The Fragrant Hand

Thursday, February 5, 2026

Risotto Because I Love You LOAD226 As You Wish Day 5

I was today's featured designer.
Story Prompt: As You Wish. There are a lot of ways to express love. What is one way that you, or someone close to you shows their love? Technique Prompt: People wish upon a star, so use a star on your layout.
Journaling: Standing over a hot stove and endless stirring. Making risotto is about patience and perseverance but it’s so worth it! Risotto is something you make for people you love. Every time I make it, with every swoop of the spoon I whisper, “Risotto, because I love you!”

Layerworks 1557 from Katy Perteit Designs
Citrus Twist from Katy Perteit Designs
Alphabet Splendid Season by Ponytails at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Ex Libris Traci Reed at Sweet Shoppe Designs
Cooked from Katy Pereit Designs
MMullens wood grain paper from My Life In Print at The Daily Digi (retired)
Font: Rough Typewriter Regular
Font: Adobe Garamond Pro Regular

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

Chocolate & Orange LOAD226 As You Wish Day 1

Today's Prompts
"STORY PROMPT: When the author/screenwriter asked his daughter what the book should be about, one suggested a princess and the other suggested a bride, so the two ideas were combined for this epic tale of love and adventure. What are two things that you combine that may be an unusual pairing?"

"TECHNIQUE PROMPT: Use complementary colours on your layout, colours that are directly opposite on the colour wheel. (Blue and orange, or yellow and purple, or red and green.)"

Journaling: I love citrus and I love chocolate. When the two are combined you have something really special. I like my chocolate chip cookies with orange zest and walnuts. See’s Candies milk orange cream is a favorite. Lindt’s Orange Intense bar, Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano cookies. On Christmas morning there’s a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in every stocking. Chocolate Orange is a favorite flavor combination.

Products Used
GingerBread Ladies Monthly Mix: Lemonade & Laughter Ginger Scraps
Alphabet Candy Coated Christmas by Traci Reed Sweet Shoppe Designs (altered by me)
Additional Images Autumn Enchantment by Traci Reed Sweet Shoppe Designs
Additional Paper Summer Farmhouse by Simple Stories.
Orange Bird from Etsy Seller KenchikuMX Kimberly Theran

Additional Orange Images pngtree

Page Template Sequentials 1 to 4 Set 8 Page 4 (retired) by Cindy Schneider at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Font: Font: Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Some of the Ways I Use the Color My Life App

I use a wonderful app called Color My Life to catalog and organize my craft supplies.

I love it and I talk about how much I love it a lot.
I often blog over on the Scrap Happy Blog and I have talked about how I use the Color My Life App in my creative process. These posts include info and links to where you can find the Color My Life App.

Click the Post Title to follow the link the blog post.

A Bit of Seasonal Wishful Thinking

Floating The Guadalupe

Making My Own Luck

Friendship is a Sheltering Tree

Thursday, August 18, 2022

A List of Places to find Card and Scrapbook Challenges

Many places where I find challenges are in private groups where I can not Pin them to Pinterest.
In the interest of being able to share them with you I have created this list which I intend to continue to add to.

This post is an additional resource to go with my August Post on the Scrap Happy Blog
Going Off Challenge Can Still Be Inspiring.

Stamp Nation - this is a membership site which welcomes stamping from all stamp companies which was founded and continues to be maintained by Catherine Pooler of Catherine Pooler Designs. They often run educational sets of classes for their members in addition to monthly & sometimes weekly challenges to inspire your creativity. For Info on joining stamp nation look here at the Catherine Pooler Shop under Subscriptions.

Gina K Designs Stamp TV & Friends Facebook Group
This group is limited to art using Gina K Designs products but Karen Hightower posts color challenges regularly which I have often used to create projects.

Gina K Designs Does a Monthly Mix Challenge on their blog

Pinkfresh Studio Monthly Challenge - Pinkfresh gives a prize each month for a card AND a scrapbook page. Even when the give-away is over, I have found their challenges a great place for inspiration. My own card this month for the Scrap Happy Blog was inspired by their April 2022 challenge.

Every Year Ellen Hutson runs a challenge called The Twelve Tags of Christmas
I have found inspiration and reproduced the techniques shown on several of the tags from past years.
Probably the best places to find this info are Ellen Hutson Blog, Ellen Hutson Instagram, and Ellen Hutson YouTube channel.

The Stamps of Life Fan Club Official Facebook group. This fan-run site has a monthly card sketch challenge. Submissions are limited to projects using The Stamps Of Life products but the sketches are general purpose.

Scrapbook And Cards Today Magazine Blog - often posts sketch challenges with prize give-aways.

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge is one that I have heard much about but have not done myself. The idea is that each month they choose a past subscription kit from a subscription service as their inspiration - then participants assemble a counterfeit of that kit from the items they already own and create projects with that kit. There is a design team which posts their own kits and projects to help give ideas of how to do it.

My Favorite Things regularly adds challenges to their blog
Here are search results on their blog for challenge but be aware results don't seem to be in date order.

Heffy Doodle does regular challenges on their Facebook Page Here is a link to a search of their page for Challenges

Last updated August 27, 2022

Monday, June 28, 2021

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove by Heather Webber

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove by Heather Webber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Sadie Way's mother has a hart attack, she can no longer avoid returning to her hometown of Sugarberry Cove and the B&B where she grew up. This heartwarming book, set in a charming lakeside town, alternates between the perspectives of Sadie and her sister Leala Clare. Can these very different sisters heal their strained relationship? Maybe, with some help from the B&B's guests, and a little lake magic.

Many books these days fall flat with a poor ending. Heather Webber got this book just right, perfectly balanced. If you enjoy a cozy story set in a small town community, this book should be your next read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Forge Books with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my review.

View all my reviews

Hardcover, 272 pages
Expected Publication, July 20, 2021

ISBN, 9781250774620

Friday, January 22, 2021

Special Delivery Bookmark

I've been doing a lot of daily reading and for the first time in a long time I reading several books that aren't on Kindle. I needed some bookmarks so I decided to make one.

Here's the first.

Slimline Love Framelit dies from Dare 2b Artzy
Special Delivery from Catherine Pooler January Club Sursee
Guava Cardstock The Stamps of Life
Colored with Catherine Pooler Inks and a Tombow Blender Pen