Choice Morsels

  Exciting news! Zazzle has just introduced new 12 oz USA Premium Roast Coffee you can sent friends or family for occasions or just because!  Choice of ground or beans. Cafe or Decafe. Choice of Dark, Medium or Light! Bagged by a premium coffee maker in the northwest. Here's the product information from Zazzle about the product: All coffee produced in the Pacific Northwest, USA Certified as specialty coffee by Specialty Coffee Association (Q-Grade of 80+) Average shipping date of ~10 days from roast date ensuring peak freshness All-over printing giving full control over the entire exterior packaging Small batch roasting to ensure quality Available in Whole Bean or Pre-Ground (with no extra charge!) Distributed by: Roastify LLC, Bend OR, 97702 Coffee Net Weight: 12oz (340g) Be sure to note you coffee order may take up to 10 days to arrive! So, here's some of my best Roast Coffee designs!  Click on the pictures to be taken to the product page! Congrats to the Newlyweds Coff...

I couldn't post last Friday because I was sick---we'd eaten chopped  taco salad the night before at a friend's, then by the next afternoon---I was feeling really ew.  Pretty confident it was the salad.  Today's creative moment is sharing a recent Grad Photo Magentic card I designed. I call it "Modern Circles." It's postcard size, so it can be easily inserted into the same envelope as the matching Graduation Invitation  pe rfect for friends and family to put on their frig as a date reminder! Modern Circles Grad Photo Magnetic Card. Other Exciting News I recently got an email from Zazzle that they will be featuring me and my Zazzle store on their official blog sometime in next few months.  (One has to meet certain criteria and fill out an application to be considered.) Zazzle is also having a Wedding Design Contest. I have the whole month of April to work on it.  Wedding designs (including all the paper goods and accessories) i...

I've been working on quite a few new design lately. I usually work when I have a flow of ideas and this weeks it's been new ideas for my Graduation Design Collection ! Colorful Thank You Photo Card This one came out cute! It's a small 5 x 5 size card. I made the Thank You multicolor cut the heart shape out of the "o" in You, then framed it with double lines. Just add a photo and personalize the back message. I made it with Graduation in mind, but it could actually be used for any Thank You occasion---like a wedding couple photo added or a nice Happy Birthday party picture for a gift thank you.  Graduation Thanks Black/White Photo Card I created this one to match a 5 x 5 square Graduation Invitation with the same photo, but it'd be great on it's own. Black & White is classy looking and trendy. The card has a full black/white photo with "Thanks" in a script style for a hand-written look. Just add a photo and personalize ...

I have ton's of beautiful flower pictures and I'm always trying to think of unique artistic ways to use them so they become more then just a bare "photo of a flower." This Happy Easter card is a new creation this week represents a style I'd like to explore more: It's a photo of a blue Hyacinth from my garden a couple years back that I altered in photo-shop and my graphic program to have a colored-pencil/watercolor art feel. Then I applied the lettering in Zazzle's design platform prior to publishing. The text on front and inside can be personalized by the customer to what they wish to say. Artistic Blue Hydrangea Religious Happy Easter Card

For 2019, I'm going start a new posting theme Friday's called "Creative Friday."  I'm going to try and feature something creative, whether it's a new design I've created or a bit of fiction writing based on a writing prompt I've got saved in Pinterest  or maybe even something of a crafty nature---as long as it's a Friday I'm free to do so.  So,  So, for today's "Creative Friday," I have art: a new Valentine Card design that I worked really quite hard on.   It's a play on the words "Meant to Be," featuring a box of Mint Tea and pink tea mug "in love."   You & Me Are Mint to Be Valentines Card

I'm not doing a Mama Kat today. I didn't have any ideas for any of the listed prompts---but I had s omething more interesting happen--- I received an email from Warner Bros. Studio's Content Coordinator requesting permission to use one of my Zazzle card designs as a prop on the New Murphy Brown TV series airing on CBS, Thursday night s. They'd already purchased oneand included a scan of it along the permission form they needed me to sign and send back, so I'd know what they were asking about. It was this one: Bejeweled Dragonfly Thinking/Praying for You Postcard I was so astonished and also honored to have something I created selected for use on a TV show! Of course, I signed and returned the permission promptly. This postcard is an inspirational get-well, which seemed an odd choice for a secular TV show.  So, I read up on the show's synopsis : Murphy Brown is about an ethical and honest journalist trying to navigate through the chaotic and poli...

Today's Mama Kat blog prompt is, "10 Things I Love About My Job." Photo from Pixabay My office is my home.  I can get up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee in the kitchen, walk down to the den, sit at my computer and I'm "at work." What I do at is graphic design. I used to be a florist, but general changes in management and  being allergic to a new floor motivated me to get out of that. So I decided to put my graphic art degree to work and set up a free on-line "store" with a printing company called Zazzle. I create designs for various Zazzle products. They handle everything else. 10 Things I Love About My Job 1)  I don't have to go anywhere. 2)  I don't have to have special "work clothes." 3) I can set my own hours and work when I want. 4)  It fulfills my need for a creative outlet. 5)  I can choose what I create and just create what interests me. 6)    I have every Holiday off. At the flower s...

Greetings. I was hoping to finish mowing the front this morning---but, it was already raining and thundering. It's a steady, pattering rain. Not a down-pour. So much for that idea. Instead, I spent a little time fine-tuning some new electronic skins I loaded into my Zazzle store for readers, phones & MP3's. It was the first time I'd ever used the "bulk creator" and even then, I just did a limited selection. But it was easy enough to use---just needed extra fine-tuning afterwards. If you drop by and "Like" my store , you'll get email updates of anything I add new! They have featured discounts constantly, too! So on to the Mama Kat Prompt of the Day: MY TOP 5 CHOCOLATE CANDY FAV'S #1)  Hershey's Special Dark Kisses         These are my go-to favorites because they're only 20 calories per Kiss, so I'll eat two for a treat after lunch or dinner. I keep them in the freezer.  (I'm not at all tempted to eat the w...

I'm only posting 1 garden pic today, but after it I have a funny little story to share. Pic of the Day is my waterfall of orange Million Bells spilling from my large front pot garden! So pretty!  The red-tail grass in the back has put up it's first head. I hope get a nice pic, when it's put up a few more and is more developed. This pot is themed on oranges and red tones. The orange day lily in it is a re-bloomer, so I expect a repeat bloom from it in the near future and, of course, the purple and red petunias are thriving. Okay, now let me re-tell this amusing conversation I had. This was last Saturday and one of the guys in our ministry had invited everyone to his house to watch him set off some fireworks he's purchased. So, my husband and I are sitting in the living room, waiting for others to arrive. Taylor Kitsch We have 2 Randy's in the group and this conversation involves us and the 2 Randy's. For identification sake I'll call the fir...

The Garden of Pics of the Day  are a couple views of my flower beds and a shot of my tomato plant laden with tomatoes. First up, my front flower bed: This is what people see when they park in the driveway or pass the house. It's a corner bed, triangle shaped. You can see my large pot sitting on the stump that once was a pine tree. This is the pot that has the little blue ceramic cat in it and also has the creek stones I brought back from Indiana. This bed faces east and just gets morning sun.  I took this photo around noon, which is why it's so bright.   Next, a view of the flower beds on the opposite of the driveway from the front bed: You can see the gravel parking space we built below. In the foreground is one of my Rubeckia plants full of blossoms. My house is on the left, the neighbors on the right. In the background you can see a very tall, leafy plant with grassy pampas behind it. That tall thing is my Hardy Hibiscus, which is j...

I have 2 special pictures of the week for you ! Last fall, I planted an assortment of 10 new Day Lillies, each a different and unique color. Now, one by one, they're blooming and I've been photographing them. Each has a name and I very smartly kept record of those names and where each is planted. First up:  Blueberry Candy It's peachy colored with a purplish-maroon watermark and lime throat. Pretty. Next:  Black-eyed Susan This one is a brilliant, dark golden yellow with the red-orange watermark. This photo is not touched up--it really is this color. Notice the slight ruffling along the petal edges---these lillies are classed as "ruffled daylillies." Most are re-bloomers, meaning they'll put up fresh stems to bloom again later. These are strictly for outdoor beautification. Each blossom only lasts a "day," thus their name. Not a good cutting flower, though I have put broken stems in a vase before. Every b...

Today I'm showing you how I recycle old greeting cards:  My friend, Megan, showers me with gorgeous, glittery "Papyrus" brand greeting cards. (Remember I love glitz!) They were just too nice to throw away. Plus I had this years and 2 previous years Christmas cards to sort through to decide what might be used for something else and what to throw away. Seems like we get an increasing number of photo cards and you know what? Those can't be recycled. Frankly, I rather have a regular card-stock card with a really nice picture and a photo inserted, mostly because I like re-using cards.       This time, however, it was a pile of birthday, anniversary and just all occasion cards I wanted to recycle. The project required a box of card stock with envelopes from JoAnn's Fabrics. (In the stamping section.) I got a box of mixed bright colors and it required a couple glue sticks. I prefer rubber cement, but glue sticks is what I had on hand. And a pair of paper sci...

     The Mama Kat's Writing Prompt of choice this week is #5: Share a story about a sibling .      My growing up years were full of magic and adventure. I remember so much laughter and romping  through sun-dappled woods down to the gurgling creek flowing through the valley below our house, the dog running ahead of us, her tail like a flag in the breeze. My two younger sisters and I could skip agiley over the rocks we placed in the stream for crossing, like little mountain goats, our feet never touching water. There was always adventure to had, flowers to be found, creepy-crawlies to be discovered and I remember our Barbie and Ken dolls enjoyed many a luxurious, stone-lined spa in that stream.       However, the particular sibling story I want to tell happened not by the steam, but near the house out in my Mother's garden. Now we're talking a huge garden, two of them, in fact, arranged one above the...

It's time for Mama Kat's Writing Prompt and today the topic is, " Describe a time you felt startled." At first I drew a blank. I've certainly been startled many times, but my goal with this blog is to write about pleasant, uplifting things and I wasn't going to retell any of the horrible startling moments that first came to mind. Trying to think of a good one while laying in bed, I prayed that the Lord bring one to mind, since He can easily locate mental files I've forgotten which cabinet I put them in, and He popped a really good one! It happened about 20 years ago. My husband had been sent on an 18 month assignment to Turkey that year and my plan was to visit him for a few weeks over Christmas. The price for a round trip flight was $1200.00, which I knew I could put on our credit card, but the debt of it concerned me.  Our house was brand new then, we'd only moved in a few months before Dave got the assignment. So I wouldn't be alone while he...