A. Russ Original

                    A sweet cupcake for the celebration!

                      Here is a cute card, complete with a candle for the birthday cupcake!!

                    Here are a few cards I’ve made to go along with baby shower gift baskets we have gifted over the past few months…

I have seen a few really nice looking projects with etched glass and thought… ‘I could do that!’… so off to the local Hobby Lobby to find the cream and work on my skills… there’s a funny story about the trip to Hobby Lobby… I went in and looked where I thought it might have been and when I couldn’t locate it I stopped an employee and asked her if she could tell me where it was at… now keep in mind I’m standing in the HOBBY LOBBY… she replies, ‘oh! that’s in the CRAFT section!’… I stood there thinking to myself.. the WHOLE STORE IS THE CRAFT SECTION SILLY GIRL!! come to find out they keep it near the stain glass pieces… Who knew! The bottle of glass etching cream I got doesn’t have instructions on it… it’s a small bottle and I guess all they had room for was the WARNINGS! So I had to do a little research to find out how to use it… All I could find said put it on think and leave it for 5 minutes… so with this knowledge and little glass jar and a few stickers I set off to create. I pu...

Here’s my very first ‘mod podge’ project. I need a little more practice at it, but I think I might like it. My first experience with the stuff was not that great and I have avoided it for a few years… even as all my crafty friends raved about it… You see, when we bought our current house, the basement was used as an office by the previous owners and they had taken pages out of a map book and deco podged them to the walls… exactly!! So it took me over a week and several bottles of wall paper remover to SCRAPE the maps off the wall… so, you see I have reason to be a little skeptical of mod podge! I have seen a few cute letters that have fun papers on them and though… I could do that! Just so happens I was in the process of making a baby shower gift basket… the perfect opportunity to see what I could do!  I went hunting for supplies… found a D at a local box store (on sale!) stopped by Hobby Lobby for the mod podge and headed home. Having tons of paper, embellishments and ribbon at ...

Recently we celebrated a friends birthday with lots of laughs and good company. This sweet treat of a card was part of my special gift for the birthday girl!

This summer I had lots of opportunity to make and share cards with lots of folks… here are a few that went out over the past few months.

In honor of the Olympic Games in London this year, our hood friends got together to watch the opening ceremonies and EAT! Our host wanted to have “British” food for the evening… so we looked into shepherds pie, fish and chips… maybe even some potatoes! (hahaha) I decided to make my take of a trifle. A traditional English desert, but I made it my own way. The colors are red, white and blue… so it could have easily been at home here in the USA or the UK! The creation started from my favorite pintrest post. Making the cake with only a can of soda and a few drops of food coloring! The creamy pudding part of the trifle was a new pintrest find… Cool whip and Instant PUDDING!   Let’s get started… We started by gathering up all the ingredients. For the cake: One white cake mix One Sprite Zero Red and Blue food coloring For the pudding: One tub of fat free cool whip Two boxes (8 servings total) of Sugar Free Instant Pudding mix (I used cheesecake) One cup skim milk Mix the cake mix a...

I know it still shocks some of you guys that we are actually growing our own veggies this year… (I’m still in awe myself!) Well, after the battle of the garden patch with the furry critters in the backyard, you might remember that we moved the watermelons (and the banana peppers) out of the patch and placed in pots and moved to the porches. I’m happy to report that both the plants are doing great in their new digs! The peppers are doing really well… and as you can see from the photos below… WE HAVE WATERMELONS!!! Now, no I do not know how to grow watermelons… so watermelon farmers are safe… I’m not sure when they will be ready… BUT, I can say that they grow REALLY fast… the little ones on the vines here have almost doubled in size in 3 days! We are trying to figure out what is eating the vines from the CENTER of the pot… we think it might be a few deer that the neighbors have spotted in our back yard… it would explain the odd tracks at the base of the deck and the vines missing from...