Cardinal Christmas Cards

There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning! It all melted by early afternoon, that is almost a perfect snow in my world!! Was there snow where you are?

Some of you know I have been having fun with the K & Company die cuts. Earlier this month I bought some birds made by K & Company. I sorted the cardinals out and made a set of Christmas cards to give to my Grandmother as an early Christmas present.

Take a look, shall we?

A look at the birds, I sorted out the cardinals for Grandma's cards.

The paper I used. I used my premade cards and then cut paper from this stack.

 A look at all the cards together.

And then individually.

Grandma has already received her cards and she loves them!

Have you started on Christmas projects?

Hugs!

~Jen

Happy Thanksgiving Cards

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope you enjoy your time with family and friends.

If you eat too much, that is ok. 

Just add it to your list of things to be thankful for.

I had found some funny photos to share, but since I haven't shared my turkey cards, we will take a look at those instead!

The paper is from the stash.

The big turkey is a Stampabilities  stamp (from Hobby Lobby)

...as is the solid turkey stamp.

The turkey stamp on the upper left card is from Lawn Fawn.

The Happy Thanksgiving sentiment is Stampabilities.

The 'give thanks' seen with the turkey on the upper right is from Studio G.

I thought I would try using one of my embossing folders.

You know, the tool I have that I am not really sure what to do with...

After I embossed the paper, I used some ink to draw out the detail.

I gave it a "mat" and some ribbon and wah-lah!

I think it turned out pretty cool!

I finally tried making a step card.

I am going to make some more and will make a tutorial when I do.

I wasn't completely thrilled with the tutorial I found, so I have to make it better if I am going to share with you!!! I LOVE the way it looks.

I think this is my favorite card of the bunch.

Speaking of bunch, no wait that is brunch...I need to walk away from the computer and get started in the kitchen. Brunch here and dinner elsewhere later!

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for your blog friendship!!

Hugs

~Jen

...NAME PLEASE...

If you read the POST about my two 35 pound boxes full of family recipes, you know I want to have some discussion.

We did have discussion on our Facebook page. Now it is time for discussion here, and then a decision on our part. (UGH)

We have been blessed with so many family treasures, recipes, heirlooms, photos, knick knacks, etc. etc.  These two boxes of recipes were the icing on the cake.

I want to do a regular post or two about these treasures. I was originally thinking just the recipes, and then my Aunt mentioned all of the other treasures we have (like Grandma's china cabinet that I still haven't shared with you...it is now waiting for a post name before it is willing to be shared) SOOOOOOO....

Do we come up with ONE name that encompasses ALL of the treasures, recipes included

OR

Do we come up with TWO names, one for recipes and one for treasures?

That is the first question to be answered.

The second question is "What should this series of posts be called?"

I am also hoping that this will help me blog on a regular basis, you will be guaranteed at least one (or two, depending) blog posts a week from us!

Here is what we came up with on Facebook.

Please offer your opinion on the ones below and/or offer a new suggestion!

1. Monday's Love From Grandma

2. Friday's Family Reflection

3. Revolving Recipes

(this one we wouldn't be committed to a certain day of the week, just whenever it happens)

4. Wooden Spoons, Recipes, and China Cabinets

5. Wisdom from wooden spoons, recipes and china cabinets

6. Wooden Spoon Wednesday

7. Memorable Munchie Monday

8. Remember The Times Tuesday

9. Times to Remember Thursday

10. Flashback Food Friday

11. A pot full of golden memories...A food lovers walk down memory lane

12. Moonpie Magic and Other classic tales of food gone by

Alright.....what are your thoughts??????????

Thanks everyone!

The first of MANY family recipes

Thanksgiving is almost here! Are you all ready or do you need to make one more trip to the store? I am making one more trip a little later tonight and then hopefully I won't need to go back for a few days!

Awhile back I received not one, but TWO 35 pound boxes from the UPS Man! He carried them both to the house at the same time! I thanked him A LOT!!! He told me someone knew how to pack! I told him what was in the boxes and he said "I'm glad I didn't lose these two. These boxes are filled with treasures!" Yep! TWO boxes FULL OF TREASURES!!!!!

Box One

Box Two

TWO BOXES full of recipes. Recipes from my Great Great Grandmother, Great Grandmother, Great Great Aunt and Great Aunt. The boxes were sent to me by my Great Aunt.

There are some AMAZING AMAZING things in these boxes.

The boxes have been emptied and thrown away.

Most of the cookbooks have been given homes around the house.

There are some that need me to make a trip to Staples or another such store and buy some plastic sleeves.

There are others that are sitting in a pile because I am just not sure what to do.

There are cookbooks galore! One was published in 1890!! LOVE IT!

There are handwritten recipes...from my Great Great Grandmother.

Her handwriting was BEAUTIFUL!

In the second picture you can see a box in the lower right hand corner.

Yep, a recipe box. Plenty of handwritten recipes there!

That isn't the only place one will find handwritten recipes.

The most recent place I found a handwritten recipe was on the inside cover of a cookbook.

There will be many posts coming from these boxes of treasures.

There is also some discussion to be had about these boxes of treasures, and I think I am going to make that a post all it's own.

The first recipe I am going to share with you is a hot dog sauce recipe.

The recipe is titled "Texas Hot Sauce"

I suppose the hot is all in the eye of the beholder!

This was a family recipe that came from a hot dog shop that is no longer open.

You will need:

2 pounds ground meat

1 cup onion

2 TBSP butter

2 cans tomato soup

2 cups water

2 TBSP chili powder

(we used chipotle powder and less of it. we were out of regular chili powder and realized so too late)

1 tsp paprika

3 TBSP flour

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cloves

2 TBSP mustard

4 TBSP war sauce

(that is how it was listed on the recipe. what do you call worcestershire sauce?)

2 TBSP sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

5 dash tabasco

browning the meat

meat draining

it didn't say so, but we cooked the onions and the butter for a few minutes before adding everything else 

bubbling away

What we didn't take was a picture of the chili cheese fries we made!

They were pretty AND pretty tasty!

The cloves give it a flavor that stands it apart from other hot dog sauce recipes you have had.

(or at least that I have had)

We made our chili cheese fries the night we made this. **Ok, OK!! I was working, Jim made the recipe AND took the pictures. I ate the chili and am writing the post!** And we froze the rest in a couple sour cream containers for later consumption. Yep, it makes enough to go around!

Please go to this post and offer your opinion on what to name the posts about all these wonderful treasures!

Hugs
Jen

Linking up here:

Another Chinese Auction basket of cards

I promised it wouldn't be three weeks before the next post! I wouldn't want anyone to contemplate another search party! I am most thankful for awesome blog friends like you!

During my blog absence, I put together another "basket" of cards for a Chinese Auction that was taking place at a benefit dinner. The dinner took place the same weekend my Aunt and Uncle were here. I felt making a basket was the least I could do since we wouldn't be attending.

This basket had a variety of cards much like the last basket. Since the benefit was close to the upcoming holidays, I included some holiday cards in this basket. Ready to take a look?

A wedding card!

Two birthday cards.

The owl and the frog were cut from the Create A Critter cartridge.

The cards measure 4x5 and 4x6...if that helps you picture the size of the cuts.

A get well card. Isn't he cute? Feeling ruff?  he he he

This card is a 4x5 card and the dog was cut using the Create A Critter cartridge.

I don't remember the size of the cuts on these cards. There was one day where I cut a bunch of things out so I would have some ready when it was time to make cards. It works great for making cards, but not so much when it comes to having information for a blog post. 

These two cards are blank on the inside. These two and the wedding card were made using die cuts made by K & Company. Those packages of die cuts are a great way to make cards! I have been waiting for them to go on sale at JoAnn's and then walk in armed with a coupon for an extra discount. YEP! I'm that girl!

The mouse in the tea cup stamp is from Stampin' Up.

Two winter/Christmas cards.

The snowman and cardinal are made by K & Company.

The paper is from a stack I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

A look at the inside of the winter/Christmas cards.

The Thanksgiving cards.

The turkey stamp is by Stampabilities.

The paper is from the stash (Do you believe me that I have a paper problem??)

The inside of the turkey cards.

All the cards were put in this bowl, along with some stuffer and then wrapped in plastic!

I hope the cards help make someone's day!

I also send well wishes to the person (and her family) the benefit was for.

One more look at the whole thing:

For those of you that read about the first basket...

Our friend has finished her treatments and has received good news from the doctor.

Thanks for the prayers and kind words!

Thanks for stopping by!

What kinds of things do you hope to see when you buy tickets for a Chinese Auction??

(we recently won a prize at one, that post is coming soon)

Hugs!

~Jen

Partying here:

It's beginning to look a lot like a Relay Christmas!

Hey Everyone!!! We are well!! Life has been crazy busy and that is a good thing! I have a folder full of pictures to share with you in post format. I am hoping to get a few posts done tomorrow! I miss you! How is everyone? I hope you are well!!!

I believe I mentioned (and if I didn't, I'm sorry) awhile back that I am now on the leadership committee for our local Relay For Life event.  I am the "online chair." This is part of the reason I haven't been around. I work in front of a computer all day, I come home and catch up on email, news, Facebook for myself and then do some Relay stuff.  I have to walk away from the computer and that generally happens before I make it to Blogger. Don't worry. We are still taking pictures of our projects and I am still pinning ideas on Pinterest. In the three or so weeks since my last post, there has been a lot going on. My Aunt and Uncle came in from Florida, so we decorated for Christmas... a little early :). The house is beautiful and we had a lovely time (despite the reason for their visit not being an upbeat one) So there are Christmas photos to come. There are also some recipes coming. I had even taken pictures of us cleaning out the gutters and downspouts as Sandy approached. I did delete those pictures off the camera, I don't feel those need to be shared this far after the event, but I did think about you as we were in the rain. I had a great post planned, it just didn't happen. I do apologize.  Alright, back to Relay.

One of the churches downtown hosts a Festival Of Trees. That festival of trees started Thursday night. Wednesday night, Jim and I went to this church downtown to set up the Christmas tree. I will admit that I think it turned out quite lovely! Before I get to the decorated tree though, we have to make ornaments.

Having never decorated a Christmas tree for Relay For Life before, I bonded with Google and Pinterest.
I found this picture and it started as some inspiration.

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I contacted our Staff Partner with the American Cancer Society and asked her if she had some "printables" we could use for decorations. She did and I picked those up at our last meeting. Our Event Chair had some miscellaneous purple and silver ornaments/decorations/etc that she gave to me to use as well. We were moving along. I liked the tree top on this one but wasn't sure how I was going to copy it. I showed the picture to Jim and he disappeared. A little while later he comes up stairs with what you see in the picture below. My tree top problems had been solved!!!

The Relay crescent moon and star! Now all it needs is a coat of purple paint and we will be good to go!

Somewhere along the line we had a tree donated to us.

Christmas tree -- check

Tree top -- check

Purple and silver decorations -- check

Relay themed ornaments -- at the drawing board

In the box of stuff I received from our ACS Staff partner there was more than just printables.

She had given me event specific stuff, American Cancer Society stuff, Relay stuff...in many forms.

Some of that "stuff" came in the form of pins.

I had gone shopping and found a small tub of snowflakes. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the snowflakes, but I was pretty sure we could incorporate them into a Relay ornament....somehow!

I thought  these pins would make GREAT centers for the snowflakes.

I got out the Martha  Stewart craft glue out and went to town.

There were different kinds of pins and trinkets in the box.

There were some other pieces that were adhered to the snowflakes using hot glue. 

The snow flakes and the other trinkets and Martha Stewart craft glue didn't work together.

Once the ornaments had been put together and other pieces had been adapted to work for us...

I put everything on the wreath over our mantel. (Good thing I hadn't decorated this wreath for us yet!)

I posted this picture on our Relay Facebook page. The snowflakes all have a Relay trinket or pin attached!

WE NOW HAVE RELAY THEMED ORNAMENTS!

This was the picture I posted our Relay Facebook page Wednesday morning, the morning of the day everything would be moving to the church. The tree was donated so I hadn't seen it before. Yep! We acquired and made ornaments/decorations for a tree that had never been seen before. The lights were some we had picked up on clearance on year or two ago. We were pretty sure it wasn't going to be enough, but decided we would get the tree up first and go from there.

The tree is up and the lights are on!!!! 

Yep! We ran out of lights.

We left the church to come home and make some dinner and then on our way back to the church we picked up some more lights!

THE TREE IS DECORATED!!

YAY!!!

It looks pretty good for not knowing anything about it!!!

Our Relay event is in July. We wanted our tree to be a "save the date" sort of tree.

Here is the tree top with a coat of purple paint!

Pretty cool huh?

A daffodil bear and a purple ribbon help trim off the top of the tree!

THRILLED! Yes, I am THRILLED with how our Relay tree turned out.

Hopefully someone will tell us they are joining our event because of this Christmas tree.

If you are near us, the Relay Tree, along with many other trees decorated by the community, are on display at the First United Methodist Church in downtown Sharon, PA. The Festival of Trees will be available for viewing through Christmas.

Our Relay Facebook page is HERE

Our Relay page through the American Cancer Society is www.relayforlife.org/pashenangovalley

Do you Relay in your community?

Do you decorate trees for organizations in your community?

Thanks so much for stopping in!!! 

(I will do my very best to make sure it isn't three weeks between posts)

Partying here: