Your Next Stamp Sketch Challenge

Summer is winding down, at least vacation time and I was able to wrap up my time away with friends at my favorite trailer resort Happy Hills. All of my favorite things rolled into a few days, golfing, swimming, golf cart riding, game playing, eating, scrapping and most of all laughing. We managed to squeeze in two challenges. Making two cards doesn't sound that ambitious but we were busy gals.

We both decided to play along with Your Next Stamp Challenge 96 since we do love us a good stamp challenge and we enjoy supporting a local Canadian company. Here's my card....

Here's the Sketch....

I know, I know. I followed it pretty closely but I like how it turned out. I used transparent dew drops for the bubbles and Wink of Stellad the little Fella although its hard to see. Happy to get another challenge done for the busy month of August.

Just Us Girls Colour Challenge

I was asked to make some bee themed cards (imagine that?). If you don't know, the theme of the last fundraiser was bees but of course, I had to ask Keri to borrow a new stamp from Stampin Up that she had that I have never used.
It fit right in with the Just Us Girls Colour Challenge this week, Light Green, Yellow and Aqua. Here's my card:

The Thanks looks yellow but its really light green. I used Copic markers and there is Wink of Stella on the bee wings and glossy accents on his eyeballs.

July Swap card

Note to self: Don't leave too long a time between exchanging cards and posting them. You tend to forget what the cards were.

This month I was working on sympathy cards and Keri liked what I was doing so she requested that that be my swap card. I was lucky enough to get a great deal on this Altenew stamp set through a pre- garage sale sale. I just love the Iris motif and I would never have been able to purchase them at full price. So I've tried to get my money's worth and have made 20 cards so far. I loved them in purple and I loved them in yellow.

I also used the background die from Lawn Fawn for the first time. It was pricey too but I think I will find lots of uses for it. The negative is that you have to poke out the tiny holes but I was able to pass the time just fine doing that and catching up on Big Brother.

Keri used this charming set from Newton's Nook called Holding Happiness. Balloons are perfect for the Happy Birthday theme...

How cute is that?

I sent out 5 cards yesterday. I love it when I get to share some of my homemade love.

Ice Cream Card

A friend of mine asked me if I had an ice cream themed card and while I didn't at the time, I could quickly whip one up using one of my favourite MFT Blueprints..

Blueprints 31 takes the guesswork out of making a card in a hurry.
Just recently the ice cream/sweet set from Sunny Stamp Studios had come into my possession and I was all set. This week the challenge at Little Red Wagon is ice cream. How timely!

I put some Wink of Stella on the ice cream just to give it a bit of a sheen. And challenge complete!

Not your Average Zucchini Bread

As they say in Newfoundland..."make sure your car doors are locked at night" - its zucchini season. It's always nice to have a zucchini or two to give away or to cook with. For those of you that don't know, I have a little community garden at my local elementary school since I have so much shade at my house. It's really fun to walk by everyday and check the progress. Finally we are getting some much needed rain and I'm happy to report that the zucchini count is at 12!

So I went searching for some recipes to use them up and this one is a keeper... You'll have to pardon the poor photo. I was lucky to have one slice left to photograph. I made one large loaf and 3 mini loaves from this recipe or you could make 2 large loaves.

Carrot Apple Zucchini Bread
1 cup butter (melted)
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 Tbsp vanilla
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of ground nutmeg
2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup shredded zucchini
1 cup diced apple (I shredded these also)
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 350F
Grease and flour 2 large loaf pans.

Place zucchini in kitchen towel and squeeze out moisture.
Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
Mix together butter and sugar.
Add eggs, orange juice and vanilla
Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients and add shredded carrots, zucchini, apples and pecans.
Pour into prepared pans.
Bake until golden brown, about 55 to 60 minutes.

NOTE- I used one small zucchini to make this recipe. Next time, I might try doubling the zucchini and halving the carrot.

Butter Ridge Cookies

Ignore the Christmas holly on the plate, I really DID just make these cookies, for the first time.
This looked like an old Cafeteria ladies recipe and we all know those are the best recipes so I thought I would try it as an accompaniment for fresh strawberries. They are really buttery and not too sweet and the ridges are kind of fun.

Butter Ridge Cookies
1 1/2 cups of butter, room temperature (yep, you read that right, that's a lot of butter)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla, salt and flour.
Roll into balls then use your 3 middle fingers to gently press ridges into the cookie.
Bake at 350F for 9-11 minutes or just until the edges are golden brown.
Very rich and satisfying.

Celebrate Canada!

Since we just recently celebrated Canada Day, when I spotted the challenge at Paper Players, I knew I had to play along. Especially since they are offering such great prizes. The Challenge is to "celebrate".  I had some maple leaf paper in my stash in the tradional red and white so it made it really easy to come up with an idea.

I used a sketch from My Favourite Things (MFTWSC 183)

Thanks to The Best Things in Life are Pink for the inspiration.

I put a smaller maple leaf on the inside of the card and I computer generated the word Canada since I didn't own any stamps of that sort. I'm excited to be linking up with a challenge. It's been awhile, I hope I remember how to do it.