{shades of pink}

Valentine Hearts

Our anniversary is the day before Valentine's day so I can get away with only making one card it I want, but I usually make two. This is the first Valentine card I came up with this year. The colors are obvious: black, red and white. The pattered paper was some scraps that I had left over. The hearts were stamped with black craft ink and heat embossed with clear EP and trimmed. I used my white gel pen to color in the flowers and heart edges and raised them on dimensionals. The greeting was stamped with white craft ink and heat embossed with white EP. The card was finished with a bit of ribbon on the two outer edges.

Birthday Flowers

I made this card for my niece's 10th birthday. The colors are Certainly Celery, Regal Rose and Confetti White. I used the Time Well Spent stamp set and the Canvas BG stamp. The flowers are spot-watercolored and then I covered them completely with Iridescent Ice EP and heat embossed to make them sparkly. The are also raised with dimensionals. The canvas BG also has same color flowers stamped for a little something extra. Finally, to finish off the flowers, I added a tiny mini-pearl to the centers.

Jodi Picoult

If you haven't indulged in a Jodi Picoult novel, I highly suggest you treat yourself to any of her fourteen works. I have read three so far: The Tenth Circle, Nineteen Minutes and My Sister's Keeper. All of these have been fabulous. I am starting a book club with a first meeting date of Feb. 5 and The Tenth Circle was my choice for the first meeting.

Jodi picks very controversial topics and puts them into a very personal scenario. Her characters are all very believable, and she intertwines the story lines into thick knots but never to the point of stories seeming contrived or unbelievable.

Her website also is a great resource. There are synopses of all of her works along with book club questions and lots of Q&A about her and her writing.

If you like a good story, definitely give Jodi Picoult a try.

Sautéed Tilapia over Swiss Chard with Tarragon Butter

This is a new recipe (from Fine Cooking, issue 71) that we tried recently and it was really quite outstanding. We couldn't get Swiss Chard the day we were looking for it so we substituted fresh spinach and it worked just fine, although I think the Chard would hold the tarragon butter a little better than the spinach did. Regardless, it was an extremely tasty dish and I'd even dare say you could cut back on the recommended amount of butter.

My new benches

I just had to post a quick picture of one of my two new benches. I have windows on two walls of my dining room and they were begging for benches with plants. Cody was a gem and made two matching benches for me. I finally got a couple more plants for this bench but the other is still pretty bare. Cleo has her pot of cat grass on it and likes to sit in that window so she's kind of claimed that as her own space. Now I just need to sew some runners or individual blocks to put under the pots.

More deer cards

This time they are thank you cards though. Guess that's what you get for living in Wisconsin...deer cards just work all year long for almost anyone! I also used up some corduroy-looking patterned paper that I had left over. I really like how these turned out, and they were both very simple. Both use Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip and Natural Ivory and both have the chocolate grosgrain ribbon. The horizonal card has some brushed copper brads and the vertical card has mini eyelets in each corner. Thanks for looking!

Blue Man Global Warming

This is a great little video produced by the Blue Man Group about Global Warming. Pretty cool!

A New Hobby

I bought a sewing machine early in the fall but I haven't had much time to use it until recently. For Christmas, I made Cody an apron, I'm I'm pretty proud of my accomplishment. I made one for myself also, but I really like his. Since he's a fisherman, I saw this material and just had to use it. Doesn't he make a great model?!?

And this second picture isn't very good, but our cat has taken to hanging out in the kitchen with us on a regular basis. I'm not sure if she thinks she's helping or not, but she certainly seems to try! So this is Cody and Cleo working in the kitchen together.

Birthday Deer

Noble Deer is still one of my favorite stamp sets for masculine birthday cards. The colors of this card are Creamy Caramel and Handsome Hunter. The focal image is stamped with Chocolate Chip onto Natural Ivory and I used pastels to color it for a soft, subtle effect. I also dusted the edges of the focal image and the large caramel layer with chocolate chip to give it some depth and a warmer feeling. The card was finished with some caramel & hunter green gingham ribbon and brushed copper brads in the corners of the card and the focal image layer.

Some folks have too much talent and too much time!

This is just amazing! Such creativity!!