Another springy card

Spring has officially been ushered in and I suppose I am excited by the fact that I have been wearing short sleeves AND sandals for 4 days in a row. The icy memory of all that snow is now fading to the background and thoughts of the daffodils and tulips are easing up to the forefront.

Ahhhhhh spring...my favorite season... it has not let me down... it arrived on schedule and I am reveling in it.

I submitted this card to the Hero Arts flickr group. I am amazed at the talent that resides within that group. If you long for inspiration, you must check them out. Putting this card together, made me happy !

card info: Bazzill cardstock, Hero Arts swirl flourish stamp embossed with Tim Holtz distressed embossing powder in milled lavender, oval scallop cut with the Cricut and inked with distress inks in milled lavender, tattered rose and dusty concord, the owl is by Hero Arts and colored with prismacolor pencils, grass is white paper inked with peeled paint distress ink and cut with Martha Stewart fringe scissors and finally I stamped the " spring has sprung" message on the ribbon.

Cricut challenge

Here is the card I created for this week's challenge on the Cricut message board. It uses the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. The frame, the double layered chick, the birdhouse and the word "spring" were all cut from designs on this cartridge. The hello was from the Wild Card cartridge. I used glimmer mist in sweet pea to color the frame, layered it on the 5 1/2 inch square card, cut the window out of the card and popped the chick up on dimensional dots so that he is " springing" out of the card. For the inside of the card, I cut a one inch strip of green card stock and fringed it with Martha Stewart's fringe scissors to make the grass. Cute !

Don't you just love cupcakes ?

I LOVE cupcakes. I ask you, what isn't to love? If you come up with an answer, I don't want to hear it. I can't understand you at all. They are the perfect portion , portable, adorable and you don't have to share them with a soul. Your own bite of bliss. Even better, shhhhhhhh ...if they are especially delicious....we will eat two of them. Double bliss is better than singular bliss. Don't you agree ?

So, my 11 1/2 year old just had a half birthday party. Her birthday is in the summer and it is often difficult to gather friends together all in one place, all at the same time, working around vacation times, or camp or what have you. So I proposed a half birthday party. She had a half of a cake, we sang half a birthday song but she didn't have just half of a good time. No, good times were had by all. Her request was for the Hi-Hat Cupcakes I had made for another party last year. Apparently, she had been thinking of those beauties, and wanted them for her friends. These little cakes are glorious. A chocolate cupcake base, fluffy marshmallow frosting, they are chilled then dipped in a bath of melted semi-sweet chocolate- ahhhh.... heaven in a little sparkly, foil liner. If you would like to make these for yourself go to:

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/hi-hat-cupcakes

• I did not use the cake recipe that is in the recipe although I do have complete confidence in Martha Stewart. I am sure it is good. Instead, whenever chocolate cake is called for I use my standard recipe from the book: Rosie's Bakery Baking Book by Judy Rosenberg. Rosie's Famous Chocolate Sour Cream Cake Layers

Cards for kids

My favorite card guru, Jennifer Mcguire , has been organizing card drives for awhile now. These creations are going to sick kids and their families who could really use every bit of cheer that we can spare. Not only is this a great opportunity to brighten someones day, but she has a lot of sponsors who are giving away scrapbooking goodies. Please hop on over to her blog for more details :http://jennifermcguireink.typepad.com/my_weblog/we-are-collecting-cards-for-ten-children-and-their-families--kate--sami----a-few-things-to-know--this-card-drive-will-be-on.html
Make a few cards, or even better, a whole lot of cards and send them Jennifer's way.

I gathered a few of my cards together as a sample of what I am sending. Snow White , Winnie the Pooh, boy playing baseball and the hearts were all cut with my Cricut Expression, The stick figure boy is a stamp from Me & My Big Ideas, the little girl is a Basic Grey stamp and the monster is from Recollections.

Margarita Monday

Did you know that Feb. 22 was National Margarita day? I did because Jimmy Buffett told me so. Okay so it was posted on his website but why quibble over semantics. As I was saying, he told me and he should know don't you think? We honored the day with a beautiful, Blue Moon Margaritaville that was the most gorgeous Caribbean blue color. I only wish that we had been able to enjoy our frozen beverage on a beach someplace where it's warm, but I guess you can't have everything. Still, it started me thinking. Why celebrate only once a year ? Perhaps, the better idea would be to make it a weekly event. So, I hereby declare Mondays to be Margarita Mondays. Hop on over to: http://www.margaritaville.com while humming the namesake song or _____( feel free to insert the Jimmy Buffett song of choice ) and get some boat drink recipes for yourself. Cheers.