God Bless America!

And here is my other project for today.  This was inspired by some totally adorable treat buckets found on this post at Karlee Krafts, and by Robyn at My Pink Stamper that she made a few months ago (that I couldn't find the link to).  I need something to bring to the people that my husband and I visit every month in our church.  I hope they like them!

The buckets come from the ever popular dollar section at Target, and it was so convenient that the Kit Kat, Baby Ruth and 100 Grand were so appropriately colored!  The arrow banner came from the Accent Essentials cartridge, and God Bless America came from Beyond Birthdays.  A word to the wise:  don't cut "america" at 3/4".  It was WAY too fine and it took me forever to get it all put together

And with that, I'll be signing off for today because the domesticity going on at my house right now is far from divine!  Time to do something with the kids so they don't destroy the entire house.

MPS Color Challenge - pink, brown, orange, and green

The argyle pattern is from Wild Card, and the orange is from Preserves.  The stamp is from Stampendous.  I'm happy with how it turned out!

Hoooo's Birthday?

I still haven't had a lot of time to play with the Expression.  My husband was playing with a band in the park last night - fun times!  I did take a few minutes to play with Wild Card, one of my Wal-Mart clearance finds. Definitely easier with the Expression, although I'm not sure this cartridge is going to be a favorite.  I like to be able to put more details in my work and there are limitations with this cartridge.  It has some cute images though, and a cute font.  Maybe I just need to work with it a little more.

This is a little more me.  The colors were a bit of a stretch - I love how this turned out, but I usually go for a little less bright (or loud!).

Where has the time gone?

That's just how it is in the summer.  The kids are home from school all day long and so there are outings, rehearsals (my girls are munchkins in a local production of the Wizard of Oz), and the never ending mess that comes from the towels being left laying around after playing in the water, the sticky spots all over the floor from popsicles, and the fact that I've been potty training my 3 year old son.  Having 2 girls close together, then waiting 5 1/2 years before my son arrived did not prepare me well for the joys and challenges of a boy in his toddler years!  My girls spoiled me...

Needless to say there hasn't been a lot of time for crafting.  I am going to MAKE time (darnit) in the next few days though because I have (albeit temporary) custody of a Cricut Expression!  My mom is coming to visit in a few weeks and she asked me to order one for her and it arrived today.  And of coarse it is my duty to make sure that it is in working order!  I am thinking I will finally have to delve into the world of vinyl because my husband wants me to make a sign to put on his car.  I am also thinking I will have to make good use of my Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge while I can make bigger ones.  Oh, and some bigger envelopes too...

Hopefully I can get some crafting done before this weekend when I will be going camping with my family.  Yeah!  That's my attempt at enthusiasm, because truth be told, I'm not the greatest camper.  But hey, there could be some good Kodak moments and scrapbooking opportunities, right?  Oooh, that of coarse means that I'll need to buy a new cartridge that has camping images.  Hmmm, I'll have to keep my eyes out for that while I'm stalking my local Wal-Mart, watching for when they put their cartridges (non-Lite) on clearance.

Marshmallows!

Making marshmallows was so much fun!  And they are SOOOO yummy!  And they were much easier to make than I thought they would be.  You do need to have a good mixer - I have a Kitchenaid.  I remembered seeing these made on an episode of Good Eats on the Food Network, so if you would like to get the recipe you can find it here, courtesy Alton Brown.

Gourmet Goodies

It seems that as soon as school is out my children decide it's time to set up a lemonade or Kool-Aid stand.  It's one of those things that I remember doing as a child, and now I find myself wondering why my parents let me!  The way my mind works is, if you want to earn some money you need to be selling something that people will actually want to buy.  So once in a while, during a moment of insanity, I agree to make something that my children can sell to earn some extra money.  It's actually a good way to teach the kids a little economics with the cost of supplies, the time it takes to make things, how much to charge, etc.  With Father's Day coming up on Sunday, I naturally thought:  food.  So this is what we have made so far:  homemade caramel and chocolate dipped pretzel rods, and chocolate dipped rice krispies.  We're going to wrap them up in cellophane, complete with ribbon, and of coarse a cute tag!  What's next?  Homemade marshmallows.  I've never made those before, so stay tuned!

Wow, what a milestone!  I've reached the 1000 visits mark since I started a counter a couple of months ago.  Thank you for looking at my blog!

There is a lot of domesticity going on at my house at the moment.  The children are out of school, DH is done traveling for a little while, and we are finally starting to see some summer weather here.  I think I could spend a month in my yard and there would still be work to be done!  I love veggie gardening, in fact, we planted our garden on Memorial Day and we are already seeing sprouts!  It's so fun to take the children out into the yard and see their excitement when they see the seeds that they planted starting to pop out of the ground.

I also made soap last week.  I learned how to make soap a few years ago for my mother-in-law so she could have fragrance free soap.  I don't get to make it very often because it's not a very kid-friendly process and I only like to do it when I won't have children underfoot, which is pretty much never.  I'll post separately about the soap later this week.

I have also had some craft room time, miraculously!  It was time to pay the piano teacher again (she let's me pay her in cards, bless her heart) so I have been creating to my heart's content.  It's just a sacrifice that I make...  ;-)

I have finally been able to spend some quality time with my Preserves cartridge that I was so excited about getting.  

and my personal favorite: