Did You Know...I'm Thinking of You!

Yes, I am!
I trust where ever you are today
you're experiencing beautiful weather
(Ohioans... don't bother reading that line!)
and good health!
Thanks to ALL my readers who stop by each day!!

I did this card for the Sketch Challenge on Splitcoast. The sketch wasn't meant as a pocket card, but that's the first thing that popped into my pea brain when I saw it! LOL

I used Our Daily Bread designs From Me to You, God Loves You and Fleur de Lis Borders. The Fuchsias are colored with Copics with Sakura white gel pen accents. I sponged the oval while IN the die with Ranger Distress Bundled Sage, Tumbled Glass and Chipped Sapphire inks. It's all one piece! I did the "out of the box" or "nestie" in this case, using my craft knife to do the cut-out work.

Today on StampTV, Gina showed how to do Recessed Diamond Background, so I gave it a whirl! Fun and makes for an interesting background!

I only taped the edges of the piece the pocket slides behind. The scored layer has foam mounting tape only at the sides and bottom. I used Spellbinders Lotus to make the little pull tab.

And...I used the little pieces that popped out of the Lotus medallion for the faux brads on the side! I just used 2 per brad gluing them with a 2-way glue pen.
The punched border is by EK Success and that yummy paper is Basic Grey Kioshi.

Have a Wonderful Day!

Thanks again for stopping!!

Dawn

A Center Stage Spotlight Design Team Blog Hop

Jessica, DT Coordinator for Gina K Designs, organized this fun hop to keep the retired CSS girls and current ones working together, showing just why we were chosen as guest designers! It's a good way to keep us active... This is just the first of many to come.

This first one was to make a Christmas card using any Gina K Designs set and use the sketch Jessica sent us. A Year of Flowers is one of my favorites and this poinsettia was perfect for this challenge!

I stamped 2 flowers on GinaK Pure Luxury cs (80#) with Versamark, sprinkled on Detail Gold Embossing Powder by Ranger and heat set it. Then using Twinkling H2O's and a waterbrush, watercolored each flower. When I cut each one out, I cut several of the petals almost to the center to add dimension when I put them together. Gold Liquid Pearls by Ranger was added to the center.

For the leaves, I stamped the flower 4 or 5 times, turning the stamp a 1/4 turn each time. (Versamark and gold ep as the flowers). The leaves are also painted with Twinks.

As I attached the two flowers together (with a pop dot), I curled the petals by running my fingernail underneath... like curling ribbon.

Embossing with Cuttlebug folders, trimming with Martha Stewart border punches and layered on Spellbinders dies made this 5x5 card simply done and elegant looking!

Now, here are the girls participating in this hop, first the current CSS team:
Deb Felts 
Diana S Queen
Karen Knegten
Melissa Cash
Sue VanDeVusse

And the past CSS girls:
Brenda Turner
Carla Suto
Carolina Buchting
Charlene Merrick
DeeMarie Kelemen
Geri Utterback
Giovanna Smith
Janice Melton
JenMarie Taylor
Jennie Harper
Joy Hadden
Kay Simmons
Linda Payne
Lori McAree
Melissa Waldorf
Pam Imholz
Selma Stevenson
Shannon Bracken
Shelly Wilson
Sue Walsh
Tina Gilliand

Some of the Senior Design Team Members and Illustrators wanted to get in on the fun tonight too:
Asela Hopkins
Carolyn King
Cindy Lawrence
Jessica Fick
Lee Murphy
Lynn Mercurio
Nina Brackett
Melanie Muenchinger

Along with Nina Brackett's Guest Designer: 
Lisa Hjulberg

And Gina too!

All of these gorgeous cards from the entire team will be added to the StampTV gallery throughout the next few days with the tag CSSJF1.

These sketches are also the sketch challenge for this week, so be sure to check out all the information in the discussion in the Challenge Group over on StampTV Thursday morning.  We'd love to see your cards with the sketch too!

Enjoy and Thanks for stopping!

Dawn

A Hundred and Plenty is ALL They Need to Know!

We’re getting new health insurance and today someone had to come out to take our blood pressure, “sample” in a cup, height, blood sample…and weight. Now, c’mon! That’s just plain depressing! Why couldn’t she just put down 100 and plenty and be done with it! Sheesh!

To console myself and feel better, I had to make a card and eat a box of chocolates!
Ok… so, I just made a card, no chocolates hrmmph!

My good friend Heidi, over at Pink Hedgehog, sent me some of these Oregon Raindrops…she dyes them herself! What a deal and so many colors! Plus I got some new Spellbinders (labels 9) from her…I had to play!

The Ways To Use It challenge yesterday was “quilting” in one way or another, and today’s Limited Supply challenge was to have a “girl” on the card……………….and NO pattern paper…OOPS! guess it won’t qualify for that challenge! haha

I used Melanie’s Inspiration Mosaic from Gina K as a guide on a piece of white cs and cut each piece of paper to fit the rectangles. I didn’t bother notching out pieces, just glued them over top of each other in the correlating spaces! I used a fine tip artist pen to
re-define the block lines and to make the faux stitches after piercing the holes.

The pink layer is Copic’d using the same color as Riley’s flower. Riley is from Whipper Snapper. While she was in the Nestie, I used my dauber and sponged.

Oh, and by the way…see those crooked stitches? Another reason why I don’t quilt! This is as close as I’m gonna get!

Apple Pie…The Feel of Fall…and a Great Magazine!

(I’m playing with the size of my blog, so if it looks a little funny, it’s because I have NO clue, well, next to no clue what I’m doing! Good ol’ Mel is helping me! HELP!)

Seeing Abby’s status on Facebook reminded me I wanted to share this one with you! I haven’t tooted my own horn in a while *wink*

Remember back last Fall when my daughter and I canned Apple Pie in a Jar?

You have just over 2 weeks to run out and get your copy so you can show all your friends and neighbors that you know ME!
Bwahahahaha… kidding…I’m kidding!
Seriously though, turn to page 36 and you’ll get the recipe for the Apple Pie in a Jar and how I made the card and jar label. 

stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms & Gina K designs (the set from Gina K got left out of the recipe in the magazine, but the basket of apples is from the set Whimsical Autumn by my good friend Carolyn King)

Thanks for stopping
and enjoy your weekend!

Dawn

As Summer Fades….and We Enter Fall

Happy 2nd day of FALL y’all! I love Autumn!!

I don’t know about where you live, but here the flowers and butterflies were beautiful this year!

I wanted to share this card with you for several reasons…

1. I love how it turned out
2. It saved me money! No, really, it did!
3. Mel asked if I’d like to do something with Arranged and she’d put it on HER blog….how could I say no!

How did it save me money you ask? Well, let me tell you! Back in August, Amber and I went to Stampaway in Cincinnati…imagine a convention center, 2 floors filled with all your stamping needs, and over-zealous paper crafters!! Yeah…CRAZY!!

Anyhoo, I was in a favorite vendor’s booth, drooling over some beautiful images and had even settled on one…holding it tightly in my hand lest another stamper snatch it from me! Then the light bulb went off…SNAP! I could re-create this stamp with several sets I had at home!!! MONEY SAVED! On to the next booth! lol

Here is how I did it. I started by stamping the butterfly from Gina K’s Take Flight where I wanted it to be on the front panel. (did you think it was a separate layer? fooled you!) Then I watercolored it using Adirondack reinkers and a waterbrush. When I was satisfied with the colors, I took my stamp positioner and overstamped the butterfly! This really makes it POP and defines those lines that just don’t look as “bright” when you watercolor. Then, I took my Versamarker pen and went over the butterfly. I then covered it with clear EP and heat set it. This deepens the colors but it also makes it resist any future inking and color!

Next I stamped Melanie’s Arranged with Love from Gina K and started watercoloring again. (oh, your ink will “stamp” on the resist but you can carefully wipe it off with a tissue…I say carefully because the ink will stay wet on the embossing and smudge off the edges if you’re not careful…ask me how I know!)

I used Copic black to make a thicker line around the edges then distressed them. The Swiss Dots layer is popped up on foam mounting tape (the kind in the hardware dept). And the final touch, the little sentiment from the set.
ginak stamps, pure luxury and prism cardstock, mementos tuxedo black and adirondack reinkers, spellbinders, cuttlebug

Hope you learned just a little bit and I certainly thank you for stopping by!

Dawn

Always Shoot For The Moon…

Our CCEE challenges this month come from Cindy (Mothermark) who used the song lyrics, Let me tell you bout the birds and the bees (first challenge) and the flowers and the trees (second challenge) and the moon up above…today’s challenge! We had to have a “moon” on our card.

I wasn’t sure just which way I was going to go with this “moon” idea or what set I was going to use. But when I went upstairs to think about it, Melanie’s Inspiration Mosaic from GinaK was sitting there… still uncut, virgin rubber…*gasp*…I had to use it!!

· Inspiration Mosaic stamped in Black Soot Distress ink on Pure Luxury, embossed with clear ep
· Sentiment stamped in Black Soot, embossed with clear ep
· Moon is reverse masked (I cut a circle with my Spellbinders Nestie, placed the “hole” where I wanted the moon and colored with Copics, then I dtp’d Versamark and embossed with clear ep
· Sunflowers from Signs of Autumn, stamped and masked, stamped again, colored with Copics, then I went over them with a Versamarker and embossed with clear ep
· Broken China, Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood & Black Soot Distress ink was then sponged over the entire image
· Layered on glossy and Pure Luxury Green Apple

To see what the other girls did you can go to our CCEE blog.

Today is freezing…not weather-wise but putting up corn and broccoli.

Thanks for stopping!

Dawn

Bleached Sunflowers

Head over to StampTV for the Potluck Friday Challenge…a Summer Bouquet and some bleaching too!

I stamped and masked the sunflowers from Signs of Autumn, embossing as I went along. Then I bleached out the flowers and leaves.

I watercolored with Adirondack reinkers and a waterbrush, then I did the cutting with my craft knife. Several of the sunflowers are popped up on varied thickness of foam dimensionals.

My 3yr old granddaughter planted sunflowers along the fence to their garden, I can’t wait to get some pictures when they bloom. Just wishing there was a picket fence with them too! I love this punch with the flowers!

The Green Apple cardstock is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder.

Here’s another card I did with this set and Thanks a Million, colored with Copics and airbrushed. So many possibilities… the basket was masked to stamp the wheat, then I stamped a couple extra, cut them out and placed them on top. The papers are Pure Luxury and Heidi Grace. I curved the sentiment a bit on my acrylic block before stamping.

And Thanks a Million for stopping!

Dawn

Anyone Feel Fall in the Air?

Well, if you’re checking out GinaK's new StampTV video, you’re going to see it’s very close! She is using items and stamp sets from her new “Signs of Autumn” StampTV kit!

Autumn is my favorite time of year, so I was extra excited when I learned I was going to get to share the awesome images and sentiments from this kit with you!!

The kit will be available starting tomorrow, July 30 at 10 PM CST at GinaK Designs and will retire just before the September kit debuts.

I love, love, love pumpkins and sunflowers!! Hey, I’m tellin’ ya, this set was made just for me! The sunflowers and pumpkins are colored with Copics. The top sunflower is popped up on a foam dimensional. See the little pumpkin in the trio? After coloring, I carefully cut out the little guy, glued the two down, then popped the third on more dimensionals. Normally I’d stamp and color a second one, cut it out and pop it over, but this worked out perfectly!

I “dirtied” up all the edges with Old Paper Distress ink to give it more of a “country” feel. Don’t you just love the sentiment!

The card base is Gina’s Pure Luxury Soft Sand along with a new Digi paper, what else but…”Signs of Autumn”, Indian Corn…and this new yummy color, Green Apple! It’s very close to SU’s Old Olive and Kiwi Kiss, 2 colors that I just love! Here’s a comparison:

 I love the weight of this cardstock, it’s perfect for embossing and cutting out images… two things that I love to do!!

 

When I saw this solid rooster silhouette, I knew I had to try a beautiful sky with the rooster as the focal point…and what better technique to use than Smackin’ Acetate. Gina has a great tutorial here.

I used Zig markers on a piece of thick acetate and cut my Pure Luxury White cs first with my Inverted Scalloped Square before patting it down on the spritzed markers. The colors are much richer than the photo turned out. I thought the Inverted Scallops went well with the “sunrise” idea.

And that paper? More of the beautiful Signs of Autumn called Bee Hive. Look how it matches the Green Apple! Like the ribbon? I colored a pale green ribbon with  Copic marker YG95 Pale Olive!

For more projects made with the StampTV kit previewed today, be sure to check out the Senior Design Team Member's Blogs:
Gina, Asela, Cathy, Cindy, Donna, Emily, Erika, Kurtis, Jessica, Joanne, Lee, Lynn, Melanie, and Theresa

And…Tomorrow is the final day of previews before the big Release Party over at SCS Thursday night! You’ll get to see Gina's new Free with Three stamp set - you're going to LOVE this one!

Thanks for stopping!

Dawn

Lucky 7 Sale!

Gina K is having a Gynormous Sale, calling it
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All the deets are on Gina’s blog…be sure to check it out!!

 

 

 

Creative Cuts & More DT Call with Gina’s Crayon Resist

Here’s your chance to try out for Creative Cuts & More! Terry is wanting some special people to have fun and create with her fun products! Check out the blog for all the info.

 ink: memento tuxedo black, adirondack espresso/butterscotch/sunset orange/meadow/stonewashed
paper: Creative Cuts & More pocket/tag (glossy)
stamps: a year of flowers, arranged with love- gina k designs

This is one of CCM’s cute pockets! Everything comes scored so all you have to do is fold and adhere it together!

I used Gina’s technique this week from Stamp TV, Crayon Resist. Now, before Terry wonders what I did here…the pocket set comes with a regular cardstock tag and for crayon resist you need glossy! So I just traced the tag on glossy and cut it out.

Using Melanie’s, A Year of Flowers and the sentiment from Arranged with Love, from Gina K Designs, I stamped the top sunflower then the sentiment and masked it and continued stamping the leaves and flowers. I left the oval mask in place as I finished the the resist sponging.

The front of the pocket is Cuttlebugged. I love the little window! The pocket measures 3.25x3.50…with the tag, it measures 3.75.

Enjoy your day! I’m off to take a walk and hopefully get some creating done for some upcoming hops!

Thanks for stopping!

Dawn 

Gina's Center Stage!

Exciting! Yes!
I get to be "Center Stage" with 5 other great ladies for the month of July!

Thanks Gina!!

An Arranged Birthday with a Supply Challenge

Our CCEE challenge today was to use the supplies that Charlene sent us.

• designer paper by g.c.d. studios-rose colored glasses collection-light wallpaper
  
• 2 chocolate brads


• 1 pink gemstone brad


• 1 chocolate oval and 2 white ovals


• 1 pink curly label punched piece


• 2 ribbons, pink & chocolate
  

Requirements:

• Must use all or a portion of the designer paper


• Must use either the pink gemstone, the chocolate brads or both


• Must use a portion of or all of the ribbon, or both


• Must use the oval punched shapes together or with the curly label

Now....before anyone gets buzzer happy on me, I did use the lovely designer paper but got a little.... ok... a lot! "sponge happy" and sponged on so much distress ink that it's hard to see the design! LOL

Seee, if you look reeeeally hard, you can see a little of the pattern behind the cut out flowers!

I love this new set, Arranged with Love, by Melanie Muenchinger from Gina K! It's colored with Copics and a few hightlights with a gel pen, then I took my craft knife and cut around each leaf, stem and flower! Then popped it up on the "heavily" distressed, scalloped paper and added the chocolate ribbon.

The sentiment (also from the set) is sponged and popped up also.

To see what the lovely paper actually looks like and to see how the other girls used their supplies, check out our CCEE blog.

Now, I'm off to start my week...more raspberries...more shearing...and maybe more yardwork!

Enjoy your day!

Thanks for stopping!

Arranged With Love for a Blog Hop

When Melanie asked me if I’d like to play with her new set coming out and showed me a picture, I *gasped* and jumped at the offer! Anyone that knows my stamping style knows I LOVE flowers and floral scenes!
This set takes the guesswork and fussing with sticky notes to mask away… it’s all done for you! Just stamp it!

“Arranged with Love” is a floral beauty! It’s available for purchase at 10CST on Thursday the 25th at Gina K Designs.

This is one entire image with 10 lovely sentiments you can put on the “card”.

I stamped the image twice on Gina’s Pure Luxury #80 with Versamark and Black Soot distress ink. (although distress ink stays wet long enough to apply embossing powder, with this being such a large area I didn’t want it to dry before I got all my ep sprinkled on, so I added the Versamark)

It’s a combo of Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils, starting with Copics to lay down my base colors then doing most of the shading with the pencils blended with baby oil. I went back and added some highlights with Copics again… cool thing about the combo is the Copics slide around on the waxy Prismacolors and barely soak in, making it easy to blend and hightlight! *wink*

And this is why I stamped and embossed it twice! All the flowers are layered and some of the leaves. This meant double coloring too! I think it was well worth the effort though don’t you?! Some of the petals are double dimensionals to raise them a little higher.

Towards the bottom of the flowers I took my green dauber (just the distress ink left from previous usage) and sponged. (all the sponging was done before layering the petals!) Then I took Faded Jeans distress ink and sponged around the top area.

The “card” is outlined with a Zig Painty gold pen.
*Here’s a tip* The area to be filled in is narrow and when I started my pen (you know…shake~shake… press the tip…) it left a puddle on my scratch paper and the tip was TOO wet to fill in the narrow part! So I got rid of the excess on my scratch paper and used the “puddle” to dip the pen tip in and color the border.

I wasn’t sure what sentiment I wanted until the very end, and since I need an anniversary card for some friends, I chose this one to stamp and emboss.

Popped up on foam mounting tape on Prism Candle Glow med then layered on Blush Red med.

Now, be sure to hop around to all the others so you can see their awesome creations!

Gina, Carolyn, Cathy, Cindy, Donna, Emily, Erika, Jessica, Kurtis, Lee, Lynn, Theresa , and Melanie Muenchinger, and, be sure to check out Gina K’s CenterStage Spotlight girls joining us in Previews today: Carla Suto and Melissa Waldorf and Melanie’s Guest Designer this month: Selma Stevenson! plus Denise

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Thanks for Stopping!

Dawn

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Frog Eggs and Orchids

The other day while walking outside I came upon this unusual nest!!

Frog eggs? Serious?

Well, take a look for yourself!

No, actually, some stupid Starling had laid her eggs inside my llama trailer....not laying them IN a nest.... and they rolled OUT of the trailer...totally proving how stupid and worthless Starlings are! They are not Robin eggs, Robin eggs are a deeper blue. Two of them were cracked, so before the llamas stepped on them I thought they'd look cute in one of my little gardens. Then I got the idea of the frog sitting next to them....yeah, my goofy sense of humor!

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Now for the Orchids

Today's sketch on SCS combined with Gina's technique for the day, shaving cream background. For the technique I used Adirondack dye reinkers, Lemonade, Cool Peri and Willow.

The orchid is another one from the set Tropicals by Inque Boutique. It's colored with Prismacolor pencils blended with baby oil then I sponged the background with Scattered Straw distress ink while it was still in the Spellbinder's die. I dabbed Milled Lavender Stickles on the petals with my fingertip....ooooh, spark-lay!

I made a couple of faux brads by using my Cropadile and punching 6 circles, gluing 3 together for each brad. Then I applied Glossy Accents and set them aside to dry before gluing in place.

supplies:
stamps: tropicals-inque boutique paper: hollo's smooth white, making memories textured ink: memento tuxedo black-tsukineko, scattered straw-ranger, adirondack reinkers lemonade, cool peri, willow-ranger other: shaving cream, martha stewart punches, cropadile, spellbinders sm/lg deckled mega rectangles, ribbon, zip dry glue, distress stickles-ranger, glossy accents-ranger, dauber, foam dimensionals, craft knife

Take a walk around the yard...you never know what you're going to find! *wink*

Thanks for stopping!

Inky Antics Fun...and a Pretty Butterfly

Saturday, Amber and I went to the Scrapbook Expo in Columbus. Wall to wall vendors and people!


I didn't do a lot of buying...more looking...but I did make a point of stopping at Inky Antics! I love their stuff....and Janie Miller is such a fun illustrator!


Here are two cards I've done so far with Lester (the moose) and Puppy Love.

Lester is colored with Prismacolor pencils blended with baby oil. The trees are from PSX and the daisies from Cornish Heritage Farms.

Pup and Kitten are colored with Copic markers. The paw prints are from Top Dog by Artful Inkables.
Inside it says, Happiness is an unexpected hug. Awwww (sentiment is also from Inky Antics)
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And this? Just because I love the simplicity of it...the Cuttlebug folder, Friends Forever is perfect for Gina K's Take Flight to light upon!

I hope you're having a beautiful day where you are! It's sunny and warmer today here!! Yippeee!!!

Thanks for stopping!

Just Some Sketch Challenge Cards

For today's Sketch challenge on SCS, nothing fancy...


Confession is good for the soul...right? I don't normally start out with my pattern paper and work out to my image. I always color first then figure out IF I have paper that matches! LOL


So today I thought I'd be different, I had some of the paper left from our DD supplies and thought I'd try the tulips (A Year of Flowers) from Gina K colored with a combo of Copics and Prismacolor pencils, on those strips....I even had the flowers looking rather rusty, but, oh... did they look GROSS on that paper!


Plan B....found the Lilykate by Basic Grey that looked nice behind the tulips, masked and airbrushed them, added some "redder" tones, then layered on several 'rose' shades.

A Year of Flowers-Gina K designs, Hero Arts, Adirondack Pitch Black, Copic markers, Prismacolor pencils, baby oil, blending stumps, Pure Luxury cs-Gina K, Prism Rose lt/med/dk, Basic Grey Lilykate, Copic Airbrush System, ribbon

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Now, I still had the strips cut from the first try so I had to do another card! The ribbon frame from the Technique challenge was so fun, I incorporated it into the sketch. This is Top Dog from Artful INKables.

Top Dog-Artful INKables, GP white, Robin's Nest PP, Bazzill textured, Prism Kraft, Adirondack Pitch Black, Copics, Copic ABS, Ribbon, Flower, Brad-Paper Studio, Craft knife

He's masked, repeat stamped the sentiment at an angle and airbrushed. Isn't he cute!

It's another beautiful day here, not quite 70, but pushing it! Pretty soon I'll be seeing my tulips blooming....but for now I'll have to settle for my stamps!

Enjoy your day.................and Thanks for stopping!

A Rose Ribbon Frame

Believe it or not, this is quite a quick technique! Today's challenge on SCS is this cool ribbon frame found here on Claire's blog!

I chose to use this new set that I won from Gina K on Stamp TV from one of the challenges! It's called A Year of Flowers...a lovely set!

The rose is embossed with clear ep, watercolored with wc crayons then finished off with Copics.

It's deeper, richer looking in person...oh well!
The sentiment is also GKD, Friendship Blooms.

Hope you're having a beautiful day where you are. Spring is definately in the air...the birds are singing their little hearts out and the flowers are starting to poke out of the ground!

Thanks for stopping!

Italian Food, Funky Llamas, Cards,and Flowers!

Just some things I've been up to...

I'm hooked on crocheting these cute flowers and embellishing cards! "Hooked"... get it...sometimes I crack myself up! Okay, for those that have no idea how to crochet, you use a "crochet hook"...........oooooooooooooh, now, you get it!!

Some are made using my handspun llama fiber,
some are just a cotton thread. Pattern at the end of this post.

This was for the Featured Stamper challenge.
Artful INKables sentiment

This was for the Limited Supply challenge
Gina K Designs

And this one...can you find the crocheted flower?
This one was for the Inspiration Challenge.
Found it yet?
There isn't one! I just love how this one turned out and wanted to show you!
Gina K Designs/Cornish Heritage Farms

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And I made the yummiest dinner tonight! I made my own gnocchi from scratch! Then made this yummy sauce to go over it! I got the recipe for the sauce online from Olive Garden. I took pics along the way and was going to show you the end result...but it tasted 100x better than it photographed!!

I will show you the gnocchi though, it was very easy to make. Recipes will posted at the end. Next time I'll make them a little smaller too.

The sauce recipe calls for white wine, luckily I had this wine I'd bought because...well, read the label! I had to have it!!

• Gnocchi with Spicy Tomato and Wine Sauce
  
  servings: 4 easily!
  prep: 30 min(s) cook: 30 min(s)
  Ingredients
  1 lb Gnocchi potato dumplings (make your own...or look in frozen section at your grocer)
  2 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
  6 cloves Fresh garlic, minced
  1/2 tsp Chili flakes
  1 cup Dry white drinking wine
  1 cup Chicken broth
  2 14 1/2 oz. cans Tomatoes
  1/2 stick Sweet cream butter, 1 inch cubes chilled
  1/2 cup Freshly grated Parmesan cheese.... I used a mixture of Parmesan/Romano/Asiago
  Freshly chopped basil (to taste)....I had some store bought pesto, added approx 1/2 tsp to sauce
  Salt (to taste)Freshly crushed black pepper (to taste)
  
  SAUCE PREPARATION
  Place the olive oil, garlic and chili flakes in a cold pan. On medium heat stir and cook the olive oil, garlic, chili flakes until garlic turns slight golden brown.
  To this mixture add the white wine and chicken broth simmer about 10 minutes.
  Reduce the wine and broth by half, add the tomatoes, and continue to simmer for 30 minutes.
  Puree the sauce in blender with the butter and Parmesan cheese.
  Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  
  TIP: Add Cream to sauce to add richness...I added approx 1/2 cup of half and half
  Add vegetables of choice to sauce

This sauce would be good over pasta too!

• Gnocchi
  Ingredients:
  2 large potatoes
  2 cups all-purpose flour
  1 egg (I used 2 because I had enough potato to double the recipe!)
  
  Directions:
  1.Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Peel potatoes and add to pot. Cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain, cool and mash with a fork or potato masher.
  
  2.Combine 1 cup mashed potato, flour and egg in a large bowl. Knead until dough forms a ball. Shape small portions of the dough into long rolls. On a floured surface, cut rolls into half-inch pieces....You want a nice dough, not sticky, but you don't want to work in too much flour either! Add the flour a little at a time.
  
  3.Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Drop in gnocchi and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until gnocchi have risen to the top; drain and serve.

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Now for the crocheted flowers.....

Rnd 1: ch 2, 5 sc in 2nd ch from hook. Join with sl st to first sc.
[ (ch 2, 3dc, ch 2, sl st) in the same sc, sl st to the next sc], 5 times, making 5 petals. Cut off.

I hope I inspired you to do some cooking or pick up that yarn that's been sitting around for too long!! Enjoy!!

Thanks for stopping!