All That Caffeine Is Paying Off

I have a second project today for the Coffee Lover's Blog Hop for Spring and Summer.

This time it's a card, using this cute coffee cup paper from Pretty Little Studio.  I added one of their wooden look tags and two dies that I stickled with Diamond (they came with my new Gemini Jr!). The little typewritten word stickers are from PLS as well and I just added the ones that worked for this card.

I think I might add a little string to the tag as a finishing touch...photos always make me see my work in a new way and sometimes it's helpful!

Happy Sunday,

Chark

Coffee Hopping Again

I love the Coffee Lover's Blog Hop! Full disclosure: I'm a Tea Drinker...but they let us hang out with them, so I join in every time. Today I have a small 8x8 layout featuring me—eek! I rarely scrap myself but I thought it'd be fun to do a little nod to the hop. So, here I am, with my new sassy hair cut. 

I used all Pretty Little Studio products and hand lettered part of the Create, Caffeinate & Make it Happen title. I thought the weathered wood was reminiscent of a boat and kites always say "spring" to me. I added a cupcake sticker because I'm a fan of them and fun flair with coffee (tea) cup.

Thanks for stopping by and join me this week in the Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!

Happy Sunday,

Chark

Stamplorations Gave Me This Freebie

Well, actually, Stamplorations gave everyone this freebie on their site, along with a couple others. They are very generous with their free digital stamps. I printed this one in a couple sizes and then decided this would be good for a card front. 

I had the watercolor panel already made from a day playing with liquid watercolors from Hero Arts and so, after coloring and cutting the digi (with the Crazy Double Stitched frames dies from Stamplorations), using a scallop frame on the watercolor panel and finding some old text paper, I layered it all and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I like how their stamps already have the text paper as part of the stamp and that reminded me to get some of my vintage books out and pick a page for the background. I used an old cookbook (1970s or 80s) that referenced an even older cookbook from colonial America for the recipes.

Here's a couple yummy ideas for your dinner tonight, courtesy of a Virginian housewife from the 1700s.

Now, I know people may still eat this, and my very own mother (who grew up on a farm in the 40s) actually ate cow brains, but oh, my, god. If I had to prepare this or eat this, well, I'd be a lot skinnier. 

And this seems like a perfect time to mention that mom also prepared some sketchy things in our home. I remember in the 1970s, being about 8 or so and lifting the lid of the crockpot to see what yumminess was in there—only to find a cow's tongue. Ewwww! Which is probably when I learned that brains had been on the menu when my mom was a kid. It was probably good, because why else would anyone eat it in the 1970s? But I assure you, I did not taste it.

Hopefully your dinner will be a little more appetizing than this. I made a soup for tonight that has turkey sausage (from the grocery store) and tortellini (from frozen) so I have the fortune to have spent all of 20 minutes preparing my dinner. The stove did the long simmering work. I'm feeling pretty thankful to be living in the 21st century right about now, how about you?

Happy Friday!

Chark

Giveaway Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered here on the blog and on Instagram for my four Freebie Friday prizes—I love hearing from people who create, it's a wonderful community! I'm a huge fan of entering contests, so it's always fun to give away stuff too and share the love!

Without further ado, CONGRATULATIONS to:

1. cyc.crafts (from IG) who won the rainbow foil and stencils

2. lunalayercakemall (from IG) who won the Pretty Little Studio and other Christmas goodies

3. d.ann.c (from IG) who won the $25 gift card to Butterfly Reflections

and 4. rightbrainart (from IG) who won the Unity stamps

I'm sensing a pattern here, so I may have to do a blog-only giveaway sometime.

And I wanted to get up one last post for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop, which is always a good time—I'm amazed by how many different coffee/tea/cocoa projects there are each time! This one features paper and die cuts from Doodlebug Designs and my favorite drink, tea!

Thanks to Amy and the whole team at CLBH for another fun one!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Coffee, Tea or Gingerbread

I'm a big fan of gingerbread, both the edible kind and the decorating kind, and I have a handful of cute gingerbread boys and girls as stamps and dies. This digi came from the Craftin Desert Divas shop, and I cut out a Doodlebug tea cup to give him. He's cute, amma right? 

He comes in color and line art. I printed him in color but my printer started to run out of a vital ink and he came up looking less than tasty. So I took my Prismacolor pencils and made him look more like gingerbread. The bg paper is Doodlebug, as is the sentiment strip. I'm entering him in the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and you can join me until Friday evening to try to win one of the gazillion prizes!

Come back tomorrow to see who won my four Thanksgiving giveaways (you have until 11:59pm Eastern tonight to enter, just scroll down to the four posts)!

Happy Thursday! 

Chark

Make Mine a Soy Latte

I love this $3 Jess with Coffee image from Sweet Escape Digis. Of course I bought this for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and so here she is on a card with Lawn Fawn paper (I colored her shirt with the same zig zags, but then I covered up one of them with the sentiment from the Punny Collection of Doodlebug). I made her Christmas colors too, so she'd fit into the Winter theme of the hop.

You have a couple more days to enter the hop with your coffee/tea/cocoa themed project here.

You can also scroll down to comment and enter my four giveaways or head to my IG to comment. You have until Thursday night to enter!

Happy Wednesday! 

Chark

Bonjour, It's International Coffee Day

Saying "bonjour" is about as international as I get, though I suppose I could pull up one or two French phrases from college. More importantly, it's International Coffee Day! Now, I have to admit, I am more of a tea drinker obsessive. But I do love the smell of coffee and I adore chocolate cupcakes with coffee added, it really enriches chocolate in baked goods. My aunts and a few nieces and nephews are definitely coffee lovers, and the aunts even drink it with their pizza...which seems odd to me, but there you go!

So, without further adieu (so international of me), here are some ways to celebrate this very cool holiday.

If you're a crafter, you should run, not walk, to the Coffee Loving Cardmakers site here, where they celebrated National Coffee Day on Saturday and have a blog hop with prizes and cards/projects galore to inspire. 

If you're like me and love the smell of coffee, this craft for Coffee Sugar Scrub Cubes from A Pumpkin and A Princess might be right up your alley.

And if you're looking to make a coffee-themed stool, sign or canvas, you could try this craft, using sharpies and templates found here at Remodelacasa.

You can read a coffee-themed mystery book like one of these, listed here.

If you want to eat your coffee, instead of drinking it, you can head to this article for 23 Incredible Coffee Desserts, which includes a mocha cupcake!

Lastly, for you crafty and caffeinated friends, here are some cute coffee stamps that anyone would love.

Your Next Stamp has such great stamps and this cute cup set is a mix-and-match bunch of fun.

This Darcie stamp set has tea and books too, so you know I'm going to need this one.

This cup die set from My Favorite Stamps is just perfect for creating cups to go.

If you prefer your coffee crafts already made, you can pick up these earrings on Etsy here.

That's it for today, hope it's a good International Coffee Day for you!

Happy Monday!

Chark

Coffee Loving Tag

I used a coffee cup stamp from Hero Arts City Adventures to stamp all over a small manila tag and then colored with my Arteza brush markers. I love how many colors you get for the price and they are fab for lettering, I love the brush tip. 

I added white uniball gel pen and then smudged it a bit, since they are loosely colored. That white highlight in the middle of the cups made them so dimensional.

The wonderful sentiment is from Hero Arts and it comes with a die cut and lots of little sayings (birthday, year, have a, and more) to use with the wonderful die/stamp.

It's my last coffee hop entry, you can enter yours here if you want to join in the fun! Thanks to Amy and the whole crew for another fun hop!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Best Buds with Doodlebug

I used the cut files I got from Lori Whitlock that are Doodlebug Design. I don't have a cutting machine (just a Big Shot) but I printed these cuties out and added some colored pencils and then trimmed with scissors to add to my card. So happy to know the SVG files can just be printed and used without a Silhouette machine. Doodlebug Design makes me happy!

I'm entering it into the Coffee Loving Spring/Summer Blog Hop. I love this hop--so many prizes, so much inspiration and new companies to explore!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Where Would I Be Without Coffee

I have this great set of coffee stamps from Big Grins at Stamplorations called Dark Coffee and the sentiment I used on this card is "Where would I be without Coffee?" I masked off the answer, "In bed, of course" and typed a sentiment for the inside of this card...now it reads, "Dead Tired, of course." 

I used the Hero Arts ghost dies on glitter paper, backed them with some patterned vellum and then mounted the panel on MFT aqua striped cardstock. I love this orange glitter paper...no idea where I got it, but the glitter stays put and that's my favorite kind of glitter paper. The coffee cups are from Hero Arts City Adventure stamps.

Even ghosties need a caffeine fix if they're going to be haunting all night!

Hope you'll join in the Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop with me and about a million other people :) This hop keeps growing every season and it's been fun to watch.

Happy Monday!
Chark

Drink Up

It's time once again for the Fall Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and I'm right here again. I love this hop...it's always so fun, there are tons of prizes and new companies to peek at and a million different ideas for crafting and cardmaking. Plus, everyone is so supportive and cool! Thanks to Amy and her coffee crew for keeping this hop alive, season after season.

This mini-coffee cup (4 oz) craft came from my lss, The Paper Cottage, and I loved the idea, the papers and the mini cup, so I purchased a kit just for this hop! You can fit in a little treat or single-cup drink for the Keurig machine. I can take no credit, other than putting it together and adding Stickles to the sentiment...oh, and creating a yellow "a" in the Make A Wish die cut that somehow got lost :)

                                      

Happy Hopping! 

Chark

Last Minute Entry

Here's my last Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop Entry. Doodlebug Designs mug stickers and the have joy is a journaling card. The words Have Joy are actually gold foil, but you can't tell here. The background piece is made from Distress Oxide Inks...they are so fun! I have a million pieces of paper that will end up as backgrounds or die cuts. I couldn't stop experimenting with them!

Big thanks to everyone who comments on my blog, thanks for stopping by. And big thanks and a "latte" love to Amy and her crew for this fun hop...it has got to be the biggest project!!

Happy Friday!
Chark

Time's Running Out

If I'm posting twice in one day, it's because time is running out for the Coffee Lovers Bloghop! Yikes! I made this little bag just right for a gift card and wanted to post him. The little gnome/elf looked cold, hence the sentiment. I thought about adding a little cup but I like it better without. He's from Hero Arts and I used Prismacolor pencils on the kraft...they work great.

And in case you didn't believe in how great a cuppa can be, even The Doctor needs tea once in a while, as this clip from Doctor Who explains.

GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this or any of my Coffee Lovers posts Friday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday to be entered to win this pair of stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn (I originally wanted to give a LF stitched rectangle die set, but I literally cannot find it, and I'm running out of places to look. But I know where these guys are!) 

If you comment on multiple days, your name goes in the draw multiple times (one per post, comments closing at noon EST Saturday, December 17). I have five posts, since I have two today—here's the other—so you have five chances to win if you post a comment each day!

Happy Friday Again,

Chark

Tea and Books

If I can't have tea and cookies, hand me tea and a good book...and then bring me a cookie later. :)

This tag uses the Prima Coffee Break Paper I won way back when the Coffee Lovers Bloghop was young. I've used it sparingly, but almost always break it out for the hops. The tag was precolored aqua, my fave color and the gold snowflake paper is from the Dollar Spot at Target—get yours before they're gone!

Here's a close-up of the papers. 

I think this little gift bag would be great for a mug, a book or a gift card to the coffee shop.

GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this or any of my Coffee Lovers posts Friday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday to be entered to win this pair of stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn (I originally wanted to give a LF stitched rectangle die set, but I literally cannot find it, and I'm running out of places to look. But I know where these guys are!) 

If you comment on multiple days, your name goes in the draw multiple times (one per post, comments closing at noon EST Saturday, December 17).

Happy Friday!

Chark

Tea and Cookies, Please

I'm a huge tea drinker...well, I'm not that huge, but I do like a lot of tea (rim shot to indicate how hilarious I am) and a fan of food stamps with faces...so when I saw this Mama Elephant stamp set, I had to buy it.

 And here are just two of the cutie stamps together, just like I prefer. Tea and cookies!

Here they are in close-up...now these are tiny, so they can be tricky to color, but they're so adorable, it's worth getting out the eyeglasses for.

I inked the circle and mounted it on a die cut snowflake (my winter theme) and then on a scallop oval made of Yupo paper and sprayed with inks. The card behind is embossed.

Hope you're enjoying the coffee hop...I am, but I'm just a little behind on commenting :) Can't believe how quickly this hop has grown! Don't forget to link up your winter coffee/tea/cocoa project to win!

GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this or any of my Coffee Lovers posts Friday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday to be entered to win this pair of stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn (I originally wanted to give a LF stitched rectangle die set, but I literally cannot find it, and I'm running out of places to look. But I know where these guys are!) 

If you comment on multiple days, your name goes in the draw multiple times (one per post, comments closing at noon EST Saturday, December 17).

Happy Wednesday!

Chark