Boy Happy Birthday Card

My sweet Nephew Trey resently celebrated his 11th birthday and of course the gift of choice at that age is money. So I really wanted to create a special card for him. You don't see many masculine cards, so I thouoght I would share it with you today.

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima: Youth Collection, Tim Holtz: Lost & Found Salvage Tickets, Regal Crest Die, Ticket Die, Baroque Die, Walnut Stain, Music embossing folder. Other: Twine, Greeting Farm - Autumn Ian, Unity Stamp: Ticket, Ribbon, and Copic Markers.

The base of my card was black cardstock, and I embosed a music pattern onto kraft paper. I have a 6x6 paper pad for the Prima Youth Collection paper that made a perfect background for this card.

Then I colored Mr. Ian to look like my nephew, and layered several of Tim Holtz's die cuts around the image to give it some interest. The Bingo Card is actually a sticker from the Tim's Salvage stickers that I placed onto a piece of cardstock and distressed the edges.

When Trey openned the card and the money fell out - he yelled "BINGO".

Thanks for stopping in today,

Heidi Swapp is in the House!

It is so exciting to have so many new arrivals showing up this week's featured product lines are Heidi Swapp's No Limits, Sugar Chic, and Memory Keepers. These lines are typical Heidi Swapp vibrant, fun, and playful.

Trimmings:
I have loved the idea of these since the announcement was made. These trimming are made of plastic and you use your heat tool to scruch them up. Super fun and playful on any of your altered objects, covered minis, or layouts. Flamingo has 2 styles to chose from.

No Limits:
I love the vibrant fun colors, and can't wait to play with them. The No limits line is perfect for boys, vacations and journals. The possibilities really have "No Limits".





Sugar Chic
Is soooo teen and girlly,

I know I know you have to cut out food to keep up with all of this season's releases. But think about it this way - The Flamingo Scraps Diet Plan leaves you happy and fulfilled like no other!

Oh and while shopping for these awesome new arrivals - check out the rock bottom sale prices on several of your classic favorites like Ranger, Tim Holtz, Tattered Angels, and Prima.

Thanks for stopping in today.

Spirelli

As I mentioned in my last post, I am celebrating my 40th birthday by trying 40 Things during my 40th Year.  Number 8 on my list was to try spirelli.  Spirelli is a form of string art.  I first learned about spirelli around 15 years ago.  A former coworker always taught her 6th grade students to make beautiful projects with string.  Teacher etiquette says that you do not learn about a fabulous craft from a coworker and teach it to your students who are one year younger than her students, so I filed her instructions away in my "Craft Ideas" folder.  All these years later, I still had never tried it.  Until now!

Spirelli was so fun and easy!  I took four of my finished designs and dug through my collection of Flamingo Scraps embellishments to dress up the centers.  I chose 4 Prima products: e line pearls, 'Sultan Gem Orange' flower centers, Say it in Studs, and Just Corina rub-ons.

Here's what I made:

• A card:

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima flower center
Other: Bazzill cardstock, DMC floss, Offray ribbon, unknown patterned paper

• A gift bag:

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima rub-on
Other: Bazzill cardstock, Dream Street patterned paper, DMC floss

• A gift box:

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima pearl
Other: Bazzill cardstock, DMC floss

• A place card:

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima 'Say it in Studs'
Other: Bazzill cardstock, DMC floss, Making Memories stickers 

 I love the way different accents on each spirelli design create a totally different feel!  Spirelli is such a quick and easy craft and it adds such a nice touch to many papercraft projects.  I'll be using it often in the future.  I'm so glad I finally tried it after all these years!

New Arrivals - Cosmo Cricket

I know I'm getting the reputation of a giant ENABLER - but I'm so excited to share with you another awesome set of goodies recently added to the Flamingo Scraps store. This week's feature is Cosmo Cricket. Whether your passion is Journaling, scrapbooking, or card making all of these goodies will appeal to you.

My personal favorite is the new Washi Tape. Use these on your layouts to adhere your photos, or embellies. I love the patterns and the bright colors.

These Tiny Text stickers come in 4 themes, Art, Love, Dream and General words. They are adorable on Journals, Cards, and Scrapbooking pages, and the perfect size for minis.

New papers include the Evangeline Paper collection that can be purchased individually or by a set. The vibrant colors remind me of spring.

And of course these Evangeline chipboard stickers and vintage deck of tags are the perfect corridinating embellishments.

2wenty-thr3e 6x6 Mini Deck is so fun and festive with its hot pink & mustard color pallet. My favorite page is the vintage camera motif. This would be awesome for any of your celebration photos.
Back by popular demand - Glubers in assorted sizes. With Glubers hand made embellishments are a snap! I just love Glubers and they made my top 10 list in 2011.

Thanks for stopping in today!

Weekend Whimsy: 40 Things

Last Monday, I celebrated my 40th birthday.

My plan is to spend the next year (3/12/12 through 3/11/13) trying 40 new things.  My hope is that I will go places I've never been, eat things I've never tasted, cook things I've never made, and try crafts I've never attempted.

First, what I will not be doing: 

• I will not be skydiving or climbing a mountain.  No marathons or gross-out foods.  None of those are things I want to do, and the whole point is trying things that appeal to me.  Those don't.  
• I also won't be traveling great distances this year.  There are plenty of places in the world I've never seen that I'd like to visit, but with my husband Steve out of work and my son Trevor's school schedule, we have neither the time nor the money. 

So what will I be doing?  Most of my items are very simple and totally ordinary things that I have never done but have always wanted to try.  They are mostly inexpensive and are things that Steve and Trevor and/or friends can do with me.  You can see the beginnings of my list here.  

I wanted to start my 40 Things off with a bang, so on the morning of my birthday we headed out to accomplish the first item on the list.

1. Have a 40 Mile Adventure

This was a suggestion from my friend Michelle.  We got in the car, set the trip odometer to 0, and drove until we hit 40 miles.  Here's the scene, exactly 40 miles from our house:

FYI, I took this picture leaning forward from the back seat.  Steve was driving.  It looks like no one is driving, but you can see his shoulder in the corner of the picture and the top of his head in the rearview mirror.

We hit 40 miles just a few yards past the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.  I've been there several times and ate lunch there for my 31st birthday (YUM!), so while it is an awesome place, it didn't fit the criteria of somewhere I'd never been.  We continued on and stopped at the Petrified Forest in Calistoga, CA.  I've never been there, but have always wanted to.  Perfect!

 

Over 3 million years ago, a volcanic eruption 7 miles to the northeast leveled the trees here.  Water holding silicates from the ash seeped down into the gaps of the tree fibers.  Over time, each cell of wood was replaced by crystalized silica and the trees became stone.

This place was totally cool!  The 'trees' (now stone) were so beautiful and so interesting.  Steve got some great pictures, including this one:

 

During the rest of our 40 Mile Adventure, we did some geocaching, searched for an appropriate sign and took the "40" picture at the top of this post, browsed at Dean and Deluca, ate an amazing lunch (more on that later), played at a park, and visited an iconic statue I'd never seen up close (more on that later too).   

2. Eat at Thomas Keller's Famous Restaurant

OK, so the original goal on my list was to eat at The French Laundry, probably the most famous and well-respected restaurant in the United States.  We did not do that.  Steve had offered to take me there for my birthday (before we knew about the layoff), but I turned him down.  My Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is under control with medication, but I still have to be very cautious about what and how much I eat, or I end up with unbelievable pain that lasts for days.  The French Laundry has a prix fixe menu, so I wouldn't be able to order just a small amount of food.  Reservations need to be made far in advance, which doesn't work well for me anymore either.  I never know when flare-ups will come and I'll have no interest in eating.

So instead of The French Laundry, we ate at Thomas Keller's OTHER famous California restaurant, Bouchon.  I am so glad we did!  The food was amazing.  Since it was lunchtime, it was more affordable than dinner would have been.  

Our waiter made Trevor an off-the-menu sparkling lemonade concoction that was so delicious and refreshing!  I couldn't resist sharing.

 

For the three of us, we ordered one appetizer, one bowl of soup, and one entree.  It was the perfect amount of food.  Our appetizer was a potato gratin with bacon and reblochon cheese.  It was piping hot, gooey, rich, and amazing.

Our soup was cream of onion and mushroom.  It was perhaps the best soup I've ever had... and I don't even like mushrooms!

Our entree was a pan-seared flatiron steak with carmelized shallots and a herb butter.  Oh my gosh.  So good.

It wasn't The French Laundry, but now I can say I've eaten one of the best meals of my life at a Thomas Keller restaurant.

3. Try a Macaron 

Next door to Bouchon is Bouchon Bakery.  Among other things, they are famous for their macarons.  Amanda suggested I add "try a macaron" to my list of 40 things, so we picked up three macarons from the bakery.  We were way too full to eat another bite, so we got them to go.  We got chocolate, raspberry, and salted caramel.

 

We ate them a few hours later.  Yum!  They weren't quite what I was expecting, but they were definitely good.  We each tried all three.  My favorite was the raspberry, Steve's was the caramel, and Trevor's was the chocolate.  

4. Visit the Grapecrusher Statue

As we were driving, I mentioned how I've never stopped at the Grapecrusher Statue at the intersection of Hwy 29 and Hwy 128, despite driving past it hundreds of times.  So we stopped!  Now I can say that I've been there.  I learned that it was made by Gino Miles and erected in 1987.  It is dedicated to workers who labor in the vineyards.

 

It was larger than I thought!

 

5. Eat at an Afghan Restaurant

After our amazing lunch and macarons, I wasn't very hungry at dinnertime.  But we'd already made plans to accomplish another item on my list- eat at an Afghan restaurant.  I've read several books about Afghanistan in the past few years and realized I don't know as much about it as I should.  We have an Afghan restaurant in town that always seems to be bustling, so when I started brainstorming my list it was one of the first things I added.  

We met our friends Carl, Courteney and Kylinn at the restaurant.  My thought was that we'd order a few entrees and eat family style so that I could try as many different things as possible.  I didn't really know what to expect.  As it turns out, much of the food was familiar to me.  Some dishes were very similar to Indian food, while others had a lot in common with the Greek and Lebanese foods I've had before.  We ended up ordering chicken tikka masala, chicken tandoori, eggplant, and naan.  It came with saffron rice and salad.    

It turns out that I like Afghan food!  It was flavorful and well-seasoned, but not one bit spicy.  It was piping hot and perfectly cooked.  They were out of falafel, which somehow I've never tried (another item on my list).  We'll definitely be back.

I'm still looking for suggestions of things to add to my list!  I have 40 on it, but it never hurts to have extra ideas in case some become impossible.  One of the top items on my list was to finally take the tour at Scharffen Berger Chocolate, which has been on my to-do list for years.  Alas, they no longer offer tours.  So I welcome any and all ideas!  As I accomplish more items on my list, I'll be blogging about them at my personal blog, www.cindyderosier.com.

Introducing FabScraps

Flamingo Scraps is excited to add FabScraps - a Fab(ulous) company from South Africa - to our list of vendors!

In the store is a selection of their whimsical, detailed chipboard die cuts. They are perfect for your sprays and paints, and will perfectly coordinate with a lot of the latest paper collections.



Also available are flat-backed, non-adhesive pearls and rhinestones in cream, pink, blue, turquoise, brown, and black,and cute brass and silvertoned charms.


We are still receiving new releases daily so keep checking for more FabScrap products.

Thanks for stopping in today,

Drool Alert - NEW ARRIVALS

The store is busting at the seams with all the new CHA releases. THERE ARE TONS OF NEW ARRIVALS - and UPS is delivering more daily.

The hottest items in the store right now include:












You better stop in and grab these items quick, because supplies are going fast!

Thanks for stopping in today,