D is for...Dinosaurs

I'm having a really hard time coming up with a post for D.  I thought I had it all figured out. Today I went down to my sewing room to finish up a wallet out of a dinosaur print. Perfect! A few glitches here and there, but I finally finished it, brought it upstairs to take a few pictures and write the post... and suddenly realized that all those cute little purple and green dinosaurs were actually ALLIGATORS! My husband rolled his eyes, shook his head, and said "Did you just figure that out??" Yes. I just noticed. I've never been the most observant person in the world....

But then I checked my email. My April Bloom Box is on its way, and it has cute little DINOSAURS. Phew! Something to post. :-) They're these adorable little T-Rex dinosaurs with short arms.

There's only one child in my world at present. Granddaughter Addi is 4-½ and lives WAY too far away as far as I'm concerned. But she's coming to visit this summer, so maybe we'll stamp and color some dinosaurs together.


Fun Stampers Journey has a couple other cute dinosaur sets. I had been playing with the idea of ordering at least one of them, but hadn't gotten around to it, so the Bloom Box will fill an empty niche in my stamp collection. But I might have to have the Dream Big ATS too!

C is for...Coffee and Cranberry Muffins

I drink coffee every day.  It becomes routine, and I don't always think much about it.  But today we're having our good friends John and Bonnie over to join us for our morning coffee.  Suddenly it becomes more than routine - it's special. My husband and John have gotten together for morning coffee every couple of weeks for quite awhile, and now that Bonnie and I have also finally retired, we enjoy joining them.

I'm baking my special Low Bush Cranberry Muffins, a recipe I've been making for years, since our girls were little in Nikolai and McGrath, Alaska. Luckily we still have good friends who live in Alaska and send us some every year. I hoard them like gold, and only bring them out for special occasions!

I've read that low bush cranberries are actually lingonberries. We used to go out every fall after frost and pick these tart, delicious little deep red berries. They grow close to the ground...I suppose that's why Alaskans call them low bush!

Here's the recipe - I don't know how they'll work if you don't have low bush cranberries, but feel free to try! I've adjusted it for where we live now. I'm going to try adjusting it to be more diabetic-friendly one of these days (almond flour and stevia), but for now I'm not messing with success.  If I get a chance I might even take a picture!

Ingredients

3⁄4 cup low bush cranberries 
3⁄4 cup powdered sugar

2 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder (2-1/2 tsp. for high altitude)
1 tsp. salt
1⁄4 cup sugar (scant 1⁄4 cup for high altitude)
1 egg
1 cup milk (add 3 extra Tablespoons for high altitude) 
1/3 cup (scant) vegetable oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare muffin pan with oil, spray release, or paper liners.
   
2. Stir low bush cranberries and powdered sugar together in a small bowl.
   
3. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
   
4. In a separate bowl, whisk egg, milk, and vegetable oil together. Mix lightly into dry ingredients, being careful not to over-stir.
   
5. Fill muffin cups about halfway. Bake in preheated oven 20 minutes or until golden on edges. 
   

B is for...Blackboard Technique and Birthday Balloons

Recently Richard Garay, Fun Stampers Journey President and Co-Founder, demonstrated the blackboard technique in this video.  It's a quick and easy technique, using black card stock, clear embossing ink, and pan pastels.  I remember using chalks for this technique a LONG time ago! :-) This is one of the three cards we'll be making at my April 22nd card class.

For this card I used the balloon paper from the Magical Journey Prints collection (PP-0038) and one of the wonderfully wonky cakes in the To You stamp set (SS-0083).  I've never used this stamp set without lots of coloring - so it's a bit of a change for me.  I think I like the simplicity.

Don't forget to check out the other A-Z blogs this month. You can find the list on this Facebook page.
I hope you'll come back tomorrow to see what I come up with for C - I have an idea, but that could certainly change between now and then!!

A is for...April Fools Day!

Good morning! I just discovered the "Blogging from A to Z" challenge via a friend of mine, Susan Berg. Check out her blog at SuseADoodle Do - she's an amazing artist and all-around nice lady whom I hope to meet in person some day.

I'm a BAD blogger, so decided the April challenge would be a way to at least try to increase my blogging. The "A" post was supposed to be Saturday - I'll see if I can catch up!

So, on April 1st my hubby and I were in the truck heading home to southern Colorado from a warm and pleasant couple of weeks in southern Arizona.  We hit the state line between New Mexico and Colorado on Raton Pass and THIS is what met us!  Luckily by the time we made it home, the snow was patchy and the fog had lifted, but the 1-mile stretch of dirt road to our place was pure, sticky mud! We had to hose off the trailer before we could start unloading.
 
We're back now to our beautiful blue skies and sunshine, so I figure this was just Mother Nature's April Fool's joke on us to welcome us back!!!

Spring!

Yesterday my first daffodil bloomed.  My first EVER daffodil! I'm thrilled - they've been coming up every year, but this is the first time they've actually bloomed. Or if they've bloomed before, I wasn't here to see it....I think I lucked out this year, as we don't leave on our spring trip until tomorrow. 😀
  
The wire makes it a bit hard to see, but those are the cages I have to put around the tulips so the rabbits can't eat off the leaves.  Who knows, maybe I'll even have blooming tulips this year too! (Of course I won't be here to enjoy them.

I'm working on a little sewing project also. It's The Ultimate Wallet by So Sew Easy - and it's a FREE pattern. Can't get much better than that.  Of course after I started I realized I didn't have enough of the fabrics I had chosen, but found some that is a close enough match at JoAnn's yesterday. I wish I could have found more of the adorable alligators, but I don't remember where I got that piece. 😕

I love my Brandt's Boulevard Wallet (Chris W Designs), but want more card slots. And my current Necessary Clutch Wallet  (Emmaline Bags) is amazing and it's been WELL used, but I've been wanting a different fabric just for a change. I've discovered I love making wallets, and have made several NCW's for various folks in my life. I'm going to try graduating to larger purses when we get back from Arizona. I have to blame Rachel Anaya for getting me addicted to making wallets!!! She is an incredible sewist and makes beautiful wallets and purses, as well as other gorgeous items. If you get a chance, check out her blog at TigerInATornado.

Top: NCW - Bottom: Brandt's Boulevard

March Technique Blog Hop

A Year of Card Techniques - March

Hello! This would have been my post for our monthly blog hop of card techniques, but due to some personal and technical issues we had to postpone this month’s hop to April.

We apologize for the inconvenience but we promise, our next hop on April 21st will make up for it. Please join us in April for a brand new hop: “Stamp Set Showdown”. Hop along and leave a comment at all of our posts because we love to hear from you.

Every month one winner will receive a prize for commenting on the blog posts throughout the hops. We will draw a winner on each Saturday before the next hop goes live and the name will be announced in the upcoming hop.

This been said, our February Blog Hop Winner is

Jennifer Earley …Congratulations!

Jennifer, please contact Claudia Henderson to claim your prize!

We also will add another little incentive for all of you who leave a comment on our blog hop posts…Some of our blog hop members draw an extra winner and give away one of their creations each month.

In the meantime, mark your calendars for April 21st and if you haven’t done so already, check out our past hops:

• January-Shaving Cream Marbleizing 

• February-So Sketchy

Thank you for your understanding and support. Please spread the word about our monthly blog hop - “A Year of Card Techniques." We hope to see you back here often.

Sincerely, 

Wilma

My First Bloom Box!

I joined a Fun Stampers Journey Bloom Box group last month. Our 6-month hostess club was finished, and the February Bloom Box was SO beautiful...seemed like a great time to start! Five of us got together for a couple of hours and were able to finish 3 of the 4 card kits and today I finished the last one.  I really really love this butterfly, and the colors are gorgeous.  I jotted down the measurements of all the pieces in the kits so I can make more!  Here are the results - aren't they awesome?!?

The two on the left are very dimensional and they're all SHINY! (There's no such thing as too much glitter!)

I honestly don't want to ever give these away.  They just made me happy as I was creating them!

This month's box is called Punny, Punny and is a very different style from last month's.  That's one nice thing about the Bloom Box, is you get a variety of styles and colors.  I'll post those four cards one of these days.