Taste Tea

Our church held a Gourmet Potato Bar Fundraiser to benefit our Women's Ministry last Saturday, where they raffled off different items that had been donated. I told the coordinator that I would love to do a Tea Basket, if she was interested, filled with some homemade goodies. She said yes, and so I spent Friday and Saturday creating a basket filled with tea, scones and love. What I pictured in my head, turned out to be way better in reality. I LOVE it when that happens.

This post will be pretty long, because there are a ton of pictures. Go make yourself a cup of tea, grab a cozy chair and get comfy.

I used a yellow, brown and white color scheme that just seemed to say RELAX. I picked up these cute little containers quite a while back at our local Dollar Store. They came in packs of three and because the Dollar Store was running a promotion on Tuesdays, they were only $0.88 a pack. You get can't better deals than that. I bought something like 5 packages. Now I wish I had bought more! I filled each little jar with loose leaf tea from a cooking store downtown. I spilled them all over my crafting table, but it smelled divine as I worked!

I used my scallop circle punch and the Pocket Silhouette stamp from Stampin' Up to create all my tags.

I found these cute containers at Wal-Mart and bought a bunch to organize my spice/baking cupboard. Isn't it SO great filled with the Strawberry Freezer Jam?

The Shortbread Cookies were one of the first baked goodies I packaged up and they set the stage for everything else.

The ribbon going around the cellophane bag was the perfect touch!

Next were the Mini British Scones. I mistakenly wrote ENGLISH scones on the package, but who cares? They still taste delish! I have been making the scones for our daily tea time, but decided to make these bite size. They are the perfect size to smear on a bit of jam and then pop them in your mouth. They have a little bit of a crunch to them because before you bake them, you top them with some sugar in the raw.

I had never had Irish Soda Bread before, but have wanted to try it for years. I watched Ina Garten make this recipe on her T.V. show The Barefoot Contessa. It seemed so simple, I had to try it! It's to die for yummy. I think it looks sort of French tied with the knot and the label off to the right.

The last baked goodie that I added to the basket, were the first scones I ever learned how to bake and the ones I have been asked to make for the last 4 or 5 ladies teas at our church. They are a Whole Wheat Scone from the Taste of Home series of recipes. My stamping friend Shalyn gave me the recipe to try and every time I make it I think of her.  My friend, Lark, suggested the brown paper bag for packaging.  Can I just say, "genius"?

My mind often comes up with ideas that I really don't have time for.  While I was gathering things for the basket I had the idea to make a little book with some different facts about tea and a few recipes. I titled it Taste Tea...do you get it? No? Say it out loud, "Taste Tea", ahhh, see? Tasty! He-he-he, it took my family a little while too, and they were not nearly as impressed as I was. *sigh*, oh well.

In my opinion, this book is what sent this basket over the top. It turned out fabulous! I've never made anything like this before so I was a little nervous. My husband got me a Zutter Binding Machine for Christmas and it came with this huge stack of Chipboard Coasters. I had no idea what to do with them, but they seemed perfect for this project. Now I'm pretty sure I will find ALL sorts of uses for them.

When I put everything together and got it all arranged in the basket, I almost called and told Kim that I changed my mind. It was TOO adorable to give away! I did fill the Lemon Curd jar, but not until right before I left to take the basket to the church, by then I was done taking pictures. I'm sure you can picture the jar filled, it was yellow, and it was pretty!

  

I was so glad to hear that my friends the Graff family won the basket. They are another family with a passion for tea parties and all things pretty and yummy. From their Facebook posts, it sounds like it was much enjoyed! Mom and Oldest Daughter each have blogs for you to enjoy.

Creating gifts like this, is my absolute FAVORITE thing to do with all my paper and ink.  This makes me SUPER happy!

NOTE:  I rearrange the pictures in this post because I noticed some were stacked under others.

Crafting Weekend 2010

Surprisingly, I got invited to spend another weekend this year crafting in Hagerman with my new crafty girlfriends.  This year I got to sit next to someone new and loved every minute of it.  Gwennie is aDorabledaze's newest follower, "Welcome, Gwennie!  Make yourself at home."  Her real name is actually Jennifer, but somehow she got the nickname Gwennie and that's what we called her all weekend, so that is how I think of her.  She is not only a fellow crafter, but a fellow blogger as well.  Take a minute and check out Gwennie's blog, but don't forget to come back!


As I said, I got my first taste of Bella and PRISMACOLOR last year, and renewed it this year.  I didn't make as many cards this year because I spent the first part of the weekend working on Christmas gifts.  Now, don't get excited, I'm not an over-achiever, these were gifts from LAST YEAR that I still needed to finish.  See, I AM a loser!  Luckily, my family (whom the gifts were for) still loves me.  The pictures of the scrapbook will be yet another post.  See, I may have FINISHED said Christmas gifts, but I have YET to mail them.  Can't have you seeing them BEFORE they see them, right?  This post will be filled, once again with my love, adoration and longing for PRISMACOLOR markers, and more pictures of cute cards.

When I was creating this card, I had my friend Shalyn in mind.  She was the friend that was with me when I had my first taste of stamping.  We have spent hours together at my dining room table, bent over, crafting our hearts out.  She lives in Washington now, and I miss her dearly. 

If there is one thing other than crafting that makes me think of Shay, it's coffee!  I so wish she and I could sit down for a cup and a chat!

Look at the great color on her dress!  I'm telling you, these markers are NOT your mother's crayola markers , baby!  I whole heartedly believe that EVERY artist should begin buying these if they haven't already.  And look at the background paper, isn't it fun?  It's from a set that my mom got me for Christmas from Costco.

Pink, orange and blue are some colors that I NEVER thought I would use, but how cute are they?  I'm in love with them.  It has NOTHING to do with the Boise State Bronco colors of orange and blue.

This next card is another line from the same website as the Bella stamps.  It's probably not one I would have picked up by myself, but during the weekend, Kathryn (who I also loved meeting) used it to make some of the cutest cards.  I wasn't the only one who was struck by this little Pipi Longstocking like girl, many of us took turns stamping out pages to bring home with us.  It didn't matter what color combo you used she was too adorable to pass up.

I find that because I don't get to stamp as often as I used to, my cards have become much simpler with less technique.  It seemed to me, that all my cards were beginning to look the same and while they were still cute, nothing wowed me about them.  For this card, I challenged myself to dig deep and dust off my imagination. 

The ribbon here, looks like I pulled it up through the button, but we all know I'm much too lazy to mess with that.  I just tied a knot and glued it to the top of the button.  Super cute, no?  (Thanks, Nej for letting me peek through your ideas!)

I crumpled and inked the background paper to give it a more grunge feel, I think it fits in well with the little girls funky hair and patched pants.  I also used my paper piercer to poke holes in a pattern across the bottom of the paper.  This turned out to be my favorite card of the weekend.

The weekend was, again, filled with much laughter, tons of delish food, and very little sleep.  It was as fun as last year!  I look forward to next year, if I get invited back!

Go.  Create something!

How Cute Is That?

My husband already shared this on Facebook, but it's too cute not to share here.  Meghan is starting her early and Silver is one good horse!

Original Intent

It's been a while and my oldest daughter has been nagging me to post something new, as apparently she is bored by what's been up. When she turned 16, she also turned very bossy. It's OK; I think she gets it from her mother. I have lots of things to blog about and they are all swirling around and making a mess in my head. Let's hope that I can get them cleaned up and into a few interesting posts before they all flitter away.


One of the main reasons I wanted to do a blog was to share my favorite hobby with you. I love to stamp! I got hooked on it when I was 16 and a dear, dear friend and I stopped at a little kiosk and the kind lady there showed us how to heat emboss. We were hooked and bought our first stamp that day-it was a carousel horse-along with a tub of bronze embossing powder that we would heat up over a burner in our kitchen. We've come a long way baby!


I still play with paper and ink as often as possible, though not as much as I would like.  Last year another dear friend of mine, who also shares my obsession with paper and all things crafty, invited me on a Ladies Crafting Weekend where I got to meet 14 other amazing crafting maniacs, just like me. We laughed, we ate and we stayed up late. We even did some crafting. I thought I was pretty up on what's happening in the paper, marker, stamp world, but these ladies showed me a few things. Two things I fell in love with--PRISMACOLOR Markers and Bella Stamps! I had the chance to play with them both for an entire weekend.


Here are a few cards I created last year using Prisma Markers and the adorable Bella Stamps. Not too shabby for my first attempt!

The markers give rich color and blend beautifully!  You also don't get the stroke marks like you do with other markers.  It's a little hard to see in this photo, but I took my Stardust Glitter Pen and added some accents to the mirror.  Love the Stardust Glitter Pen!

I love the color combination on this card.  This card makes me want to steal one of my daughters retro-bikes and go for a summer ride.  Thankfully it's too cold for that kind of nonsense right now.  Is it wrong to be jealous of stamp's hair?

Again, with the Stardust Glitter Pen on Bella's cool, green bike!

Here's a confession; I actually made this card for a new friend who takes FABULOUS photos, but I never mailed it.  What can I say?  I'm a card horder. 

I generally never write my own sentament on a card, my handwriting has it's ups and downs, but this one turned out pretty cute and it was exactly what I wanted to say.  Maybe someday I'll put it in the mail.  Maybe not, but you still make me smile, Jenn!

The next card isn't a Bella, it's a stamp I bought for something like $2 just because I loved the cute birdie.  This was the first time I used it also and I did use the PRISMACOLOR markers on it and it was from the weekend last year, so it fits in with this post as well.

Well, now that's irritating.  The picture is the right direction on my computer, so why not here?  I will have to look into that, but you get the idea, right?

Can't get enough of that glitter pen.  The kids put two more in my Christmas stocking last year!  They know what Mama likes.  I also love the look of that gathered up, wrinkled ribbon, but let me tell you, it's kind of a lot of work to get it glued down like that.  maybe there is a trick I don't know about.

All in all, I was very much in envy of both the stamps and the markers.  I left the retreat last year, determined to begin purchasing at least the markers.  I never did and then began to wonder if they were really as wonderful as I first imagined.  Well, I got invited back again this year and returned home even more determined than ever to begin my collection.  The cute cards I made with them this year?  That will have to be another post.

Happy crafting, friends!