Birthday Card for Liberty Grace Williams

This is the card I made for Liberty's 3rd birthday. She celebrated with two parties, one at home and then one on Sunday, 1/25, at a pizza parlor in Rocklin. We were invited to this party. The pizza parlor has a party room with two Wiis. The kids and adults who played with the Wiis had a great time. Some of us sat and observed and encouraged. :) Liberty's actual birthday was Tuesday, the 27th. Her mom is Michelle who named my blog. The card base is pink. I added a strip of designer paper in a darker pink. The other layers are a dark pink, the same pink as the card base and white. I used Copic markers to color the little princess. I also colored in some of the letters in "Happy Birthday" in two shades of pink and added a small piece of sheer polka dot pink ribbon. I think it turned out pretty cute.

I have 3 more birthday cards and bind-it all projects to post. I will wait until after the birthdays have passed before I post them.

Sympathy Card

I made this sympathy card for the family of Jimmy Koons who passed away in Wailuku, Maui, HI on January 21, 2009. Jimmy was a member of the Kailua Nazarene Church during our teen years. I met Jimmy when my family moved to Kailua during the summer of 1959. We were part of the youth group, he was the president of our youth group and I was vice-president. We also attended Kailua High School together. He was a junior and I was a senior. His younger sister, Monabelle and I were also close friends. He was a shy guy, however, lots of fun to be around. I received the news of his passing in an email Monday morning sent by a former classmate from Kailua High. I was very saddened to get the news. I was able to find the phone number of another good friend, Rita Lum McWharter, and phoned her to tell her the news. She was part of the group of us that hung around together. Rita now lives in Ohio. I also emailed Earl & Jinnie Hartzler in Hillsboro, OR and left a comment on the Facebook wall of Bob Gore. Bob's father pastored the Kaimuki Church of the Nazarene and Earl and his family were part of the fellowship of the Kaneohe Church of the Nazarene. Jinnie knew Jimmy from college.

He pastored the Kahului, Maui, HI Church of the Nazarene for a few years before retiring from the ministry. He leaves his wife, Laura, children and grandchildren. Laura's twin sister, Carol and her husband live here in Sacramento and are very active on the Sacramento District of the Church of the Nazarene.

The card base is a dark green with a layer of designer paper from Basic Grey. The butterflies were punched from a scrap of dark teal blue. There is some dark blue in the Basic Grey paper.

Birthday Cards & Bind-It-All Projects

This birthday card was for our grandson, Andy, who celebrated his 6th birthday last week. He had a party with some school friends at a place called Adventureland where they have bounce houses and all kinds of play things for kids. Then this past Sunday there was cake over at his house for the grandparents, cousins and 2 aunties. It is so difficult sometimes to come up with ideas for boy cards. This is a simple little party hat from AMuse. The sentiment is also. I stamped them with black ink then colored in with Copic markers. The card base is blue. I put a layer of white cardstock on the inside then stamped a verse on it. Simple card, yet cute and he liked it. Andy starts off the family birthdays and it was for his birthday that I started making family birthday cards. I think it was his 2nd birthday. This next card was for a friend's birthday. Sue goes to the same church we do. She's a retired Sheriff's deputy and back in the mid 90's I had a temp position in the Placer County Court Clerk's office. She was a baliff in one of the courtrooms. I saw her one day when she came up to the clerk's office to pick up the mail for her department. I recognized her as someone that attended our church. We became close friends after that. At one time, she also did crafts. Anyway, this is the card I made for her birthday. It's real simple too. The card base is a lime green. I cut a strip of white cardstock with my Marvy paper cutter using a scallop wheel. I edged the scalloped with lime green Stickles and used silver and candy cane Stickles to do the dots on the white. The flower stamp is from Memory Box and the happy birthday is by AMuse. I used a Copic marker to color in the flower then went over it with a Spica silver glitter pen. The striped piece of cardstock is from AMuse. I put a piece of white cardstock on the inside before I wrote in it. The ribbon is pink sheer with polka dots.

This is the post-it-note holder that I made for her. I covered it with scrapbook paper. The pad is a lime green although it looks yellow. I used pale green and maroon ribbons in the wires. Sue loved her card and gift.

This birthday card was made for Susan, my son-in-law's sister. The cardbase is turquoise. I cut two strips from my cardstock scraps with my Marvy paper cutter using the scallop wheel and put them under each long side of the white cardstock. The flower stamp is AMuse and the sentiment is SU. I used SU and Copic markers to color the flower then for the center I used yellow Stickles. I put a white layer on the inside and a strip of the striped cardstock. Yet another simple, cute card.

Here's the post-it-note holder I made for her. The ribbon I got at Michael's.

This note pad was made using a junior size legal tablet (5x8). I had Office Depot cut them down to 3 1/2 x 8. At Christmas I made a bunch of these with cardstock covers that had a ribbon to close it shut. I wanted to use my Bind-It-All to see how they would come out. I like them although I think I need to get some smaller size wires. I used the 3/4 inch wires on this and the next one. I think it's a little too big of a size wire for these because they are not very thick.

This one was made using a 3x5 size note pad. The scrapbook paper used is all scraps. So these are a nice way to use up scraps.

I have a few more birthday cards to make and more post-it-note holders to finish. I'll post those as soon as I get them finished. I'm sure having a lot of fun using my Bind-It-All!

A Beautiful Saturday

I have to put a short post in here. I was getting a little crazy having to look at that plate of pasta and peas everytime I opened up my blog. LOL!!!!

It's another gorgeous day here in Sacramento. In the mid 60's and a bright sun. We've had nice days all this week. Don't know how long it will last, am going to enjoy it while we can. Thankfully, we are not having the bitter cold weather that is being experienced in the rest of the nation. Or the high winds that Hawaii experienced yesterday. I forgot to ask my friend Jalna about that.

I've been working on more projects with my Bind-It-All and made some birthday cards. I need to finish up a couple of cards, take pictures of everything and then I will be able to post them on here.

So stay tuned! :)

Pasta with Peas and Bacon

I know, this blog is about my paper craft creations, however I wanted to do this post especially for my Hawaii blog friend, Jalna. Jalna is a photographer and takes the most beautiful pictures. One of the things she likes to do is take pictures of food, whether it be where she's had lunch or a dish she or her husband has fixed. I think it was last week she posted a picture of a pasta dish her husband fixed for dinner. It looked so very good. So I decided to take a picture of what I fixed for dinner tonight. I found this recipe on the Food Network website a few years ago and its a recipe that Emeril Lagasse fixed at a fire station in New York City. It goes together very simply and is so good. I always make a lot so there is leftovers!! :)

Here's the recipe as its written. I will then tell you how I do it.
1 lb tortellini (cheese filled)
5 or 6 pieces of bacon, sliced thin
1/2 onion, chopped
4 ozs of frozen peas
2 T freshly grated Parmesan cheese
6 ozs heavy cream
Salt & pepper

Place tortellini in a pot of boiling water. In a large skillet, cook the bacon until crispy. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, place on a paper towel to drain. Pour out all the bacon grease except for 1 T. In the same skillet, place the onion and cook for 2 minutes, or until golden. Pour in the cream, and reduce until lightly thickened. Remove the pasta from the water when it is al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain and add the pasta to the cream mixture. Add bacon back to the pan along with the peas and cheese. Reduce for 1 minute. Toss and adjust the seasonings. Garnish with additional parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.

Here's what I do:
I use a mixture of plain and spinach tortellini with ricotto, romano and parmesan cheese by Buitoni. It's a 2 lb package. I also add some chopped ham and brown it with the bacon. I buy one of those small ham steaks by Hormel, I think. I don't measure the amount of peas, I just pour some in my Pampered Chef microwave pot with a little bit of water and microwave it for about 3 minutes. I don't measure the amount of cheese either, just pour some in until I think its enough. After I drain the pasta, I put it back in the same pot and add the cream mixture, bacon & ham, peas and cheese and mix it altogether. With some nice hard crusty bread and a salad, it's a fantastic meal.

I forgot to say I use about 3/4 of a pint of heavy cream since I fix a 2 lb package of tortellini instead of 1 lb.

So make it sometime. I know you will enjoy it as much as we do.

I'll have some paper crafts to post in a few days. I need to get some birthday cards made this week. I can't seem to get motivated to do so. :)

A Project Using My Christmas Present

Bind-It-All Machine and accessories by Zutter. This is what my husband gave me for Christmas. I've wanted one of these since I first heard about them some time last year. This is the 2nd version of the machine. You can make covers for books, journals etc with a spiral binding. I got the machine, the tote bag to carry it in, a package of wires and a corner rounder punch. This is the machine. It's a pretty pink color. The original machine is blue.

The tote bag.

A package of 3/4 inch wire. They come in sizes ranging from 5/16 inches to 1 1/4 inches. The little plastic pieces on the key chain are guides of the different size wires.

This is the corner rounder punch. The size is 1/2 inches. They also make a 1/4 inch corner rounder punch. The neat thing about this punch is that you are able to punch several layers at a time.

Here is the project that I made using the Bind-It-All this afternoon. It is a post-it note holder. The cardboard that it is laying on is what I used for the covers. I used the same technique as I did when I made the journals with the composition books to cover the cardboard.

After I covered the cardboard, I punched the holes. This was easy because it is the same size of the machine, it punches 6 holes without any adjustments. After I punched the first cover, I couldn't get it out of the machine. I pushed and pulled and couldn't figure out what had happened. It was stuck in the machine. Then I noticed that the handle had not come all the way up releasing the cutting mechanism. After I made sure the handle was all the way to the beginning position, the cover came out easily. One of the tutorials I had watched showed the post-it-note taped to the back cover before the holes were punched. Well, it was too thick to fit in the cutting guide so I had to take the pad off, punch the holes and then tape the pad back down. Actually binding it all together was not hard at all. That is done in the front part of the machine. I tied the ribbon on the wires to finish it off. I am quite thrilled with the way it turned out and was quite simple to make. I want to experiment with some bigger sizes now.

Here's what it looks like opened up.

Christmas Cards

This is probably my favorite of all the Christmas cards I made. The card base is a dark green and the designer paper is from Basic Gray. The stamps are Memory Box's winter 2008 release. I used Copic markers to color the holly and berries. I put a layer of ivory on the inside and a strip of the designer paper. I sent this card to Denise and family for their Christmas card.

I saw this layout on a blog I read sometimes. I changed it up a little. The layers are a dark green, dark brown and a Kraft layer. I sponged the Kraft layer with white craft ink then stamped the trees in white. It took me several tries to get the trees how I wanted them. The larger tree was stamped in a dark green chalk ink.

This next card was one of the designs that I was going to use for our 2007 Christmas cards. Unfortunately, I did not get them finished nor sent out. So I decided to finish a few and included them with the cards I sent out for 2008 Christmas. It is a very simple card, a white card base, the oval is stamped with a pale green and then stamped the dove in black over the oval. The fern was punched out with a fern punch and glued on using CM glue pen.

Gift Card Holders & Gift Tags

I found a tutorial to make these gift card holders on the Hero Arts Stamps blog. They are very simple to make. I made them for 5 of our teen granddaughters.

This is what the inside looks like. Behind the ivory circle, I cut a slit in the folded piece of cardstock and then inserted the gift card in the slit. I wrote their names on the round circle.

We gave one of our grandsons a check so I made this holder for it. It's very simple, just measured the check and then cut a piece of cardstock and folded it to make a pocket. It can't be seen, I used one of my small round punches and punched a half circle in the middle of the top layer so the check could easily be taken out of the holder.

These are gift tags that I made for the presents of our younger grandchildren. I made several more, however, forgot to take pictures of them. They were made using 2 different sizes of oval scalloped punches. I used stamps from an A Muse Christmas stamp set, punched a hole at the top and used some gold cord for the tie on. Very simple and super fast to make. I had intended to make up some sets to sell, however, did not get that accomplished. Maybe next year.

This tag I used a stamp from a Stampin' Up set. The snowflakes are a Memory Box stamp.

I used Copic markers to color the stamps.

Birthday Card for Michelle

This is a birthday card I made for Michelle Williams. Her birthday is just before Christmas. Michelle is the one that suggested the name for my blog. The card base is a grayish blue and opens on the side. I used a piece of designer paper from basic gray and then cut out a couple of butterflies from the same cardstock as the card base.

I used a piece of ivory cardstock on the inside and a strip of the designer paper at the bottom.

Happy New Year

I am sending Happy New Year greetings to all of you. I have a few projects to post and will do that now. We didn't do a whole lot for New Years Eve or day. New Years Eve day was cold, rainy and windy. Our church had a community dinner and we went for about an hour. There was not as good a turnout as there had been for Thanksgiving. Still there were several families from the community. We were home by 7:30 pm and then watched movies until midnight. We heard several gun shots and/or rifle shots just before midnight and for a few minutes after. It's illegal to do that, however, people do as they please.

The sun did come out for a while on New Years Day. It was still windy and cold. I watched the last hour of the Rose Parade in Pasadena. Roseville, a Placer County city across the border line of Sacramento County, entered a float this year. It won the Governor's trophy. The very first Rose Queen rode on the float. She lives in Auburn which is further up the highway from Roseville. Gerry went out for a ride on his bicycle and was home by 2 pm. I went up to Joann's to see the items they had on sale. Nothing too interesting or what I couldn't live without. Gerry watched USC beat Penn State badly in the Rose Bowl. My father graduated from USC back in the early '20's.

Around 7 pm we decided to go get some dinner at L&L Hawaiian BBQ. They have local island (Hawaii) type dishes on their menu. It's not all that exciting, however, it's the closest I can get to eating food from back home. It's the same chain as what is back home. There were several of their restaurants here in Sacramento. They've all been closed except for maybe 4 0r 5 that are still open.