My First Blog Award! And to Pass on the Honor....

Yesterday I received my first ever blog award! I was so excited, and I am still new at this thing so it is nice to be recognized early in the journey!

I was given the Liebster Blog Award from Lisa at My Lil' Bits. I'm a new follower to her blog but she has such simple and great card ideas I love them so much!

This is a great way to share blogs that may not be getting recognized. Here's what the Liebster award is all about:

The rules to this award are:
1. thank the giver on your blog
2. link back to the blogger who gave you the award
3. copy and paste the award on your blog
4. Give the award to 5 other blogs.
5. let them know you chose them by leaving them a comment

I'm excited to pass this on to 5 blogs that I visit every day but are new to this thing just like I am!

In no particular order:

1. http://bythebookpaper.blogspot.com/

2. http://re-crafts.blogspot.com/

3. http://rowhouse14.blogspot.com/

4. http://yellowheartart.blogspot.com/

5. http://gingerbumblebee.blogspot.com/

Each of these blogs have great reads and please check them all out! Have fun perusing :)

Other news: I've been spending the past 3 days on a hand made scrappy calendar for the office. A post will soon follow!

<3 RWK

Spring Chickadee Card How-To

In the honor of the great American tradition of avoiding taxes, I opted to spend my Saturday making Spring and Easter cards for family members. The government can wait, cards can not!


First I used my Cricut cartridge 'Create a Critter' to make multiple little chicks and eggs. I colored the chick beaks and legs with an orange gel pen, and bordered the egg cracks with frosted lace Stickles

chirp chirp!

Then I texture embossed each of my cards using the 'Stylized Flowers' embossing folder by Cuttlebug. I needed more color and was feeling a crafty blank so I decided to color the embossed flowers with colored pencils

the vines and stems colored light green

colored the flowers a mustard yellow

I wasn't too crazy about the yellow flowers with a yellow chickadee together on the card...

much better!

Can you ever really go wrong with light pink? So I colored all of the cards like the one above. This took up the majority of my time...like I said, all in honor of avoiding taxes.

Then I just glued on the chicky and added the cracked eggs with foam adhesive.

all finished!

The completed card! On the inside I cut out the word 'Spring' to make the card more generalized to Easter as well as just the excitement of spring and sunshine! Can't wait to put these in mail for family and friends :)

<3 RWK

Lollipops are the New Cupcake

I've noticed that many of the crafty people throughout Etsy also have a lot of interest in cooking and baking. I always see craft blogs that throw in a great cookie recipe every now n' then! So my sweet tooth started tingling and I had to see what the creative candy makers in Etsy were up to.

Let's face reality...

Cupcakes are incredibly trendy right now. The latest 'it' dessert. But that's why they're called 'trends'.  They don't stay popular forever!

My opinion? LOLLIPOPS are the going to soon be the next cupcake. They are so IT and NOW

Here are 5 of my favorite and unique lollipops that I found on Etsy. And they seem so perfect for spring...

www.sweetniks.etsy.com

If you know me, you know I like a good drink (who doesn't?). The cocktail lollipops from sweetniks sound so tempting! Sweetniks includes yummy cocktail bits within the candy, like orange peels in the grand marnier flavor. A great party snack!

www.cakepopbakeshop.etsy.com

Who knew lollipops were now being made out of cake batter?! These perfectly springy butterfly cake pops from Cakepopbakeshop are dipped in a candy coating. You can pick from a number of yummy cake batter flavors. (I would definitely want the Lemon Zing! Perfect for spring)

www.SuckersbySteph.etsy.com

Adorable 'Hoot Owl' white chocolate pops from SuckersbySteph can be made in your choice of color. The detail and texture in these owl pops really makes them unique. This would be a perfect favor for any party or get together!

www.sugarbellysboutique.etsy.com

Ok. I have an obsession with lobsters. No, not eating them. I would never ever eat any seafood. Like I want 20 pet lobsters they are so so adorable...I'm off topic that will be a future post someday. So of course these classic cherry Lobster Lollis from sugarbellysboutique caught my attention! The only lobster I would eat!

www.cocoaconfections.etsy.com

Another delicious looking cake and chocolate pop! cocoaconfections allows you to pick your yummy cake flavor and also choose the colors to fit your party theme. They look like the most delicious mini ice cream sundaes!

I hope this inspires you to kick in the spring with the newest trend in treats! I would of course like to thank sweetniks, cakepopbakeshop, suckersbysteph, sugarbellysboutique, and cocoaconfections.


<3 RWK

Handmade Spring Wreath for only $15

My house just looks so bare once all those winter decorations were packed into the basement.  I loved my winter themed wreath and enjoyed making it, so I decided to make one with spring flowers and spring colors!
Here's what I did:


Pick out the color theme for your wreath and have fun shopping! I bought one bunch of yellow flowers for my  base, one group of small baby-breath like flowers, and two bunches of purple accents. I bought all of these at Michael's for $15. All of the flowers were 50% off (they often are, don't ever buy them if they aren't on sale!) and used a coupon for the vine. Here's all you need:

Some flower tape, a wreath vine, and whatever color flowers you like

Then I like to separate all of the bunches by cutting or pulling the individual stems about. So you should end up with all of this:

My yellow flowers

My purple accents

Then you take your individual stems of your base color and just wrap through the wreath vine however you would like. I wanted mine to be mainly yellow and have minimal empty spots. Simply weave the stems throughout the sticks of the vine. Many of these artificial flowers have thin wire as the stems, which makes it easy to manipulate how you want it. 

The wreath with only the yellow flowers added

Lastly, with my purple accent stems I just stuck them in where I wanted to add more pizazz or cover up an area that looked bare. They give the wreath just the right amount of pop!

The finished wreath with the purple accents added

My new wreath hanging on my door!

So now my door and living room have a little handmade touch of spring added! These wreaths are so easy and at only $15 I plan on making one for just about every holiday or season! I also had a lot of flower stems left over so I made a little spring bouquet vase to have in the other room. Have fun!

<3 RWK

Card Pattern Challenge

I made it home! Feels good to be back on the east coast.  So my first order of business was to work on this card challenge from the CardPatterns blog. I have never done one of these blog crafting challenges before, so this was my first shot! It was a lot of fun to create something different, I'll definitely be trying to participate every week.

Here is the card that I made with the pattern inspiration...enjoy!

<3RWK