LMac's Catered Crops

Make it Magical

I hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving. It was our first to celebrate with just the four of us, so it was different, but special. My two beautiful cildren are "foodies," so it was a fun day of all us in the kitchen - oh, yes, and football! We had so much to be thankful for this year as we went around the table - new jobs, upcoming college graduation, improved health, a UT victory, new and old friends - and each other.

While we missed Grandma's pearlized onions and stuffing, we didn't miss weird cranberry deserts or herring from seasons past. Check out our menu: Honey baked ham (yummy!), asparagus almandine, broccoli cheese casserole (a family tradition), twice-baked potatoes, deviled eggs, Hawaiian rolls, peach preserves, and pecan and pumpkin pie. I know, no traditional turkey and sweet potatoes, but these were our favs and we thought they'd make good munching for football. My Ben said he thought it was the best Thanksgiving dinner ever (he's a good boy!). I'm working on a Christmas cookbook, so hopefully, I'll share some of our recipes with you soon.

Meanwhile, Laura Pertot at Stamping Hostess had the most amazing idea for reindeer food. Remember this post?

 

Well, Laura has an adorable poem to go with it, here, as well as an alternative packaging idea, test tubes. But, even more magical, she has the most smart recipe for deer food. Here's what she wrote:

"The Magic Reindeer Food is a mixture of oatmeal and Wilton Sugar Crystals...much safer for the animals than adding glitter to the mix, and it's just as sparkly! It won't hurt your kids if they decide to taste it, too."

How smart is that - and delicious - I love sugar crystals.

Here's wishing a magical holiday season for all of us.

Favor Tins

Wilton favor tins are so much fun to embellish. For about $19 you can get a bucket of 30 at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. Of course, with a coupon, you can get them for about half of that. You usually find them with the wedding favors. They're great for little candies or I'm thinking of maybe a silver dollar in the stocking at Christmas.

 

We used the Deer Friends stamp set along with the scallop circle punch, and 1-3/8", 1-1/4" and 1" circle punches.

 

When you're trying to get paper to stick to a round surface, gravity works against you and it becomes easily undone. Even red sticky strip can come loose. A wet glue works better, and our new Tombow multi-purpose adhesive worked perfectly.

Milk Carton Craze

Blame it on Becky Roberts over at Inking Idaho. She made these adorable milk cartons and started a craze. Aren't her cartons freakin' adorable?!

 

You can order the 20 pages of instructions, with full-size templates, color pictures, product list, etc. for $3.95 at her site, here: Inking Idaho. Seriously, you have to check out her site. She has the most amazing projects. She's posted some of her customers' milk cartons, here: Customer Cartons and throughout her site the past few weeks.

That said, here's my humble attempt. Now, before my reveal I have to tell you that I made this through snuffles and sneezes. Just about everything's a tiny bit crooked. So, I'm reminding myself what I tell my customers - if it's perfect it doesn't look handmade. This is very handmade.

   

I made this for my brother-in-law and his family (my Tom's brother), whose initials begin with O, S and E. I shamefully missed a birthday and wedding anniversary.

The recipe is kind of crazy - there are four stamp sets: the snow flake in Winter Post, the monograms are from Lovely Letters Alphabet, and there's a little Best Wishes & More and So Many Scallops in there. I used just about all the punches in my arsenal, the Little Felt Flurries with Build-a-Brad, Black Gingham and White Taffeta Ribbon, some Iridescent Ice embossing powder (love that stuff), and even some of the Word Flurries rub-ons for the center medallion. At least the color theme is simple: black, white and Baha Breeze, with the Ski Slope designer paper.

I was considering making this a prototype for our Christmas hostess club meeting. But, since this took me two days and several naps, I think I've concluded this will be a one-of-a kind project. (But, then again, maybe that's just the snuffles talking. My club stampers are used to at least a few challenges from me.) Just in case, before I ship it off, here's another picture.

Well, Steve, Oouida and Elise, if you see this before it gets delivered . . . I guess the surprise is gone. At least you won't know what's in it. Come to think of it, I don't know what's going in it, either. It will be a surprise to all of us - but I see a trip to World Market for some black licorice in my future.

Put Another Log on the Fire

Put another log on the fire
     Cook me up some bacon and some beans,
     Go out to the car and change the tires,
     Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans; 

Fill my pipe and then go fetch my slippers,
     And boil me up another pot of tea.
     Then put another log on the fire, babe
     And come and tell me why you're leaving me.

Snuffle, sneeze . . . cough and wheeze. My Tom hasn't left me - yet - though he wisely retreats to the upstairs to escape my sickly whining. (Guess I better not sing him this ole Shel Silverstein song and give him any ideas.)

Comfort food sounds so good. Here's a project I put together for a church craft event a while back. It's a mini-popcorn holder.

 

Just take a 8-1/2" by 5-1/2" piece of cardstock and score it at 2" and 6". Put sticky tape all along the bottom and one side, fold over and adhere. Run the bottom through the scrimper tool just a few cranks. Finally, use a circle punch for the top notch. We also made a belly band and a little medalion with the circle scallop punch. We used Old Olive and Chocolate Chip (ah, the hint of more comfort food) cardstock, Ski Slope paper, that lucious Alpine originals ribbon, and an array of circle punches. You can't see it, but we also used VersaMark ink to stamp snow flakes on the old olive cardstock.

So, is it starve a fever, feed a cold? What do you do if you have a cold with a fever? My head is so fuzzy - I don't remember them covering that in nursing school. All I know is that chocolate cures all ills.

Tom - where's my hot chocolate?

 

Lighten Black Friday

This year I've heard more talk about "Black Friday" and I've been wondering where that term came from. Of course, I know all about shopping after Thanksgiving, but I've honestly never heard that called "Black Friday." A google search sent me to Wikipedia.com which said the term originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. Well, shoot, I know how we can make Black Friday not so black . . . online shopping!

Stampin' Up! is having a Holiday Extravaganza sale from November 26 through December 1. We're all tingling with excitement because Stampin' Up! isn't revealing the details even to us demonstrators. Here's what I know:

• For a limited time we'll be able to get 20% to 50% percent discounts on select product bundles.
• Details on the discounted product bundles will be announced when the sale begins November 26 so be sure to check www.stampinup.com or my web site, Stampin with LMac. 
• Quantities of discounted bundles are limited, so you'll want to  place orders online early.

If you need to let Santa know what you'd like for Christmas, you can click here, Holiday Wish List, or on the Santa Baby picture on my sidebar. There's an automated form there that you can fill out to let me know what you'd like for Christmas and who your Santa Baby is. I'll work with your friends and family to make sure you have some fun Stampin' Up! toys in your stocking. I'll even throw in a little homemade gift card.

As always, I can also create a gift certificate with a home made card if you or your family would like to give the Stampin' Up! equivalent to a gift card. Just e-mail me a [email protected].

Happy Thanksgiving - may you gobble till you wobble - and happy Black Friday.

A CASE of Deer Friends

I'm sick. (Imagine that in the most whiny of voices.) My head, eyes, throat, chest have all turned against me. I've got a cold. I'm pretty pathetic. My poor Tom is doing every thing he can. You gotta love him because I'm so miserable there's really nothing he can do to stop the whining. But, he did put a fire in the fireplace and has kept me warm, nourished and hydrated. (Then he wisely left the room - he has to save himself.)

I tried to make something this afternoon and everything I did turned out crooked. The universe is conspiring against me. So, here's some cards I made a couple of weeks ago. I didn't really get the best pictures - oh woe-is me (you get the jest).

I love these two cards posted by Anne-Marie Bouthillette (ambouth) over at Splitcoast Stampers: Deer Friends Two, and Deer Friends One. Be sure to check those out as well as gallery at Splitcoast, it's amazing. That said . . . here' my twist on her sketch.

 

Unfortunately, you can't see the inside very well. The little snowman image from Deer Friends is peeking through when you close the card.

 

So . . . weak . . . more later.

Show and Tell

I like to invite my monthly hostess club members to bring their latest projects for "show and tell." They are such talented crafters - I love to see what they're making. I don't always get a picture - okay, I rarely get a picture. I'm usually running around. But, I had the good sense to grab pictures of at least a few of last month's show and tell.

Lynn Scales said she learned this project from Dawn Griffith's web site, here: Dawn's Stampin Studio: Paper Pumpkins.

 

Wouldn't those make adorable place holders at Thanksgiving? I love the papers she picked.

Jann Formica brought us this from a friend. I'm so dense, I had to read the tag out loud before I got the joke.

 

Isn't that a hoot? Jann also brought us this amazing card. A picture doesn't do it justice, and of course, I photographed it in a hurry - hopefully you get the idea.

 

I don't know who makes this stamp, but isn't that stunning? It can be hard to emboss on black because any stray powder will show so easily but Jann mastered it.

Avon's Calling

Oh, there's a new entrepreneur in the house. My adorable sis just became an Avon representative. I love Avon. It brings back such great memories of fancy glass decanters on my Grandma's dresser and of my neighbor dropping off her latest sales brochure to my Mom. Mom let us play with the samples. When she got older and couldn't drive, Avon was Mom's lifeline to skin products that kept her skin youthful - yep, I still played with the samples.

Somehow Santa was well connected with Avon, because he left these great little treats in our stockings every year. Well, now I see why. Check out what I got.

I got these lip balms for 79 cents each! They come in Wintermint, Gingerbread, Candy Cane, and Sugar Cookie. I got 20 of them because I thought they'd look adorable in these little gift bags we made last week with the Deer Friends stamp set. At that price, I bought 20 of them. They'll be fun for my hostess club or as gifts for my co-workers. (Either one, well, I've spoiled the surprise.)

 

Here's a couple of other things that caught my eye for stocking stuffers.

Poinsettia Holiday Soaps for 99 cents.

Musical Angel Holiday Soap for 99 cents.

But, the cutest has to be this . . .

 

It's called Holiday Novelty Clothesline Garland. For $9.99 it's a "clotheslines" of real wooden clothespins holding miniature fabric coats, pants, mittens and more. I thought it'd be cute hanging from my office cubicle, but I'm also such a paper craft fanatic, I thought it'd be even cuter incorporated into a Christmas card.  I had to spend my budget on some much needed age-defying cremes, but this is definitely on my wish list.

Run over to Sharon Murray's Avon site, here, and if you add the code REPFS, she'll give you free shipping and handling.

Magic Deer Food

I'm throwing together a few things for a church event this week . . . some simple projects that will be just a lot of fun to make and give. This might be my favorite.

 

I found the most adorable crushed velvet brads by doodlebug design, inc. for Rudolf's nose. The jar came from Ikea. The stamp set is the Level 2 Hostess stamp set, Deer Friends, and that luscious ribbon is from our mini catalog. The colors are just Chocolate Chip and Robin Hood Red. Here's the other side.

 

I made the tag off my computer and changed the font color to match the Chocolate Chip ink by adjusting the red/green/blue combinations to Red 66, Green 28, and Blue 28.

Don't tell the kiddos, but the food is just Oatmeal cereal. I guess the little tykes can eat it for Christmas breakfast if they want. I'm thinking granola/trail mix cereals might be fun to put into it, too. Off to make more goodies.

Please, Mom, no Glitter

As promised (I know, a while back), here's the Stampin' Up! regional convention presentations about glitter. But, first, I have to tell you a story that comes up everytime we play with glitter.

My son loves my Stampin' Up! ladies, and they love him. But, one day after one of our meetings, he came to me with the most serious of expressions. Mom, can you please stop using glitter at your meetings. It was the most emphatic plea. A little investigation revealed that when the stampers used his bathroom, glitter got all over the towels. My Ben found glitter in the most unusual places when he later toweled dry after a shower. Personally, I think everyone looks a little better with some glitter, but Ben could not be convinced. We solved the problem - Ben found his dream apartment - sans glitter. Yes, we still use glitter and my stampers love to give Ben a hard time about it.

So, when Lori Olaveson, Stampin' Up!'s Training Event Facilitator, said some people don't like using glitter and beads because of the mess, I just giggled. Art is messy.

Lori's and Carrie Cudney's presentations at the regional Stampin' Up! convention a couple of weeks ago, included the different ways of adhering glitter.

Our Sticky Cut Letters and two-sided red sticky tape already have the adhesive on them.  

 

Here's Carrie's whole scrapbook page . . .

 

and a beautiful card from the display boards.

Jaron Winder from the Stampin' Up! headquarters combined all the chunky glitters together to make this.

  

Lori explained that two-way glue works well when you want just a little glitter, Tom Bow works for a little heavier coverage, and, for lots and lots of glitter, Crystal Effects. One of the most stunning projects was this one by Janet Stockmann from Beaumont, Texas.

 

Janet's genius was that she tinted her crystal effects to match the color of her glitter. She first squeezed a dime-size amount of Crystal Effects onto a Styrofoam bowl, and then, using a watercolor brush, mixed about five drops of Bashful Blue from our reinkers into the Crystal Effects. Using the same brush, she painted the blue-tinted Crystal Effects onto one of our larger white flowers from the Pretties kit. Then, she sprinkled the blue fine cosmo glitter onto the flower. She used the same technique to make these.

 

and (sorry, this one is just a little fuzzy) . . .

 

and, finally,

With VersaMark and heat and stick embossing glue, you can get glitter in the fine details, like this card on the display boards.

   

Jaron used the heat and stick to create this when he combined all the colors of the fine cosmo glitter. Warning, this is so sparkly with all the colors combed, that, while stunning, it's hard to photograph well.

So, that's the convention primer on at least a few of the ways to adhere glitter to your projects. With Christmas projects in the works, don't you know there's a lot of glitter all over every crevice and cranny of my . . . house. (You thought I was going to say my son, didn't you.)