It's a Bake Sale!!

I wanted to share how proud I am of my nephew, Kyle. This is the third year in a row he did a bake sale to raise money for Share Our Strength, an organization that uses funds end hunger in America through education, partnerships with schools and national business, as well as . According to the web site, 16.2 million children in the USA lack the means to get nutritious food on a regular basis. I guess the campaign a few years ago was to have kids raise money by having a bake sale so that is what he has been doing for the last three years. He raised over $1100 this year. This is only being open two days after masses at church!!

The thing that impresses me the most is that Kyle solicits donations himself. He went to local business to ask for donations of gift cards and even wrote letters to national chains, like Stop & Shop and Target.  All the baking was done by family and friends, including all natural pet snacks, and every year he has had a raffle of some sort. This year it was 5 sets of two tickets to RAVE cinemas. I think this kid will be owning his own business one day!!

I hope that you all have a wonderful day!!

Nora

Where is the sun?

It is another cloudy, humid day. The sun peeks out of the dark gray clouds here and there but for the most part, it has been like this all week. I keep wondering where the nice, summer weather is. My container garden is not liking all the rain we have been having. We got an inch just yesterday afternoon!!

On a more positive note, all this rain has given me time to hole up in my craft room and create. Guilty free crafting is the BEST!!!

The creations I am going to share today are a set I made for the birthday of one of Char's friends. I guess the girl is mad about pink so that was my theme. Sometimes just knowing someone's favorite color helps jumpstart creativity.

The first thing I created was a card.

I totally copied this card design from Maile Belles. I used the Paper Trey Ink set "Birthday Day Style," which was designed for PTI by Maile.  I changed it up the card design a bit to make it my own. I chose to use pinks and oranges, I matted the stamped, focal sheet in raspberry fizz and instead of using clouds and enamel dots, I chose to embellish the card with sequins and rhinestones. I LOVE how this came out!!!

It looks good with the gift, right? (Excuse the photo please. Not my best!!)

The next thing I had to do was create something to go inside the bucket to hold the money that I was giving along with the nail stuff. I used the same basic design again but on a square envelope.

I cut the envelope using my Silhouette die cut machine, which helped me to make this project in record time.

I used different styles of Washi Tape to seal the back and added a die cut balloon. You cannot have the front look good and not the back, right?

I originally wanted to wrap this all up in a cellophane bag but after going through my stash of bags, I realized that I did not have any of the right size in stock. I had to go to plan B. I had bought a pink gift bag at Target a couple weeks ago for something else and decided to use that instead. So I had to make a tag.

I used Paper Trey Ink's " 2012 Birthday Tags Stamp Set," 2 1/4" oval dies and tag sale # 5 die to create this.

I filled the bag, added pink tissue and tied the tag on with some different colors of curling ribbon.

I think the whole thing came out perfect and just right for a girl obsessed with pink.

That is all for now. I hope you are enjoying your Saturday and the sun is shining where you are!!

Have a great Day!!

Nora

A day late and a dollar short-this is my life!!

Happy Thursday!! School is OUT and I am finally getting back into the groove of being home for the summer. I have been on vacation for four days and after doing some much needed cleaning and laundry, I finally had time to do things I wanted to do. I have been scrapping and making cards like crazy and I cannot be more excited. I have a TON of projects I want to do around the house this summer but the weather is not cooperating with me. I know rain is good but can I say that I am sick of it? It just brings the yucky humidity. Me and humidity DO NOT get along.

Today I am posting a card that I meant to post yesterday for a challenge that ended Wednesday on the Simon Says Stamp! Challenge Blog.

The contest was to create a card with fruit on it and use some type of American Craft product. I used the strawberry from the Lawn Fawn "Summertime Charm" stamp set as the focus for this card.

The first thing I did was to stamp a bunch of strawberries on a piece of white card stock. I then colored them in with the Copic Marker colors below. I am not an expert at coloring and as you can see, some of the colors bled out of some of the strawberries. I tried all the tricks to fix it but I couldn't.

I topped the strawberries with Glossy Accents and set them aside to dry. My next step was to make the berry basket. I didn't have a die cut or a pattern for it so I kind of winged it. I started out with a 2 1/4" square. I angled the sides and then weaved 1/4," inked strips of kraft card stock over the square to create the basket. I think the inking really helped the basket to look more realistic. I completed the container by rounding the corners on the bottom of the basket with a corner rounder.

I then die cut the strawberries out of the card stock using the matching Lawn Fawn dies.

My card was now ready to be put together. For the background, I used a few layered sheets of Studio Calico patterned paper. I stamped a sentiment using a Paper Trey Ink stamp and then started playing around with the basket, strawberries and punched leaves until I liked how they were arranged. I added a doily over the top of the basket as well. The last step was to add the acrylic dots. Here are a few more detailed shots.

You can see in the photo above that I used pop dots on a couple of the strawberries to give them a bit of dimension. I like the overall design of the card but am not so sure about the background. I think I should have used a different color.

I want to thank you for visiting my blog today. Have a great Thursday!! Stay Cool!!

Nora