Country Blessing Challenge

Well I started the splitcoast sketch challenges a couple weeks ago. I really like having the idea to go by. Some of the sketches are more challenging then others. This weeks was very nice, but I was having an extremely hard time coming up with something. Until I went to my mailbox yesterday that is!

I received a wonderful card from my Secret Sister and in it were some skeleton leaves. They are very pretty, most are coppery looking. So, as I was walking in from the mailbox it came to me to try to incorporate one of the leaves with the new Country blessings stamp set and do the challenge.

Well, I tried and tried to make that leaf work. It didn't matter how I placed it or what I placed it on, it just was not working. I started to get discouraged because I thought it was such a great idea! Then finally I was able to pull this out of it! I am very pleased with my results, especially since I was beginning to think it was all a waste of time!

Scrapbook recipe swap

I told myself I wasn't going to get into any more swaps but I came upon this one a while back and just could not say no. Cheesecake - who can resist it? And it is a desert that most of my family loves! So I thought getting a bunch of cheesecake recipes sounded like an awesome idea.

I have a favorite recipe that is so easy and so good. I love to make this when we go to a picnic or family gathering of some kind. And everyone always raves over it.

It is called Creamy Lemon Cheesecake, but it got a little pet name at my house. My husband always gave me a hard time when I made it because no matter what I did it always got this huge crack down the middle of it when it cooled. I had followed the advice of my mom and others and tried many things all to no avail. It still got the crack every time! I tried to cook it at a lower temperature and a little longer along with other suggestions. Still a huge crack! So he decided to start calling it my Fault cake, because he said it kind of looked like the San Andreas fault line!

So now it is known as the "California Fault Cake" in my house. Crack or no crack it is still yummy!

Any one out there an expert baker that knows what needs to be changed to lose the crack?

Wintry snow scrapbook page

This is my other scrapbooking attempt for my party. I made a 6x6 page, but to me the chief complaint is that you can't get many pictures on that size page. So, this has tags for inserts into the pocket. Each tag has a different picture on it and you can add as many tags to the page as you would like!

I used the Spot On Jumbo wheel in Bashful blue on the lower section and filled some of the circles with the stamps from Snow Flurries in Buckaroo blue. I love the way this looks! And the party goers were excited with the way this looks! I then put Snowflakes on the back portion of the page in Bashful blue. The page itself is Bashful blue, the tags are Night of Navy. I am pleased with the look of this!

Well, scrapbooking is not the easiest thing for me to do. I do like scrapbooking but always have such a hard time with it. Haven't really figured out why, maybe because I over analyze the whole thing.

Anyway, I have a party to do a demonstration for tomorrow. My hostess did not want to do the normal cards, she really wanted to focus on scrapbooking because that is mostly what her friends like to do. So it was time to conquer my fears of scrapbooking! I decided to kill two birds with one stone so to speak! Scrapbook some of the many photos that I need to do and come up with a few pages for the party!

Christmas always seems to generate a ton of pictures in our house so that is what I tackled!

Ok, so finally I am doing the challenges on Splitcoast. I love the layout sketch challenges, they really get the mind thinking! And everyone posts such beautiful samples to look at. Here is my card from this weeks challenge. As soon as I saw the sketch, I knew this set would be perfect for it!

Well, I decided to jump on the band wagon before I got left behind! It looked like the wagon was fixin' to pull out on me.

So, here it is, my own little blog!

I really can't believe that I did this. I told myself I wasn't gonna get sucked into this one. But, guess what! It happened, here I am!