Goodbye 2010- hello 2011

Well it's time for another year to come to an end.......I'm always a bit sad and kind of glad at the same time. I'm not much for going out on New Year's eve and celebrating- we are real home bodies and just stay put. We like to either play cards/games with friends or just lay low and watch a movie. If the weather is warm enough we might go blow up a few fireworks.......either way but I'm usually falling asleep by 11:00 anyways and miss all the midnight fun!

 I do want to look back and reflect on 2010 a little bit. Overall it was a rather good year! It started out rather tough......I was still searching for work and life was a bit stressful as money was extremely tight. Then out of the blue one day in April I got called about a job...... and a few weeks later I was back to work! This was a huge adjustment for me as I had been home for 5 years raising my son. It took a quite a bit of getting used to (my confidence level was very low and getting daycare set up was awfully stressful) but my boss was very understanding and and so was my dear husband. I've been working part time since May and  I absolutely LOVE- love- love my new job! This has been the biggest highlight of 2010 for me and my family!

I think 2010 was a wonderful year for me for learning new and different card making techniques. I have learned so much from Jennifer McGuire and all of her wonderful videos, and have also learned so much from my wonderful Flicker friends. Jennifer's thinking inking series were amazing and I made several cards using the techniques learned.

Here are a few of my favorite cards from 2010- using some new favorite techniques!





Both of these use the technique to stamp your image on watercolor paper- color with distress inks, and then spray Perfect Pearls on generously!

This next card uses the technique of inking up your acrylic block with distress inks and spraying with water before stamping.



Here are a few more favorite cards from 2010 created by me!









And here are a few more favorite cards from other incredible talented stampers that I admire so much..........and wish I had one tenth of their talent!

The AMAZING Carole!


Ultra talented Jenn B (I got to meet her at Scrapfest.....and she is such a  sweetheart)



Kathy's fabulous creations!



Jill- who is the queen of distress inks and amazing color combinations!


I wish you all good health and many blessings in 2011. I hope to get more stamping and crafting done and can't wait to see all of your creations in the coming year! Have fun celebrating the new year and stay safe my friends!

Throughout the rest of this year and all of 2011......

May you always make the right moves.
May your cup runneth over with love.
May you always find shelter from any storm.
May you remain good looking and looking good!


Inky Hugs, Anne

New Stamps and a new technique

Hi all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that Santa was good to you. We had a wonderful time with family yesterday and we are just relaxing and trying to recover today.  My son is playing with all of his new toys and I'm playing with some new Hero Arts stamps I picked up at Archivers just before Christmas.

I got these yummy stamps and had to make at least one quick card with them.

I just love this beautiful flower bird garden stamp and happened to see a video by Jennifer McGuire where she shows a new technique of painting in the image using distress inks and Liquid Pearls.

Here is her card that inspired me to ink up this stamp right away- isn't it a beauty!

I basically cased her card ( so little time and not much mojo either) but I used my new background stamp and changed up the colors to be a bit more cheerful (I was thinking bright and happy spring colors).

I stamped the image using Versamark- then heat embossed it using detail white embossing powder. I used my distress inks in the colors wild honey, spiced marmalade, and barn door to watercolorcolor the flowers. I don't have Liquid Pearls so I just added a bit of pearl white paint to the mix. The flowers and stems have a really nice shine and shimmer now- it was fun and easy to add the paint right into the mix of ink and water.

                                 You can see a little bit of the shimmer here in a close up shot.

Make sure you check out Jennifer's's video to see the technique I used-  it is so easy and quick to paint the image like this....plus you get amazing results!

Now I'm off to go eat some more Christmas cookies( still have dozens left)  and then go play a game of bowling or tennis on the new Wii with my son....maybe I can talk him into just watching a movie instead.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you get to relax today after your Christmas celebration....I don't know about you but I'm wore out from running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the last week.

Inky Hugs, Anne

I love New York!

Hi everyone!

(click on any of the pictures to see them larger)

We are back home from a wonderful trip to New Jersey and New York city and thought I would share some pictures with you all!  We went for 4 days to celebrate my annual company Christmas party held in  New Jersey and boy did we have a blast. This was my first visit to the east coast  and wasn't sure what to expect seeing we had never been there before. I knew it was going to be mind blowing- and it sure was. NYC is just huge.......everything there is so fantasically BIG!

We stayed at a beautiful hotel called "The Madison" in Morriston New Jersey, that is where the company party and business meetings were held (my Co. headquarters is in Livingston, NJ).

 Here we are having a few cocktails, dinner, and enjoying dancing at the big party! The food, drink, and coversations were excellent and it was so nice to finally meet some of my fellow co-workers in person and get to know them a little. This year was a special year (overly extravagant)  as the owners of the company are retiring and had just sold the Co. to four of the vice presidents- so there were many long speeches and awards and such. It was a wonderful time and we met many people in my industry (elevators). My hubby works in the industry as well which was helpfull as he wasn't completely lost in all the conversations.

                                           
Come Saturday morning after the big party 12 of us hopped on the train into New York city for a day of exploring. We were the only newbies in the group and it was reassuring to be going into the city with experienced folks. The weather was perfect (low 40's) and we had quite the funny surprise once we got on the train. There were about 6 college kids all dressed up in assorted wild and crazy Santa suits.....and I kid you not- they all were drinking beers and other adult beverages right on the train! It was 10:00 AM and my husband and I just could not get over how funny it all was.....kind of shocking to see that first thing when you get on the train. The folks from NYC that we were with said it was a very common tradition for them to do this on that particular weekend.....a "Santa pub crawl" I guess.  I had to snap a quick picture so you all would believe me! That blue can he is holding is a big old Bud Light!!

We saw these Santa's everywhere!

 After arriving at Penn Station we walked all over feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed with it all- the streets and sidewalks were so packed with people- it was almost scary. We just tried to stick with our group and not get lost which was pretty hard as we were just mesmerized looking at all the huge buildings and just trying to soak it all in. All I could think was "I am actually walking on the streets of New York city"- amazing for a country bumpkin like me! My husband who was rather sceptical about the whole trip to the "city" was really having a blast which surprised me as well.

We all grabbed some lunch and then headed over the the "Lunt Fontaine" theater to catch the 2:00 showing of "The Addams Family". The theater was gorgeous and the show was SUPERB!! Nathan Lane and Bebe Nuewirth did and amazing job! The show was really funny and I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of wonderful dancing and singing. I highly recommend seeing it if you get to NYC sometime soon- it was absolutely fabulous!

After the show we decided to try to get over to see Rockefeller Center and see the famous Christmas tree.......but sad to say it was so jam packed with people we could only get as close as across the street.

                                              Yup- that's as close as we could get- EEK!!

We passed by Times Square- just so fun and beautiful with everything all lit up! It was smaller than I expected.......I was thinking it was huge but I guess not.

So we wandered over to Bryant Park which is behind the NYC library and saw the open ice skating rink and a huge blue Christmas tree. The park was full of the cutest little shops where you could wander around but we had to hurry and get to our dinner reservations at the resturant just down the street!

We came back over to Bryant Park after dinner for a bit of walking around and some quick shopping.

We couldn't resist eating one of these yummy cupcakes and enjoying some hot cocoa!

Then we had to hurry over to Penn Station to hop on our train back to New Jersey.

We had an amazing time in the big apple. It all zoomed by very quickly -no time to really get any serious shopping done-as we had to run from place to place. The excitiment in the air was palpable and everyone was extremely nice- not rude like we had been lead to believe. We really want to come back sometime in the future (maybe spring or summer) and explore some more as it felt like we only saw 2% of the city.

I love New york and will be back for sure!

Coming home to seb zero temperatures and over 20" of new fallen snow was really, really hard!  I wish we could have stayed much longer but so much yet to do for Christmas, it's that crazy busy time of year.

Thanks for coming along on my tiny tour of New York and hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Oh yeah, I came home with a really rotten cold too- so I'm staying in my pj's and being very lazy until I feel well enough to go back to work :(

Inky Hugs, Anne

Hero Arts blog Hop and NEW stamps!

Have you heard the news?? It's time for the Hero Arts 2011 catalog to be released soon- yipee!

Hero Arts is having an amazing  blog hop on Friday, December 10th to preview many new stamps from the 2011 Catalog!! Over 20 Hero Arts artists will be showing us sneak peeks and making us drool! They have a bunch of sneak peeks on their blog today too.....trying to tease us all.  I can't wait to see all the stamps in this new catalog! Go here to get all the information!


This catalog sounds like it's full of  the best stamps ever......Oh my poor bank account is going to feel the pinch I bet!


Oh Santa- will you be really nice and please bring me some new Hero Arts stamps this year :) He he he!

Anne

Lovely Trees

Hi all!

I've got 2 "tree" cards to show you all today. The first one here is mostly about adding incredible shine to a card! This card is getting entered into the Hero Arts monthly challenge for shine and also the Simon Says challenge to show a holiday greeting.....and one more for the Inky Impressions Christmas challenge.



I stamped the Hero Arts music background using Versamark, then stamped the trees using 2 colors of brown distress ink. I watercolored a bit around the trees to fill them in using the distress inks as well. Then I sprayed the whole blue layer with Perfect Pearls, and the white layers got sprayed as well. Stamped the sentiments using distress ink too (brushed corduroy). Then I wanted a bit more shine so I came over the trees and along the edge of the white layers using my Versamark marker, then dusting on some clear embossing powder. The shine and shimmer on here is amazing....and let me tell you it was very hard to get a decent photo of it (tried about 20 different shots).....yikes!

The tree stamp is by Stampin Up "Lovely as a tree", one of my all time favorite stamp sets. Both the sentiments are from Hero Arts clear set "Holiday Sayings", a new favorite of mine for all those Christmas cards.

This next card here is one I made last winter.....but never sent out- ooops! I found it among some piles of cardstock today.......what a surprise!



 I had fun expiramenting here using some masking and lots of time trying to make nice shadows and such (trying to be real artsy here- ha!) It's surely not perfect- you can see all the little oopsies up close......but it looks pretty cool to me and I thought I would show you all anyways!

The large scene of trees is a stamp by Innovative Stamp Creations and the pine tree is by Stampin Up, same one as above.  I used a small circle as a mask for the moon, torn paper to create the ground, and one of my Copics for the shadows. Lots of use of the Versmark markers and the polysparkle embossing powder to make the trees shine. I haven't played with this stamp in a really long time....just might have to try another version of this really soon using different colors.

Thanks for stopping bye and hope all of your holiday shopping, wrapping, baking and what not is going well!

Inky Hugs, Anne

The Most Wonderful time of the year....

Happy Sunday everyone!

There's a new fun challenge going on over at the Wee Memories blog this week- the theme is "Holiday Music Inspiration".


I just happened to have a great digi stamp set from Verve called "Winter mittens" that goes along perfectly with one of my favorite holiday songs "The most wonderful time of the year".



I paper pieced the mittens using some Basic Grey paper and also used my white Signo gel pen to add a bit of color- added a little pearl to each mitten as well. The backround was made starting with a pink piece of cardstock and clear embossing the snowflakes- then coming over it with barn door distress ink. The cute winter scene paper is by Basic Grey as well. Used my new EK Success punch for the sentiment and SU border punch as well. The snowflakes are from Stampin up and Hero Arts.

I hope you can all play along with the fun challenge- there are so many options you could do with the many great holiday songs to choose from.

I need to seriously get going on addressing my Christmas cards and getting them ready to mail. We are off this Thursday to New Jersey and New York- I'm getting really excited to go see the big apple for the first time! I hope my mother in law can handle babysitting my son for 4 long days......and yes it's going to be hard to be way from him for that long- I'll miss him terribly.

Thanks for stopping bye and have a great week!

Anne

Christmas past.......

Hi everyone!

Gosh I've been so darn busy and haven't crafted anything or blogged in a quite awhile- it's that crazy time of year with so much to do. I thought I would show you all some of the cards I made last year for Christmas- I did my first ever craft show and made multiples of many cards and these are some of the leftovers. Having so many leftovers and the ones I've already created for this year I think I'm about done with my cards.....but I may be able squeak out a few more if the mojo strikes. For now I'm just going to work on getting my cards addressed and ready to go (this seems to be the hardest part every year....actually getting them mailed out on time).

I've also been busy getting my lazy behind to the gym recently too. I've been having some lower back issues from sitting and working on the computer so much, so I finally took it upon myself to get active and do something to help myself in that department. It was tough getting going at first but I really love getting a workout on a regular basis now......plus I'm losing a bit of weight as well- bonus! So I am limiting my time in front of the computer.....my back simply can't stand too much of it.

Now on to the cards.....



Stampin Up reindeer & Inkadinkadoo frame, sentiment and snowflake punch by Martha Stewart.

Image by Stampendous, snowflakes from SU. Lots of Stickles on here :)

Image by Inkadinkadoo, background by.....? can't remember!

Image and sentiment by Clear Dollar stamps- lots of glitter on the snowflake BG.

Hope to find the time to get crafting again....but I know the next few weeks are busy as well so that may not actually happen.

 I do have some rather exciting news........the hubby and I are off to New Jersey and New York City in 2 weeks for my company's annual Christmas Party!! All expenses paid (wohooo) and we will take one day to go into NYC and see a Broadway show (The Addams Family) and do a bit of sightseeing- so I'm really excited about that- never been to the big apple before!! Hope to see Central Park and all the fun Christmas decorating and just take it all in- this country girl really isn't used to the big city! I've been busy shopping for this as well- have to have a fancy party dress and the hubby seriously needed a new suit to wear!

Have a great weekend all and thanks for dropping by! Hope you are all getting your Christmas shopping done too :)

Inky Hugs, Anne

Happy Turkey Day!

Just wanted to pop in and say "Happy Thankgiving" to all my fellow American friends!

We are spending the day at home (wohooooo).......the turkey and stuffing is in the oven, the pies are made....... just waiting for my mother in law to come over and then we can eat!! Ok, I still need to make the mashed potatoes and a few other last minute things.....but for the most part we are ready to go.  I'm so glad to finally get a day of relaxing family time- the last week and a half has been crazy busy for me. Looking forward to the long lazy weekend- planning on watching "White Christmas" and some other holiday classics movies as well- and hope to get some actual stamping and creating done! I might even get a few Christmas decorations out....who knows?

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday with family and friends and hopefully you all get to relax as well- make those men pitch in help out too! (wink)

Hugs, Anne

Winter cards and and Wee Memories Challenge card

Well this was a rather lazy weekend at home. We woke up Saturday to 3-4 inches of heavy wet snow and it continued to snow all day long. We went nowhere and just hung out at home most of the weekend. My little guy and I threw many snowballs at each other and got soaking wet.



I got busy and made a few winter cards seeing their was a fresh blanket of beautiful snow to inspire me.


I used a few Penny Black stickers and some Hero Arts paper and gems for these 2 cards.






Then I decided to get out some patterned paper by Basic Grey and make a card for Wee Memories challenge # 31. I used my Walzting Mouse stamps and distress inks on here as well. I love this paper but also find myself struggling with it sometimes..... I guess I'm more of a "ink to paper" kind of crafter.




I shoveled some more snow and filled up the bird feeders today, then  baked a ham and homemade augratin potatoes for dinner- yummmm! It was a lovely weekend to just relax and not do much of anything......just the way I love them!! The snow is very pretty.....and seems to be melting a bit- not sure of it will stick around or not.  







Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!

Inky Hugs, Anne

A cold and starry night

Hi everyone! Here is a card made for the Flourishes Warm Winter Wishes Challenge- but oops I think I'm too late to link up my card.....waah!

Snow is in the forecast here tonight so why not make a wintery card. I used my "Starry Night" stamp from Hero Arts. I've been rather picky trying to find just the right color ink for this stamp and I finally rememebered to grab my pack of 4 different blue Momento inks. I'm drowning in ink pads and forget how many different colors I actually have.....my sickness for inks is almost as bad as my sickness for rubber. Anyways...... I wanted a fairly dark blue for this and wanted to achieve a very frosty cold look to it also.

After inking up my stamp using the Danube Blue I came around the edges of the stamp using Paris Dusk. This is the nicest dark blue with just a hint of purple to it....I love it! I wanted the trees and stars to sparkle so I grabbed my Versamark "marker" and traced over the white tree trunk and branches, and stars- then heat embossed it all using polysparkle powder.

Then I grabbed my Enamel Accents in white and went around the whole image, adding an extra thick layer along the bottom. I did the tree trunks as well. While that was still wet and tacky I poured some Martha Stewart course glitter over it to make it look like frosty snow. Can you see the dimension here?

Then I stamped the sentiment on some metallic silver paper using my black Stazon ink (all other inks seem to smear badly on this paper). I punched out a few small black snowflakes from some scrap paper and added a tiny light blue gem to each one. I'm so happy this card turned out like I wanted it to- but trust me there were several stamped out versions that hit the trash before I got it just right.

Here are a few pic's of the supplies I used on this card.

And the border punch and my Versamark marker- (love this!) Did you know you can use the Versamark marker on just about anything to emboss it, even the smallest little things ..... and even patterned paper.

I had fun making this card and hope you enjoyed my explanation of the process. It has been rather warm here in Wisconsin (we actually had a thunderstorm last night)  and we are hoping to keep those frosty cold nights away for a little while longer....but the cold is coming and so is snow- eeeek!

Inky hugs, Anne

Unity and Penny Black Christmas cards

Just wanted to share a few quick Christmas cards and a gift tag I made this week. I stopped by the not so local  "Anchor Paper" in St. Paul when I was working in that neighborhood and picked up some much needed stamping goodies. Lots of distress ink refills (the only place I can get them locally) , a few new stamps, and some Penny Black stickers.

First up here is a really quick card using a Unity stamp. I also finally cracked open my Tim Holtz embossing folders I got at Scrapfest....and dug out my little stash of bakers twine from last year. Kept is very simple using kraft, red, and chocolate brown.



Here is my super quick card using one of the Penny Black stickers. I remember buying some of these last year and using them on a few last  minute Christmas cards.....they are great when you are in a hurry and don't have the time to color in an image. Got out my Stampin Up embossing folder and found a green card base that is a "white core" so I could sand off the top layer a bit.



And finally just a sweet little gift tag that I will be using for my son's Christmas present. We are finally going to get hime a Wii game set and this tag will work perfect for that. I found the die cut tags at a local shop in Stillwater MN that just opened up- they had tons of prefolded card bases and envelopes in many colors and even had a great selection of May Arts ribbon- wohooo! No stamps unfortunately....but I urged the gals working there that they really ought to get some stamps for sale soon....especially my favorite line- Hero Arts!



I used my Hero Arts flourish background and the sentiment stamp is by Stampin Up. I thought I would use up some of these cute Jolee's stickers as well since they were just sitting here......love how they are all glittery and kind of look like little frosted cookies. That's it for now.....hope to get a few more Christmas cards done over this coming weekend.

Thanks for stopping by!

Inky Hugs, Anne

Apple Recipes

Today I am using up some more of those delicious apples from the orchard and I thought I would share some yummy apple recipes. I'm baking an apple cinnamon crumb cake and just made homemade apple- cranberry sauce too.....my son just loves the apple sauce and begged me to make more.

I hosted a recipe swap last fall using apples as the main ingredient and I thought I would share some of the wonderful recipes I recieved. If you've still got apples from a trip to the orchard or just love any kind of recipe using apples here are a few for you to look over. I took a picture of the cute 6x6 recipe cards- just click on the photo of each one to see the recipe and get the directions.

                                                                      Fall Apple Bread

Apple and Butternut Squash Soup

Apple Upside-down Pie

Anne's Homemade Applesauce

4 medium apples- cut into 8 equal pieces each

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup brown or white sugar (I use organic sugar)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 fresh cranberries (optional)

Directions: Heat apples (cranberries too) and water to boiling, reduce heat and simmer uncovered....stirring occassionally to break up the apples until tender- usually about 10-15 minutes. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon- heat to boiling and stir for 1 minute. I always grab my potatoe masher and mash them further with this. Let it cool  for 30 minutes and serve warm (very yummy this way)  or let it cool completely and store in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Today I cheated and am using a "box" version of the crumb cake.

 I do this kind of cheating quite a bit as I'm a very busy person and not everything can be completely homemade- ha ha!  It's made by Krusteaz.....and I simply cut up about 1 cup of chopped apple and added that to the mix. I also substitute cold coffee for the water in the mix- then it's a bit more like coffee cake too!

Hope you can try one of these delicious apple recipes- let me know if you do!

My crumbcake is just about done- can't wait to dig into this after dinner tonight- yummmm! The house smells heavenly right now too.......am I making you hungry?

Inky Hugs, Anne