Dreamy Chocolate Bars

We had a special evening service at our church Sunday night and afterwards, they wanted to have a special dessert social. Our pastor is in our small group and he encouraged us to "bring our A game" with our desserts. I tried to think about what dessert was 1. cheap, 2. easy to make, and 3. de-e-e-licious! My friend suggested these babies-- Dreamy Chocolate Bars. They are a two layer delicacy and are fairly simple to make. They are a little on the super sweet side so 1 is usually enough. Don't they look great?!

March Birthday & Anniversaries

This card is for our nephew's 17th birthday. He'll be down visiting us (with his family) next week and I'm planning on making fruit pizza - his favorite. I used complimentary papers with the navy blue & white. I have used this design several times and like how it turns out. I added some die cut stars with the phrasing and attached it with 3d tape.

This card was for a couple in our small group who had their 28th anniversary on the 20th. Sorry that the colors didn't come through so well. It's turquoise and the ribbon was just a lighter shade with the flowers on it. I've enjoyed using the chipboard pieces that my sister had gotten me. I painted these black to make it pop. I used my calligraphy pen to write Happy Anniversary.

This anniversary card is for Barry's sister & brother-in-law in New Mexico. They are celebrating their 7th anniversary on Sunday. Again, I used the chipboard that I painted black and then complimentary papers. It's a simple design but looks pretty nice (if I do say so myself!).

Weekly Grocery Challenge

It's been going on for several months and I have to say I still get a rush from it when I look at what I've saved. I have tried to hit grocery shopping like a woman on a mission -- how much can I save?!

I have tried to apply what I've seen others do and learn from the blogs I've been reading. If you haven't tried this, I think you should make a try at it. To learn the basics, you can check out Faithful Provisions and she'll give you some easy tips to get started. I learned how to do this from a class that some co-workers had after work one day. I've always been a coupon-cutter, but this brings it to the next level.

What I've been doing, is trying to stock up on items that we use -- when they're on sale and I have coupons for them. It's been a long time coming because I didn't have the ability to just start purchasing "extra" stuff in addition to the necessities, but I have done a little at a time and can honestly say that I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

This week I got $62.58 worth of groceries for $25.27 -- savings of 60%. Granted you have to consider that I wouldn't have gotten this stuff had it not been on sale, but with my strategy going strong now, I have stocked up my freezer and pantry with things that we'll use (eventually). For the most part, I only bought items that were on sale that I had coupons for. There are exceptions (milk & eggs), but the most I spent on one item was $2.82 (1 lb. ground beef w/ a coupon). Most of the items I got were under $1 each and I had several that were free!

So, 25 items for $25.27 (including tax). I'm excited, are you? :)

Flowers from my Love

Out of the blue the other day, my husband picked up this little bundle of flowers for me! What a nice pick-me-up!

Some cards

I wanted to get a head start on the week, so I worked on these cards on Sunday so that I could be ready.
These little cards are for my niece and nephews. I had started them a while ago, but life got busy and I didn't finish them. I used a die-cut machine to make the stars. I also used the same font to write the names. I made the one for my niece as a stand-up card.

One of my co-workers is having a birthday on Saturday, but we'll have a party for her on Friday. I made this card from a new template from CPS. I used 4 different papers. I got some neat alphabet stickers that also had the flowers. The little bit of sparkles on the flowers & B add a little more to it. Inside, it says, "wishing you a very happy birthday!"

This last card is for my sister. I've had the little card with the quote about sisters for quite some time and just haven't found a place for it. I used a varied of papers that had pink and green in them. I also put some organdy ribbon down the middle and tied it on the right side.

Pretty productive afternoon!

Visiting in Cleveland

We went to my sister's in Cleveland for the weekend. It's been several months since we'd seen them and my nephew is just growing!

As I got into the bedroom to start getting ready for bed, Delilah was there sleeping and keeping my spot warm!

After several tries of getting him to smile, I finally got this almost smile while he was eating some cereal.

Here are the other tries -- just as I would snap the picture, he wouldn't be smiling!

This one kind of has some scary eyes! He was super surprised, I guess!

It was a great visit and we loved hanging out with Katie & Andrew!

A new floor

We woke up Monday, February 22, to a sound of rushing water. Sunday night it had rained and so I sort of thought that was what I was hearing, but as I stepped down the hallway and got closer to the kitchen it was slop, slop, slop. I called for Barry and he rushed in and was able to stop the water. The hot water pipe under the kitchen sink had burst and evidently had been flowing for a good bit of time since there was about 2 inches of water on the floor.

So, our landlord got a call at 5:30am. To her credit, she had a plumber and ServePro ready to go right off. Unfortunately, the water had started soaking into the floor and that proved to be a big problem. We had to have these huge fans in our kitchen for 3 days! They were so noisy and I can't even begin to guess what our electric bill is going to be.


So, we ended up having the flooring all pulled up. They were going to replace it on Thursday, but it was pushed to Monday. Also, since they were going to have to lay new flooring, we had to pull everything out of the areas that had linoleum before.
Here's the extra bedroom with items from the kitchen, bathroom, and closets. We were glad for the space to put the stuff since our weekend was full and we needed to get it out of the way earlier.

Here it is! The wonderfully new floor! We got a bunch of the stuff back in the kitchen area so that it was easier to make lunches, etc., but will have to do the intense cleaning throughout the week.

Card-making again!

I've actually been making cards along the way, but neglected to get pictures taken. I've had several birthdays, a bridal shower, and a project that I'm working on for a friend. But, here are two cards that I did Sunday:

A co-worker got married on February 19. She had a shower here at work, but I wasn't able to go to it. So, I picked up something off her registry and made this card to go with. I used several wedding-ish papers and then added the periwinkle because I think that was the color for the bridesmaids dresses. I found the flowers with the little jewels in them that I used to embellish it a little. The silvery swirl paper is something that I had picked up for another project and it just worked!

Here's the inside that I wrote with my calligraphy pen - blessings & together and just printed the in-between words.

This card was made up for our landlords. We are so thankful that they stepped in and took charge of the crazy situation with the water pipe bursting (see next post). I used a couple of papers that were just laying on my table and happened to match. I used a chipboard t and covered it with paper. It's very bright! :)