Kiss the Cook

Happy Friday!

Yikes, it's almost the end of October!!! OMG, where did the month go?

I finally made an easel card for Magnolia-licious Highlites. That's the challenge for October...to make an easel card.

I didn't make this monochromatic which was the optional challenge (sorry Suzanne), but rather I went with the challenge of Colour Create. Their Challenge 30 is ... ALL WHITE ... we'd like to see your makes with colour on the image only.

I thought this would be interesting to do, but it was sooo... hard not to even add a bit of colour by distressing the edges which I like to do. I had to rely on stitching, 3-d work and embelishments to make the white part noticeable.

A couple more challenges for this card:

At A Spoon Full of Sugar it's their Challenge 75. "For our Challenge this week we would like to see Kitchen/Cooking themed projects."

And this is also for Kellie's first Magnolia Down Under Store challenge. You can enter here. "Make a card or creation with at least ONE stamp from the Magnolia Yummy For Your Tummy Collection." Come on ladies, that's what you've all been doing anyway. Get your entries in by Friday, Nov. 13.

Enjoy your day and have a wonderful weekend!!!


Stamp: Magnolia Kitchen Tilda, sentiment from Bo Bunny What U Got Cookin' Clearly Stamps.

Tools: Martha Stewart border and corner punches Deco Fan.
Misc.: Vintage Attic Treasures pearls.

DP: Embosed vine cardstock from Michaels, everything else is plain white cardstock.

happy autumn days

Happy Sunday!

I hope you're enjoying you weekend.

This is my DT card for our next challenge at Magnolia Down Under. The theme for our Challenge #25 is...Distressing. We have The Soap Dish as our sponsor for this challenge and they are offering a set of hand-made soaps that not only smell gorgeous, but look good enough to eat. Check out the picture of the prize at MDUC and also the fabulous cards of the other oh-so-creative DT gals. I hope you will come and join us in this challenge--you have 2 weeks!!!

I have used this wonderful sketch of Mina's that she has provide for the Truly Scrumptious Challenge 18. And the theme for this challenge is 'Autumn.'



For the inside of the card, I have Tilda peeking out through a hole in the wall, LOL.


And this is a close-up of that hole-in-the-wall .

I like doing this distressing. I think I am going to be doing more of this.

Thanks for visiting.

Stamps: Magnolia Standing Fall Tilda, acorns from The Old Island Stamp Company.

DP's: K&Company Tim Coffey Fall Stripe and Fall Pumpkins.

Tools: Martha Stewart leaf border punch, MS oak leaf punch.

Misc.: Tim Holtz Distressing Ink Pad vintage photo.

Advent-Calendar Box

Hello everyone!

I first saw this version of an advent calendar while I was blog-hopping and landed on Nixe-Moni’s blog. She’s made a couple of them. I saw their pictures in one of her slideshows. I couldn’t find any details and/or instructions, as I couldn’t find their actual postings. But this is similar to Kirsten ‘box-with-4-drawers’. You just have to increase the box from a single-level to a 6-level box. Ouch! Nixe-Moni’s box is smaller, looks to me like it has a base 5-inch square. As I already have Kirsten’s tutorial for her box with a 6-inch square base, I stuck with her measurements. Okay then, it took me more than a week to do this. Phew!!! Here it is:

The top of the box is decorated using the wonderful sketch of Carole from Friday Sketchers.

All the images I used here are from Magnolia. This one is called Waiting Tilda. I was wondering why she is called that, but now I know. Tilda is waiting for Christmas to arrive. It makes perfect sense to me now. LOL.

Creative Inspirations Challenge Blog, their theme is “A Special Card or Project with Numbers on it". Well, this is an advent calendar, so the drawers are marked with the 24 dates in December before Christmas.

Challenge 38 of Lili of the Valley is to make A Christmas Card for a Child. I don't know if this qualifies or not--it's not actually a card. Ladies, maybe you can consider this one really TALL card, hee hee. But it's the perfect gift for a child. You can fill each drawer with a daily treat: a piece of candy, chocolate, jelly beans (hmm...do they have 24 different flavors of these?), sours, etc. (include a new toothbrush with the gift, LOL).

Over at Stamp Something, it's their "Bling it" Somethings! challenge. I've added lots of blings on the top part of the box.

And this is my entry for the Simon Says Stamp Contest 2 at Paper Craft Planet. The challenge is to make something, anything BUT a card - and make it a Christmas gift for someone close to you!

Here are pictures of the 4 different sides:

This image is Lazy Summer Tilda from the Lazy Summer Days Collection.

This one is Tilda with Candle from the Holiday 2008 Collection.

Amor Tilda from the Love Collecttion

And Tilda with Wreath from the Christmas 2007 Collection.

All the DP's I used are from the Basic Grey Wassail Collection: Laurel Leaves, Cranberry Sauce, Snow Dust and Merry Happy.

The drawer knobs are Lara's Crafts wooden button plugs 1/4"--I bought them at Michaels .

That's all folks. Hope you like this one. Thanks for visiting and any comment will be much appreciated.

enjoy life

Happy Thursday!

A last summer card of the year for me (I think). It took longer for me to do this card than I thought it would. There were a couple of images from this year's Magnolia Lazy Summer Days collection that I haven't used and I wanted to make a card featuring both of them on it, so I thought a tri-shutter card would do the trick. I've had this idea in my head since I first saw pictures of the images, but just got around to doing the card this week. (Tutorial for this can be found at Bonnie's The Craftiblog.)

This card is my entry for a few challenges:

The front for the card was designed using this sketch from Passion of Promarkers. The challenge is to use this sketch provided by Gina and I can use any colours.

When I fold the card, you only see the front of it:

The colour scheme was chosen from 2 blogs with similar colour challenges (lucky there, how often does that happened, eh? LOL):

Stamping for the Weekend's. For this challenge we have a colour combo, which screams 'THE END OF SUMMER IS HERE!'....Orange, Brown and Leafy Green.

Roses on Paper. For their Challenge 22--choose a sketch from another challenge blog PLUS use the Fall-ish colors of Orange, Brown and Green!

When I flattened the card, this is the full view:

I actually do have stamps (wood block and clear ones) with the 3 sentiments that I used on this card, but the size and the arrangement of the words weren`t to my liking, so I computer-generated these ones.

The cobblestone at the bottom of Tilda and Edwin`s feet are from an Alota Side Wall and Window stamp--some masking done here.

Enjoy your day!

Stamps: Magnolia Tilda with Bike, Bike Edwin, Great Impressions (small trio flowers), Alota Side Wall and Window.DP`s: Recollections Chelsea Garden, KI Memories Choices Collection Organized Tailgait.Tools: Marvy Uchida scalloped-edged punches.

Trick or Treat

Happy weekend!

I actually got a Halloween card done! I'm more into Christmas than Halloween. But 'tis the season.....to go Trick or Treating. And that is the theme for the challenge at Magnolia Down Under Challenge for the next fortnight--Trick or Treat. This is my DT card. Please hop over there and check out the other creations of the very creative and talented DT gals. We also have Bloomin' Pages as our sponsor for this challenge, with a very adorable Alota Christmas stamp (I sure wouldn't mind getting that one, LOL).


Before I move on with my card, a few more challenges to mention that I am using this card as my entry to. It seems that Halloween is a very popular theme this week.

A Spoon Full of Sugar -- Challenge 72 Halloween
Simon Says Challenge -- HALLOWEEN!!! BOO!!!!!!
All Sorts Saturday -- Challenge #22 Halloween
Stamp with Fun -- Challenge #27 - clear foil

I did a lot of improvising for this card. I don't have too many Halloween stamps in my collection, but enough to make this card it seems. First off, I don't have a Halloween or witchy Tilda. So I chose this Magnolia Tilda with Apron. I saw this picture of the witch's hat on a sale flyer. Using a photocopier, I blew it up to the size I want then I traced it out by hand to a card stock.

The bench that Tilda is sitting on is the Magnolia Christmas bench. The bench comes with two huge holly leaves and three berries. I cut them out, but there was a bit of a leave left that I couldn't completely take out, so I haveTilda sitting on the bench to cover it up. Then added the pumpkin to balance the image.

You're going to love this one. I needed a window so I can use that clear foil for the challenge at Stamp with Fun. Take a look at the window frame, hee hee. I don't have window stamp! Instead I used a small-bench stamp that I have. I stamped 2 images. Then placed an upright bench on top of an upside-down bench. LOL.

The broom is a very late addition. If you look at my card at the MDUC blog, I didn't have the broom yet then, hee hee. I remembered too late that I do have the Magnolia Tilda with Broom image. I had to do some masking to get an image of the broom by itself.

This is the image behind the window. If you're familiar with my cards, I don't usually decorate entire pages in the inside, but in this case I needed to do so to create the night scene.

And since I did a full page on the right side, it would have looked funny if I didn't do the same on the left side, so I very simply decorated it as below. I left an area blank to write personal messages on.

Hmm, okay, I know the sentiment Trick or Treat doesn't actually fit my card. I wanted a simple Happy Halloween, but didn't have the stamp for it, so had to make do. Oh well. Hope you like the card anyway. Thanks for stopping by to visit.

PS. Monday is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, so to all the Canucks, Happy Thanksgiving, gobble gobble! Woohoo, long weekend!

Stamps: Inkadinkado clear stamp set All Hallow's Eve (spider web, Trick or Treat sentiment, flying bats, flying witch, trio of pumpkins) and Cats, Recollections (hanging spider), Studio G Colette Hall pumpking (on card front), Penny Black "T for Transparent" enjoy life (tall grasses inside the card).

Card for Paige

Hello! Happy Saturday and Happy World Card Making Day!

Oooh, so many new challenges out there just for today's celebration, it's hard to pick and choose and you can only do so much in so little time.

This card is for the special 24-hour challenge at Simon Says Challenge. The theme is a girly card for Paige. You can hop over to Simon Says and read her story there. (And this card will be mailed to Paige.)

For this card, I have used Tanja's sketch that she has provided for the challenge at Friday Sketchers.

The colour scheme is from The Little Stampe Shoppe. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and so the blog challenge for this month will be to create a PINK card (the more pink the better).

Another challenge is the one at Just Magnolia. For their Week 25, it is a special monthly challenge, the theme being flowers (hand-made). Check out Michelle's tutorial here!

Edited. A word or two about the border around the circle. I used a decorative scissor to make that. There are so many scissors with different patterns out there (from 2 companies that I can think of: Fiskars and Provo Craft), that you can have any border pattern you want. Draw a circle slightly bigger than the inner circle--I use a compass to do this. Pick a starting point and start cutting outside the drawn circle, all the way around the circle back to the beginning. When you reach this starting/end point, you will probably have a broken pattern. It is very rare that your pattern at the end will match exactly the one you started with so that you have a continuous pattern --at least I haven't been able to. LOL. (I hope you know what I mean here--it's hard to explain.) This is okay though, because this is where your flower or other embelishment comes in handy. When you position the circle on the card , make sure the starting point is where you're going to plop your flower. No one will know any better, hee hee!

I had to finish this card pretty darn fast, so I have no time to decorate the inside before doing this posting. I will probably do that before I send it over to Paige, however. I just seems unfinished to me if I don't do something to the card inside.

That's it for now. Back to my craft table!!! Or probably more blog hopping, hee hee, in which case I won't get anything else done, LOL.

Stamp: Magnolia Ice/Ballet Princess from the Pink Collection.
DP's: Pebbles Flower Swirl, K&Company Romanza Gingham Printed, Making Memories Stardust Hearts Pastel/Pink and Pink Small Dots.

Tools: Fiskars decorative scissor

Merry Christmas #2

Happy Thursday!

Another Christmas card to add to my pile. One more name to cross off my list. Yeah!


I started off this card with the challenge for Stamp Something Challenge Blog. Their theme this week is something with your favorite layout or sketch. So this is my favorite sketch. If I am not provided with a sketch and if my muse decides to go on a vacation and deserts me (which happens more often than I like..LOL) and I can't come up with a new sketch, this is the one I fall back on. Variations on the placement of the small circle.

I also made this card for the Basic Grey Challenges. The theme for their Week 4 is embossing. I've used both techniques on this card:


heat embossing, for the sentiment at the bottom right corner (Colorbox gold pigment ink stamp pad and Stamp-n Stuff detail gold embossing powder),

and dry embossing for the top right corner (self-cut stencil and stylus). I've distressed it very lightly to bring out the pattern.







The Christmas theme of the card was initally just for little ole me--hee hee, but A Spoon Full of Sugar has made it their Challenge 71 - Christmas...Christmas is fast approaching and it will be here before you know it, so for our challenge this week we would love to see your Christmas creations. So I am using this card as my entry to their challenge also.

The colour combo is for Simon Says Challenge, their theme this week being the colour combo of RED and GREEN.

I've decorate the inside of the card by sitting another Tilda on a gift box.

Enjoy your day!

Stamps: Magnolia Waiting Tilda, Paper Inspiration Merry Christmas.
DP's: Basic Grey Wassail merry happy and Basic Grey Wassail noel.