FS282 HoHo Merry Christmas

This weeks Featured Stamper is Loll Thompson. What an amazing gallery of CAS cards. Very hard to choose what to case as I liked them all. I finally choose this JOY card. I kept the theme, layers and colors. Changed the stamp to Deacon and Ava HoHo and added a sentiment to my twine. There is some sparkle on my letters also. What a fun image and easy peasy Christmas card. Hope you get sometime to stamp today! Thanks for stopping in!

Proud to be an American!

Flourishes Friday Focus today is about our Patrotism on Parade set. With the Fourth of July just next week it is perfect. This card only took me about 10 minutes to make. GASP! I know and it turned out so fun and cute. The red ruffled gingham ribbon at the top was a little swatch piece I had left over from another card I made sitting on the table. My pennants are using scraps of paper from the bin and just cut out the ends to make it look like a pennant, layered those over each other and added a few brads. Tie my sentiment off with the bakers twine and voila!
Did you see our new Thursday addition to the blog called 10 Minute Creations? Sometimes you can have the most beautiful creations and it doesn't take much. Be sure to check out Thursdays on the Flourishes blog to see how you can create beautiful and quick creations.

The design team have some awesome designs to show you today:
Christine
Cindy
Julie
Danielle
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie

Barbara
I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Scripture Stand Fall side

Finally got this started yesterday. I have had this stand that I bought from Taylored Expressions now for about 6 months with the intention of making (for lack of better term) scripture stand for the boys teacher last year for a gift. Well I never got to it and now I will need to work on it all summer for the teacher this year. ha! I wanted a scripture keeper that could be displayed large enough all year long and this stand is perfect. Not only can I have several scripture, they can also be displayed from and back. Here is the first one that I have using Clear Dollar Stamps Psalms 37:3-5 single scripture stamp. The paper is from Prima's Meadow Lark collection. Ofcourse these gorgeous blooms are from my friend Pat. Who spoils me rotten with these beautiful blooms. I only share them with special creations and since this is for the boys teacher next year I would say they are perfect. My plan is to have half the scriptures displayed in fall and winter colors, the other half spring and summer. I figured with being able to put them front and turn it around and have another side I can get a lot of scriptures displayed. I have so many scriptures not to mention what you can just print out that I will be busy and might end up with a few of these. Now if you would like to be really crafty and make your own stand, check out my sweet friend Julie's blog post HERE. She created her own stand that you might be able to use.
The boys have VBS all this week so I am home cleaning or stamping hee hee. Working on a few other projects for Christmas that I will share with you soon. Working ahead not only saves me time come December it also is less stress. ;0) Thanks for stopping in with me today.

Liquid Refreshements HMF122

Happy Monday! I didn't get my card posted last week for the challenge. However we do a mid week reminder post so it worked out great for today. The House Mouse and Friends Blog Challenge 122 is Summer Refreshments. Use something for hot summer days or a liquid refreshment on your creation. Our host this challenge is Kate. The sponsors this challenge are House Mouse Designs with a $25 gift certificate, Pizzazz a Plenty with a $10 embelishment package and My Creative Classroom with a free class. Hope you can join us!
Lemonaide is pretty much a summer refrehsment in our house. The sentiment got juice is from Flourishes Life, loves and lemons set. The house Mouse is called Citrus Puckers. Very simple with a little bit of piercing around the border, two tabs and the sentiment. Easy Peasy. Hope you have a great day!

The Ultimate Barbecue

I am back with a foodie post today! We celebrated my father in laws 61st birthday last night and we had The Ultimate Barbecue. Tyler Florence from Foodnetwork is one of my all time favorite chefs and he isn't too hard on the eyes either. hee hee Not a single recipe of his have I tried and not absolutely loved. He has a way with flavors and I knew this Ultimate BBQ was not going to dissapoint. Here is a photo finish of the dinner.

We have The Ultimate Barbecued Ribs. This recipe says 2 racks of ribs total time 2 1/2 hours, well I did 3 racks and cooked them for 5 hours, low and slow. Any ribs recipe I have tried I always have to cook it longer and the meat just falls of the bones its so tender and delicious. Then the Ultimate Baked Beans. I have a favorite bean recipe that we all love, however I am always looking for a new one and this might be it. Now I do have to say I altered this a bit as I didn't have enough of the beans so I added 1 can of black beans. I forgot to add teh pancetta to the top of this for the photo. That salty and crispy pancetta was perfect for the beans. The recipe calls for individual crocks, however I made this all in one pan. Next was the Ultimate Coleslaw. I have never made my own nor have I found one that isn't all mushy and flavorless until now.... These were tangy, sweet and scrumptious. I would have to say I think I need to buy a bag with more red cabbage next time as this had little color. My dessert was a new one also it was Crock Pot Peach Cobbler. YEP! Can you believe you can make just about anything in that crock pot. Betty Crocker emails me with recipes and coupons every now and then. This one looked delcious and went perfect with my Ultimate BBQ dinner. I don't have a photo of the peach cobbler, but it was yummy. I even made homemade whip cream with some haeavy cream, vanilla and a bit of sugar. Whipped up and added to the peach cobbler. YUMO!!! Overall a delicious dinner and my FIL said he loved it. He has liked my cooking since DH and I started dating so I know he will appreciate all things I make. ;0) Hope you get a chance to try these delicious recipes and tell me your thought! Have a great day!

Happy mail for Ranger

Is this not the cutest card ever? This is from Wally and Lulu and I think their mom has a great influence on the crafting they do. ;0) This is from my sweet friend Leslie who is the proud mom of Wally and Lulu. Check out this digi she has of Wally. One of Leslie's blog readers named Alexandria created a few digi's of the puppies. You can see one of them HERE and HERE. Is that just not the coolest? I am now the proud owner of this beautiful card, or should I say Ranger is the proud owner of this card. hee hee
Ranger is doing great today. We will need to lower the medication on Monday just half a pill as he is still not as playful as normal and his walking is a bit wobbly still. Over all he is doing wonderful. Thank you again for all the prayers and well wishes. Enjoy your weekend.

Free for all Friday at Flourishes

Happy Friday! It really is happy in our home as Ranger is about 90% back to his normal self so a few more days he should be 100%. I do have to say that our daily walks I thought were more for him than me, well... ahem.... I think I need them just as much as him. ha! We made it 5 blocks today and I think that was a bit much for him. So we will cut one block off for the next two days and work up to it again. I sure miss our long walks I relized today. In time... in time.
On with my post for today. Flourishes just released the June sets last week and boy was that fun. If you haven't purchased your sets hurry as the New Release Bundle ends soon! This is your chance at an extra 10% savings. My creation today is classic I think. I made a few of these for my SIL. She can use them as thank you cards or her name starts with T. Letters in Bloom is such a fun set as you have so many options. The name cards that I made for my friends daughters really turned out great and I have a few ideas for Christmas gifts now. :0) Back to this card, I used Spellbinders Floral Ovals for the frame and cut out the center with the Classic Ovals and then popped it up on dimensionals. The T was colored with copic collection Sky and Lenton Rose as the teal was the colors of her wedding. Added two pearls to the frame and voila!
Check out the creations by the Design Team and have a wonderful weekend!
Christine
Cindy
Julie
Danielle
Barbara
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie

Update on Ranger

Good news and not so good news. We got the blood test back and his EOS levels in the blood were high. So they wanted a poo sample, I really can't tell you how GROSS that was. The kids thought it was fun, go figure. Anyways, we brought that into the vet and he said a couple things.EOS levels were high and could be from a parasite. There is a specific parasite that dogs can get and it can cause neurological issue which would explain the seizures. However very hard to get rid of and you really don't want your animals to have it. This also could very well be a situation where he will never have another one again, sort of a re-boot to the brain and with the medication we stopped it from learning the behavior.
The test for the parasite came back and come to find out he does not have any parasites, which is GREAT. The levels were high more than likely do to pollen or something to do with allergies, but we are parasite free and the vet was very pleased with that. Me not so much as now we are dealing with leaving Ranger on this medication.
The vet said his organs and everything looks great from the blood work. He was very pleased with the information. By this Friday he should be back to his playful self and acting normal with the level of medication he is on. If he is not then we will slowly back it down to a level that is normal behavior. Being that Ranger is only 2 years old he said that he wants to keep him on the med's for 6 months and then slowly take him off of it and not risk taking him off now until his body adjusts. He says the risk is too great if we try it now so he recommends the 6 month mark. DH and I agreed yet I am still a little leery of him on med's. I am not a huge fan of medications so this is a learning thing for me.

Ranger as you can see from the photo I took last night, wants to play and take his walks as usual which is great. Yet he still walks like a sailor home off leave for a few days. ha! Short walks it is as in 2 blocks and coming from our normal 2 mile walks this is huge. He is pretty tired after the walks so I know we are going far enough right now. Hopefully by Friday he is back to his normal furry self and I will feel a bit better. Thank you so much for all the prayers. A few of you have emailed me with helpful info and I do appreciate all of it. Let's hope that this is a case of one and done for both Ranger's sake and my own. :0)

Scary weekend

Good Morning. I am sure you are wondering where my House Mouse and Friends blog challenge card is? Well to tell you the truth I had my card done, yet didn't have time to get my post ready for today. Our family had a rather scary weekend. I took this pictures in May when I was outside with Ranger just playing around. He doesn't sit usually for pictures, rather he comes over and licks the camera instead. Here he was sitting and I snapped a photo quick.

So about our weekend. As some of you know my SIL wedding was Friday night. We started decorating and getting stuff ready on Thursday. Well Friday morning the church was our main focus at the reception area etc. DH was going to walk Ranger before we left to the church and I was going to run to his parents for a second. As I was driving I came along side them walking and noticed Ranger was walking funny acting strange. Just as I stopped the car DH noticed and that is when it started. Ranger was on the ground in a full on seizure attack. I have never seen something this scary before. DH was trying to keep him from banging his head on the cement, he is foaming at the mouth and not responding to us. DH picked him up the best he could, I then helped as he is 90 lbs and flopping around and we put him in the back of the tahoe and rushed to the vet. One of the boys was in the back holding him so he wasn't thrashing around and hurting himself while we got to the vet. The ride to the vet took about 4 min as DH drove faster than any law would permit (no one tell on him) and when we got there the seizure had stopped.

The vet drew some blood for a panel of his organs etc. Did an exam on him and nothing was out of the ordinary asked all sorts of questions. Did he get into any chemical, did he sniff anything like lead, did he injest any dead animals etc etc. Nothing. Ranger is healthy, active and on a routine daily. Nothing I mean nothing so odd. Vet said this could be a once and no more thing. He went on with some other info and all just a heads up thing. He said if there is another one call us etc. We went home at that point and Ranger was acting like nothing ever happened, took percaution and kept things calm and low key for him just in case.

We then had our weekend begin as he had another seizure, not neither as violent or long thank goodness. This lasted about a minute, yet after he seemed very confused and dazed not like the first one. Immediately went to the vet and from then it was coming and going they would not stop. They were giving him med's to try and stop them and it wasn't working. Ranger was awake and pacing for 16 straight hours, this is not normal for a dog let alone for him. He would not sit down, they tried to get him to sleep as the med's are either a downer or upper depending on how you respond to it. Well neither was happening other than it slowed down how often they were happening. Finally got it down to about 2 hours between the seizures.

Come Sunday morning he had not had one in about 10 hours and he finally laid down for about an hour at that point and slept. If anything from pure exhaution I think. The waiting game we were playing gave us time to research about this and what was going on. Lots of info out there and not uncommon in shepherds, labs, retrievers and other big dogs. This is a degenerative gene that can stay dormat and never appear down the line or appear. Some its a major head trama or accident that will release the dormat gene. Some its totally healthy and then one day seizure. Some never have it again, some are on med's have it controlled and live long happy lives. We contacted the breeder to make sure no others in the litter have called about similar things. The parents of Ranger do not have them or up the line etc.

As of now we are home and waiting to get the blood results back and to see if anything comes up there. From what we read it will be negative and won't show anything. The vet will be going over what our next step is with the med's Ranger is on as to slowly take him down and off them and see what happens if anything. Our prayer is that he is fine and nothing happens. That it was a fluke and now he will be fine. If he infact has to be on the med's it will be a matter of what dose, how long etc. We have a lady in town that the breeder knows of that her shepherd started with them about a year ago and is doing fine on med's. Hers is 5 years old and from a different breeder.

This was taking a few weeks ago in May also. I thought it was so cute as he looking like he is winking at you. Well my hair was actually tickling his eye. hee hee So he is telling us he will make it through this and be okay. Never have we been so scared. This fur ball is so much apart of our family I can't imagine him not with us. I was never a dog person persay, I liked cats more. So when we wanted a puppy we prayed about if for a year and researched what type of dog we wanted etc. The minute we brought Ranger home I fell in love. He is my pal through out the day. I walk him rain or shine, we have quite the bond. Not to mention DH and the kids. Thankfully God is with us and gave us his strength through the last 72 hours and I know he will be with us through the results and options today at the vet. Thanks for reading and if you could say a prayer for this fur ball we love and adore that he will be 100% completely healthy for years to come.

Introducing Happily Ever After and Invites

Happy Release day! Flourishes June release is now available in the store. Ofcourse we still have sneak peeks to entice you with today! hee hee At the bottom you will see a few last minute reminders about your chance to win the entire release!

First up I am going to show you the really cool Invitation file called Blossom Invitation we have for sale. This is a PDF file, sizing 4x6 for only $2. This is super cool as you can use it for any invite you could think of. To this date I had not found a stamp invite that I liked, now I have this cool file invite!

These are the summer BBQ invites we are giving to his work. We had a beautiful Christmas party this last December, so we are now having a summer BBQ. Kids will be welcome to this one as it is outside and sure to be fun for them too. The yummy Wild for Watermelon was calling out for the image ofcourse as it is a BBQ. I added some gingham paper to the one line as we won't need to fill that line out. How cool is that? Easy peasy invite!

This beautiful sentiment set Happily Ever After I thought would go perfect with Wedded Bliss for a great wedding card. I framed the happy couple up using Spellbinders Floral Ovals, added some lace and pearls hard to see the lace under the panel. The flower was the finishing touch to my ribbon bow. I thinks this turned out very romantic myself.
Be sure to check out the creations from the Design Team today:
Christine
Cindy
Julie
Danielle
Barbara
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie
Beate
A few last minute reminders:
***Your chance to win the entire release is by playing in our Gimme 10 creations challenge.
***Check out the Mystery Blogger. Just leave a comment on each of the DT blog and you might be the winner of our mystery blogger.
***Our New release bundle is available for a limited time at a discount of 10%.
***The New 1,2,3 Create kit is available and called Sunkissed.

Totally Stampalicious June Blog Hop

Welcome to Totally Stampalicious JUNE NEW RELEASE and BLOG HOP! If you just arrived here from Joanne's Blog you are in the right place. Just joining us, head back over to the Totally Stampalicious Blog to start hopping!
We have FOUR BRAND NEW STAMP SETS from our fabulous Bugaboo line by artist Jodie Mackrell!! AVAILABLE NOW at Totally Stampalicious!
As always we'll be giving away PRIZES as well to THREE lucky Hoppers!!!
1st Prize - All 4 New Sets
2nd Prize - $15 Gift Certficate
3rd Prize - $5 Gift Certificate
All you have to do is Hop along with us and leave your comments along the way and maybe YOU could be a WINNER!!!! So are you ready to see the latest and greatest?!!! You're not going to be able to resist these!!!
First up for my creations is Sean Dog. Isn't that the cutest thing ever? That puppy just makes me swoon. hee hee The Pink Elephant TPE52 blog challenge is to make masculine cards and this fits a little guy masculine I think. :0) My panel is popped up on dimensionals and I added two little tags to the side just for fun. Easy Peasy!

Next I have the adorable dragon Clyde Bug. He is so so cute I want to hug him. Actually he reminds me of the dragon in a movie from when I was a kid called Pete's dragon. The dragon was super cute in that movie. I had a few pieces of scrap paper laying on the tabel so I made a few tag ends and layered them up. Some lime green ribbon and voila!
Hope you are enjoying the hop! Your next stop is on over to Angel's Blog. Have a wonderful day!

Flourishes Arts and Letters Challenge

Welcome to Flourishes Arts and Letters Challenge! For details on the challenge and to link your creations be sure to check out the Flourishes Blog!

I have found that with sibblings you can't do something for one of them and not the other. Since I made Ava a birthday card I then have now made one for her sister Sydnee. This Letters in Blossom set is fabulous for personalizing all gifts. I can see a few framed items coming down the road with this set alone. Went with all shades of blue as those are Sydnee's favorite colors. I tell you a girl after my own heart. :0) Some of the beautiful Want 2 Scrap flourished pearls for the ends and voila. Now both of the girls have their own cards! Yeah!
Check out the challenge creations from:
Cindy
Barbara
Sharon
Amanda
Julie
Heather
Maki


Hope you get a chance to play with us this week! Thanks for stopping in and see you tomorrow!

Introducing Letters in Bloom

Welcome to day 2 of Flourishes June release. Today we reveil another beautiful set that coordinates with The Blossom Collection. This really is a fabulous line of sets to go together and with the sets coming later in the year you really can't resist the collection.

The beautiful set we are showing you today is called Letters in Blossom. So many fun and beautiful creations with these letters as you will see through the hop. This card is for a daughter of some good friends of ours. Here birthday is coming up and she likes purple, so I personalized a card for her. The letters were colored using copic collection Crocus and Green Grass. Once my Laural Venise white lace was added I ran some of the lavendar checkered ribbon just for fun. Then just a little snippet of the jeweled flourishes to the top. Voila!

Be sure to check out the creations from the Design Team and see you back here at noon for the noon Arts and Letters Challenge.
Christine
Cindy
Julie
Danielle
Barbara
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie
Beate

A few reminders:
***Your chance to win the entire release is by playing in our Gimme 10 creations challenge.
***Check out the Mystery Blogger. Just leave a comment on each of the DT blog and you might be the winner of our mystery blogger.
***Check out the noon time challenge for your chance to win the set of the day!
***Our New release bundle is available for a limited time at a discount of 10%.
***The New 1,2,3 Create kit is available and called Sunkissed.

Introducing Summer Blossoms

Welcome to the very first day of Flourishes Sneak Peeks for JUNE! It's exciting because the sets being revealed this week aren't just unique for June -- they are part of an entire collection of stamp sets that will be released over the next year! It's called the Blossom Collection and each set released under this name will be designed to coordinate with the other pieces for all types of occassions! Use one set on it's own or slowly add to the collection -- that's the beauty of it!
Today's set is the first part of this collection and features beautiful blooms perfect for summer!

Part of The Blossoms Collection, this beautiful array of summer blossoms illustrated by Marcella Hawley features a bouquet, corner stamps, and pieces to create your own borders or frames. Add in a trio of all occasion sentiments and you have the perfect set to create cards for every day correspondence. Set measures 4 by 6" and is the perfect companion to sister sets Happily Ever After SS199 and Letters in Blossom SS198. If you like what you see, this set is available for pre-order now, just click HERE!

My creation using Summer Blossoms is warm and cozy today. The fancy trim along the bottom is using Spellbinders Decorative Inserts Three. This is one of my new favorite things to put on the bottom of my cards lately. What is really funny as it sat on my desk for several months as I wasn't sure how to use it properly. GASP! I know funny, however I do know how to use it very well now as its on most of my creations. hee hee Added a little bit of the lace and ribbon which I tied off with a ribbon bow. The designer paper in the back isn't showing as much as I wanted, this is from the paper pack Happy Travels from Glitz. Very romantic feeling paper pack I would have to say. I then finished off the sides with some flourished jewels. Be sure to check out the creations from the Design Team today:

Christine
Cindy
Julie
Danielle
Barbara
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie
Beate
A few release reminders:
***Your chance to win the entire release is by playing in our Gimme 10 challenge.
***Check out the Mystery Blogger. Just leave a comment on each of the DT blog and you might be the winner of our mystery blogger.
***Check out the noon time challenge for your chance to win the set of the day!
***Our New release bundle is available for a limited time at a discount of 10%.
***The New 1,2,3 Create kit is available and called Sunkissed.

See you back here tomorrow for more sneak peeks! Have a wonderful day!

TS Shaped creations

Happy Monday! If you happened to miss last week's challenge on the Totally Stampalicious blog you may have missed our excited new Design Team Members! We welcomed 3 new DT last week Bonnie, Diane and Leanne. Be sure to give them a warm welcome if you missed it last week. Today's challenge is shaped cards. Make any shape you desire as long as it has shape! Yea I like shaped cards a lot.

For my creations I used the Spellbinders label eight for the shape. This adorable little girl is the new Ballerina Brat we released last month. So so very cute! Added a few of my primas from petaloo and the cheery lynn flourishes to my card. Voila an easy peasy card that will end up a birthday card this summer I am sure. Hope you can play along with us this week!

FS279 More tea

This weeks Featured Stamper 279 is Stephanie aka Booga3. What a delightful gallery and full of all kinds of inspiration. I choose Stephanie's Your my cup of tea card to case. I kept the colors, layout and theme the same. I changed the stamp using Whiff of Joy Summer surprise kit and moved my sentiment to the top. This is just adorable I think. This was for my friend Ann's birthday and she thought it was super cute. Hope you can play along with us this week! Have a great day!

Flourishes 10 minute creations challenge

Happy Friday! Today is Flourishes Pre-challenge for the June release. Yep it is that time again and we are excited about this months release. Your chance to win the entire release is by playing in our 10 minute challenge. Ever need a card in a jiffy but don't have time to take an hour to make one? This challenge is all about making those CAS creations that can be made in the blink of an eye -- just 10 minutes or less! Be sure to link to the Flourishes blog and if you load to SCS use keyword FLLCJUL12. Hope you play along with us this week.

Lately I have been in need of some masculine cards and on short notice at that. This is a quick one that I created for a thank you. The twine was actually a re-use from a box that I got months ago and thought it would go perfect with the Antique Map set. Finally got around to using it. Stamped out the map a few times, used Spellbinders Classic Circles to cut three out, then cut three out of the solid paper. Scored the border, popped them up on dimensionals and voila! Easy Peasy! Be sure to check out the 10 minute creations from the Design Team Today:
Christine
Julie -- Blog Candy and Anniversary
Danielle
Barbara
Sharon

Tammy

You are my cup of tea

Is this not the cutest stamp? hee hee Would this pass for a card given to a guy? Probably not now that I think about it, but the person this is for will appreciate the feminine feel yet all the warm masculine colors I think. This is another image in the Whiff of Joy Suprise summer kit. I told you that these are all awesome. Been having so much fun inking them up and playing. The shapes are using Spellbinders Grand Labels, classic circles and labels one. My swiss dots folder always comes in handy for a quick background I think. Who can resist the Cheery Lynn Flourishes? Not me. ha! Thanks for stopping in today, have a wonderful day.

HMF #121 Here Comes the Sun

Where I live here comes the sun means the here comes the heat. So turn on those fans and air conditoners. ha! Welcome to House Mouse and Friends Blog Challenge #121 today brought to use by Sue K. Our Sponsor is Simon Says Stamp. the prize $25 gift card to Simon Says Stamp shop. Create something for Here comes the sun. I hope you get to play along with us this.


My creation is easy peasy with this adorable Happy Hoppers called Air Head. Used some Cheery Lynn Flourishes for an accent and stamped the sentiment. My family has lots of birthday's in the summer time so this will work out perfect. Infact we had DH birthday yesterday. It was great to have all the family here and friends. Thanks for stopping in with me today!

Berry sweet at Flourishes

Flourishes is focusing on the beautiful Strawberries set today. Does it make you hungry or what? I always like coloring these strawberries but I tend to want to eat some at the same time. Not a bad draw back as they are good for you.
My creation is pretty straight forward. Once my strawberries were colored I cut them out and added dimensionals to the back. The copic collections used for the coloring are Poppy and Green Grass. Did you see the new Copic Collections swatch book? Very cool and helpful when it comes to picking colors. I used the awesome Romantic Rectangels from Spellbinders for the frame. Don't say it as I already know you are tired of it already, well sadly I am not. ha! The bottom panel has the Basketweave stamped to it and then I used some of the red wrinkled ribbon for my bow. Yummy card I think.Be sure to check out the yummy creations from the Design team today:
Christine
Cindy
Julie
Dawn
Danielle
Barbara
Tammy
Sharon
Jan Marie