Coloring Mabelle's Style!

I was just tickled with Mabelle posted a link to her blog when during one of my Serendipity "sneak peaks" here, I talked about my love (and growing collection!) of Mabelle RO stamps featured by The Angel Company - they are the R coded stamps sprinkled through out. I have seen some of Mabelle's finished artwork in the past but you will be blown away by the samples she has posted of her latest stamps from Serendipity! I can't promise you'll become a "mini-Mabelle", but hopefully, like me, you'll pick up some great color combos and shading/coloring techniques! Enjoy her blog and I hope you like my card here! It's very simple but I wanted the little girl to steal the show...



Be sure to visit The Angel Company's homepage - they've updated it with more goodies, including a new Downloads section!! How cool is that!?!

http://www.theangelcompany.net/Downloads.html

Sharing "Good Things"...

I rarely talk about this but I’m reading an incredible book for bible study, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. In truth, I fluctuate between being a super busy, perfect Martha type to being a care free Mary…but I’ve already discovered so much in just two chapters! Chapter two is entitled, “Lord, Don’t you Care?” and one of the last paragraphs in it reads:

He knows the journey is difficult. He knows life is rarely fair. Jesus fought the same frigid winds of distraction, discouragement, and doubt (Joanne Weaver calls these the Three Deadly Ds of Destruction) that keep us from knowing God’s love. But like the Father, he longs to gather us in his arms…The Lord Jesus invites us to cast our doubts, our fears and anxiety upon him, to discover how much he really does care.

Some of my regular readers may remember that my cousin recently lost his wife and I made this card for him and his two children, Jimmy and Elizabeth; just a little note to let them know that I am thinking of them. He has been an incredible example to me of keeping his faith and walking with God, and I think that’s why this book is so eye opening to me. Well that was food for your soul, how about something else to “feed” you?


retired TAC set, Mind's Eye paper (still using up papers from the huge pack of papers from Costco!), snowflake CB embossing plate on DCWV paper (also from TAC - I love that I can buy my favorite colors in bulk!) and stickles!

Short on time? Want more time to stamp and still feed your family a decent dinner? I made this last week and it was delicious…couldn’t have been easier and everyone was happy!

Slow-cooker sausage lasagna – Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine

1 pound Italian pork sausage, casings removed
1 pound ground beef (I used ground turkey to make it “healthier”)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes in puree
9 lasagna noodles
2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella (8 oz)

In a heavy pot, cook sausage and beef (or turkey!) over medium-high heat, breaking up meat with a spoon until no longer pink, 4-6min. Add onion, carrots, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook until onion has softened, 3-5 min. Stir in tomato paste, then tomatoes; bring to a boil and remove from heat.

Spoon 2 cups meat mixture into bottom of a 5-6 quart slow cooker. Layer 3 noodles (breaking them up as needed to fit), 2 cups meat mixture and ½ cup cheese; repeat with two more layers. Refrigerate ½ cup cheese for later.

Cover slow cooker, and cook on low, 4 to 6 hours. Sprinkle lasagna with ½ cup cheese. Cover until cheese has melted, about 10 minutes.

Pocket Full of Love

boo hoo! A while ago I mentioned I was entrying a TAC demo contest and my entry didn't win but I wanted to share it with you all the same! Basically I do like it but in hindsight, as I re-examine it for what went "wrong", I see that I should have tied more ribbon to the two side tags and really gone crazy with flowers on that front purple piece. I'm a minimalist and have a hard time really decking things out! :) A tragic flaw! tee hee... Still I hope you enjoy the idea of my card.

For my card pocket and tags, I used Miss Moxie patterned paper and matching cardstock, the new Showers of Love stamp set from Serendipity, and ribbon, hardware, clips and scrappers floss all from The Angel Company!

CPS104

I've really enjoyed the sketches over on the Card Positioning Blog (CPS) and finally decided to "officially" play along! Nothing like a sketch to jump start your card making. :)

For this card I used Deco Designs and some words from TAC...and the paper is from our Angelee Soar With it Collection, both the patterned and matching cardstock. It was easy to match my palette ink with it (Violette) and the eyelets are from the Amelia package of hardware. I love how I can mix and match collections within TAC.

XOXO

During my last post, I alluded to a card I was working on...normally I make a card in bits and pieces...a little here and there, as I find a few minutes to steal away. Finally it's done and I love this card!

Here is the card (http://comestampwithme.blogspot.com/2007/06/tac-cards.html) that got the idea intially swirling in my head and I couldn't wait to get started.





This is a retired stamp from The Angel Company (colored in with BIC markers) but the circle and XOXO are from current sets! I also used some DCWV cardstock, lime green scrappers floss and a fun button. I used the word window punch from SU. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Blogging Friends

Last week I mentioned Silke's blog in Germany and this week I have several more friends' blogs to share!

Thanks to Sandra for giving me a blog award!! Sandra is from Holland and has done the most beautiful projects with some of TAC's papers {here} and this is just one of her lovely cards - that I was lucky enough to receive! Thanks Sannie!



Next...in Australia, Laura has posted some really, really creative TAC cards. Be sure to check out her blog because she has some beautiful scrapbook pages as well as many other neat cards from a variety of companies.

Nancy in Canada caused quite a stir with the Little Penguin set back in 2007. Thanks Nancy! This year she's posted some new cards and has them labeled as TAC...they are just gorgeous!

Be sure to drop me a line when you post a TAC card on your blog...I love to feature them and it's so fun to share new ideas. Hope everyone's week is going well so far.

PS. I'm just finishing up a card today and hopefully we have sun tomorrow so I can take a picture (ice rain for most the day today - ugh!). This hardly ever happens to me, but I had an idea for a card and couldn't wait to make it...normally I just shuffle through my stamps and see what "grabs" me!

A Special Card

Last week I received an email from my MOM's Bible Study Group at church...

Cassidy has been battling cancer almost from birth.

Now the last tests have shown that she has new tumors that are inoperable and her body has suffered so much damage from her treatments that they can't do any more. It is so heartbreaking to think that we are going to lose her after all she has been through.

She will be celebrating her 4th birthday on the 17th of this month. Two years ago many of you sent cards to her and passed her address on to friends and family. She received over 150 cards. I am asking not only for your prayers for her and her family but if you could send her a card, I know that is something she would enjoy.

Her address is Cassidy Schuttinga, 205 Rossburg Dr., Calera, AL 35040

So here is my card for little Cassidy.



For this card I used the retired "Hello Ewe" set from The Angel Company plus cardstock from Lilly Anna. If you like this little lamb, I noticed that it's very similiar to this month's Vintage stamp set offering from TAC!

Happy Valentine's Day

Just wanted to share the Valentine I made for my hubby...I used a retired Gift With Purchase stamp (heart - did you know that you get a free stamp from TAC with every $30 you spend?!? But, you must email me your order!) and the word "forever" from the very, very popular set, Love and Laughter. It's definately a must have set!! My ribbon comes from, of course, Heidi's store: Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts!

Do you ever find yourself racing out to the supermarket for something that you don't necessarily need for the house, but you saw someone use on a really great card? When I saw Mel Stampz's tutorial for using wax paper and the cuttlebug, I just had to get my hands on some and try it out...Check out her work!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Add a little sparkle!

My niece will be celebrating her 5th birthday next week and so I thought this would be a cheery and bright birthday card. I used the retired Surf Shoppe paper pack from TAC - if you've never tried our 8 x 8 paper pads, they really are a great value. Plus, I can help you match them up with solid cardstock - no problem!! Here I used some of our DCWV and Bazzill cardstock packages. To make it extra special, I added some black and icicle stickles to really make the card sparkle.

I wanted to share a wonderful blog with you...Silke lives in Germany and has been making the most incredible cards with some stamps from The Angel Company. She's super talented so be sure to check out all of her cards!! http://silli-silli.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Angel%20Company

I look forward to sharing some other friends' blogs with you in the upcoming weeks - please let me know if you have posted any cards from TAC and I'd be thrilled to feature your blog!

I'm back!

It is with great embarrassment that I admit I was sucked into the Twilight series two Saturdays ago...thankfully I finished on Saturday; even though since then, I've read 264 pages online of Midnight Sun and re read some of my favorite scenes in Books 1 and 4. I hardly read these days and I really thought the premise of the book (ordinary girl falls in love with a dazzling vampire) was silly. But my 12 year old daughter has read the series twice and insisted I take it with me on my airplane trip...I was captivated almost immediately and since then, I raced through the pages of all four books, eager to see what would happen next! I didn't even sleep well at nights - it was that bad!!

I think I'm back to normal (tee hee) and it honestly did feel good to stamp again...so here's what I created yesterday and I hope you'll like it! I used the Catalynne paper pack (this month's give away prize from TAC - be sure to check out my sidebar for more info!) with our DCWV Pink #2 cardstock...and I used the stamps from Beautiful Day and Swirlies. Enjoy!

BLOG UPDATE SCHEDULE: I like to update every other day and hopefully will not disappear again for a week! Sorry about that. But it may be easier for you to either subscribe to my blog, sign up as a "follower", or use Google Reader (that's what I do to keep up with the 30 some blogs I follow!!) to get my blog updates so that you don't miss any great specials, but you also don't have to keep checking here to see what I am up to!

Serendipity is "live"!

If you don't have your copy of Serendipity yet, I just wanted to let you know the images are now online! Be sure to check out my website, http://chris.ismyangel.net for a view of all the wonderful new products!

If you prefer to have a copy to hold and thumb through...let me know! I just ordered 25 more copies. They are retailing for $2.95 each but I prefer to sell them at my cost plus shipping to you. Within the US the cost is running (I did round down, it's actually $3.68 total) $3.50 and international is $4.50.

I'm happy to take checks, Money Orders and paypal.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the two stamp specials that The Angel Company is revealing for February...they are in the right hand column!