout is something I've been wanting to document for some time, it's the beautiful flowers that bloom every spring in our yard. We have a house that will be 50 years old this summer and these bushes and trees have been here since the beginning, I feel so lucky to have such ...

I love Studio Calico for so many reasons but one of them is that there are tons of great challenges to be found there! Each and every challenge helps me to think about scrapbooking in a different way. The current challenge on the blog is to scraplift several layouts from April and Scarlet . I started with April's layouts, both of which featured some fantastic use of white space! Off to work on lifting Scarlet, she is a genius with patterned paper pairings(that's a tongue twister)! I hope some of that will rub off on me!

It's finally warming up here in the Rocky Mountains and to celebrate I wanted to share with you this fantastic dessert recipe that requires no baking, meaning no heat in the house from the oven, but yet gives you something warm to put over your ice cream... that's the ultimate combination for me, something warm and gooey over cold ice cream! Ala PW I took some photos along the way to spice up this post. So with no further ado... Summer Berries with Dumplings ... adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe 1 pound frozen berries, I used mixed and strawberries 1 tbs = 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice 6 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar 1/4 cup water 1 cup all purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/8 tsp salt 2 tbs butter, melted 1/2 cup milk (could use buttermilk and leave out 1/2 tsp lemon juice) 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon In a medium skillet cook the berries, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, water, and four tablespoons of sugar over medium heat for 14 minutes, a little less at sea level, until t...

This weekend, while eating hot dogs outside our local Lowe's, we saw our neighbors, now I would like to point out that we live right next door to these people but only ever see them out at restaurants, or in this case hot dog carts! After enjoying our lunch and chatting for a bit they asked us if it would be okay for them to move their boat down to the back of the yard along our shared fence line. I appreciated them asking because their yard is the only one that we really see due to having just a chain-link fence separating us. "Sure no problem." I replied.  Well, by that evening the boat was moved and someone at our house isn't happy about it...  Edgar is not pleased at all by this turn of events. He spent a good half hour barking and growling at the boat, sometimes quietly sneaking up on it and then exploding into a barking rage. The boat was unfazed... this infuriated Edgar even more, by the time we cornered him and brought him inside he was shaking with ange...

I am truly blessed to have a wonderful friend named Kirsty Wiseman . I had no idea she was a scrapper when I emailed her on Facebook, all I knew was that she had one handsome red Dachshund and I wanted to tell her so. Later on she made a comment about me being an SC Girl and I thought... oh she must subscribe to Studio Calico too... this is where that dog from the V8 commercials comes and knocks me on the head ... um no, she is on the SC Design Team, DUH! (In my defense I had just joined SC) Anyway, I have had the pleasure of chatting with her via the internet and learning more about her life and the fab Patti Picklicious CD's she designs, they are amazing! I had the pleasure of playing with her first release today and I thought I would share some of the cards with you... Her CD has even more designs, greetings, labels and the cutest little Patti girls. Check it out, it's fantastic, and it will turn you into a card maker in no time!

The LSS that I have worked at for almost two years is closing, my heart is breaking. This photo borrowed from my dear friend Christyn's blog .

So I love the foam Thickers by American Crafts, but I am always running out of letters that I use frequently or I don't have the color that I want... my solution... make my own! Yep, that's right folks, you can make your very own Thickers all you need are 3 simple supplies most scrappers have then follow the easy three step instructions and you have custom thickers! Supplies Needed: Die Cut System, I use QuicKutz Acid Free Foam Sheets, I buy these at Hobby Lobby Adhesive, both Pioneer Glue Stick or Kokuyo Dot N' Roller work well Instructional Steps: Step 1: Unfoam your QuicKutz for the best cut. Step 2: Cut the letters you need Step 3: Adhere the letters to your layout It's super easy and you can achieve a custom look that's all your own! Sorry if I sound a little like Billy Mays, I keep seeing ads for his new show while watching Deadliest Catch and I think his pitch lines are getting stuck in my head ;)

Hans has been part of our family for 9 weeks now and he has started to act like the puppy he is... he plays tug of war with Eds he steal my socks when he thinks I'm not watching he eats more than one bite of food at a time he enjoys getting up for a midnight snack he can go up and down the stairs by himself he digs in the yard he barks at the neighbors, but only when I am not home he gets excited when I come home It's amazing to watch him learn to trust and come out of his shell it's still an ongoing process but these little steps have been huge hurdles for him.