Picture this! New stacks.

Just in case you needed any enabling to add to your paper hoard...I took some pics at my Michael's last week. Now Michael's has many stacks that have been showing up (like for Halloween) that reminded many of other manufacturer's exact prints. Well, it turns out that DCWV is one manufacturer that has confirmed that they are making stacks exclusively for Michael's that are "branded" under the Recollections name. I apologize in advance for the sneaky (crappy) cell phone pics...but you can try clicking on them to see them larger (and likely blurrier, LOL!)

So, here's a few of the new Christmas "Recollections Signature" lines. Anyone recognize any? Any favorites?

Jolly and Bright has a retro/vintage feel to it with the kitschy teal, green, and a slightly salmon tint to the reds.

Belive has soft mossy greens and rust colored red, a little "aged" but not really grungy/shabby.

Naughty or Nice...very familiar, No?

O Christmas Tree - grey blues, olive green, deep dark red. And, of course, trees everywhere.

Classic Christmas - an exclusive Colored Core pad with Christmas icons.

Warm Wishes - reminds me of tole painting and country Christmas. Lots of folksy images here.

The 12 Days - each paper has one lyric from the song and then coordinating prints.

The Ballet has several great pages that would be perfect for the Nutcracker, but plenty of others that work for dance classes or recitals in general. It's plums and mossy green.

Photo Real Christmas. What more to say? I never know how I would use these full size pages with giant huge images. I mean, if half the pics covered up with other pictures, why does it matter?

Winter Wonderland has a kind of hodge podge - some "photo real", some print, some plaids.

Holiday Traditions has that very old fashioned vintage charm. Like Coca Cola Santas, kids in their kerchiefs,  and engraved images...

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So, what do you think? I never had the chance to pick up any of the Halloween stacks...my store skipped right over that holiday for papercrafting. Which is really sad...because though it is only "ONE DAY" in the scrapbook...the cute, sweet, spooky, quirky images always make me want to buy them all and save them to admire.

Think you can see yourself using any of these Christmas stacks? Are you a stackaholic? What do you think of the exclusive "Recollections" push? Is it a way to not have to price match the lower DCWV prices when they are on sale at JoAnn's?


eta: yup! there are a ton of stacks...the reason for the cell phone pics is that I didn't buy a single one of them!

Mundane Monday

Just thought I'd share with you a quick pic of my nails today...I'll pop up some more info when I get some more time...

It's very big, it's very big, it's very biiiiiiig!

So I'm not really sure how I came across this funky, sometimes irreverent, fun kids classical music CD collection, Beethoven's Wig. I just have to say I've been listening for hours to samples online now and, I'm hooked!

Check out their homepage!

Each CD seems to have the first half with the classics overlaid with satirical, cute, dare I say it, educational lyrics. Then the second part of the CD just has the orchestral score. Seems like a great way to get the kids into the "old stuff". We;ve never really had a problem, my DS loves listening to classical music more than most "current" music...what about your experiences?

(It reminds me of Alan Sherman and Al Yanchovic, too!)

Update - You CAN use your "Blue" Wishblade with Windows 7!

This post could also be titled "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

You may remember that over a year ago I posted a tutorial to help you use you Blue Wishblade with Vista or Windows 7. I felt there have been enough changes in the options available to you that it was time for an update!

Remember, as with any new software installation, it's best to set a "restore point" prior to any changes, so you can essentially roll the machine back if there are any unforseen consequences!

By now, most folks know that (internally at least) a wishblade, craftrobo, and silhouette are essentially the same machine with different badging. So, it's no surprise that finally these commonalities might solve some of the problems.

Download the Silhouette Studio (version 1.7.1) from the Silhouette America storefront.
Find the setup file and double-click it to begin the installation process.
Follow the prompts during the installation process.
Plug your cutter in to the Windows 7 computer and turn it on. Driver should be installed automatically. If you get a warning about not finding the driver you should be able to just ignore it.
You can now access your GSDs through Silhouette Studio and send to cut through that program.

Now, I have been told that Blue & pink wishblade owners and craftrobo owners are successfully cutting using Silhouette Studio from XP and Vista machines as well, so please share any tips you have in the comments section here...

I would recommend that you keep a separate GSD copy of any file you plan to open into Studio, because you can only save as a .GSP (via save to SD card mechanism) or as a .STUDIO file. This means that only Studio users can open and cut these files.

You CAN have more than one version of Robomaster on your machine at any time...just name them appropriately (like "blue wishblade GSD", "Studio to cut", or "original Robomaster") so you know which one to launch.

Time to get moving in the mornings...

You know me...I'm not a morning person...the day should start with a much quiet and a lot of caffeine. It just so happens that my kids prefer to start moving slowly in the mornings too! Unfortunately there always seems to be a ton to do before getting "out the door", so we've tried to streamline the breakfast experience.

They've been fairly happy with "Breakfast Cookies" (I think I've shared those before, if not...I'll look for the recipe). On the other hand, I'm trying to introduce a little variety, hence it was time for some experimenting in the kitchen.

Here's a picture of the final outcome, our mini frittatas.

First thing...ignore the picture above, LOL! I took a shot of the ones I made with the leftover egg mixture, but for best results you'll want to use a silicone muffin pan (or you'll be scrubbing...scrubbing...scrubbing),

Here's the recipe we came up with:

Mini Frittatas
10-12 eggs (it really depends upon how deep your muffin cups are)
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 cup milk
1/2 Tablespoons seasoning mixture (I used an all-purpose vegetable seasoning mix but you might like Mrs Dash, Montreal Seasoning, etc)

Place all of the above ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk with a fork just until the eggs are barely mixed. Then, take your muffin pan and prep it by spraying with non-stick oil spray (like Pam).

The great thing is that you can customize your Frittatas! I put a large teaspoon of fresh salsa and some crumbled pepper jack cheese onto the bottom of half the muffin cups for my son (who loves spicy foods) and some bacon crumbles and cheddar cheese in the other half for my daughter. Divide the egg mixture by pouring into the cups.

Place the tray (on top of a cookie sheet to catch any spillover) into a preheated oven set at 350 degrees F. Bake for 20-25 minutes, just until the tops are set and just beginning to turn golden. Let cool in the silicone muffin pan for approximately 5 minutes, then use a spoon or butter knife to "pop" them out. Serve immediately while hot or place them into a ziploc plastic baggie and store for up to one week in the refrigerator.

We found they reheated pretty well in the microwave for about 40 seconds at 50% power (be sure to check frequently as all microwaves do vary).

Let me know if you try it, I'd love to hear what combinations you come up with!

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Games (aka Ginger)! She came up with oodles of phrases using my Simply Sentimental file, to be honest I lost count several times there were so many...or maybe it was the 5 and 7 year old helping me, LOL! I'll email the file out to you Ginger!

A monsterously good time!

Thought I'd share a couple more monster cupcakes with you...

And now, for the craft we did during the party...Continuing on with the theme of creating your own monster, we used these Iron-ons from SEI.

Each kit has about 50 pieces, with plenty of eyes, horns, mouths, and appendages. They've got some great You tube videos showing you some techniques for creation, even a video teaching you how to make additional bodies to stretch your dollar and use all the leftover body parts. (Unfortunately I didn't find this one until AFTER the party, but that means we have lots of monster creations left for the future!) You can see some of my daughter's shirt in this pic (along with her PURPLE monstrous cupcake)...

And my son wanted to prove that the kids actually LOOKED like the monsters they created...

We found the My Own Monsters at Michael's and Hobby Lobby, but you can snag them on Amazon too!

Sorry I've been MIA...(pic heavy)

So, it's been a little while since I updated, and I wanted to pop in here and let you see why. My kiddos had their birthday party last week. As you might remember, we do the party at our house, and have a theme for the joint party. This year, it was monsters!

I made the invitation on my KNK. Since it's an odd size I also made my own envelopes. Unfortunately it fell outside of "normal" size for the USPS, but it was super easy to make with the Martha Stewart Scoring Board. I love the little envelope tool with that thing!

The invite is a Pop-Up card. It's a combo of printing on my laser printer and paper piecing. I love how the monsters turned out! I grabbed the good old blue Fiskars embossing plates and ran the monster bodies through the Cuttlebug with the Spellbinders tan embossing mats to add some texture (fur, scales, and ridges).

Here's the "big picture" of the cake table. My son decided he wanted the cake this year and my daughter picked cupcakes. BTW, those cute little monster cake plates (back right hand corner) are from Target. I think they're Spritz brand and were with the party supplies.

My son wanted 5 eyes on his monster cake, so after frosting the cake with the Wilton fur tip, we made cake balls (thanks for the ideas Bakerella!) and dipped them in melted chocolate then added pupils to make them look like real eyes. *NOTE* My son wanted the eyes to fan out at a bigger angle, but we found the cake balls were too heavy and the cake was too tender, so they started ripping through the layer cake if we "tipped" them too much! It was my first time making the cake pops, according to the family it shouldn't be the last, LOL!

Now, on to the cupcakes! I apologize in advance for the "purple" fur. I guess I should have actually looked at the instructions for tinting the frosting purple, but I "assumed" it would work to mix red and royal blue...well I kinda got a purplish gray! Looks like pretty boring cakes, right?

Well, the original idea for this party was sparked by some stinkin' adorable cupcakes I saw at SnowyBliss last year. That's right, the kids got to build their own monster cupcakes! The body parts were all made out of Wilton vanilla candy chips, so they were all edible too. We've got tentacles, hands, bows (there are girly monsters too, you know), and wings in this first tray.

Then there's googly eyes, teeth, horns, forked tongues,and rows of fangs in here!

The kids had a pretty good time, here's a few of their monstrous creations...

I'll share some more pics tomorrow (gotta show you the craft they did too!)


ETA: Woo-hoo! The monster cake was featured on Bakerella's Pop Stars!

One, two, three...jump!

Time to jump in for some summer fun! I don't know about you, but summer + sun always = pool for me.

My SPLATS! file has 5 different diecuts perfect for water balloon fights, swimming, mud, and so much more.

You're funny looking!

You'd say the same thing if you saw the wacky faces kids make when there's a moustache, tiara, or monacle attached to their bathroom mirror.

Great fun for vinyl or window clings on the mirror, silly 'staches on breakfast glasses, or stickers to modify extra 4 by 6 prints!

(Click the pic to go directly to Paperthreads.)

Sometimes simple is best...

Simple can be beautiful...check out this new file, Simply Sentimental, which contains a huge variety of script words you can rearrange to make a multitude of phrases for your layouts. It's also got a stained glass like cut for BOY, BOYS, GIRL, and GIRLS. Customize with a background cut to match your page perfectly.

And now, a little contest...hmmm???!!!

I want to see how many different phrases you can come up with using the words in the file pictured above. How's about it?
Mix and match these words:

be

boy

boys

girl

girls

hanging

little

my

our

out

playing

rough

shopping

sweet

the

tumble

will

with

& (and)

Leave me a comment on this post with your list of phrases. Don't worry, they won't show up until the contest is over (so nobody can cheat off of your list, LOL!) I will try to update the post (or place a comment at the end) prior to the end time with a list of names of commenters so you know yours wasn't lost in bloggerland somewhere.

Check out some quick sample pages below...

And yes, I would count "my sweet little girl" and "my sweet little girls" as different phrases, so they count as two! Any questions? Alrighty then, you've got until Tuesday night 6/14 at midnight Eastern to submit your phrase list!

Oh yeah, the prize? Well, the person who comes up with the most phrases will get a copy of this file for electronic cutters for free!

Sweet Summertime!

Goodness, it was so hot here over the Memorial Day weekend we nearly lost an entire bed of annuals we had been so excited about getting in the ground the week before. Hopefully (*fingers crossed*) they just lost some foliage and will regrow. The weather has also been a little cooler (not upper 90's, LOL) which should also help.

I just wanted to give you a little look, or advance notice, if you will, of some new files coming up soon at Paperthreads...

Watch out for more coming soon!