Sad Sack

Poor little thing, I'm sure she feels as though she is being punished.  She just got spayed and isn't too happy about anything.  I have to pack her up and down the steps to go outside.  The cone isn't on all day, I take it off a lot.  But she has to wear it all night and when I'm too busy to watch her.  

 Something I found in my junk drawer.  It needed new strings  :)   well, I just whipped out my waxy flax and fixed it right up.  It's now back outside, over my little deck garden, sounding quite pretty in the breeze.  It says:

 'Sun Shine fades, Stars appear, Garden Angels gather here'. 

Isn't that lovely?   I can't wait till the snow is gone to see my yard  :) 

A friend picked up a recipe for a Mango salad and knew that I'd be interested.  The ingredients are: avocado, mango or orange (I used mango), green onion, red pepper, toasted sesame seeds ( I used almonds) placed on a nice bed of lettuce mix. The dressing is: lime juice, maple syrup, olive oil, ground cumin (I used nutmeg), and soy sauce. I also threw in some craisons.

I teamed it up with a nice slice of this egg dish that Sue, from http://abittatteredart.blogspot.com/, calls  Dutch Baby. 
It's usually topped with lemon juice and icing sugar, but today,

I thought it should have a little maple syrup on it too  :)  

It was beautiful and puffed up, but I may have taken it out of the oven too fast  :)

It's like a cross between a soufle and a yorkshire pudding.  That said, next time I'm going to try my extra large muffin pan, for individual servings.  

Tea on Tuesday

Tuesday seems to roll around pretty quick!

I'm taking a snack and tea break in front of my computer today, just so I can say Hi   :)

It's Christmas tea, yogurt and a ginger/raison cookie from my frozen stash in the freezer.  

So far this morning, I've just been puttering.    I love it when you go to a drawer to find something and end up cleaning the whole thing out--usually ending up with a good handful of garbage stuff! 

Did the same thing with the linen cupboard too. So I've definitely earned my tea break  :)

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful day  :)

Check out other tea drinkers at Kim's place  http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning....

Got up this morning, the sun coming up on one side and the moon going  down on the other---a few little clouds hanging around to show the beautiful pinky/peachy, orange glow of the sunrise.  I won't look to the north at those very dark clouds creeping around behind the mountain! 

Did anyone watch, on Friday night, the two Oprah shows?  Well, the second one was about clearing out things NOW, not LATER.  I'm not so much a 'collector' as I am a procrastinator.   Anyway, I got energized by watching the show and ended up with two grocery bags of garbage from my craft room!  Not bad considering it had, at one time, seemed important enough to keep  :) 

Sometimes when you're at another crafters house, you use one of their stamps thinking you will make something 'later', or, they have an idea for a project, so you start it and thinking you have enough done to remember the outcome, you take it home....to finish 'later'.   So, while watching a movie last night, I sorted through two small drawers labelled 'started projects' and 'stamped papers' and ended with one drawer full.    So today I continue,  wish me luck.  Maybe by Tuesday Tea day, I will have a project or two to show you!  

Enough, useless trivia  :)   Have a lovely Sunday Everyone 

Who Likes A Heel?

Well, me for one  :)  This is a wonderful multi-grain bread that is so light and flavourful!  A good friend gave me her recipe, so I'll pass it on to all of you:  1 1/3 c. water, 2 tbsp. powdered milk, 1 egg, 2 tbsp. honey, 1 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 1/2 c whole wheat flour, 1 1/2 c. white flour, 3/4 c. 9 grain-for cereal and baking,  2 tbsp. flax, 1/4 c. molasses, 2 1/2 tsp. yeast.

Ok, I added the flax, but there is flax in the 9 grain and I used fancy molasses.  I end up using at least another 1/2 cup of flour when kneading--take your choice.  I usually take the 1/3 cup of water, warm it, add 1 tbsp. of the honey and add in my yeast to set.  By the time the dry ingredients are all mixed, the yeast is ready, then just mix in all the moist ingredients and throw it together.  I usually punch down twice and put into pans.    





Well, we got another dump of snow last night!  One good thing is the exercise I'm getting lately, but the baking is maybe going to start counter-acting the benefits of shovelling  :) 

The poor dogs couldn't even get out their door this morning until I shovelled and it was pretty hard to find the 3 steps that lead to the lower deck that was clear last night.  I think some of it drifted to make it so deep--a little  :)

I thought we were going to get a break when it cleared up a couple of days ago.  We have three kinds of light: the lamp post, the almost-full moon and the sun shining on the hillside, just as it went down.   

The key holder is finished, I hung it close to my back door.  It's great for hanging the dog leashes.  I don't usually hang my car keys there, but I think it may be a good place for the shed key.   

Break is over, it's time to make lunch and I see the snow has stopped and a wee bit of blue sky is appearing.  It may be a lot nicer finishing my shovelling this afternoon!

I hope Everyone is having a great day   :)

Tea and Poppy Seed Puff Pastry

First time for making this pastry and it is absolutely delicious!  Goes very nicely with my Earl Grey tea  :)

The poppy seed mix is from a can, called Krakus, product of Poland. Ingredients are: poppy seeds, sugar, honey, candied orange peel and golden raisons.  The puff pastry is Tenderflake.  Couldn't be easier to put together!  Brush with a beaten egg---holds it together and bakes it to a beautiful golden brown. 

The paper craft pile is smaller, but just spread out.   

Someone gave me the wooden key holder, so I've painted it white, modge podged and added paper--still needs more done to it. 

Paper projects are laid out and ready to sponge, stamp and generally add stuff to make look pretty  :) 

 

That's what's in store for this week as far as projects go.  Wrapped up in the white bag is the acrylic album but, the other projects have to get done first!

If you would like to see what other tea drinkers are up to, check out Kimmies site, http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/ 



Cooking and Crafting, still Snowing

Well, as in many parts of the country, it is still snowing here. But, I can keep busy!

Yesterday was much the same so I did more crafting and cooking :)

I love crepes!

For dinner, I stacked them with a lasagne-type meat sauce--Crepes Italiano!

I only made a small stack--saving some for breakfast :)

I used scraps to punch out smaller flowers.

Eliminating one mess! The stack of stuff on the top right corner is my 'to deal with pile'!

One is an arylic book I was starting a while back :)

Just put up shelves. This wall will stay the same. Getting it together---one wall at a time :)

We'll see what developes over the weekend--I'll share with you on Monday :)

Have a great weekend Everyone :)

Getting Things Done on a Snowy Day

Well another foot of snow today :) what can I say, good day for the craft room, baking, laundry or just lazing around. So I did a little of everything.

I made homemade egg noodles but no machine makes rolling a workout. Mix together 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour and 1 tsp. salt. Roll them out, mine should have been thinner but my arms wouldn't do it :) Cut strips and let dry for 2 hours. This is enough for 4 or 5 servings--depending how hungry you are. Store the thoroughly dried noodles in an airtight container.

So for dinner, I sauted onions, mushrooms, peppers, celery, prawns and when that was almost done, tossed in some fresh spinach and nutmeg. While the noodles were cooking, I made a white sauce to which I added a little parmesan cheese. Mixed it all together and voila! Dinner.

I made a mosaic card, thanks Sue for reminding me of this technique. Check out Sue's mosaic tag at http://abittatteredart.blogspot.com/ I have never tried it and good heavens, I can finally put to use some of the rubber I have saved! My piece of acrylic isn't very big so I had to stamp a couple of times.

Directions can be found on SplitCoast Stampers.

The inside.

I love how it turned out. My ruffled flowers are actually pinker, not sure how they got the orange look.

Good gosh, if we get more snow, who knows what can happen around the house :)

Have a great day Everyone.

Tea on Tuesday, Chunky Pages Put together

Another project put together--I picked an easy one this time :)

It's pretty chilly outside and I'm enjoying the comfort of my nice smooth cup of tea!

Awhile back I was in a swap to make a five page, 4x4, Chunky Page--with a twinchie--underwater themed book.





The front cover is my finished page. The twinchie is a piece of memory glass, sponged-on ink, stamped with mermaids, edges wrapped with gold foil and a couple of little shells glued on. Beside the twinchie is a piece of wood found on the beach and a couple of coloured shell pieces. Along the bottom, there are little seed beads and shells.
The little saying from Shakespeare says "I love this place and willingly could waste my time in it."



Well, these are the beginnings of my pages. I painted the chipboard with acrylic paint, sort of smoothed on tissue paper and started adding embellishments.





Inside my cover piece has a piece of inked, gyproc tape, a piece of cardstock 'coral' and words from Anais Nin, "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

Gorgeous colour on the second page, cute poem and beautiful beads with a gold star fish.





Wish you could feel the painted texture background, love the twinchie too :)







"The Mermaids Song" beautiful page, the picture doesn't do justice to the texture and embellishments!







'She had time on her hands and no where to go'! Again, the texture, the beads and a mermaid charm!











I love how this little chunky book turned out, thanks to the ladies in the swap for sharing their artistic talents!

If you want to see what other tea drinkers are doing :) check out Kimmies blog, artinredwagons on my sidebar :)

Happy New Year!

Oh my goodness, the New Year was nice for three days and then came the snow! Would you believe it melted during the week after Christmas and we had green grass up until Monday January 3rd.

Now, I know it is not good in this country to have NO snow because it can get pretty cold. However, this is getting ridiculous :) I have been out shovelling---three times yesterday and once, so far today! And I really want to get to my craft room!

I had a wonderful Christmas with family. Hope you all did too! Thanks to everyone who sent lovely cards, I love seeing all the creativeness. As you can see, I've made a card 'tree' on the wall with some of your cards.

My decorations are coming down, a little early for me but I've got the tidy bug and have to take advantage.

The craft room......that's another matter :) after working on a couple of things and doing all my wrapping in there......it's a mess. I have four Christmas boxes to take out to the shed, but that won't happen today--the snow thing! However, I'm going to wade in there this afternoon and see what I can do.

No Resolutions for me, but before Christmas I was working on finishing a few things and seemed to do just fine, so I'm going to continue on that trend this month. I have a box or maybe two :) of 'started' paper projects. Those are top priority on my to-do list, then on to the fabric and yarn!