All is Gift

Ann Voskamp's book continues to touch my soul. And as I count to one thousand gifts, I am reminded once again that all is gift! Everything is a gift from God, from the smallest to the greatest, and I only need to recognize that.

So my list continues and the joy abounds!

21. footprints in the snow
22. surprise visits from son #1
23. mini marshmallows in hot chocolate

24. morning kisses
25. a brand new book
26. pretty fabrics
27. sisters and their unwavering loyalty and love
28. Mr B making the best beef stew
29. notes written on steam covered bathroom mirrors
30. time to be creative

My First Quilt!

Thanks to my wonderfully crafty friends, Regan and Deanna, and all their inspiration, I have decided to make a rag quilt!

So my fabric has been bought, the squares have been cut...

and the sewing has begun!

I am very excited to see how it all turns out! I will keep you posted :)

Little Red Wagon #69

Our challenge at Little Red Wagon this week is brought to us by Regan. She chose animals!

I have always admired Avril's fun little shaped cards so I decided this was the perfect opportunity for me to try one for myself.

I used the Create a Critter Cricut cartridge and made this adorable little turtle card! I added Glossy Accents to his spots and gave him a sweet bow using bakers twine.

It would be great if you could join us for the challenge this week! Make up a card or layout or altered item that has an animal on it and link it up! We would love to see what you create :)

Cookies

During the On-Line Super Bowl Crop at TSF a couple of weeks ago, a challenge was issued to create a layout featuring food. I started the layout that weekend and I just finished it yesterday! But I say, better late than never - right?

I had these old photos of my ds who had made Valentines Day cookies one year and I never got around to scrapping them. So I combined the pictures with some MLYB Savor papers and Jillibean corrugated letters.

I love to add machine stitching to my layouts, so for a finishing touch I did a bit of stitching.

I also used some fab new heart pins (love them!) and some yummy bakers twine!

Thanks for looking ~

Counting to 1000

"And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 5:20)

1000 gifts... my list continues one blessing at a time...

11. homecomings
12. memories captured in a photograph
13. the intricacy of a snowflake on my car window
14. Mr B's embrace
15. the youthful energy of son #2

16. enduring love - as evidenced by my parent's 50 plus years of marriage
17. the comforting sounds of home
18. long, hot showers
19. the red cardinal that made our yard his Winter home
20. date nights

May you recognize the gifts that God gives you today~

ATC Swap

I participated in my very first ATC Swap at Two Scrapbook Friends! The theme of the swap was flowers and there were 12 of us participating.

I decided to use a stamp I had from Stamping Bella for the flowers.

Then I colored the image with my Copics, added a couple of gems, some floss and a button (my signature!).

The first couple were fun to do, but I will say that coloring 12 of them was A LOT OF WORK! (lol) I used 4 different blue/green markers and 1 gold.

We are still waiting for 1 set of ATCs to arrive and then I will show you the entire set of the 12 from the swap. They are all very different and incredibly beautiful! I can see how making and trading Artist Trading Cards can be somewhat addictive :)

Chicken & Broccoli Crepes

I love Tuesdays! They are my day off work and I love having the extra time to run errands, clean house and dedicate more effort to making a good dinner. This past Tuesday my day started off with an early dentist appointment, then I had to drive a half an hour to a store to pick up a shirt for my son's semi-formal dance coming up, then I cleaned the house, did laundry and rearranged the family room!

On top of all this, I have had a craving for Chicken Crepes lately so I thought, why not! Off to the grocery store I went and two hours later, we had delicious crepes for dinner.

My crepe in the photo looks a bit lonely, but we did have a wonderful salad to go along with it and it was a fabulous meal! I haven't made crepes for a very long time so it took me almost to the last one to get it to perfection, but I really enjoyed making them. (I made a quicker version than the recipe by heating the chicken-broccoli mixture before putting it in the crepes and skipping the oven.)

Here is the recipe if you want to give them a try. They are delicious!

Chicken & Broccoli Crepes

Basic Crepe Recipe:

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 Tbsp. melted butter
• 1-1/4 cups skim milk
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 tsp. salt

Mix the ingredients. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Lightly spray with vegetable oil and add 1/4 cup to center of skillet. Swirl the pan to distribute the batter. Let cook until the top becomes dry. Flip the crepe and remove from pan when lightly browned. Stack cooked crepes on a plate with wax paper in between each.

Crepe Filling:

• 2-1/2 cups diced or shredded cooked chicken
• 3 cups broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces and cooked till tender-crisp
• 1 cup grated mild cheddar cheese, divided
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 8 - 10 crepes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stir together soup, milk, salt, pepper and 1/2 cup cheese in a large bowl. Take out 1 cup of this mixture and set aside. Add the chicken and broccoli to the remaining soup mixture and stir together.

Lay one crepe on a flat working surface. Spoon about 1/2 cup of the chicken-broccoli mixture along center and fold each side over. Lay crepe in a greased 9 x 13-inch casserole dish. Repeat with remaining crepes.

Spread the reserved soup mixture down the middle of the crepes and along the sides. Spread the remaining cheese across the middle. Place in preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cheese melts and the crepes are bubbling and golden brown.

Enjoy!

Little Red Wagon #68

It is all about mist this week at Little Red Wagon! Avril has challenged us to use a spray mist on our projects so I used a gorgeous Sea Glass Glimmer Mist from Tattered Angels to create the background paper for my card!

Then I couldn't wait to use a new Pure Innocence stamp for the image and colored her with some Copic markers - isn't she sweet?

I even stamped the flower a second time and cut it out to create some layering! Then last, but not least, I used some misted ribbon that I had in my stash.

Now you have to head over to Little Red Wagon to see what the other Girlfriends have created! There are lots of great ideas for using your mist!

Happy Valentines Day!

Love is in the air! And so are surprises!

I woke up this morning to an email from Practical Scrappers saying that they published this layout on their website!

They are celebrating Valentines Day by publishing layouts about love and mine was picked! This sweet layout of my two nieces is certainly getting a lot of attention!

I also noticed that Christa from TSF DT was also published on their site! Congrats Christa :)

Have a love-ly day everyone!

One Thousand Gifts

I have been following Ann Voskamp's blog for some time now and I eagerly purchased her recently published book, One Thousand Gifts. This beautiful, personal account of her discovery of how to find joy in the everyday, is truly touching my soul.

She writes in the fragmented style of a poet, but her words are clear, their meaning undeniable. Everything is a gift from God, even the smallest breadcrumb, and as we give thanks we unwrap joy! Such a simple, beautiful truth.

I love that her book is not just another in the line-up of having an attitude of gratitude. It is not just about being thankful - but being thankful to God! There is a huge difference. And the difference is transforming.

I am only at the beginning of this book and I feel moved to begin my own list of 1000 gifts. 1000 things I am thankful for. And so my list begins...

1. soft, faded quilts
2. familiar smiles of those I love
3. my childhood home
4. time worn faces
5. unexpected laughter
6. morning's first light
7. songbirds
8. the warmth of the sun
9. Mom's wisdom
10. words on paper

I am thankful...

Little Red Wagon #67

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is staying warm despite the cold temperatures and all the snow on the ground!

It is my turn to post the challenge at Little Red Wagon this week, so with the Winter weather as my inspiration, I decided to do a white on white challenge!

For my card, I embossed the background using a swirl pattern (think blizzard!) and then I simply added some white tulle, a die-cut snowflake and a white button. The only color I added was some bakers twine.

I would love to have you join in the challenge this week, so why not dig into your stash and create something using mostly white? Then be sure to link your creation on the Little Red Wagon blog so we can all see what you created!

Thanks for looking and have a blessed day ~

Online Crop Challenge

Our Super Bowl Online Crop at TSF this past weekend was awesome! There were 7 challenges in all and we had well over 30 scrapbookers playing along! It was a lot of fun and it was great seeing all the amazing creations that everyone did.

I tried to do some of the challenges and I actually got a couple of them completed. I combined Shelby's and Carolyn's challenges and created this page -

The rules were that you couldn't 'officially' combine challenges, but since I wasn't an 'official' participant and I was playing along just for fun, I decided that Shelby's number challenge and Carolyn's star challenge would work perfectly together.

I used an old photo of Spencer playing soccer. I developed in in a sepia tone so his bright yellow jersey would work with the papers I had.

I kept some white space on the page and just added a bit of journaling. It reads, "Your jersey might say 16... but you will always be #1 to me!" I know, pretty sappy. But it is true.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Super Bowl On-Line Crop

The Two Scrapbook Friends Forum is hosting an on-line crop this weekend and the theme is the Super Bowl! It is amazing how scrapbookers can take something like the Super Bowl and turn it into a scrapbooking event!

All five Design Team members, plus Carolyn and myself, the Two Scrapbook Friends, have each posted a challenge related to the Super Bowl. Anyone who wants to participate can play along with the challenges and possibly win a prize or two!

My challenge is a color challenge. The two teams playing in the Super Bowl are the Green Bay Packers (green and yellow) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (grey and yellow). I challenged our participants to pick a team and use their colors on a page, card or project.

This is a card I created for inspiration. I used the team colors of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I found this image on the back of a scrapbook paper I had and that was the basis for my card. I added some coordinating paper, some stitching, some gorgeous ribbon from my friend Dee, a couple of buttons, a decorative pin and a sentiment. Fun and easy!

Why not give the crop a try? We would love to have you join us!

I {heart} books

Deanna recently did a tutorial on making banners for your scrapbook pages or cards and it inspired me to use one on a page.

I decided to do a page on my love of reading and I used some photos that I recently took.

The banner was easy to do and I popped it up for extra dimension on my page. I love how it turned out!

Thanks for the inspiration Dee! Now I think I will try some of the other shapes that you showed us!

Little Red Wagon #66

It was Dee's turn to pick the challenge this week and she wanted us to make something using Kraft cardstock. Deanna always makes the most gorgeous cards using Kraft, so I was excited to dig into my stash to see what I could do!

I found some bits and pieces of BoBunny paper so I decided to make a scrunched flower as the focus of my card. I placed it on top of a MS doily and some paper that I cut using a Spellbinders die. I added some ribbon and a pin and there you have it - a sweet Hugs & Kisses card!

Be sure to visit Little Red Wagon this week to see all the fabulous creations using Kraft!

Have a warm Wednesday ~