Cake or Cards today....i say cards!

Here are my latest creations. Working from the bottom up, the first is my Bellerific Friday Card. I love cooking and I love card making...so I have combined the 2. I tested out my new copic markers on this image. I don't love them....yet. Who would have thought they would have made you an instant artist when using them...ah me! Well not so much. I made due for the time being, but I think I need more colors, of course a bigger investment....yeah investment in markers. Moving on...I needed some masculine birthday cards, so I made the greenish brown one for my cousin Jeffrey who is woodsy outdoors type...looks appropriate, eh? The other one with butterflies although my best intentions were to go masculine...not sure butterflies are a guy thing, maybe if I had a dragon fly. Last but not least is my sparkly 40th birthday card for a dear friend and neighbor. I love the little sparkles a bit time consuming, but worth the PUNCH! Happy viewing!

Sour Cherry Pie will now always remind me of 4th of July. I baked 2 of these pies for our family BBQ. I was a little worried about sour cherries, but you wouldn't even know they were sour when you were eating a piece. I also baked sour cherry tarts with a lemon custard - they were delish and I don't typically like lemon desserts, but they were extremely time consuming to make all the part and put it all together. They were all eaten before I could snap a picture! Email me if you want either recipe.

Birthday Cards

I am getting an early start on my June Birthday cards. I won't mention any names, just in case they are reading! I am pleasantly surprised to have managed to do some much of what I love most today. Cooking, Crafting and Cleaning...although don't love that last task all that much, I do love feeling productive though. Ok onto my cards, when I was making the flowery card, I was cutting out the extra paper underneath all the layering I was going to do (leaves me with scraps for my Daughter's mini mom like cards) and she is the one who gave me the idea of making it look more like a framed picture rather than a layered one! I do love how it turned out. My second card is for this Fridays Bellerific Friday, which is suppose to be a masculine card. I used my new distressed ink stamp to make the gray background circles, my cricut to make all the yellow circles, my bella stamp for the cupcakes, prisma red pencil for the cherry, and crystal effects on the cherry which give them a bit of pop and shine. The ink and paper are stampin' up, I do love how their paper and ink are the same shade! Yes, I am crafty crazy!

DIY - Ribbon Holder for my crafty corner!

My DIY project for the weekend was a curtain rod ribbon holder! With a quick and productive stop to Ikea for these 1.99 curtain rods was well worth it. My original thought was to hang cards off the second curtain rod, but as I stared at the mess of embellishments in a basket, I got a great idea to hang them up, and of course organized by theme! Sometimes, I think I enjoy the sorting and organizing just as much as I love crafting and cooking! My daughter actually arranged all the ribbon in color order and strung them on the rod, while I helped my husband hang of the brackets! She also loved pinning the baggies to the clips. It was too late to make anything, but we will be inspired the next time we sit at our table.

Beef & Bean Casserole with Cheese Biscuits

Try out the beef and bean casserole from the Canadian Living Magazine which was D - LISH. Mine probably doesn't look as appetizing as the link... I am not food photographer, but what counts is my 7 year old even loved it. I did skip the molasses that the recipe calls for, since I didn't have any. I am not sure it needed it! A few other things I did were I used a red pepper (i find they are sweeter than the green). I also made my own buttermilk by adding 1 tbsp of vinegar into 1 cup of whole milk. You let that sit for 5 minutes and use it as buttermilk. I sauteed it all in a large frying pan since I don't own a dutch oven(what a shame)! Let me know if you try it out!!

Father's Day Card

oh my sooo much to talk about and always so little time...I have been crafting, baking, entertaining, gardening, card making, cooking...not sure what to talk about first!! ok, I am going to start with my Bellerfic Card for last Friday...it is a colorless one...meaning I didn't do any coloring! I still need lots of practice working with my prisma pencils, so I decided to keep it simple. This card is for my Dad. I will list out my 10 favorite things I LOVE about him then mail it with lots of time to make it to PA in time for Father's Day. He would be proud to know I have an herb garden planted, we also planted a strawberry and raspberry bush....let's see how much fruit we get!

Some cards in between!

Attached are some cards I whipped up and have already mailed out. I like to make cards with someone already in mind, but it usually leaves me behind :)I need to make a card to do list for the weekends, although with the thought of the sun shinning soon, everyone might get left behind. I hope I will still find time to cook and card create...that is once the sun arrives!