Hero Arts Spring Catalog Blog Hop and Giveaway

 

Hello, friends! I am so excited to be joining the Hero Arts Spring Catalog Blog Hop today! If you came from Jenn Shurkus' blog, you are off to a great start! If not, feel free to jump over to the Hero Arts Blog to get the full hop list! This catalog is stuffed with SO many amazing new designs and it includes some less new designs you may not have noticed before, too, so be sure to check it out! AND.... guess what?! There is actually a second catalog available now, as well! The Creative Essentials catalog is full of all of the most essential craft supplies you could possibly desire from Hero Arts. It's pretty amazing. 

I actually have TWO cards to share with you using the beautiful new Wonderful Day bundle and a few other fantastic things from this catalog. 

For this card, I used the new Overlapping Circles stencil as my background and then used the Wonderful Day stamps, stencils, and dies to create a CAS design that is loaded with color! The sentiment comes from the Every Day Sentiment strips stamp set cut with the sentiment strips die. 

AND...I have a surprise! I made my first ever card making video. Please be kind, it is literally my first and I have no idea what I am doing, but it was wicked fun to create! I will grow with it. I promise. LOL!

I loved this set so much I had to make another card with it right away! For this one, I used the full collection of gorgeous flowers and went with lots of color and a bit of glitter! I used the sentiment strip die to emboss the background, giving it a very deep, pronounced striped look. 

Thank you for stopping by today! Your next stop is Jennifer Kotas. You can find the complete hop list on the Hero Arts Blog! 

GIVEAWAY! 

Leave a comment to enter!

Hero Arts will be giving away two $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left along the hop. Comment on all the blogs for more chances to win! You have until Sunday, February 26 at 11:59pm to enter. The winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog.

Thanksgiving Day, Kids in a Cage, Cornbake, and Pumpkin Cupcakes

Today you get a quick overview of my Thanksgiving day. Really, it was a wonderful holiday and great to see family again! Here are some of the highlights of the day.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Instead of the classic desserts I decided to bring pumpkin cupcakes as my contribution. They were SO yummy! And they came out perfect! I would love to tell you that they take great skill and amazing background knowledge to make, but really, I cheated, as I always do! LOL! One can of pumpkin and one box of your favorite spice cake mix. Seriously, folks! That's all! Then pour into your cupcake papers and bake at the usual 350 for about 20 minutes! I used a basic cream cheese frosting and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar for an extra kick! That was yummy!



And the cornbake!!! We LOVE this stuff in our house! Sean makes it and he does a great job with it. It's amazing just how difficult this can actually be! One year his cousin tried to make it and it was more of a corn BRICK and every single time his mother tries to make it there is LITERALLY an explosion in the oven. I have no idea how they do it, but Sean makes it perfect EVERY time! It is SO SO SO good! I really don't know why we don't eat it more often! He even made this one a low-fat version just for me and it tasted exactly the same! It was wonderful!





This is my cousin (the adorable little 3 year old girl) and my other cousin's son (the super-cute 2 year old boy). They decided that the best way to spend Thanksgiving would be to crawl into the dog kennel and play. For a really long time. LOL! I sat there and took SO many pictures! They were totally cracking us up!


And....as this was going on we just sat and watched as you see Sean doing here. It was too cute! LOL!



So, overall, it was a wonderful day! We really enjoyed it!

I don't usually do a lot of family stuff on my blog, but I got some great photos this past weekend, so I may share our Christmas tree hunting experience with you, too, if you don't mind!

And...finally, I just want to show you this video. It is so dead on and I love that!