Memorial Day: King of the Grill

In honor of those backyard chefs who display their skill on Memorial Day, here's a card by MaryAnn Meyers (from the Summer Mini Swap) to kick off your weekend:

 

...and just in case you tire of the same old hamburgers and hot dogs, this is my all-time favorite and super-simple marinade for chicken (try it and leave a comment to tell me how you like it!)~

Marinated Grilled Chicken

1/2 c. Soy Sauce  

1/4 c. Honey

1 clove Garlic, crushed

1/2 t. ground Ginger

Mix all ingredients together and marinate chicken tenders overnight or at least 4 hours. Grill chicken on BBQ (or broil in oven on a rainy day!). Be careful as it does not take long to cook :)

Watercolor Trio and Sweet Lenas

You know how you get excited for Spring to come around the beginning of April when the first sunny day gets above 50 degrees, so you pack up all your winter clothes and cheerfully pull out your short-sleeves and flip-flops? Then there comes a few days when you have to layer some of those clothes because Mother Nature pulls a trick on you and the temperature plummets below 30 again. Well, here in Utah, that tricky lady had a great chuckle yesterday when she set a record for the latest snowfall on record since 1979 (which, btw, was May 17 of that year).

So, needless to say...I am READY TO WELCOME SPRING!!! So to entice Mother Nature to send a little more sunshine, here are a few lovely spring card samples using the Watercolor Trio stamp set from the Summer Mini Catalog and created by some talented demonstrators for the Summer Mini Swap I recently hosted. First, from Kim Innis, a rejuvenating orange beauty:

Next is a card using the Scallop Circle die (for the Big Shot) as a creative accent by Dawn Hill, one of my SU! "Grand-daughters"

One more thing I would like to share with you today, another sign of spring: My Sweet Lena Iris!  I *wish* you could smell these flowers...they have such a sweet fragrance, you would believe they would be as sweet as sugar to the taste!

My husband picked up one of these plants as a gift for me when we lived in the Seattle area about 12 years ago. We have planted them and divided them among friends and neighbors in each place we have lived since then and they grow without much effort on my part (thank heavens). If you come by my house in the next few weeks, stop and smell the Iris!

Scrapbook a Moment of Life

Capturing the perfect moment in a photograph is a delight, so when my sister gave me this photo of my photogenic niece, Madi, I knew that it deserved a page of it's own! 

 

I borrowed a page "map" from Jan Tink and used the Elements of Style stamp set from the Summer Mini Catalog. The colors (Lovely Lilac, Barely Banana and Sage Shadow) are perfect together, but all are retiring on June 30th (so order them soon if you can't live without them!). 

Graduation Inspiration (Swap, pt. 2)

Since it's that time of the year, let me share some ideas for Graduation cards that were shared in our Summer Mini Catalog Swap, starting with a card by Tina Taves using both the Go, Graduate stamp set and Happy Grad single stamp. I really liked the window sheet peek-through:

Next is a card by Roseanne Urbanc from the Go, Graduate set:

And one from Ann Olsen (my Stampin' Up! "daughter" and dear friend):

And finally, this beauty by Kimberly Meyers...I really like the fact that the Happy Grad stamp is only $8.95 and by adding a punched star and brad, you have a totally cool card:

Don't forget that you can order these stamps 24/7 on my SU! website!

Summer Mini Swap, Elements of Style

I have been sorting and sending out a huge demonstrator card swap and it was much more work than I anticipated, but the results are stunning! I am going to share a few of the cards here on my blog over the next few days, but to get the full effect you need to see them in person (and you could do that by hosting a workshop anytime before July 31st!).

These cards were all created with stamps from the Summer Mini Catalog (click on the link in the left column to download the Summer Mini Catalog).

Let's start with MY card :) This stamp set is called Elements of Style:

 Elements of Style by Debbie Greuser (one of my Stitched Stamper Demonstrators!):

And just for fun, here is a card made with this same stamp set by Shelli Gardner, CEO and co-founder of Stampin' Up! that she shared at Leadership in January:

Come back for more Summer Mini Samples soon!

T.A.C.O. Night

(Note: Blog Candy winner announced May 4th on my Sweet Scoops post below)

Let's keep the food theme going with TACO NIGHT!

Come to my T.A.C.O. Night (free for my adult friends) and discover a 

Totally Awesome Career Opportunity

(and eat some delicious tacos, too!)

Wednesday, May 5th (Cinco de Mayo)

6:30 p.m.

Down Spendlove Lane in Spanish Fork, UT

RSVP to 801-376-8685 RIGHT NOW!!

Through May 31st, when you join my Stampin' family, you will receive two "Workshop Wow" DVD's with over 250 minutes of stamping and paper crafting ideas (a $42 value!)

Can't come to TACO Night, but still interested in an awesome career with Stampin' Up!? Visit my Stampin' Up! website and find out more (my recruiting password is "stampwithme" when you are ready to join!)