Happy Birthday OCL! Come Party with Us!

Big congratulations are in order for the owners of Our Craft Lounge, Cambria Turnbow, Joy Kennedy, and Kimberly McCausland! OCL is turning one year old! Wooohoooo! We're havin' a party!

It is gonna be a huge celebration, so hang onto your party hat and get ready for a fun ride! It all begins with a Scavenger Hunt this weekend...it starts today and ends at midnight Pacific time on Sunday. The list of questions for which you must find answers is posted on the OCL blog and forum. Visit our designers to find the answers (did you see the one I posted here?), email 'em in and hope to win! There will be one first place winner and one randomly selected honorary winner who will be announced Monday.

Then, also on Monday on the OCL forum, the week of challenges begins. Each challenge has a certain number of points which you accumulate as you play...and you will definitely want to play along, because the grand-prize winner will win a $100 gift certificate! We'll still be holding our regular monthly sketch challenge too, so that's another chance to win the OCL set of your choice.

On Wednesday, we will begin sneak peeking the sets from our upcoming Valentine Release. You can catch a glimpse of these new sets on Wednesday and Thursday and then join us for the big Blog Hop on Friday, November 20th. As usual, we'll be giving away at least one of every new set! It's gonna be so much fun and you won't want to miss it so bookmark The Lounge, and mark your calendar!

I am SO honored and thrilled to be part of the OCL team! I love Our Craft Lounge images...they fit my style and just make me happy! :) My very first design team was i {heart} papers and since Kate sells OCL sets I was using them in my design work from the very beginning. So grateful that my DT mate Kendra thought of me when OCL later gathered their own team of designers!

I thought it would be most appropriate to post one of my (if not THE) most favorite cards of all the OCL cards I have made this year. This stair step card is from my 2nd Dirty Dozen gallery, which was themed Tropical Paradise. Granny just cracks me up! So much fun to work with.

Just last night I was working on another fun/funny Granny card for the upcoming DD gallery which will open Saturday night. (I guess that will be a sneak of the sneak peeks because it will be really early!) I'm not giving any hints, except that I was covered in Sparkly Fluff and made another big scene! ;) I can't believe that my six months as a Dirty Girl have sped by so quickly and that this will be my last month! SOB! Parting is such sweet sorrow! It has been such an amazing experience, and a truly enchanted time in my life. I'm so glad to have an ihp Design Team Challenge and the OCL Birthday Bash to keep me busy and help keep my spirits up as I transition from Dirty Dozen to Dirty Dozen Alumni! Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, CHA! LOL! Woohooo! Lots to look forward to!

Thanks for visiting! See you soon!

Melanie's Festive Frames

I am so happy to be participating in Melanie's blog hop for her set, Festive Frame. I love this set and have wanted to try some techniques that I've never tried before, so today I stamped and colored on vellum. I embossed it with fine black embossing powder, then colored the reverse using Prismas and Gamsol. I trimmed the center oval, then layered the piece over a rectangle of ivory card stock stamped with the sentiment. This was layered atop a mat of black attached to an ivory card base. I added a row of black jewels, and a big sheer black bow with a tiny dangling notes charm. I am very pleased with how this turned out...it was a great learning experience, and I will definitely try this technique again.

Melanie Muenchinger, the Illustrator of Festive Frame has invited a couple of her friends to join in on the blog hop tonight, so click on their blog links to see the projects they've created for us:

Joan Ervin
Linda Payne
Wendy Price

Then, check in on these GinaK Designer's participating in the Blog Hop tonight:

Carolyn King
Donna Baker
Erika Martin
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Melanie Muenchinger
Theresa Momber

And our fabulous Center Stage Spotlight Team:

Deb Felts
Diana S. Queen
Melissa Cash
Sharri Seffens

After you're done hopping to all the Designer's blogs stop by GinaK's Idea Center here: Festive Frame for lots more ideas on how to use Melanie's stamp set. And, don't forget to check in on GinaK's blog so you can leave your comment to be entered as a chance to win this stamp set, too!

Day 2 of the Recipe Hop!

Welcome back to Day 2 of the Creative Cuts & More Mega Recipe Blog Hop which features the Apron Holiday Treats Recipe Kit. We have 24 designers who will be showcasing wonderful pages and yummy Holiday Treat recipes.

As part of the celebration CC&M will be having a great sale. For the next six days, we will offer 20% off the entire store. But act quickly, it is only for six days – this sale will end on Nov 14th. Make sure you enter this code: recipebloghop2009 during checkout.

As a continuing part of the celebration CC&M will of course give away great gifts. Each day we will give away one kit. Here is the twist – go through the blog hop, leave wonderful comments for the great designers. After you have finished the blog hop, return to www.diecutdiva.com and instead of leaving a comment, you need to share a recipe to have a chance at winning the kit. Share the recipe on your blog and link it back and get another chance to win the kit. Help us also make this a great recipe swap.

Die Cut Diva
Pam Smerker
Nathalia Castellon
Dawn Lusk
Stephany Zerbe
Jennifer Hansen
Lisa Somerville
Lila Holgate
Kazan Clark
Rachel Hope Baird
Ellen Sosnoski
Cecilia Stricklin
Lori Craig
Cambria Turnbow
Angie Pearl
Laura Davis
Noelle Reese
Holly Brown
Rachel Sztonyk
Deb Felts
Jen Johnson
Amber Hillman
Carla Mayfield
Cindy Lawrence
Chris Dickinson
Die Cut Diva

Auntie Pam's Special K Bars

3 cups Special K cereal
1/2 cup karo syrup
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz chocolate chips
6 oz butterscotch chips

Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan with butter. Combine sugar and karo in heavy
saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add peanut butter and vanilla.

Combine mixture with Special K and press into prepared pan. Cool in
refrigerator.

Melt chocolate chips together and spread on pressed mixture. Cool and slice.

Cranberry-Marshmallow Salad (We call this *Pink Fluff*...I make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas)
2 cups sugar
1 large bag marshmallows
1 large can crushed pineapple; well drained
1 lb. fresh cranberries
1 cup shredded coconut
1 pint whipping cream

Put berries through food grinder. Cover with sugar. Let stand overnight.
Mix marshmallows, pineapple, coconut, and cranberries.
Whip cream to firm stiffness and fold into above mixture.

Mom's Chocolate Covered Peanuts (Love you Mom!)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup salted peanuts

Melt together chocolate and peanut butter over low heat. Add peanuts, then
drop by the spoonful onto wax paper or greased cookie sheet. Refrigerate.

Mom's Chocolate Peanutters
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup, firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 package (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup salted peanuts

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Combine brown sugar, shortening and vanilla in large bowl. Beat til
creamy. Add egg. Continue to beat. Add flour mixture alternately with
1/4 cup milk. Stir in chocolate chips and salted peanuts. Drop by level
teaspoonsful onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

Mom's Peanut Butter Fudge (It doesn't feel like Christmas without this!)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 jar (~1 cup) marshmallow cream
1 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cook sugars, butter, milk and salt to form a soft ball in cold water
(~234-240 degrees). Stir constantly over low heat. Remove from heat and
add remaining ingredients. Beat til creamy (be quick!) Spread onto buttered cookie sheet. Let set; slice into squares.

Perfect Apple Pie Filling (from Irene Matsumoto, who was my patient when I worked as a physical therapist in Straub Hospital in Honolulu)

5-7 tart green apples; peeled and sliced (love my Pampered Chef apple thingie!)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoon flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoon butter
1 recipe double-crust pastry or a package of prepared piecrusts
milk

Mix sugar, flour, salt and spices. Sprinkle half over 9" pastry-lined pie
pan. Heap apples into pastry shell. Sprinkle with remaining sugar
mixture. Dot with butter. Cover with top layer of crust. Brush top with
milk. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then lower oven
temp to 350 and continue to bake for another 40 minutes.


Here are the additional products I used to complete my album (although I still have 5 pages yet do complete!).

• Stamps:
• First Christmas, Have a Cookie, Signed with Love (all from Gina K)
• Recipe Favorites (Stampendous)
• Lovin' from the Oven (Our Craft Lounge)
• What's Cookin' (Hero Arts)
• Vintage Picnic (Paper Trey Ink)
  
• Accessories:
• SU grograin ribbon, metal rimmed tags, potholder incentive stamp, word window and circle punches,
  
• May Arts glimmer ribbon
• stitched grograin
  
• Making Memories sparkle brads
• Nestabilities labels, Cuttlebug
• tiny and teeny tiny buttons from A Small Cleverness, one of our LSSs
• Microsoft Publisher (to format the recipe cards, and tags)
  

Recipe Collecting!

I'm very excited that my friend Chris Dickinson invited me to take part in this week's Creative Cuts and More Blog Hop. This is a 2-day extravaganza of recipes, with 24 artists participating each day. Can't wait to see what delicious new ideas are along the way! I'll be back tomorrow to share the album I've been working on, and to share some favorite Sweet Treat recipes, but for today I thought I'd share with you a couple of old family favorites.

This first recipe is one that I use on *everything* when it comes to savory dishes. You may have seen the gourmet brands of Creole seasoning at the market...I like to make my own because it is fresh and fabulous, plus I can adjust the proportions (some like it hot!) and leave out the MSG, so here's my own version of Cajun yumminess that gets my authentic stamp of Louisiana approval! ;) (I think that sizes of jars/bottles change periodically...it doesn't have to be exact!)

Creole seasoning
28 oz box Morton's salt
1.5 oz box ground black pepper
2 oz box ground red pepper
1 oz bottle pure garlic powder
1 oz bottle chili powder

Mix well (be careful for the *fumes*...it's strong stuff!) and store in an airtight container. As you can see, it makes a bunch!

The second recipe I'd like to share is from my days at Westlake High School in Mrs. Farley's home economics class! She taught our class how to make yeast rolls, and I've made this recipe nearly every single year since! We love having fresh bread with our holiday meals. It goes quickly around here! Last year when I made it, I called Mrs. Farley to let her know how much we have enjoyed having them each and every year.

Refrigerator Rolls
2 pkg yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening; melted
1 egg; slightly beaten
5 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
Pam

Add warm water (~80 degrees) to yeast.

Scald milk. Pour into mixing bowl with sugar, salt and shortening. Mix
well.

Add 2 cups of flour, softened yeast, and beaten egg to milk after it has
cooled to lukewarm. Add remaining flour and milk. Turn soft dough out
onto lightly floured board. Knead until satiny.

To refrigerate (option to bake later): Oil a bowl. Place dough in bowl and cover with wax paper and a towel. Allow to come to room temperature before using.

Spray muffin tins (or loaf pans) with Pam. Shape dough into rolls. Cover lightly with wax paper. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk.

Bake in 425 degree oven for 15-25 minutes, until golden brown. Brush with
butter as rolls come out of oven. Remove immediately from pan. Serve hot.

Fresh bread is a lot of work but it is SO worth it! I like to make about 1.5 dozen clover-leaf rolls and use the remaining dough for loaves. Goes great with leftover ham or turkey! You could probably half this recipe to make it in your bread maker if you wanted to. I did that with a Southern Living sourdough bread recipe that I kept going for almost 10 years.

I hope you have fun as you make your way through today's hop! There'll be lots of yummy eye candy as well as recipe goodness to enjoy! Come back tomorrow for the Sweet Treats round! Hope to see you then!

Banana Split Sunday!

It's time for another Banana Split Sunday challenge! This week we're using a 3-2-1 recipe for our cards: 3 eyelets, 2 ribbons, and one oval. I used card stock from CutCardStock with some paper from last year's Fall DCWV designer paper pack, which went perfectly with sweet, adorable Autumn Leaves Penny. I even managed to give her brown hair instead of red! I thought that would balance the colors better, but in my heart, Penny will always have red hair! ;)

I don't know about you, but I sure love the Crop-a-dile for setting eyelets! Makes 'em much less of a headache to set! I tied a scrap piece of ribbon with a bit of raffia so my card qualifies for the recipe challenge. It is bright and a bit different than what I would normally choose, but it is kinda fun for a change.

The Banana Blog has inspiration from our other designers, or you can see their individual blog posts on the sidebar to the right for the details on their creations.

A Tree for Henry

I have been filled with sadness and overwhelmed with grief for my friend and former design team mate Sarah Anderson, whose 3 1/2 year old son Henry passed away on Monday. He was a happy, seemingly healthy child on Thursday, awoke with fever and vomiting on Friday, and by Sunday was having difficulty breathing. Monday morning doctors performed surgery on his heart in an effort to save him, but his little body had just had enough.

Henry was an amazing child! He was an avid Star Wars fan, with Mickey Mouse a close second. He loved visiting the Menominee Park Zoo where he would watch the feeding and care given to the various animals. Friends are gathering funds to purchase a memorial tree at the zoo in his honor.

If you would like to contribute toward the purchase of Henry's memorial, click on the giraffe image at the top of the sidebar on the right. This digital stamp is available for purchase from Pink Cat Studios, and we invite you to make a card in Henry's honor. My card was made using card stock from cutcardstock.com and Cosmo Cricket designer paper from i {heart} papers. I heat-set the printed image and colored it with Copic markers. I hope it will bring Sarah, her husband Darrin and younger son Jack some small measure of comfort.

Whether or not you contribute toward Henry's memorial, there is one huge thing that you can do for his family...please whisper a prayer for them, that they will find strength in the days to come, and God's peace, just when they need Him most.

Blessings!

Center Stage Spotlight Blog Hop!

I am so excited to be part of the current Center Stage Spotlight Design Team, and that Jessica Fick, the Design Team Coordinator for GinaK Designs, has invited all of the past and present Center Stage Spotlight artists to participate in this blog hop! I am sure that you'll see all kinds of incredible inspiration along the way! Talk about creativity! It certainly makes one hope to stretch and grow, being among these amazing artists!

The challenge that Jessica issued to us was to make a Christmas card using one of these sketches.













I wanted to use an image I had not yet worked with, so I grabbed the ornaments from Asela's set, First Christmas, the Prismas, odorless mineral spirits, and some rub-on gold metallic paste.

They came out soft and shimmery...and they look quite elegant when paired with Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses designer paper, some gold card stock, and a gold-embossed music score from Nina's Vintage Borders. My nesties got quite the workout too!

I am having such a great time with my Gina K new release stamps! I'm grateful for the friendships I'm making as part of this team, and I will be looking forward to our monthly hops! I hope you'll be a return visitor!

You're going to LOVE what everyone has designed for tonight! Here are the links for GinaK's Current CSS Team Members:

Deb Felts (you're here!)
Diana S. Queen
Karen Knegten
Melissa Cash
Sharri Seffens
Sue VanDeVusse

and the links for all of the past CSS Design Team members participating:

Brenda Turner
Carla Suto
Carolina Buchting
Charlene Merrick
Dawn Lusk
DeeMarie Kelemen
Geri Utterback
Giovanna Smith
Janice Melton
JenMarie Taylor
Jennie Harper
Joy Hadden
Kay Simmons
Linda Payne
Lori McAree
Melisa Waldorf
Pam Imholz
Selma Stevenson
Shannon Bracken
Shelly Wilson
Sue Walsh
Tina Gilliland

Some of GinaK's Senior Design Team Members and Illustrators wanted to get in on the fun tonight too:

Asela Hopkins
Carolyn King
Cindy Lawrence
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Lynn Mercurio
Nina Brackett
Melanie Muenchinger

along with Nina Brackett's Guest Designer, Lisa Hjulberg and GinaK herself!

All of these gorgeous cards from the entire team will be added to the StampTV gallery throughout the next few days with the tag cssjf1 (which stands for center stage spotlight jessica fick 1)

These sketches are also our sketch challenge for this week, so be sure to check out all the information in the discussion in our Challenge group over on StampTV Thursday morning. We'd love to see your cards with the sketch too!

Think Cocoa!

I'm very happy to be posting my Color Dare card today! I missed last week (lots of card deadlines and too many hours on duty at the pumpkin patch)...I really hate missing, but sometimes real life intervenes. I'm grateful that Riley and the other girls are so lenient with me!

Today's creation is a combo challenge card for Color Dare #41 and Inspirational Card Sketches #41. Such a fun card to make! I used my new Changito Snow Play set from i {heart} papers, along with this Sassafras Lass designer paper, my nesties, and some embellishments that have been hanging around in my stash for quite a while! I am very pleased with how it turned out, although I must admit that I did cheat a little! The designer paper had an ivory background so I used ivory card stock instead of Whisper White as the challenge specified. I hope the challenge police will let it slide! ;)

I hope you're having a warm, cozy week!

New Release from The Stamps of Life!

Today is Release Day for The Stamps of Life November stamps...you're gonna LOVE 'em! This set has so many fun options! As it is with all SoL sets, there are both line art and solid stamps that work together, so you have the choice of quick two-step stamping, or coloring with other media. For this card I chose to two-step stamp the tree, and then dress things up with some bling and gold embossing. I love how rich and elegant these colors are and I am very pleased with the way this card turned out (plus I'm still having fun playin' with Beate's layout!)

I love to color, so for my next card I stamped four Christmas lights on a scrap of card stock, colored and shaded them with Copic markers and then cut them out so they could be popped up for some dimension. I added some green *electrical* cording and lots of MS fern punched branches to nestle them in among the greens. Again, the greeting is embossed in gold. What do you think?! It's sorta CAS but very colorful and full of holiday spirit!

The gallery for this set is already full of great samples and it is still growing...be sure to check 'em out! I'll be back with more soon!

Banana Split Sunday!

This week's Banana Split Sunday challenge is a Fall color challenge! Make a card or layout using three of these four colors: yellow, orange, red, or brown. So fun to do with this new adorable Autumn Leaves Penny! I stamped her with Memento ink, colored her with Copics, and tucked her onto a layout inspired by Beate's weekend sketch. I used some paper from an old K and Co tablet, and distress inked all the edges with Tim Holtz distress ink.

Lots of cute new stamps! Go check 'em out, peek at the samples (links to the 2RB design team are on the sidebar) and get to work! ;)