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!)

Royal Blog Tour: Sweet Scoops (of Ice Cream)!

(UPDATE May 4: Scroll down for Blog Candy Winner!)

Welcome to my UTAH Ice Cream Castle along the Royal Blog Tour featuring the SWEET SCOOPS stamp set from the Stampin' Up! Summer Mini Catalog!

Confession: I have an incurable sweet tooth, and when it comes to stamps of food...I'm totally addicted! On the last blog tour, I used cupcakes, so it only follows that you need ICE CREAM with your cake, right? Did you know the average U.S. citizen consumes an average of 5 1/2 gallons of ice cream each year? 

 The petite size of these "cones" make perfect gift tags. More trivia: More ice cream is sold on Sunday (Sundae?) than any other day of the week!

 

Is your mouth watering yet? I call this card Double Dippin' (kudos to fellow princess Tami F. for the card pattern!) The sentiment is from the stamp set A Little Birthday Cheer and I'm so happy that Baja Breeze is one of the colors returning to Stampin' Up!'s new color palette in July :)

This next card is called Cherry Topper ~ have you ever had a dipped cone? Scrumptious! But at one time, it was illegal to serve ice cream on top of cherry pie in Kansas...

To make a "shiny" ice cream cone (like the Cherry Topper), just add Crystal Effects over your stamped image (Dazzling Diamonds glitter, optional).

Here's the scoop: 25% of Baskin Robbins' ice cream sales are Vanilla! This card covers the other 30 flavors (sentiments also from A Little Birthday Cheer):

 

So, dear traveler, if you are refreshed by your stop here and would like to enter to win my BLOG CANDY (yum...another food related metaphor!), please subscribe to my blog and/or newsletter in right column (U.S. non-SU! demonstrators only, please) and you could win the Lots of Thoughts stamp set and Tag Punch (shown below with one more Sweet Scoops sample)! That's better than a hot fudge and caramel sundae, and with much fewer calories :)

If you enjoyed your visit, please leave me a comment! Don't forget to collect clues along the Royal Path to enter the BIG SHOT drawing at the Royal Blog Tour homepage, and if you are ever in Utah, let's go out for ice cream!

MAY 4th~Drum Roll please....and the Blog Candy Winner is:

GALE SEWELL!

Thanks to everyone for the kind comments, joining my newsletter and following my blog!

Peek: Spring Stamp-a-Stack

 Stock up on beautiful hand-made cards at the Stamp-a-Stack class! Since you'll be creating 4 different cards (and making 4 of each one), you'll have one to keep and THREE to give away :)

Saturday, April 24

10 a.m.-Noon

Down Spendlove Lane

Spanish Fork, UT

16 cards for $20

Bring scissors and adhesive. All other material will be cut/prepared for you. Stamping is always more fun with a friend, so when you register with an adult friend I haven't met, I will give you a FREE SNAIL adhesive refill! Space is limited, so register by April 19: 801-376-8685.

Make it a day of creativity and stay for the afternoon Stamp Camp!

Playing with My Digital Studio

I'm working on my first album using Stampin' Up!'s My Digital Studio. It will be a 2008 family scrapbook. It has been fun to work on and I'm discovering that I love MDS for so many reasons!

Reason #1: You can choose a template for a scrapbook page, an entire album, a card, a multi-media show (including music!) or a calendar... simply drop in your photos, add your words, and you are done! Here's a sample of a pre-made template page I am using for my album from the "Summer Home" design. It's actually part of a two page spread, but you just get to see the right side:

Reason #2: You can change a template to meet your needs, like this one that I changed a bit:

Reason #3: You can create a project from scratch using the tools included in the software (Stampin' Up! colors, stamps, Designer Series Paper, buttons, ribbons, accessories, etc) and your photos...here's a sample of a simple and easy scrapbook page that I created from scratch with My Digital Studio:

Now to finish the project and get it printed...I guess I can do without sleep...

Want to start making your own amazing projects using My Digital Studio? Click the MDS link and choose "Shop Now" in the top right corner!

Color My World!

Why ARE there so many songs about rainbows?
My husband always teases me about referring to colors in Stampin' Up! vernacular: "That's not orange," I'll correct him, "That is PUMPKIN PIE!" Every color has a proper name, and I use it!

Well, Stampin' Up! made a wonderful announcement on Monday about our new COLOR RENOVATION and I'm very excited to share it with you! If you have ever renovated a room or a whole home, you know that the new look is better than the old look...and the same is true here! As of July 1st, our new color COLLECTIONS will look like this:  

You will see some returning IN COLORS from years past, and a sneak peek at a few NEW colors that are surely part of every perfect rainbow :) This renovation will help you look at colors in a whole new way, and I'm drooling with anticipation, myself.

But before you get too excited, we must also say farewell to some well-loved hues:

If these colors have been some of your favorites, you have until June 30th to order ink refills for your pads, stock up on card stock and matching accessories! Visit my website to order anytime. 

I guess the answer to the question is that a rainbows bring color and wonder to the world, and Stampin' Up! is doing our best to bring that delight to you.