Happy Valentine's Day

It is a day of love. I'll be honest, not a big Valentine's Day person. I love love. I love to use hearts, but I am thinking this is more of a greeting card campaign to sell things. Or florist or candy maker, but what ever, it is a day of LOVE.

This top photo is the finished card; the one below is the semi-finished card.

I started with a white card base. I stamped the word image (Technique Tuesday) and glues that down. Then I added the die cut hanging hearts, added some Viva paint pen on the hearts and then added the Stickles. I forgot to mention, I also sprayed the card with some red Dylusions. Then I added some little red ribbons on the die cuts.

Finally, I added the earth-a Postmodern stamped image which I colored and cut out and added. I also added one to the back so that when you open the card you don't get that big white circle with all the ink blobs that leaked through staring at you.

Looking at the 2 images side by side, I think added the Stickles and the earth really finished off the card.

Here's another card I made with this icky colored background. I drew the circles and added the pink paint and then doodled in the hearts.

Then I layered the paper tape and finally added this die cut from Tim Holtz.

I colored the wording red and then added some red sparkle embossing powder to finish off the card-make those words stand out.

And one more love themed card.

This one has a slightly different take- but still talks about love. The mittens and saying are from Unity's stamp of the week series. The design at the bottom of the card is from Technique Tuesday. But before anything else went on the card I embossed in silver glitter the snowflakes in the background using an older Hero Arts background image.

I also put some Viva paint pen on the mittens to make them pop up a big and look a little more real mitten fuzzy. Mittens should be warm and fuzzy I think.

I like the fact that this card does not have any hearts on it but is still full of love!

Since I have over loaded you with these cards, I will sign off.

Wishing you lots of love in any way, shape or form.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hearts Again!

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day- although in reality I am more excited about it being the middle of February already! Just can't wait for spring!!!!! Anyhow, restart that, with tomorrow being Valentine's Day I have another hearty journal page to show you.

 This time I started by making white hearts with an oil pastel crayon and then spraying my page with pink and red Dylusions. The white pastel acted as a resist and stayed really white. I like that.

I used grey paint and the cloud Crafter's Workshop stencil to make the clouds. I used blue paint and the raindrop Crafter's Workshop stencil to make the rain drops.

You know, when you have a quibble, it is all grey clouds and feel like it is a rainy day.

I painted the big words on there and then outlined them in a white Uniball pen.

The stamped image and saying are from a set from Studio 490- Wendy Vecchi.

I picked up this couples art set because I love some of the saying.

Kind of hard to read, but if you squish up your eyes you can just make out those sayings.

I did think about using the couple image at the bottom, with the man in his chair, but if the hubby ever saw this page he's probably end up getting annoyed with me about it.

So I used the other one.

I like this splattered look here- goes with the upset-

hate fighting with my honey-

hate being the nagging wife.

But sometimes, I just am.

Making this page did help me forgive myself from a little squabble we had.

Have a super day.

A lot of Birthdays

Today there are a lot of important birthdays.

First of all, a famous American president.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

then a very famous and ground breaking biologist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Darwin_seated_crop.jpg

Yes, I am a biologist, and he was a genius, whether you buy into his theory or not.

And then, my "little" brother turns 50 today.

50!!!!!

My dorky little brother.
I must say, he really isn't dorky-
he has a PhD in civil engineering-
but he is my little brother .
Happy birthday old man-
ha-ha!

So this past Sunday after we finally cleared up after the blizzard we went and bought my Elfa storage pieces at the Container store-the sale ends today (30%) off and since the Container store is south of me in Massachusetts, it isn't easy to get to during the work week.  Now I can't wait for Dave to get the cabinet built in our bedroom and for the storage pieces to go in. The Elfa system is kind of expensive, but looks pretty sturdy compared to some of the other pieces I saw at IKEA and Lowe's. Since mine is going to be my bedroom clothing storage, it will get a lot of use. Can't wait to get organized!!!
So speaking of this past weekend's blizzard, here's a few more photos I took.

The day after the storm (Sunday) was gorgeous outside. Look at this cool shadow my garden fence made on the snow.

More cool shadows on the snow, tree branches.

Look how deep the snow is out around Dave's truck. This was Saturday morning while the snow was still coming down.

Look at the piles of snows on the back deck.

Yesterday we got a couple more inches before it turned to rain so I once again had to come home and shovel off the deck. Not that much snow though, but still...I am tired of shoveling already.

They say maybe snow tomorrow tonight- not much-though it may go out to sea south of us. 

We shall see.

Have a great day!

How to let off some frustration

Not to celebrate being sick but to deal with my frustrations from being sick.

Made this spread last week when I was once again sick.

I am refusing to get sick any more for awhile.

If I really have any say in that.

I started by painting the pages yellow over the gesso. Then I added a watered down dark blue and before it dried I rubbed some off in a circular motion.

You can see that here.

I painted the messy edge a lighter blue and added yellow paper tape all around as a border for my design.

There big red cross is what I felt like I needed-medical help!!

Oh yeah, before the dark blue paint went on, I scribbled my frustrations with a black sharpie. Don't think you really need to read everything I ever write in this book.

I used some various green Dylusions spray (there are 3 now!) to spray blobs around my stamped, colored and cut out germs. That's how slimy these colds are and that's why I sprayed these green blobs.

I added the achoos and blows with white pen and colored in the achoos with a dark green Sharpie.

These are the stamps I used. You can't get these any longer- their from the old Cornish Heritage Farms- before they shut down and then got bought out. The new company doesn't have any Kim Hughes stamps for sale, but she does has her own stamps now- Paper Smooches. Not sure if she has this whole set for sale but she does have a similar set with all the little germies. You'd have to check out Paper Smooches.

Stay Healthy

Snow Day Part 2

Nemo, the official name, or as we call it, the Blizzard of 2013, dropped an official 28 inches around here in New Durham. There were drifts much higher though (I think some were 4 feet) and spots where there was much less.

Of course Harl just loves the snow. He was thrilled when we went out to do some clearing.

Keep in mind, we didn't have any snow before this.

All this snow fell last night and this morning.

I had to shovel by starting at the top and then working my way down. Every square foot took about 5 shovelfuls to reach the bottom of the deck.  The good thing it was light and fluffy snow.

The wind was still whipping out today so I had to bundle up.

Look at the hubby

I will also say it was a nice relaxing kind of weekend. Even the malls were closed all day- so who felt the need to go out? I didn't. Kind of stay home little mini-vacation for me, I loved it!

I think this old man likes to catch snowflakes on his tongue- ha-ha!

Thanks for visiting.

Snow Day 1

Or I could have titled this post, what I did on my snow day off from work?

This was early in the day, when we just had a light breezy snow coming down.

Old Harl looks like a wolf standing out in my yard.

Ignore the flash glare.

\

Why do they always move their heads when you are just about to snap a photo?

This is how I spent part of my afternoon. Dina Wakely's new book arrived in the mail- I had pre-ordered it last fall after taking a class with her. I enjoyed starting to read it while eating a big bowl of popcorn.

This books looks excellent.

I really like Dina's style.

In the morning I made some meatballs and then got inspired and made a rainbow cake. Have you seen a rainbow cake? I didn't measure really well and ran out of batter so it had no violet layer.

I also used liquid food coloring and it doesn't give the deep rich color of paste colorings.

I made one of these 3 years ago. Here's how dark that one came out.

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You can tell I used paste colorings here.

This time my cake was pastel rainbow.

Still delicious though!!!!

The cake recipes itself is really good, moist and light.

I usually can't make very great homemade from scratch light and moist cakes,

but I would use this recipe for any other cake.

It was yummy to eat after the meatballs and while we watched Star Wars episode 4 last night.

You can see the snow blowing in the porch lights last night.

They say we're going to have more of this part of the day today before it slows down.

I'll show you some more another time.

Hopefully (since I wrote this later last night) we still have and will not lose our power.

Stay warm, snow free and in the light.

Food and other items

I have been eating healthy lately, except on the weekends. I have decided that I need a food routine that I can really live with. Which means I can't deprive myself all the time of yummy treats that I want. I love desserts and baked good and chocolate.

But if I only allow myself such treats during the weekend-

and I eat healthy all week-

then I am at least making some effort.

And on the weekend- it is not like all I do is eat bad foods. But I let myself have dessert.

One on Saturday and one on Sunday if I so desire.

Here's my past few weeks naughty treats.

1-

The chocolate martini (the Godiva recipe is a dessert in itself)!

This is a delicious new discovery of mine- thanks for my niece's friend.

I COULD drink one every night, but I have been refrained. I actually haven't had one for over 2 weeks- but last weekend I finally bought some inexpensive martini classes and a drink shaker (which seems impossible not to own when you are at this age of your life).

Maybe tonight.

2-

A few weeks back Katie and I went to cheesecake factory and I had a slice of cheesecake.

(What else would you have at a restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory?)

Heavenly, artery busting, delicious slice.

Will skip this treat for another 6 or 8 months.

3-

My winter craving

I figured I better not show you the completed brownies or I would have to go make another pan.

I add chocolate chips to mine, and they are super easy to make, right in a kettle on the stove top.

4-

Dave's choice-

for the last 2 Sundays he has wanted strawberry shortcake.

One week we used can whipped cream until I complained about not having the deadly but delicious real  stuff.

So then we had the real stuff.

5- 

Date nut bars!

The recipe from this cookbook (this is a good book if you're looking for a book of baked bar treats) is particularly good since you cook the dates in orange juice first.

Ee-gads.

But these are heavenly.

(And if you need to justify, not just delicious, full of yummy dates which have a lot of nutritional value.)

No photo of finished bars on this one either, but I did make a pan-semi-healthy snack.

6-

I forgot to photograph this and we ate it, but you do get to see the now pot I got for Christmas from Costco that I wanted. I have been making a lot of chicken in wine- or my own version of coq au vin.

I roast a whole chicken in a bottle of inexpensive Trader Joe's wine with garlic, small potatoes, carrots, onions...yummy, and not super expensive since the wine is $3.50 and chicken is around $7 and the veggies aren't bad since you don't need whole bags of them.

Good yummy winter choice.

7-

Winter is all about CHILI!

Best chili cookbook -

well my only chili cookbook

My favorite so far is Massachusetts chili.

8-

 

This is actually not a bad cookbook. I have only tried one recipe so far, but the pork chops are just yummy! There's a few other items I want to try too. I love that there are lots of drink recipes and some great looking foods that are not going to take you days to make.

I would love to try that cake on the cover too. It just looks TOO yummy.

Don't you think?

9-

Yummy yummy meatloaf. What is better on a cold winter night than that? I showed you this a few weeks ago- I had to for dinner at a pub down in Boston.

And mashers and some onion rings and there was even some cheese on top.

YUM!

10-

Finally it doesn't matter that it is winter and chilly. A finely brewed beer-domestic or imported- whether with pizza, chili or with meatloaf-works for me.

Make it not too dark or too light...

So we have snow on the way they say-

a lot they say!

(1-2 feet-eeeks! Spot 30 inches-wow!) 

As I write this Thursday evening, I hope for a snow day!

I dread driving all the way home in bad weather but since the snow isn't going to be really bad until the afternoon and night, we'll probably be out in it.

And it will be a mess I'm sure as the snow will be flying by the end of the school day. 

Today it was a zoo at the grocery store and gas station.

Man alive-a zoo!

Oh my!

postscript at 5:38 Thursday evening-

They have cancelled school tomorrow!

YAHOO!!!!!!!!

Will let you know how much snow we actually get!!!

Enjoy your Friday!