WCMD Cards to share

Happy Monday!

I know I've been missing for a while.  I recently felt like I hit a wall with my crafting and decided I just needed a break for a while.  I have a hard time letting things go, but sometimes I need to get back to the necessities and just enjoy life with my family.  Now I'm feeling the desire to get back at it and start creating some little things for Thanksgiving and also some gifts for Christmas.  I hope this next month and a half doesn't fly by too fast!

Today I have a couple of cards that I made for the World Card Making Day contest at Papercrafts Magazine.  They weren't winners there, but I liked them! 

These were both made with Cosmo Cricket's Togetherness line.  I love the happy colors and patterns in this line!

Hope you have a wonderful week!

-Rachel-

Tea Mix - Quick Gift Idea

Hello! 
I have just a few minutes to spare, so I thought I'd share with you a quick and simple gift idea.  Don't we all love and need quick and simple gifts to have around?  This is a little jar filled with Friendship Tea Mix.  With a few minutes and some cute paper, the jar is ready to give away. 

Here's the recipe for the tea mix if you're interested.  We call it Friendship Tea, but it's also known as Russian Tea.

Friendship Tea Mix

1 + 1/3 c. TANG (orange flavored drink mix)

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. instant tea (unsweetened 100% tea)

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

Mix it all together and divide up into jars.  Makes 2 cups total mix. Directions for making tea:  Stir about 1 Tbl. mix into a cup of hot water.  Enjoy!

God Bless you today!!

-Rachel-

Coordinating Set of Notecards

Hello!
Hope you've been enjoying your weekend.  The kids (and I) have had off since Thursday, so it's been a nice break for all of us.  We celebrated our oldest daughter's birthday on Thursday with a full day of shopping, so I was thankful for a few extra days to recover!  We've been having such beautiful fall weather here, and I've been trying to enjoy and savor that as much as I can.  My youngest daughter keeps saying "I can't wait for winter", because she LOVES playing in the snow, but I can definitely wait a while for that.  Last year we did get snow in October (very depressing!) but at least we don't have any of that in sight. 

I do have some cards to share with you here today. I made this simple set of notecards that I think would make a nice gift.  I'm finding out that it's so much simpler and time-efficient to buy coordinating paper and make several cards at one time.  I have some extra little plastic cases from Stampin' Up stamp sets, so I covered one of those to put the cards into.  (Actually I decided that first, so I knew what size cards I should go with.  For once, I was happy I had planned ahead!)

I think I bought the patterned paper at Michael's but I'm not sure of the name. (sorry)  The rub-ons were from Stampin' Up - I have loved that set and wish I had more of them!

Thanks so much for visiting!  Enjoy your day!  

-Rachel-

I'd love your help!!

OK, so I wish I had a ton of things to show you today, but instead I'm going to ask (aka beg) you to help me out.  As you know I LOVE Cosmo Cricket, and I just saw on their blog today that they're offering a one-month spot on their design team for November.  The catch is, they want people to nominate others, and the 5 with the most nominations will go in the hat for the one spot.  I would so appreciate it if you would go to this link, and post a comment nominating me - Rachel Schumacher.  I would be forever grateful!!  (I think you have through the weekend to do it.) 

Thank you!  I have a big (painful) birthday coming up in 2 weeks, and this would be the coolest birthday present!

I promise I'll have cards to share next time!!
-Rachel-

Tis the Season?

Yes, I know it's only the beginning of October, but you can never start too early on Christmas planning!  Actually this all came about because of the challenges going on at Cath's Moxie Fab World blog.  A couple of weeks ago they were celebrating their new issue "Holiday Cards and More", and then designed some challenges to go along with it.  I'll admit to you that I don't make my own Christmas cards.  It's the time of year that I need to go simpler and quicker.  But I do LOVE making cute little gifts, especially fun ways to give away treats at Christmastime.  I'll also admit that I save a LOT of different items throughout the year, thinking that some day it will be perfect for making it into something else.  So for the Season's Giftings Challenge, I made a little treat container that would be perfect for the neighbor, teacher, or friend.

It started out like this:

And this is what I turned it into.   

The house paper is from Fancy Pants, the alpha stickers are from Cosmo Cricket.  I printed out the house sentiment from my computer and die cut it with my cuttlebug. 

So next time you're about to toss that empty container, think first about what you could make it into.  I think anyone would be happy to receive some treats in just about anything!

Have a great week!

-Rachel-

A Classy Wedding Card

Hello and Happy Wednesday to you!

The Tea Party birthday party we had last Saturday went great.  It was a lot of fun to decorate and the kids had a really fun time together.  They made some necklaces from Shrinky Dinks in the shape of tea cups and we played a few games - Bingo (I made the cards with related pictures and the names of all the girls), pass the hot tea cup, and drop the marshmallows into the cup.  The table was decorated with lots of little tea sets that we had and the girls had different fancy tea cups for their pink lemonade.  I made tea cup cakes from cupcakes for each girl - it was a little difficult but the turned out ok.  All in all a very fun day - and the most important thing was that my daughter loved it.

I still feel like I'm getting things back in order from that, and we also have 3 nights of football/volleyball games this week.  So I'm still craving that crafting time I so desparately want to enjoy.  Hopefully this weekend!!  I do have one card to share with you.  I started making this one for a recent Play Date Challenge, but instead decided to submit it for a magazine call.  Well, it didn't get picked up so now I will just share it here.  I love these colors together for a wedding card.

It's hard to see in the photo, but the circles were all embossed with my cuttlebug, and then are all adhered with foam tape for some added dimension.

I hope to be back here soon with some new things.  I have a few challenges I really want to enter, so that is my goal for the weekend. 

Enjoy your day!

-Rachel-

Scrapfest Recap

Hi friends!

How can it be Wednesday already?  It seems like it was just Saturday night and I was getting home from Scrapfest.  Speaking of that, my sister and I had a blast there on Saturday.  This was our first time going, so we really didn't know what to expect.  There was definitely a ton of people there, but it was fun chatting with them as we waited in lines together.  I got so many new ideas and we both felt like our brains were in overload with all that we saw.  Of course I bought some new products, too, and I'm dying to sit down and create something.  But right now I'm in the middle of planning my daughter's Tea Party birthday party here on Saturday.  So my crafting will probably be on hold till after that.

One of my thrills at Scrapfest was meeting the owners of Cosmo Cricket - one of my favorite paper lines!   I've followed their blog for probably 2 years now, and it's one of the most entertaining ones out there.  Do you remember when I told you I won a bunch of their fabric a few weeks ago?  Well, last week I scrambled to make something out of it, so I would have something fun to show them.  I managed to make this bag:

And here's a picture of me with Julie Comstock - she had an adorable apron made from this same line of fabric.

And since I was so excited to meet her, I even made her an artist trading card to trade with her.  Here it is:

I haven't taken a picture of the one that she let me pick out yet.  All in all, it was a super fun day.  We've decided to make this into an annual sister tradition.

Have a great day!

-Rachel-