Happy Memorial Day

First and foremost, thank you to all the veterans and men and women that are currently serving our country! I am honored to be the daughter of a Korean War veteran. Yup, that's my Pops in the photo below. Wasn't he handsome!?!?! He is 80 today and still a model veteran, helping and serving others. I am super proud of my Daddy!

I hope you all have a fabulous celebration planned for today! I know I do :) We are going to our friends house for a big ol' feast and swimming! I made Greek Pasta Salad complete with homemade potato salad! Lemon Bars. And Flamingo Buffalo Chicken Dip!!!

I even made the hostess a fun Backyard BBQ gift Basket (details on this in a later entry) complete with a tag book of great summer recipes I traded in a recent swap!

I also made cute little gift bags for all the kids, all 22 of them today!!!

Have a fantabulous day!
Rachel

Vintage Halloween Tags for Swap

I made this group of vintage Halloween tags for Emilie's swap on 2Peas. The only requirements were that their needed to be a lady on it and highly embellished and vintage of course. I truly had a blast making them and added myself to another group!I used a plain piece of card stock as an orange background, a palate, if you will! Then I layered the tag with a BINGO card I had from a vintage game set that my nephew bought me at a local antique shop. The orange circles are actual bingo markers with Stickles on them. Polka dot and ledger patterned paper, fuzzy black trim, ribbon, silver tinsel pipe cleaners, a vintage image of a lady dancing in a Halloween costume from the web, fonts, more Stickles and pom pom trim! I really, honestly had a blast creating this tag!

TFL!
Rachel

Pink Vintage Tags

I made this Vintage Lady tag for Emilie's Vintage Tag Swap on 2Peas. It was required that it was higher quality and chipboard and very embellished!!!I used an assortment of vintage flowers, crocheted flowers, vintage patterns, punched butterflies, vintage lace trim, beads, charms, patterned paper, ink, pop dots, vintage floral ribbon, velvet ribbon, lace paper, chipboard, beaded flowers and miniature doves! It kinda took a wedding theme, the lace paper looks like a trellis with the flowers and the tulle at the top looks like a wedding veil. TFL!
Rachel

One Love

I made this as a little gift for my (get ready for this) my nephews, girlfriend's sister! I have never met her as she lives across the country but I do chat with her on Facebook. In fact, her Etsy shop has been on the right side of my blog for months! She is a VERY talented artist and creates the most phenomenal watercolor paintings :) As a request she made with one of her doodles, I am sending her and her gorgeous little daughter a box of goodies.

Here is one of the items I am sending Kat... I knew I had to buy this "charm" because she always signs her posts ONE LOVE. And she is a rainbow lover just like me, so I decided to string up a beautiful assortment of rainbow colored glass beads!

I really have to add that in exchange for my gifties, she is sending me a watercolor! But in all honesty, I have been telling myself for several months that I really wanted to send Zoey a special little something!

TFL!
Rachel

Girly Birthday Gift Basket

Today is our little friend, Hannah's birthday party. She is 9. You can spell her name backwards the same way you do forwards!!!

I made a fun poodle birthday card with the new acrylic stamp I bought this week! (sorry that the picture is blurry!) I decoupaged her initial and made it pop with some fun ribbon and a wooden rainbow star! A girly girl can never have too many polka dots!!!I decided to go complete girly nuts with her Justice gift card presentation since I rarely get a chance to go girly! I decided to personalize a tote so she can keep all her hair doo-dads in it and filled it with fun trinkets. Gum, Silly Bandz, Japanese erasers, headbands, bracelets, a necklace, an initial "H" hook for her towels or robe, scratch and sniff stickers and a few Hello Kitty stationary items.

And here it is all wrapped up in its colorful glory! I love the pinwheel sticking out of the cellophane!!!

Rainbow-y Goodness!

If these three cards don't scream FUN... I don't know what does! I love the colors (rainbow... who wouldn't!?!?!) and I love the stamps, the Moxxie papers and the rub - ons and stickers!

tfl!
Rachel

Pot of Dirt {cake}

You get this ^^^

From this ^^^

Start out by making your pudding, I made 3 boxes of instant chocolate pudding. Then make your cupcakes, chocolate ones, as the mix box directs.

Pulsate your Oreos in the food processor, to look like dirt.

See... dirt!

Line a brand new, unused and CLEAN terracotta flower pot with Press and Seal, it sticks to the side and doesn't need to hang over the pot to secure itself. It works so well for this project! I also put a plastic lid on the bottom to secure the drainage hole.

Begin layering your cake, I cut up and made the chocolate cake my first layer.

Then I added a layer of pudding and WORMS!!! Repeat these 3 steps until the pot is full.

AH, we are in the home stretch!

Look at all the empty cup cake wrappers! I was good and only nibbled on one cake top!

Add the Oreo crumbs and your gummy worms and frogs to complete the Pot of Dirt!!!

I bought a brand new shovel for only $.50, to use only for my Pot of Dirt cakes in the future! I have a feeling this cake will be making an appearance at the next birthday party!

I made a few little labels for the cake, just so the parents at my 4yr olds pre-school graduation would know, this really was EDIBLE!!!!

I think the addition of gummy frogs was a nice touch with the worms!!!

TFL!
Rachel

Blueberry Farm Lay Out

Yes, ladies and gentleman (singular ...as I know my husband must be the only man that reads my blog!!! Hi honey!!!) ~ I actually made a 12x12 layout this weekend! I haven't done any traditional scrapbooking in weeks! Perhaps it has been all the recipe swaps I have hosted and spots I filled or the cards that I found more interesting to create or gift baskets that needed personalized tags or Teacher Appreciation Week and Secretaries Day presents that needed to be made, I am not sure. But I can tell you many things have hindered my will and desire to create scrapbook pages. Point being, I did one! And I really, really like it!!!!

~TFL!
Rachel

Buttermilk Garlic Dressing!

A title that ends in an exclamation mark... need I say more!

My hubsters and I went out to GrillSmith Saturday night with another couple and my friend ordered the wedge salad. It looked scrumptious but yet, I don't like blue cheese so I would never order it. I just couldn't get that salad out of my head (odd, I know!). So when I went grocery shopping Sunday, I purchased a head of iceberg lettuce and buttermilk. Surely I would need buttermilk to make my own creamy salad dressing, right. All I needed to do was find a creamy salad dressing recipe that called for ingredients I already had. I know, little backwards, most people look up a recipe then shop for it, not me! I knew I want something creamy and garlicky so I Googled those words, as well as buttermilk, and found this....I stumbled upon a version of Houston's 'famous' salad dressing. I adapted it to what I had on hand which was just a fresh jar of mayo and buttermilk. I left out the salt and sour cream and you couldn't even tell. I did increase the amount of garlic to 4 times the amount the original recipe called for! OMG- delicious is an understatement!!!

Warm Summer Greetings!

I think you all know I have a fetish for re-decorating the house to suit every holiday and season. It's my warm welcome to a new start

Summer is no exception. Last week I made a soothing summer banner to hang in our foyer. I used the same tones as the table scape to match the colors in the entry. Last night I made a few fun little tags, something to get my creative juices flowing.

Until tomorrow~
Rachel

Gettin' ready for Summer!

I have had these Inkadoo stamps forever and never really got into stamping until this weekend. In fact, I have a huge supply of acrylic stamps that are still in their original packaging, untouched.

I really enjoyed stamping and cutting and glazing!

Omg, these little surfer penguins are so darn cute.... they make the perfect summer send off card!

The patterned papers are from my stash of Moxxie (Chillin' Out).