Fruit Theme

As I said in my previous post, I made 4 themes of greeting cards for a recent boutique. Here is one of them, the Fruit Theme. I sell these in a pack of 8 with envelopes, housed in a clear plastic box. If you are interested, please contact me at ediving@hotmail.com. I am also willing to sell them individually too. All die cuts are given a 3-d look using pop dots.

The Apple. Red card base, with white cardstock inside to write on. I embossed the top part to look like leaves, put stickles on the seeds and stamped it with Apple of My Eye.

The Pear. Dark green card base, with white cardstock inside. Embossed with pears, strip of brown cardstock with ivory ribbon and stamp says What A Pear!

Strawberry. Green cardstock, topped with a silky smooth summer print paper. Inside of the card, it is stamped with You're Berry Special.

Grapes. Plain white cardstock, with 2 layers for the grapes. Green paper with white polka dots and purple ribbon. Stamp says Have a Grape Day!

Watermelon. This card screams Summer. Green cardstock, red/white plaid top, ivory bottom and a red/white stitched ribbon. Stamp says You're One, in a Melon.

Cherry. Red cardstock. Black cardstock embossed with cherries. Heart on cherry is covered in stickles. Stamp says Life is Like a Bowl of Cherries.

Peach. Rustic orange cardstock. Green base and a strip of printed rustic orange. Stamp says You're a Peach!

Lemonade. Yellow cardstock card. Light blue base with a summer plaid bottom. The pitcher is made using velum, lemonade is a yellow/white print paper and lemons are two shades of yellow. Stamp says When Life Hands You Lemons...
The detail on each card is amazing. The pictures just don't do them justice, but trust me when I say you won't find cuter cards in the store and you can't beat homemade products.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a boutique. I was one of 12 vendors selling various products. I sold my greeting cards (4 themes), Reindeer art and Santa ornaments. I will post close up pictures of all these items in different posts, but for now I wanted to share my table with you.
Each box contained 8 cards/8 envelopes. I sold a Fruit theme, Animal theme, Girly Girl theme and a Bird theme.
A couple of cards out of the box displayed in a flowerpot.
If you are interested in purchasing any of these cards, please leave me a message on here or email me at ediving@hotmail.com

Oreo Bats

Unfortunately, this is a horrible picture....sooo sorry. I got this idea from bestbites.com, so if want to see the directions or a good picture, check them out. My kids went to a party on halloween morning and I thought these would be cute to bring. The kids loved them! It is just an oreo cookie dipped in chocolate and then bat wings (cut out on my Silhouette) inserted in the sides. The ghost container I got out of the dollar section at Target and I inserted a floral foam inside to hold the bats.

Ice Cream Cone Cake Pops

My 4 year old recently had a birthday party and she decided that she would like an ice cream social theme. The main focus for desert was going to be the ice cream bar, but I did want to to have some cake too. The perfect and easy way to incorporate cake into the theme was by having ice cream cake pops! I couldn't find any small cones, so I had to cut off the tops to make them the right size. I wanted to do them in sherbet colors, but my 4 year old was adamant that they all be blue. lol The perfect thing about ice cream pops, is that you don't have to worry about being perfect, because the drips end up looking like the ice cream is melting.

For the holder, I used floral foam that I wrapped in paper and then used a screw driver to make the holes for the cones to fit into.

I made cake balls out of the extra batter.


The ice cream bar with the cake pops in the background. We had 3 ice cream flavors for the guest to choose from.

I Scream, You Scream...

Here is a sneak peak at what Elsie's party is about. I love how the ice cream sundae stands alone on the white card stock and I really think the swiss dots embossing really adds to it, without taking anything away. The die cut made up with 6 layers, which is a lot for me, but it was actually a very easy design to put together. I pop-dotted the sundae, but glued the cherry stem down to the paper. I like how it really gave it a 3D look.

Engaged!

I attended an engagement party (my first!) a couple of weeks ago and made this simple card for the couple. The couple was cut out with a black sheet of paper into a silhouette, no layers! The white card stock was also cut out on my silhouette machine and then I ran it thru my cuttlebug in the swiss dots embossing card. The background paper is just some left over scrap paper I had. I really wanted to bling up the diamond with a rhinestone, but didn't have any, so I just used some crystal stickles and it turned out perfectly!

My Garden

So I decided to build an above ground garden box and grow my own garden this year for the first time. Turns out that gardening is much harder than I had thought. I guess the biggest frustration are the bugs! As you can see by the tomatoes below, the bugs seem to enjoy eating them long before they are to turn red. I need to research how to keep them off organically. Another problem is my tomatoes were splitting. I learned that is because I was giving them too much water, causing them to grow too fast.

But I have gotten some good produce from my garden. Some have been Cilantro, used on our carne asada's, lettuce, and a bell pepper used in homemade salsa.

Another is Basil. I have a lot of basil!
I also had some pine nuts in my fridge that needed to be used up. So I toasted them in the oven and
then put the nuts, basil, olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese into a food processor and made Pesto! The kids and I enjoyed it spread on hoagie rolls, topped with feta and broiled. I also grilled some chicken and spread it on top and then added some to linguine. Such yummy meals!

Another thing that did grow well were carrots. We ate them raw and with a roast.

Then after we had had our fill, I peeled and cut up the rest and boiled them till soft. I really need to invest in a steamer. Then put them into the food processor with a few tablespoons of the water they cooked in.

and pulsed away until they were pureed.

Next I added them to an ice cube tray to freeze. Once frozen, I popped them out and put them into a freezer bag. Whenever I make ground beef, macaroni-n-cheese or tomato sauce, I can add a few squares of carrots for an extra (hidden) veggie.