Peachy Keen

Peachy Keen is one of our new all occasions sets from the Occasions Catalog and is great for all kinds of projects. Today I’ve teamed it up with the Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper (132993) to create this quick and easy card.

Peachy Keen

I simply stamped the sentiment in Early Espresso, but think it would look great using the Early Espresso Embossing Powder too and add a bit of texture to the card. I love the quick and easy banners that you can make using the Hexagon punch (130919). Yes, you heard me right the Hexagon Punch. Give it a try, you’ll find it so easy to do.

Hexagon Punch Banners

Supplies:

Stamp Set: Peachy Keen (133110/133113)

Inks: Early Espresso (126974)

Paper: Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper (132993), Baked Brown Sugar (131296), Coastal Cabana (131297), and So Saffron Card Stock (105118)

Accessories: Early Espresso Baker’s Twine (123124)

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Snow Storm – Day 3

Snow Storm Feb 13 2014 Day 3

Well the storm has now moved up the east coast and has pretty much finished for us in the North Georgia mountains. The sun has come out and the temperature has started to climb a bit – which is a good thing since things are clearly starting to melt.

We woke to more snow this morning. After sleeting most of the day yesterday, snow is a good thing. We’ve got a snow sandwich on the ground (snow, ice, snow) LOL. But we have fared pretty well so far, our power only flickered off once last night.

Now the cabin fever has set in for my guys and they are itching to get out of the house. I don’t tend to get as antsy since there is always something to do. Of course, it is a great reason to go play in my kitchen and stamp room too!

Quick and Easy Vegetable Beef Soup

This mornings project was a big pot of soup for lunch for my guys. It’s great since I can use the frozen tomatoes from our garden last summer and the ground venison in the freezer. It smells heavenly while it is cooking, and even though I can’t eat it, I enjoy making it for them. They say it tastes great – so I thought I’d share the recipe with you in case you’re looking for a quick and easy vegetable soup.

Quick & Easy Vegetable Beef Soup 

1 1/2 – 2 lbs. lean ground beef

1 onion, chopped

1 ½ c. water

2 (28 oz.) cans diced tomatoes

1 ½ tsp. garlic powder

1 ½ tsp. sea salt, to taste

½ tsp. dried basil

½ tsp. finely ground black pepper, or to taste

3 ½ tsp. beef bouillon

2 (12 oz.) pkg. frozen mixed vegetables

Cook and stir ground beef in the pot until completely browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir onion into the meat and continue to cook and stir until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Drain fat from the pot and return to medium heat.

Pour water and tomatoes into the pot. Season soup with garlic powder, sea salt, basil, and black pepper. Stir beef bouillon through the soup. Add frozen mixed vegetables to the pot, stir.

Bring the soup to a boil; reduce heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are cooked through, 20 – 30 minutes.

That’s it – Enjoy!

This recipe is pretty forgiving and so I’ve experimented a bit with the original recipe I found on allrecipes.com. This one is my version of the original with the changes I’ve made. So far my substitution or changes have made it even better. I find you can really change things out easily to suit your preferences. I think I’ll be freezing okra next year to add to the other vegetables. The guys seem to like that and I never know what to do with all the extra okra from the garden.

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By The Tide Cupcakes

Ok, here is the last post showing you some of the items I made for my Retirement Party this past Sunday. Today I am going to share with you how I made these cute little By the Tide cupcake toppers for the treat table and my Bon Voyage banner.

By the Tide Retirement Party Cupcakes

I used the By the Tide stamp set (item 129117/129120) from the Spring Catalog to make these cute little toppers to keep in line with the Bon Voyage theme of the retirement party.

I stamped the anchor image using Night of Navy Classic Ink (item 126970) onto Whisper White card stock (item 100730). Punched out the image using my 3/4″ Circle Punch (item 119873) and attached this to a 1 1/4″ Scallop Circle Punch (item 127811)Night of Navy card stock (item 100867) piece.

I then layered that onto a Real Red card stock (item 100052) 1 3/8″ circle and finally onto a 1 3/4″ Scallop Circle (item 119854) Night of Navy piece.

Finally I added a dab of Liquid Adhesive (item 110755) to the back and added a toothpick and a second Night of Navy Scallop Circle to cover up the adhesive.

Here is a close up of the cupcake topper. How cute right?

By the Tide Retirement Party Cupcake topper

And finally the banner – I really loved the way this turned out. I used My Digital Studio  along with the Travel Journey Digital Kit (item 121071) and World Traveler Photobook (item 130066) Digital Downloads to create the images and Designer Series Paper that I cut the letters out with using my Big Shot.

Bon Voyage Banner (1)

I took my Regals Designer Series Paper Stack (item 117154) and used the Night of Navy patterns and cut my paper into 4″ x 6″ pieces. I cut out the bottom triangles by finding the center, cutting up the middle to the point I wanted and then cutting in from both sides to that center mark. (hope that makes sense) Finally I attached the flags to some twine by punching holes in the two corners using my crop-a-dile and stringing the twine through. I tied bows on each end to finish it off.

Bon Voyage Banner (2)

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