Dueling Darlings - July

It is time for the Dueling Darlings from SCS to post for July.   It is Christmas in July.   Has the panic set in yet?  It did for me!!!!  We are half way there.

We were asked to share the first thing we do to get into the Christmas spirit.   To be honest, things have been so busy with parents these past few years, we have not been the best on decorating.  We will work on that one.

Kelly, sent us the cutest image to work with this month.  The DP was that great pink for Christmas type of paper.  You know, the non traditional colors.   I really like them and I am not so much a of a pink girl!

I certainly like the little pink house that Snoopy has in this card.  I added a bit of sparkle with Stickles, to keep him festive.  It was a fun kit to work with. Thank you, Kelly.

You know it made me think of this song...Pink Houses.  I had a girlfriend who was smitten with John Mellencamp back when he was a 'Cougar Mellencamp' {remember he changed his last name}!  I especially like his high kicks while dancing in the field of this video!

Mr. Cougar Mellencamp just creates a lot of questions, like why did you change your name, why did you name one of your children Speck, why do I know that you named one of your children Speck, who are Jack and Diane, why do Jack and Diane suck on chili dogs outside a Tastee Freeze and has anyone ever seen a pair of Bobby Brooks jeans?  I mean I did a Google search and this is what came up....really?  I am thinking these are not what Jack had in mind!

Please be sure to visit the entire group of Dueling Darlings to see their creations this round.  The blog links are located on the right sidebar.

Have a great day!

Card entered in the following challenge(s):  Christmas Card Challenges

Dueling Darlings - June

Happy 4th of July weekend!   How about that for a little late on my JUNE post for the Dueling Darlings on SCS?!

I have to apologize for missing so much.  I was really sick with a sinus infection.  I had thought I just had a nasty cold but could not get better. Then the coughing started.  Oh, the coughing.  I went the the doctor and found that I had a sinus infection and it had drained into my lungs.  Did I mention oh, the coughing?  After two rounds of antibiotics, I think I am on the mend for good this time!

I have not been on SCS yet, so I hope I did not miss anything about us posting, but I did get a kit from LJ that had the cutest papers in it for this round! They were fun to work with, when I was finally able to even look at the kit! There were great embellies too!

Our theme was pets and specifically to the Diva kit, dogs. I tried to use the image a bit different and one of the sentiments that were given. It was a nice kit, thank you LJ.

You know that I must now post a picture of my cat!  LOL  How can you have a pets theme and not insert a picture of, Mia?  Oh, okay, I will do two pictures!!!!

This is my favorite iPad game I play, Catfishin'!

Yeah, I am really that cute and in my mom's fake plant!

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I look forward to visiting to see what you have all created.

Dueling Darlings - May

Oh my gosh, we are going to duel from the Dueling Darlings on SCS!  Yep, and it is Terry's and my month to hostess!   I had to bust it out, to get my card done on time.  You cannot be the hostess and be late.  Well, I guess you could, but I would feel really bad!

Our theme is May Flowers.  I dug through my stamps and remembered a set that I won on a blog candy along the way.   There was this cute girl with some flowers - score!  She makes me giggle because similar to a Magnolia, she has no mouth.  It is always the first thing my DH comments on!  The company is Red Rubber Designs.  The stamp set is Oh No She Didn't.

Well, you know I started to think that she did not have a mouth, then it reminded me of rendition of The Sound of Silence by Disturbed!  So, I had to listen to the song when I was creating the card. Did you know that Paul Simon wrote this song in his bathroom, in the dark, with water running?  Thus, hello darkness....  Why do I know this stuff?  I don't know either!

Our challenge was to let everyone know what flower you plant each year.  Well.....let's just say the apple fell from the tree and rolled down the hill.  My mom was great at gardening.  Me, not so much.
So, here is my secret.   I have a strategically placed pot, that is outside the kitchen nook door that is mostly glass and has this little picturesque view of the pot.   We plant flowers in the pot so we can see them when we look out the window.  It gives the allusion of flowers are sure to be everywhere!  DH had to give the pot it's own drip line in the sprinkler system, as I killed many flowers, not including the flowers the slugs ate (color me surprised - who knew they ate flowers?! - yet I know Paul Simon wrote music in his dark bathroom).  We have evolved to marigolds, because they are hearty and seem to last all season.  I like the variety that has the dual color.  Yeah, we don't have those this year.   DH picked up "the flower" {remember there is only one}.  This year we have some pom pom looking marigolds that are kinda tall.  ...Okay.  My mom always used to laugh at how we have "the flower".  So, I was telling my dad we got "the flower" and that DH bought the pom pom tall one.  My dad started laughing.  He said "your mom didn't like the tall marigolds and would say to not get them when he went to the nursery!".  Look who's laughing' now!  LOL  

Speaking of the kit, you know I have to 'use what'cha got', so I created it all from items that I had on hand.   That left me with no DP at all.  I scrounged through scraps and found one piece that matched one of the papers that I sent out.  I cut that little piece ever so carefully and used it on the edges of the card.  I cannot wait to see what everyone created with their kits!  Fun!!!!

Dueling Darlings - April

Shut the front door!  I am on TIME.  I know!   Welcome to the April duel with the Dueling Darlings at SCS.

Suzy, is new to our group this year.  She is hostessing for the first time this month.  We were lucky to receive a card kit from her themed 'Swing Into Spring'.

What Suzy probably does not know about me, is that I have this weird affinity for 'grandma paper'.  That is defined as any DP that looks like it could be wall paper in a grandma's house.   There was 'grandma paper' in my kit!   It was a cross between 'grandma paper' and a Carol Anderson circa 1996 dress my girlfriend had!  I had to use it.  The Copic markers turned out really dark in the photo.  They look a little more blended in real life.

The image of the girl swinging looks so nice and proper.  Very much unlike when we as kids, would go to the neighbor's house and rock their swing set until it literally bounced out of the grass.  It was up on a small slope and we would bail at the height of it, so we could fly down in the air to the grass below.  I am not sure how we did not break anything.  Yeah, the swing set only lasted one summer.  They took it out when I flew through the air and landed on a rusty nail with my foot.  Back to bikes!

We were asked to share our favorite spring dessert.  You know you will probably think it boring, but by spring I am looking forward to fresh fruit.   I like a dish of cut fresh fruit best.  Yummy!

Go see what the other Dueling Darlings have to show this month.  Their blog links are on the right sidebar.

Thanks, for stopping by!

Dueling Darlings - March

Round two - late.  Sorry!!!   Here I am though, with my card for the Dueling Darlings on SCS.  Our great group of girls have created some dog gone fun this month.

Carol, was our hostess.   She sent the most adorable papers and images to choose from.   I saw the little dog that I used on my card and laughed.  His little face!  Of course I have deemed him a boy.

Since the largest dog show is in the month of March, I had to share a great video that I watched earlier this month and tucked away in my mind for my post. Our friends have a dog that looks just like this one and I had to ask why she doesn't do this when we play AC DC!

Carol asked us to share if we had a pet growing up and what their name was.   I had a great Siamese cat named Su-Ling.  She was awesome.  I used her as my baby doll.  Really, I did.  I dressed her in a human onsie and would put her in the basket of my bike and we would roll out to play. She looked best in the yellow terrycloth, with the cute collar and snaps onsie.  We took her tree climbing, on the swing set, down the slide and I even tried to take her into 7-Eleven to get a Slupree once.   She was the best pet ever!

Here is my card for the duel.  Now I can go and check out the rest of the girl's cards - so excited!  You can see them too. The blog links are on the right sidebar.

Have a great day!

Dueling Darlings - February

Hey, hello!    I know I am tardy to the party, but I was able to take a bit of time and create a card for the SCS Dueling Darlings.   We had a post date of February 15th.  Well, that is about right - I am running a few weeks behind!

Thank you to our great hostess Kadie, for waiting so long.  She sent an adorable Disney themed kit for us to create with.  

My first Disneyland experience was when we drove to Disneyland when I was a small child.  I just HAD to take my crayons, in my dad's lunchbox {what you did not want me to use a ziplock and not a cool, black lunchbox with latches did you?} and they all melted.  I think I had a meltdown because if it.  I remember that and my mom screamed like a banshee on the teacup ride for cripe sake!  I think it was our last 'road trip' vacation!  My poor dad.

My second Disneyland experience, which with what little I remember from the first, was my actually really my first experience.  We had a sales contest at work and a group of us were able to go to Disneyland for the week.  We were fortunate that our Director took his kids there a few times per year and knew the park layout.   We hit all the great rides and had so much fun eating $23 corndogs!  My friend's husband had his wisdom teeth pulled right before we left.  We just kept giving him pain meds and took him on rides.  I know, nice friends!  There was another girl from our region and she drank too much, smoked a cigar and fell back in her chair at the bar one night.  Her dress flew over her head and we laughed until we had to give our friend even more pain meds.  That one was a drinker, she was!  .....I have pictures.....

Our challenge was to use a heart on our card.  Kadie was sweet and gave us a little heart brad.  I used it with the super fun to glue on word 'smile'.  As in smile your finger is glued to the page holding the word down.  I am so out of card creating practice!  Oh and I put some layers on the interior and a cute little die cut in the kit of Micky's ears.

I am excited to now be able to go see what the other girls created.  I made myself wait until I created my card.   I am sure the are spectacular.  Their blog links are on the right sidebar.

Have a great day!

Dueling Darlings - January

Happy New Year!  Having to have said goodbye to my mom in November, I am glad to be starting a new year. I can hardly believe it is 2016!!!  It seemed different at times, in that 2015 flew by and was the longest year ever.

I have not created a card nor blog post in well ... about forever.  I almost had to look up my password for Blogger!  It was perfect that my peeps at SCS in the Dueling Darlings group are back in the rounds for 2016.  It is our first posting!!!

This round we are eating some soup and getting well - oh and creating a card to help others get well if needed.  Here is the card that I created with the oh so fun kit that Barb sent to the Diva group.  It was just perfectly matched and right on point with the theme.  Thanks, Barb!  Here is the card that I created with the Whipper Snapper Designs image.  Barb always sends the best embellies, so I tried to use as many of them as possible.

You know I love me some soup!  While I try to make the soup we eat homemade, organic and healthy as possible, we do enjoy to indulge occasionally in this yummy Potato Soup.

I went to Evernote to share the recipe with you.  By the way, Evernote is a great app to use to house your recipes - oh and every other thing you need organized in your life.  I really like that your recipes are always accessible via your electronic devices and it is great to use in the kitchen, on an iPad, while cooking.

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Ingredients

• 6 Slices Thin Bacon - Cut Into 1-inch Pieces
• 1 Whole Medium Onion - Diced
• 3 Whole Carrots - Diced
• 3 Stalks Celery - Diced
• 6 Whole Small Russet Potatoes - Peeled & Diced
• 8 C Chicken Broth
• 3 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour
• 1 C Milk
• 1/2 C Heavy Cream
• 1/2 Tsp Salt - More To Taste
• Black Pepper - To Taste
• 1 Tsp Fresh Parsley - Minced
• 1 C Grated Cheese of Choice

Preparation Instructions

Add bacon pieces to a soup pot over medium heat and cook bacon until crisp and fat is rendered. Remove the bacon from the pot and set it aside. Pour off most of the grease, but do not clean the pot.

Return the pot to medium-high heat and add the onions, carrots, and celery. Stir and cook for 2 minutes, then add the diced potatoes. Cook for 5 minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper.  

Pour in the broth and bring to a gentle boil. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are starting to get tender. Whisk together the flour and the milk, then pour into the soup and allow the soup to cook for another 5 minutes.

Remove 1/2 to 2/3 the soup and blend in a blender/food processor until completely smooth. Pour it back into the soup pot and stir to combine. Let it heat back up as you taste for seasonings, adding more of what it needs. Stir in cream.

Serve in bowls garnished with parsley, grated cheese and crisp bacon pieces.

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Please be sure to visit our Dueling Darling blogs for the new year.  We have a few new members and you will not be disappointed!  Their blog are listed on the right sidebar.

~ Happy New Year ~