My Happy Stamping Place

Thanksgiving Weekend

I had a fabulous 4 day Thanksgiving weekend!  It was filled with all of the things I love: Family, Food, Shopping, Stamping, and Movies.  It couldn't have been better! We spent Thanksgiving at my brother-in-law's house just 5 minutes away.  My nephew was home from the Marines. Here's a picture of him in his dress blues with my kids.

My boys are both sporting new short haircuts.

I spent a lot of time in my craft room.  I have some upcoming stamp club projects and a class to share with you later  Right now I'm going to share with you some ideas with the stocking sizzix die in the Holiday mini catalog.

This first  idea I saw at the Stampin' Up! convention last Summer.  You take the #2 Sizzix box die and turn it so the small end is up. Cut off the flaps on that side and sandwich it between two stocking dies.  It makes a cute little gift box!

Here is the stocking die with the top opening folded up to reveal a gift card pocket inside.

You can also make a die with the gift card peeking out the top.  Make some out of felt or fabric.  Make a garland of stockings to hang by the fireplace.  So many fun ideas to do with this die!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Kathleen

Chicken Pizzaoli

Hi all!  We got snow for the first time this season.  I was in LaCrosse with my daughter, visiting my sister, Geri for the weekend. We didn't get any snow in LaCrosse but on our drive back we slowly drove into the snow.  It wasn't much.  Just enough to stick to the ground and make the roads slushy.   I think it's all supposed to melt by Thanksgiving.

We had to get back early today because I had Recipe club this afternoon.  Bonnie was the hostess and she brought 3 delicious items.  The main dish was Pizzaoli.  This was deeelish!  Here is the recipe card I created for it.

The chicken is made from the owl punch and a few other punches.  The idea came from Michelle Scileppi.  I can't tell you how many different punch art chickens I have made for my recipe club cards.  It's always good to find another one.  I love the clever way Michelle adapted the owl punch to become a chicken!

The designer paper is the oh-so-cute, Domestic Goddess.  I have been itching to use this paper and found just the project.  The ric rac is made from the Tasteful Trim Sizzix die.  I can't stop using this die!

I'll post the other recipe cards we made in club over the next couple of days.

Tune in to my online website tomorrow.  Stampin' Up! will have some fantastic Clearance rack deals!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kathleen

Happy Halloween

Times have changed.  That's for sure.  Gone are the days where we travel as a family to Pumpkin patches, apple orchards weeks in advance and enjoy a nice fall day selecting pumpkins and enjoying the fine fall weather.  Now there are busy schedules to coordinate.  My daughter couldn't select or carve her pumpkin because she had homework and had to work.  My husband took my boys up to Cub foods to select their pumpkins.  It doesn't have quite the same ambience.  We didn't get them until yesterday, the day before Halloween and the decorated them last night.

Here are the boys with their selections.

Here they are all carved up.

Dont' ask me what the two on the left are about.  Some inside jokes from Utube videos and video games.  The one on the right is a puking pumpkin my husband did.  Lovely.  This is the part of Halloween my husband always takes care of.  Carving pumpkins.

I was busy making treats for my son's class.  Here is what he gave this year.

Little pockets made out of the Stampin' Up! Sizzix top note die.  These would make great gift card holders too!  Here is what he gave his teacher.  I made these for my co-workers too.  First I made shortbread cookies with the cookie press kit from Stampin' Up!.  Then I packaged them and presented them in boxes made out of the fancy favor box Sizzix die

They were a big hit at work!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Kathleen

Teacher gift

I always like giving a gift card in a cute and clever and unique kind of way.  I ran across this idea somewhere and knew I wanted to try this out for my son's end of year teacher's gift.  This would make a great way to present a gift card for a birthday, graduation, Mother's day, etc.

 

I die cut some flowers with my Fun Flowers Sizzix die from Stampin' Up! Then I ran it through the Big Shot with the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder.  I placed Stampin' Dimensionals between the layers and glued the flowers to a popsicle stick with mono multi glue.  The leaves were made from the oval punch and the paper crimper.  Behind the middle flower I glued a mini clothespin and that's what the gift card is being held with. The metal tin is from Ikea and I glued one of the brights buttons do the front.

I'll be using this idea again for sure!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Kathleen

Happy Easter!

Easter morning is bright and sunny.

Just in time for the Easter bunny. 

Boys and girls awake with glee.

Eggs and baskets they can't wait to see.

TIme to get dressed in their Sunday best.

Let's all make mom impressed.

Go to church and thank our Savior.

Let's all keep in the Lord's good favor.

Spend some time with extended family.

Good food, good treats, and pass the ham please.

Thank you for a beautiful day.

It's Spring!  I can't wait to play!

 

Just a quick little Easter poem I threw together this morning.  It is nice and sunny here in Minnesota this morning.  We are dashing around getting ready for church.  I wanted to share a quick punch art flower I created for a gift bag punch art class I held this past week.

 

Here are the punches I used to make this happy flower.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you have a wonderful Easter with your family!

Kathleen
 

Carrot Box

I have seen several versions of this carrot box floating around blog land.  This is made from the Petal Cone die.  I made this one for my hostess, Phyllis, a couple of weeks ago.  We made another version in stamp club last night.  I added the simple punch art bunny cased from Mary Fish.

 

Spring has finally sprung here in Minnesota!  Everyone has come out of hibernation and started walking, running, biking, or any excuse to enjoy the nice weather.  After the winter we endured, this is a well deserved Spring! 

I'm having a Spring Gift Bag class on Wednesday, April 20.  I will post one of the projects for the class in the next day or so.  Stay tuned!

Also, for those local paper crafters, I am having my 4th Annual Stamp and Scrap Sale on Saturday, April 16 from 8 am to 3 pm.  This has been a huge sale in the past and promises to be another one.  I will have some more details next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kathleen

Yummy recipe!

Scalloped potatoes and ham.  Doesn't that sound delicious?  This is one of the recipes my hostess will be bringing over today for recipe club.  I can't wait to try it!  Here is the recipe card I created for her recipe that my club members will all get to make.

 

I gave it a vintage feel because it seemed to fit this recipe.

Recipe: Paper: Crumb Cake, Rose Red, Always Artichoke, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Springtime Vintage designer paper

Other: Birds and Blooms sizzlit dies, Tasteful Trim Sizzix die, Crumb Cake seam binding, Sticky Strip, pearls

I based all of the colors off of the designer paper. That way everything coordinates!

It's my son's 13th birthday today.  Now I have two teenagers in the house.  They are growing up on me too fast!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Kathleen

Chicken Katsu

No, I didn't sneeze(katsu!).  That's the name of this dish.  This was one of the cards for my virtual recipe club this month.  I haven't had a chance to taste this yet but I am intrigued to try it. The punch art chicken was cased from another demo who cased it from Lynn Pratt. 

 
Punches used for chicken: 2 1/2" circle punch, large scallop circle punch, scallop circle punch, modern label punch, circles for the eyes from the owl punch, heart from heart to heart punch, beak is from the large star punch and head thing-a-ma-bobby is from the scallop oval punch.

We're still digging out from all of the snow we got hit with in Minnesota.  We Minnesotans are used to this by now.  It doesn't slow us down for long.  Someone asked me yesterday if UPS was going to be able to get to us with all of this snow we were having.  I assured them it's business as usual here. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Kathleen

Fantastic Fruit Salad

Yesterday was my Recipe club.  However, Minnesota was dumped with a boat load of snow and we had to cancel.  I decided to do a virtual recipe club instead so I made up all of the recipe cards for my club members and they are sending me their orders for the month.  I wanted to explore some different colors and have it be fruit oriented so that's where I came up with these colors.

 

Recipe: Stamps: Tart and Tangy

Ink; Tangerine Tango

Paper: Tangerine Tango, Poppy Parade, Old olive, Whisper white, Concord Crush

Other: Fun Flowers Sizzix die, 1 1/4" circle punch, Concord Crush ribbon. olive cordurouy fabric

I wanted to mix it up a little so I used some cordurouy fabric as part of the die cut flower. 

We're still accumulating snow here.  This Minnesota winter just wont end!

Thanks for stopping by!

Kathleen

Happy Valentines Day

Yesterday, my son Sam and I were working on his Valentine's box for his 5th grade class.  There is a contest for the most lovely, the most hearts, the most creative, and the funniest.  He was going for the most creative and the most hearts.  I had this green polka dot paper on hand and green is his favorite color so we covered the box with it.  Then he made up a character, healthy heart, and wanted to draw a picture of it to put on his box.  My crafty motors were turning and I told him we could make a punch art character out of Healthy Heart.  I started going to town on it and consulting him here and there, getting quite carried away.  Finally, I stopped myself and told him we didn't have to do a punch art of his character.  I think he was relieved and he said he wanted to draw it himself.  It is his Valentine's box after all!  So this is our combined effort of Sam's Valentine's box.

 

 
Once again, my crafty supplies came in handy for my kids' school projects! 

For Sam's Valentines for his classmates, we made these boxes with a Valentine's tag.

 
 

By the time we got to his teacher's Valentine's, Sam had lost interest and was watching Toy Story.  So I got to let my juices flow and go to town on her present.

 

I used the Fancy Favor Sizzix box, cut a hole in the front panel with my 1 3/4" circle punch, taped a window sheet over the hole and filled it with chocolate.  I love seeing the treat through the window!  I gathered the wide striped pink ribbon at the top by putting sticky strip around the perimeter and gathering it as I went.  The tag is from the Eat Chocolate stamp set.  I just changed the greeting by stamping it and punching it out with the word window punch and popping it up.

I hope you have a great Valentine's day!

Kathleen