Look what I finally finished...

Yea! I was honestly worried that I wasn't going to get the motivation to finish it, but here it i! I really love how the outside looks!

heart card.

Tonight my friend Kelley came over to use my Big Shot, while hers is coming in the mail. She brought her new Heart Prints stamp set from Paper Trey Ink. So cute. While she was cutting away, I whipped a little card I had already been thinking about.
It's pretty simple, but I love it. I'm so into sewing on my cards these days. The heard it popped up with a dimensional, and it's 4.25 x 4.25.

Stamps: Heart Prints
Ink: Color Box Chalk Lipstick Red, SU Craft White
Accessories: White Embroidery Floss, Dimensionals

my mom's dining room.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Chase and I painted my parent's dining room this weekend. A while back, my sweet friend Emily dropped off a magazine off at my house. Emily I need to give that back by the way! In the magazine I saw a dining room that I knew my mom would love. She just finished her kitchen, and she is working her way around the house.

Unfortunately the paint was by Farrow and Ball. We tried Lowes and Home Depot trying to match the color, but they just could not seem do anything other than grey. We decided to just get it from Farrow and Ball, but go ahead and guess home much a gallon was... $50, no... $75 a gallon, no... $257 for two gallons. Our last resort was Porter, and very patient gentleman finally made it work.

Before:
Primer on, and the ceiling cut in:
Last coat going on.
Let me tell you, my mom is never excited about colors. She always second guesses the color, but she loves this one! It looks amazing, and it really opens up the room!

my favorite cake.

Wow, so not much blogging lately. I had a busy week. Chase had two basketball games, church, and we had friends over on Thursday and Friday night!

So, since I haven't been crafting much this week I thought I'd share the recipe of my favorite chocolate cake. It's so good it makes my mouth water, oh and it's really really easy. Thursday night I made this for the girls that were coming over for book club. We read Pillars of the Earth, and I with I could say that I meant to use my cathedral bundt pan because of that, but I didn't.

1 Chocolate Cake Mix
4 Eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 - 4 serving box of chocolate pudding (you will not actually make pudding just add powder)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat at 350 degrees
Spray bundt pan with cooking spray
Combine all ingredients excluding chocolate chips
Once you have mixed well, add chocolate chips
Pour into bundt pan and back for 45-50 minutes

december 20 & 21

It feels like I've been posing these pictures forever! I still have two days to finish. It's the never ending album. I'll get it done!

Day 20:

Day 21:


For some reason when I started this album I purchased 1.5" rings, even though Ali Edwards recommended 2" rings. So now I need to go back and get 2" rings. This album is so thick!

taylored expressions cupcake challenge #51

I must be in the mood to do some challenges. This was a layout challenge, and I'm sure every other person has cupcake stamps to use for a cupcake challenge, but surprisingly I don't. I still liked the layout a lot so I decided to give it a try.

Warning: the following card is so far out of my norm that it's shocking. Here goes...Okay, so I have some Copic markers, not very many. But I had enough to color some butterflies, and I realized that I do not have the right ink to stamp with. So everything kind of bleed. Well, I just couldn't stop. I wanted to use them, so I just kept going. After I finished coloring I decided the only way to save this was to go grunge. I decided to pull out my inner Tim Holtz and inked away with his Tea Dye ink. Here's my first step:
Step two, the moment of truth. I decided I needed to layer some images, so I pulled out a stamp I promise my mom bought for my at a garage sale (my mom is very thrifty like that). I'm not even sure I've ever used it.

In the top left corner you can see I messed up stamping, but I figured it's all messed up anyway, right?

Here's the finished product. I realize now that I didn't follow the sketch very well with that green strip. I guess I'll learn my lesson and print off the sketch and take it to my stamping table. I would pull it off, but I use multi mono, and once it's on, it's on.

Stamps: Dreams de Jour, Shoe Collage (it's from Club Scrap who I've never heard of before)
Ink: Black, Tea Dye
Paper: Basic Grey, White Mulberry, More Mustard, Always Artichoke
Accessories: Copic markers twine, gold eyelets

Thanks for stopping by.

kwerner color challenge #38

Wow, I'm on a roll with these challenges. I've got cards sitting around everywhere. I need to find some people to send these too!

Again, I'm pretty much out of my comfort color zone with these. First of all I don't even own a whole pack of ruby red. I did thankfully have a few sheets in an assorted pack. I do actually like the color now that I've used it.

Here are the colors (click on the image to view Kristina's blog and all the other participates):
So here it is... I need a new camera so bad. So, I used a tiny little square punch to cut out these little squares and stitched... let me rephrase... hand stitched them onto my card base. Yes, it took forever, but for some reason I'm in a sewing phase.

For the chipboard (made by chip chatter), I pressed them into my ink pads, then pressed them into my versa mark pad, covered them in clear embossing powder and heat set. I think the shine gives them a nice finished look.

For a simple card this took awhile. Also, you can click on the images to see them larger.


To cover up my stitching inside, I just did some simple scallops. I also used that little extra piece that you get with the Stampin Up Scallop Punch to add a little more interest.
Stamps- None... weird huh?
Paper- Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie, Pretty in Pink, White
Ink- Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie
Ribbon- Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories- Chipboard from Chip Chatter, needle and thread

Thanks for checking it out!