Challenge #195 - Snow Is Coming

Happy Tuesday, all.  After our big snow storm last week, we have had three days of rain - can you believe it?  Three quarters of our snow is gone - oops, just looked out and it is snowing again.  Our weather is confused.
This week, I have a photo of ice on our pine tree - very representative of our weather.

To me, this looks like a whale swimming in the ocean.  What do you see?

Now on to business....There is no top 3 from challenge #193.  There were only three entries so they are all winners in my book.  This is a busy time of year and I often find that our followers are too busy to craft.  Thanks to the three ladies who took the time to enter - your cards are beautiful.

This week, our sketch is yet another basic one.

Our theme (use it or not) is Snow is Coming.

And here are the cards from the team:

Lynda

Mary Jo

Sarah C.

Barb

Claire

Hillary

Beautiful cards, ladies.  Once again you have out done yourselves  and I am sure you have inspired our followers.  I am anxious to see what everyone creates.

Have a great week, all!

Challenge #194- Twice Is Nice

Good snowy morning to just about everyone in North America and good day to the rest of the world as well.  We are experiencing an amazing amount of early snow here with no end in site.  Just to give you an idea, here is what it looked like a week ago.

And we have lots more snow than that now!

Enough of that, let's get to our top 3 from Challenge #192:

Cindy

Jan

Tricia

Congrats!  Please feel free to post our badge on your blogs.  Great cards by all our entrants and the decisions were hard.

Now for this week's sketch:

Our theme: Twice Is Nice (use it or not)

And the beautiful cards from our team:

Claire

Crystal

Kathy

Kaylin

Nicole

Sara H.

Shell

Wow! ladies, your cards are nothing short of spectacular this week.  Each and every challenge, I thank my lucky stars that I have the best design team on the web.  I know you will inspire our followers to create some beautiful cards of their own and I cannot wait to see them.

Everyone, have a great week!

Challenge #193 - Respect

Good morning and happy winter-come-early.  We have a few inches of snow here so it seems winter is now officially here.  I do not mind the snow - in fact I like it - but I do NOT like sub zero weather which I am sure is on its way.  After all, where there is snow there is cold.

Did anyone make those yummy treats from last week?  You should, they are really good!

Now for our top three from challenge #191.  Great cards, all.

BK

Donna

Hellie

Thanks to all who participated and congratulations to you three for making our list.  Please feel free to post our badge on your blogs.

For our sketch and theme this week, I chose RESPECT.  It is Remembrance Day here in Canada and Veteran's Day in the U.S. so it seemed a great theme to me.  But there are all forms and illustrations of the word.  Here is our sketch:

And some very respectful cards from the team:

Mary Jo

(respect for our heroes)

Barb

(respect for friendship)

Claire

(respect for friendship)

Hillary

(respect for parenthood)

Lynda

(respect by saying thanks)

So many things to respect in our lives and so many ways to respect them.  Our designers have created beautiful cards all so unique and all so appropriate for our theme.  Thank you, ladies!  Now it is your turn.  Remember you do not have to follow our theme as long as we can see the sketch (or its inspiration) somewhere in your card.  Hoping you enjoy your week!

Sweet Tooth

Good morning!  I apologize but I forgot to put up the two sweets recipes I promised on Wednesday, so here they are:

Jan Del Bone's Homemade Caramels

1 cup butter

2 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup light corn syrup

1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

Optional kosher salt

In large saucepan, melt butter.  Add brown sugar, and salt and mix well.  Stir in corn syrup, gradually add milk, stirring constantly.  Cook and stir over medium heat until it reaches 245 on candy thermometer, it takes about 12-15 minutes. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and pour into greased 9x13 pan.  Let cool, add a sprinkle of kosher salt to the top for an extra treat.  Cut into 48 pieces.  Optional: wrap in candy or waxed paper.

This is really really easy, and makes a great gift.  If you leave out the kosher salt you will have missed out on the best part !

Brenda Kroeker's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup soft margarine

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup cocoa

1 tsp b. soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup oatmeal

1 cup choc. chips

Mix first 4 ingredients, stir in remaining ingredients. Drop by spoonful onto cookie sheet. Bake @ 350 Fahrenheit for 8 minutes.Do not overbake.

Now, I have to tell you, both recipes are DELICIOUS!  My grandson's class had a bake sale the other day so I made both of them.  And I had to taste both before sending them to school - LOL.  They were yummy and each and every item sold.  I think you all should give them a try.

Thank you ladies!!!!!

Challenge #192 - Warm and Fuzzy

Hi and happy Tuesday!  I would like to say "thanks" to everyone who participated in our October event.  It was a lot of fun for me - and I hope - for you.  But now November is here and the holidays and cold weather are right around the corner.  And that means crafting. Our challenges are the perfect medium for doing your holiday cards so I am sure I will see many winter and holiday related cards on the site for the next little while.  I cannot wait.  So now, down to business (and fun).
First, here are our top 3 for challenge #190:

Susan

LeAnne 

Kathy

Very cool "out of the ordinary" Halloween projects, ladies.  Congrats to you and thank you to all our participants -I hope you had fun.

Before I get to this week's sketch, I just wanted to let you know that we ended up getting two recipes for our "sweets" cookbook - not much of a cookbook, I am afraid.  I will post those recipes on this site tomorrow in a separate post.

And now, our sketch.  The theme "Warm and Fuzzy" is completely optional.

And here are the samples from our team:

Shell

Crystal

Kathy

Kaylin

Nicole

Sara H.

Beautiful, ladies!  I can see lots of holiday cards in the works.  Thank you for your inspiration.

And thanks so much to all of our followers who visit our site and take part in our challenges each week.

Happy crafting!