A card and a recipe to share

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in ages.....just been very busy and had very little mojo the last month. My father in law was here visiting for 3 weeks (he's back home now) and I've had some out of town work as well.

I was rummaging around my craft drawers the other day and came across this fun image a friend had sent me......(this is  soooo embarrassing) .......years ago! Why the heck I never used it on a card before....I don't know- but I was in the mood to make a winter card.




I love how the image is covered in tiny clear microbeads- it sparkles so much and has fabulous texture!

I'm not sure how my friend got the microbeads to stick......maybe she sent it through a Xyron or possibly sprayed it with some sort of adhesive? I would love to figure this out...... and will probably play around with this over the next week or so myself.........if I come up with a wonderful way to get the beads to stick I'll let you all know how I did it!


Speaking of snow- it's snowing here for the first time this season!! Not sure if I'm ready for this or not......I've been really enjoying NO SNOW. It's not even the snow so much that is a pain in the rear- it's the fact that just getting around from place to place is so much more difficult.....and you have to have mittens....and a hat.....and boots.....and a window scraper........ugggh!

I do plan on taking my 7 year old skiing for the first time this winter- have to expose them  to all sorts of winter fun! I haven't skied in years......with my luck I'll probably break my ankle or something stupid like that. Once the lakes get frozen enough we will be out there ice fishing too- love to catch me some crappies!

Now for the recipe.......

This is my mom's fabulous turkey stuffing recipe. It's so moist and delicious and easy to make. Way better than anything out of a box!

                      Sausage Stuffing

1 loaf of wheat bread (sliced or unsliced)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 pound breakfast sausage (I love Jimmy Dean- sage flavor)
1 tsp garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Tear the bread into small pieces and put into a large bowl. Pour water into the bowl- enough to completely soak into all the bread. If you get too much water in.....just squeeze out the excess. Brown the sausage with onion and celery and garlic. Cool the meat mixture and then mix in the bread- then stuff into your turkey! You can also just bake it in a casserole dish at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Feel free to use more than one kind of bread if you like- sometimes I add a bit of pumpernickel or rye bread if I have it on hand. The sausage makes it really moist- I just love it with gravy poured all over it!!

I have been trying to exercise extreme patience lately too. I won a $50.00 shopping spree at Hero Arts a few weeks ago......and I'm waiting for the new 2012 release to actually go shopping....in the mean time I still go look over all the stamps-inks-paper and make an ever changing wish list. I hope the release is soon, I can't wait much longer!!


Thanks for stopping bye and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your friends or family!!


Inky Hugs...............................Anne

Lovely Trees

Hi all!

I've got 2 "tree" cards to show you all today. The first one here is mostly about adding incredible shine to a card! This card is getting entered into the Hero Arts monthly challenge for shine and also the Simon Says challenge to show a holiday greeting.....and one more for the Inky Impressions Christmas challenge.



I stamped the Hero Arts music background using Versamark, then stamped the trees using 2 colors of brown distress ink. I watercolored a bit around the trees to fill them in using the distress inks as well. Then I sprayed the whole blue layer with Perfect Pearls, and the white layers got sprayed as well. Stamped the sentiments using distress ink too (brushed corduroy). Then I wanted a bit more shine so I came over the trees and along the edge of the white layers using my Versamark marker, then dusting on some clear embossing powder. The shine and shimmer on here is amazing....and let me tell you it was very hard to get a decent photo of it (tried about 20 different shots).....yikes!

The tree stamp is by Stampin Up "Lovely as a tree", one of my all time favorite stamp sets. Both the sentiments are from Hero Arts clear set "Holiday Sayings", a new favorite of mine for all those Christmas cards.

This next card here is one I made last winter.....but never sent out- ooops! I found it among some piles of cardstock today.......what a surprise!



 I had fun expiramenting here using some masking and lots of time trying to make nice shadows and such (trying to be real artsy here- ha!) It's surely not perfect- you can see all the little oopsies up close......but it looks pretty cool to me and I thought I would show you all anyways!

The large scene of trees is a stamp by Innovative Stamp Creations and the pine tree is by Stampin Up, same one as above.  I used a small circle as a mask for the moon, torn paper to create the ground, and one of my Copics for the shadows. Lots of use of the Versmark markers and the polysparkle embossing powder to make the trees shine. I haven't played with this stamp in a really long time....just might have to try another version of this really soon using different colors.

Thanks for stopping bye and hope all of your holiday shopping, wrapping, baking and what not is going well!

Inky Hugs, Anne

The Most Wonderful time of the year....

Happy Sunday everyone!

There's a new fun challenge going on over at the Wee Memories blog this week- the theme is "Holiday Music Inspiration".


I just happened to have a great digi stamp set from Verve called "Winter mittens" that goes along perfectly with one of my favorite holiday songs "The most wonderful time of the year".



I paper pieced the mittens using some Basic Grey paper and also used my white Signo gel pen to add a bit of color- added a little pearl to each mitten as well. The backround was made starting with a pink piece of cardstock and clear embossing the snowflakes- then coming over it with barn door distress ink. The cute winter scene paper is by Basic Grey as well. Used my new EK Success punch for the sentiment and SU border punch as well. The snowflakes are from Stampin up and Hero Arts.

I hope you can all play along with the fun challenge- there are so many options you could do with the many great holiday songs to choose from.

I need to seriously get going on addressing my Christmas cards and getting them ready to mail. We are off this Thursday to New Jersey and New York- I'm getting really excited to go see the big apple for the first time! I hope my mother in law can handle babysitting my son for 4 long days......and yes it's going to be hard to be way from him for that long- I'll miss him terribly.

Thanks for stopping bye and have a great week!

Anne