Sassy & Sweet Notes

Spirit of Christmas Angel

We had a nice, somewhat relaxing weekend here on the farm. The weather was still a bit too warm for my liking (90s, ugh), but at least it didn't hit 100! I'm looking forward to cooler temps this week. I can deal with 70s and 80s. I will say that one thing this warm weather has done after the rain we had over the past couple of weeks is give the pasture grass a bit of a boost. Finally, we're getting some green around here!

The animals are enjoying the fresh grass, and there seems to have been an increase in grasshoppers and dragonflies too! The chickens are having a hay day in the backyard catching bugs and snipping off the fresh tips of the new grass.

I thought I would share this card I made using my Spirit of Christmas set. I stamped the angel in StazOn ink and painted her with re-inkers. I sponged some brown inks to all layers to warm things up a bit. I added some glitter to her wings, star, and dress for lots of sparkle.

That super fun paper is from Memory Box.

That about sums it up!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, and your week gets off to a good start!

Three Toy Ponies

Here's something a little different than then quilting themed projects I've been working on lately. I used my toy horse image on this card to create a card for a wee little fella. My dear friend Vivian recently sent me the coolest little box of wooden disks. They look like they may have been used for bingo, but I'm not sure. I chose the B1 disk to use on this card as an embellishment, rather than a button or bow. YeeeHaw!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Quick & Easy Quilting

This card was quick and simple to make - perfect for a stamper on a time crunch (like ME)! I used the empty quilt block from my Homespun Quilt set and stamped the image on several sheets of printed scrapbook paper. I used my 1" square paper punch to quickly punch out the paper blocks and assembled them in a eye-pleasing pattern. Some quick zips here and there with my tracing wheel for a faux stitched look, a sentiment (from my Winter Quilt set), a pretty shell button, and this little bugger is ready for the mail!

I'm tuckered and just want to go crawl into bed. I'm beyond ready for the weekend. But I have a crazy busy day tomorrow, so I'm off to catch some Zzzzz's...

A Note from Dad!

My Dad had surgery last week ... his second knee replacement. Many of you left him well wishes here on my blog, and others sent him happy healing cards! Your thoughtfulness is greatly appreciated! This evening he left you a note. I was afraid his note would go unnoticed as he left it as a comment on an older post, so here it is, front and center!

Hi, out there Ladies! This is my first attempt at anything intellectual since last Thursday. I have been receiving many wonderful things in the mail! somebody blabbed? there are some very talented folks that are in this blog's family! The well wishes are just what I have been needing and arriving unexpected is humbling too. It has been a very tough week. Time to go lay down again, I'm getting dizzy............ Love, Dad

You guys are the BEST! Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Quilted Hearts

Here's a card I put together using the heart quilt block from Homespun Quilt. I stamped the blocks in black StazOn ink and painted them with re-inkers. I added a bit of ultra fine glitter to each heart for lots of sparkle.

Wasn't yesterday Monday? How did it get to be Wednesday night, ALREADY!? Crazy! I think time is passing in double-time...

Happy Birthday, Miss Daisy!

Today is Miss Daisy's 9th birthday... she's taking advantage of her special day by napping on the floor. ...come to think of it, that's how she spends every day!

Big birthday wishes to you, my sweet Miss Daisy! You will always be my favorite chocolate chunk!

Here's a great recipe for homemade, healthy dog treats if you're interested!

Sweet Miss Daisy *Hearts* Cookies (for dogs)
2 cups Whole Wheat flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
2 TBS Honey
1 Egg
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup Milk (soy, rice, goat, or fat free cow)

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking powder and garlic powder together in a mixing bowl. Stir in honey, egg, oil and milk. (I just use a fork for all the mixing and it works great!) The dough will be somewhat dry, but it will stick together.

On a wheat floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. Pat into nicely shaped ball and roll out onto cutting surface 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes (we recommend HEARTS), or cut into 1.5" squares. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 15 minutes. Let cool on the sheet. Serve one cookie to all dogs, and store remaining cookies in an airtight container.

All the dogs on the farm give these cookies TWO PAWS UP! WOOF!

Thanksgiving Quilt...and Pie

Thanks for the enthusiastic response to the new sets! I have been having a blast with them, and hope you find all kinds of inspiration for them from the Featured Designers. If you haven't checked out their sites yet, do! You're in for a treat! You'll find a list on this post.

Here's a card I made using two blocks from Homespun Quilt and the girl and sentiment from Turkey Time. I chose to use rich browns throughout the card for lots of extra seasonal goodness. The quilt blocks are stamped on natural cardstock in memento ink and colored with markers. I punched out the blocks using a 1" square punch and used brown distress inks to warm up the edges of the blocks before assembling the entire quilted layer. Then, once the quilt was assembled, I inked up the outer edges of the quilt even more. How cozy does that look!

Thanksgiving Girl is stamped on watercolor paper in black StazOn ink and painted with re-inkers. I like to use watercolor paper for images I plan to cut out and mount to the front of the card for the papers extra heavy weight and stability.

Mmmmm, pie.....

Crazy Cat!

Alan sent me this link today -- pretty funny!

If you're not able to view the video here on my blog, try it directly on the YouTube site, here.

Introducing Homespun Quilt, Winter Quilt, and Spirit of Christmas

It's that time again! Time again for this month's cling set release with Whipper Snapper!

I have been having so much fun with the sets for this month, and I cannot WAIT to see what the Featured Designers have been creating! It's just so much fun!

The sets I created for this month were all inspired by quilts that my Mom has made over the many years she has been quilting. (That is not to say that my Mom is old... she's not. She's just been sewing and quilting for as long as I can remember...so maybe that makes ME old?) *grin*

Homespun Quilt and Winter Quilt have a combination of traditional blocks and hand drawn blocks. For the more traditional blocks in the sets, I chose blocks Mom used in some of my favorite quilts that she has made. The hand drawn blocks in the sets were inspired by Mom's quilts done using the applique technique. There isn't a single quilt of Mom's that I don't love, and it's so much fun each time I visit to see all of her new projects. Each one is a piece of art, and everyone who receives one is truly grateful (not to mention LUCKY!).

I created this holiday card using images from Winter Quilt. The blocks in both the Winter Quilt set and in the Homespun quilt set are a smidgen smaller than 1", so they are quickly and easily punched out using a 1" square punch. If you don't have a 1" square punch, they are simple to trim using scissors. 

Following with the "quilting" theme is also Spirit of Christmas, the third set for the month. The images in the set were drawn with visible stitching, making them subtly coordinated with the quilt block sets.

Click on the images for a larger view...

Sneak peek cards I made using images from Spirit of Christmas can be seen here and here.

It is also my pleasure to introduce you to five new Whipper Snapper Featured Designers as well! Be sure to check out the galleries and blogs of the September/October Featured Designers as they showcase these sets! You're sure to be impressed!

The Who's Who of September/October Featured Designers:

Danielle Lounds
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/dlounds
Blog: http://fatcatstamper.blogspot.com

Jeanie Witmer
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/Jeanie_Witmer
Blog: http://thespottedchick.blogspot.com

Katarina (Kathy) Menzies
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/katarinam
Blog: http://thecreataholic.blogspot.com

Kelly Bee
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/kellybee
Blog: http://kelly.studiobeemusic.com

Stephanie Kraft
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/booga3
Blog:http://handkraftedbystephanie.blogspot.com

and Me! Anna Wight
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/sweetmissdaisy
Blog: http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com

Just a reminder, you can see all of the projects current and past Featured Designers have uploaded to their SplitCoast galleries by viewing the Whipper Snapper Featured Designer Gallery. Have a look -- it's a great place to find all KINDS of great inspiration!

Have fun!

Spirit of Christmas Snowman

Happy FRIDAY!! Because it's the weekend, and because Monday is release day, how about another sneak peek? *grin*

The snowman is from the soon-to-be-released Spirit of Christmas set from Whipper Snapper. I stamped the image in black StazOn ink and painted it with re-inkers. I used a couple different Memory Box papers for the quilt block background.

My Dad had surgery yesterday. He had his second knee replacement surgery, and this one was a doozy. The operation took over 5 hours not only for the regular knee replacement procedure, but also due to an old injury on the same knee. He's going to be sore for a long while. I talked to him tonight (he's still at the hospital for a few days) and he was very groggy! But he'll get back to his cheery self in no time. I know there are a lot of you who enjoy his blog comments, and if you're interested in dropping him a 'speedy recovery' card, let me know! I know it would really make his day! (Shhhh, Mom, don't tell!)

I'm soooo looking forward to the weekend. Some "down" time is greatly needed around here. I've got several projects that need my attention though, so hopefully I can get some serious work done while still enjoying the weekend.

Have a good one!

Spirit of Christmas Santa

Monday, September 21st is the release date for my September Whipper Snapper cling sets, and I'm so excited! On Monday, I'll be introducing you to five new featured designers and the new sets. So how about a sneak peek? You know I can't keep these things secret very well... Happy Thursday!

We're back online...

...and it feels GOOD! Holy COW, we were without internet for so LONG! They finally got the tower fixed, and we're off and runnin' again! We've had a lot of rain over the past handful of days. At one point, the barnyard was a lake, the chicken yard was a lake, and even the pond out in the pasture was full to the top! But we aren't complaining...we need the rain. We'd even take more, gladly! I think the best part was that we were actually able to have the windows open for the first time in MONTHS! It has been such a HOT summer. The rain was certainly refreshing!

I thought I'd share a project with you -- one of the several I completed during our long communication-free 4 days! This is Franny Farmer, a long-time retired Stampin' Up set. It's probably evident why I had to add her to my collection. She's adorable!

I stamped her in black StazOn ink and loosely painted her with re-inkers. 

The sentiment is from my recently released Whipper Snapper set called Farm Fresh. I thought it worked perfectly with Franny's basket of garden goodness.

Welcome to the farm, Franny Farmer!

Where Am I?

Hello, hello!

Just a quick post to let you know I'm OK! We had a big ol' storm come through last Thursday night and it blew out the tower in town that we receive our home internet connection from. Talk about disaster! We haven't had internet at the house since the storm! Hope they get it fixed soon... I'm starting to get the shakes!

Happy Monday!

Rustle Up...

How about some string pickin' birthday wishes for a fella! I made this birthday card using image from Singing Cowboy, one of my recently released sets from Whipper Snapper. The images of the cowboy and guitar are stamped in black StazOn ink and painted with re-inkers.The images on the background are stamped in a pale tan ink. A quick little birthday sentiment banner is tucked under the main image panel.

Before I adhered the guitar to the front of the cowboy, I used an Xacto blade to cut out around the fingers and cuff of his shirt. Then I slid the bottom of the guitar right under his hand. This is an easy way to add some simple dimension to a project. Worked like a charm!

Yeehaw!

cluck cluck!

Holiday weekends (any weekend, for that matter) are always too short. Just when we start getting into the swing of things, it's time to go back to work. Ah well... at least we could sleep in one more day!

I did a little bit of stamping last night. Here is one of the cards I put together using my recently released set from Whipper Snapper called Farm Fresh. A wagon full of chickens sounds pretty fun to me!

Cluck cluck!

one stewed chicken

Here's another of the get well-sicky poo-thinking of you cards I've made recently. I've had some special people in my life in need of a rest up greeting, so I made several cards to this theme last week.

The stewed chicken just cracks me up. It's a Karen Lockhart stamp, and I'm pretty sure I found it on ebay sometime last year. I chose to use some teal colored whitewashed Co'ordinations paper for the background. I stamped the chicken wire image in a nice cheery blue that matches the base color of the whitewashed paper. I also sponged some of the same blue around the edges of that layer to darken up the whitewashed edges a bit. I really like how the inked edges turned out on the paper!

It's mid weekend (if you have Monday off from work), and I hope you're having a good one! Ours has been fairly quiet, which considering the events on the farm lately, is rather nice.

I will say that I sure can tell there's a full moon... I am so very tired, and my emotions are a bit off the charts. Thankfully this evening I'm feeling much better so hopefully I'm getting back to "normal" and can look forward to a calmer rest of the month. Poor Alan puts up with so much from me... I think he deserves some fresh, homemade brownies.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

This is a photo of my dad I took last month while we were in Montana. And today he celebrates his birthday! So, all together now!

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to YOU!
Happy Birthday dear Dad,
Happy Birthday, tooooooooo, YoOOOOoOOOooOoOOooOOooooOOOO!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Rest Up!

I am not sure where this week has gone... seems like just yesterday we were dealing with The Beast, and already it's Wednesday night!? Crazy!

Anyway, earlier this week I made up a few get well, rest up, thinking of you type cards. I kept this one pretty simple and used a Riley the Moose image from Hanna Stamps, along with a hand written sentiment.

The image is stamped in black StazOn ink and painted with re-inkers. I used my old vintage pinking shears (gotta love ebay!) to trim the side of the chocolate colored panel, and I used one of my old vintage tracing wheels to add the faux stitching around the edges of the image and sentiment panels.

There's even a bright red rhinestone on top of the cupcake! Looks like a perfect way to spend some time, if you ask me!