Happy Thanksgiving!

I just am taking a small moment to wish all of you a most wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

I know I am truly grateful to all who have subscribed to my blog and have come so often to visit and leave such wonderful comments. I count you as some of my greatest blessings and I have been so pleased to call many of you my friend. I wish you and your families a wonderful day! And thanks for sharing your talents with me as well.

God bless,
Verna

CAS Christmas Card

Well, for me it is getting to crunch time  for getting my Christmas cards done so I am scaling down to mainly clean and simple designs now. This is one which was inspired by the paper pack colors from a set by Stampin' Up! which I had ordered earlier in the year. I decided to use those colors except for adding the green to make a simple design. I really like the look too. I had not done a lot with holly this year so I decided that would be my stamped design besides the sentiment.

I stamped the nice big sentiment from the Gina K. Designs Holly Jolly set with Gina K. Designs Kraft ink to match the kraft color in the striped background of the pattern paper. The nice holly leaves were also from a Gina K. Designs stamp set called Festive Foliage and were stamped with Gina K. Designs Grass Green. And instead of stamping holly berries I  chose to take a hand held punch and make some berries with the red glitter card stock from Stampin' Up!. The last step was to add a ribbon from the Really Reasonable Ribbon Traditional Christmas Mix which was the October Ribbon Club Assortment.

I made several of this design. Some I added a ribbon to and some I made them without. I really liked both versions and these worked up really fast and quick once I had my papers cut and the design figured out.

Other supplies used were a Scor Pal, Scor Tape, Glue Dots and the Crafter's Companion Glue Pen. I cut my panels using my old guillotine cutter.

I am entering this in the following challenges:
Mod Squad Challenge -Christmas and Ribbons
Crop Stop Linky Party #22-Anything Goes

My dear sweet husband got my baked goods to the sale as our roads were bad and he used the four wheel drive pick-up to take them in to town where the sale was held. It is only nine miles but even at that it took much longer due to the slippery and sometimes snow filled roads. I hope the sale goes well too!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.

God bless,
Verna

Traditional Colors Christmas Card

I am again working with that darling doggy die and this time I created a card using it. I also tried to stick with mostly traditional Christmas colors and I must say I am really happy how this turned out.

The doggy was cut out of black card stock. I was going to piece it but when I laid it on the white card front panel I thought it looked great that way. I also die cut several gifts out and two of them were layered onto white card stock. My tree die was cut from Gina K. Designs pattern paper that I thought looked like it had lights all over it. I then added a garland made from very narrow ribbon and a star snowflake which was cut from gold glitter paper. The ribbon was also added to the doggy for a collar and for the metal tag I simply punched out a circle from the glitter paper. The last thing I did before adding this panel to a red card base was to stamp the nice big sentiment which is from Gina K. Designs.

Supplies used:

Card stock, Red Velvet ink and pattern paper as well as the sentiment stamp from Gina K. Designs

Scor Pal to crease the card in the center

Scor Tape to add the die cut tree

2-way glue to add dies

Crafters Companion glue pen to add the ribbon

Old 1/8 inch punch for dog tag

Dies used are the following:
Cheery Lynn Designs-Funny Dog CAFNN-2; Whimsical Christmas B849
Die-Namics MFT-788 Trim the Tree
CAS-UAL FRIDAYS-Fri-Dies Funky Flakes

I am entering this in the following challenges:
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge-Christmas Critters
Mod Squad Blog Challenge-Ribbon! Ribbon! Who's Got The Ribbon!
Double D Challenges-Traditional Christmas Colors
Crop Stop Linky Party #22-Anything Goes

Well, no rain or snow yet but apparently it will begin after 5 o'clock this afternoon and go into Friday. They predict 4-8 inches for our area but it will start with rain first so it could get a bit slippery. So anyone who is out and about in this type of weather please take care and drive and walk safely.

Well, I am warning you that I won't be posting as often as I will be extra busy with cleaning for the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. If I need a break I might do a card occasionally. I have a few done ahead of time so if nothing else I might just post one of those designs. In the meantime, thanks for coming and commenting and I hope you are having a great week.

God bless,
Verna

Christmas Dog Tag and Recipe

New dies arrived in my mail box this week so I enjoyed playing a bit today. I worked on a tag design. I don't do a lot of tags but this one seemed to me to be a perfect way to use this new doggie die from Cheery Lynn Designs.


I decided this tag would work for the Holiday TAGplorations Blog Hop and Linky Party so I will enter it into this fun event.



I am also entering into these challenges too:
Dies R Us Challenge #61-Tags
Crop Stop Linky Party #22-Anything Goes

Cutplorations die used: Luggage Tags

Cheery Lynn Designs dies used:
B849 Whimsical Christmas 5 piece die set-gifts
B846 Christmas Bell 7 piece set-holly and berries
CAFNN-Funny Dog

Pattern paper is from Gina K. Designs as is the white card stock. The gems were added from my own stash. I also used a Spectrum Noir Glitter Pen on the holly leaves and for the berries I die cut them from red glitter paper which is from Stampin' Up!

I am also going to add the last recipe for this Thanksgiving season of baking. The bake sale is this weekend for the church fund raiser but a winter storm is also scheduled as well, so time will tell if I am able to get my goodies to the sale. I won't drive or walk on ice unless it is an emergency. If I don't make it I will just instead donate some money.

Pumpkin Bread

3 cups sugar                                        1 scant cup salad oil
4 eggs                                                   1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon                                  1 tsp. nutmeg
2/3 cup water (or buttermilk)           2 cups pumpkin
3 1/3 cups flour                                   2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Combine sugar and oil in bowl, add eggs and beat until completely mixed. Combine dry ingredients; add alternately with the water or buttermilk. Mix well. Add the pumpkin and mix well again and then add the nuts. Pour into greased bread pans and bake at 350 degrees for 75 minutes. If smaller pans are used, it doesn't take as long so check them after 45-50 minutes as you do for a cake. I use a toothpick to poke into them and if the pick comes out clean I call them done. Only fill the pans 1/2 full as they raise a lot. This makes about 2 large or three small loaves. I actually made mine into the mini loaf pans and got five of them. And there was still some left over so I made about 6 muffins too.

Well, I guess we all knew winter would start acting like itself sooner or later. We sure did enjoy a great run of weather this Fall and it was good to be able to drive and walk without slippery conditions and visibility issues. So we indeed have much to be thankful for in that respect.

I hope you are having a great week so far too. Thanks for visiting and for all the lovely comments.

God bless,
Verna

Give Thanks and a Recipe

Today I made a Thanksgiving card design using leaves stamped with Fall colors and the sentiments from the Joy Clair stamp set called Hello Autumn. I think those leaves are so pretty as are the sentiments.

I used the Kalaidacolor Autumn Leaves rainbow ink pad to stamp my leaves on white card stock. I then layered that stamped panel onto Gina K. Designs Honey Mustard card stock. I also had some ribbon that matched the Honey Mustard so I used that on the card as well. This was layered onto a white card base. My sentiment was stamped in Gina K. Designs black ink and then die cut with a doily die and layered onto a circle of Honey Mustard card stock. I used enamel dots of the colors in the leaves to add more decoration to the sentiment design.

I stamped some of the leaves and acorns inside the card as well and added one of the verses on the set with black ink.

Cheery Lynn Dies used are:
ST 014 Rectangle
XM-4 Circle-Classic
Nesting Doll Circles CASO-15

This card design will be entered in the following challenges:
Mod Squad Blog Challenge-Thankful
Cheery Lynn Designs Challenge-Autumn Colors
Crop Stop Linky Party #53-Anything Goes
Double D's Blog Challenge-Harvest Blessings/Give Thanks
Scrapy Land Challenge #53-Anything Goes

Besides making this card I also baked a bit too. Today's baked goods are a moist brownie delight and they are called Dump Bars. Yup! You take a bowl and dump everything in except for the chocolate chips, mix by hand and then put them into a greased pan and bake. Pretty easy!

Dump Bars

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips

Dump and mix all ingredients except for the chips. Spread in a 9 x 13 pan or two smaller ones and sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Those bars smell so good but I have resisted and not cut into them. I do love anything chocolate though so this is taking lots of will power on my part.

Well, another day nearly to an end and everything seems to still be a wonderful world. We had a gorgeous Fall day and we shall enjoy them as long as we can. I hope you had a great day as well and thanks again for all of your visits.

God bless,
Verna

Jolly Christmas Trees

I hope all of you managed to get out and exercise today! I mean get to the voting booths. I did mine earlier in the morning and now it is in the hands of the people. However, it turns out I will trust that the Lord's will is being done and that hopefully, we can once again become a united nation.

The Stamp TV Mix It Up Monday challenge is to use a tree or trees on one's card or project. I made a quick and easy design with some cool pattern paper, dies, stamps and inks.

I just love that pattern paper design I got from the Gina K. Designs Sparkling Christmas paper pack. And, I used some shimmery duplex green and white card stock I got from Crafter's Companion for the card base. I thought it went fairly well with the colors on the pattern paper.

The sentiment was stamped on Gina K. Designs White card stock with Gina K. Designs Red Velvet ink. I then die cut that out with the Nesting Doll Oval #1 and that was layered onto a Cheery Lynn Designs XM-7 Classic oval cut from Gina K. Designs Kraft card stock. But before I added the doily oval I took some Red Velvet ink and sponged around it and then also used my Wink of Stella to make it appear a bit shimmery. I also added some enamel yellow dots which are from Stampin' Up! before I popped it up with some Zots.

Inside the card I added some pattern paper along the bottom edge and also stamped a sentiment from a Gina K. Designs stamp set.

The Gina K. Designs stamp sets used are: Holly Jolly and the Noel stamp set. Both have lovely sentiments on them which I thought would work quite well together.

Well, that is my card making for today. I managed to get a bit of baking done again this weekend so I will share a photo of what I made as well as the recipe. It is a family favorite that my Mom always made for my hubby as she knew he loved it. But truth be told, everyone in the family loved it and it is still a tradition we bake often and especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I might add that it is very economical and easy to bake. Perhaps the hardest thing to do is washing out the fancy pans I bake them in. **wink**

Hobo Bread

1 1/2 cup of raisins

2 tsp. soda

1 cup boiling water

1 cup sugar

2 tabsp. shortening

1 egg

2 cups flour

pinch of salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Pour boiling water over the raisins and soda. Let this stand until it is cool. Combine the other ingredients. Then take some soup or vegetable cans without rims on them inside and grease and flour them. Combine the raisin mixture and dry ingredients and fill the cans 1/2 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. I always take a tooth pick and poke it in to make sure they are still not a sticky dough. If the toothpick comes out clean it is done. I leave them in the cans for at least 15 minutes before I try to remove the little loaves. **If you add some candied fruit or dates it is like a fruit cake. 

Tomorrow is Arlin's second cataract surgery so we will be rising extra early again tomorrow as it also involves another out of town trip. I will be so glad when that is done and wish me luck on getting up at 3-4 o'clock in the morning. I am not a normal early riser anymore since retirement so this is a struggle for me. Say a prayer that I wake up on time.

You have a wonderful rest of the day and thanks for visiting.

God bless,
Verna

Baby Jesus Step Card

I recently won a gift certificate to Joy Clair stamps and of course, I had to go over the limit of the gift certificate with my shopping but I am so glad I did. I also recently won a gift certificate to Cheery Lynn Designs and went over that amount too, but this way I can use both of their products in today's card. I am loving what I purchased from them and will try to give them a good home.

The step die is from Cheery Lynn Designs as is the classic oval die that has the Baby Jesus scene on it. The stamps used on this card are from the Joy Clair set called Away In A Manger.

I stamped the scene with Gina K. Designs black dye ink and colored the baby Jesus with my Bic Mark-It pens. I also sponged on some Gina K. Designs blue around the edges using Gina K. Designs ink. For the star I used a 2-way glue pen and then sprinkled on some Gina K. Designs gold glitter. And card stocks used on this card are Gina K. Designs White, Red Velvet and Christmas Pine. Gina K, Designs inks used are Red Velvet, Powder Blue and Black.

The sentiment panel was stamped with black ink and then below it I used some punched out dots from gold glitter paper from Stampin' Up! to bling it up some. The red and green plaid ribbon with just a hint of gold is from a set of ribbons I won from a hop and they are from the Traditional Christmas Mix from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

I also added a white panel inside the sentiment panel so that I can write a little message. Along the bottom I added more of the plaid ribbon but it is kind of hard to see it, but take my word for it, it is indeed there.

I had been admiring all the step cards I had seen so often so when I saw this die that would make it so much easier to do I decided that would be a wonderful addition to my card crafting. I think I am going to like it a lot. And, since I only made one other step card I am a little bit overwhelmed but I think this turned out much better than I had thought it would. I am sure over time I can learn more ways of making them more artistic.

I am entering this in the Mod Squad Blog Challenge in which the theme is to use gold. This will also fit the Scrapy Land Challenge #53-Anything Goes.

Well, I hope you have had a wonderful Sunday. We had a Mission Service with a special speaker at church today and then afterwards we had a potluck meal. We Lutherans like our potlucks. LOL So it was indeed a good day.

Thanks for stopping by.
God bless,
Verna