Lemons O' Plenty - FWF #13

Happy Friday, everybody! For those who hopped along with Julie's Blogoversary blog hop last week, you might want to check out her post here to see if you are a winner!

DaddyDude's been out of town this week, so I have been taking advantage of going to be a few hours earlier than normal. Oh, how nice to get that extra sleep!!! But, less time for crafting...

For this week, I was inspired by the card sketch at Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge...

It was Marika's birthday (she's 10 - finally!) and since she's an aspiring entomologist and ladybugs are her favorite, well... it was time to break out A Little Buggy... (sentiment from How YOU Doin'). She was delighted to get a specialized card - don't you love it when they look happy to see a handmade card?

Last week, I had mentioned having an abundance of Meyer lemons and someone suggested that I make lemon bars (thank you!). So, I did! I found this recipe for Whole Meyer Lemon Bars and checked out what I had in my fridge. I didn't have enough butter (so I had to substitute margarine for most of it) and I was one egg short, but I threw everything together and it still tasted good! The biggest drawback was trying to cut the bars cleanly and transferring them nicely - well, that didn't happen, but I will presume it more of an "operator" error than the recipe. I am SO not a baker - I love to cook, but baking....not so much. Cooking seems to allow more room for flexibility (and mistakes), as well as experimentation, whereas baking...does not. Plus, I'm usually the one who has to finish baked goods around the house and I'd rather not - but I hate to waste food. *sigh*

Next week, I think I'll try another cauliflower or lemon recipe. No, no range hood yet... golly, I am so craving the aroma of garlic cooking in some olive oil... Mmmmmm...

See you next week! Thank you for visiting! :)

Julie's Blogoversary Blog Hop - FWF #12

Welcome to the 3rd Edition of "Julie's Blogoversary Blog Hop".  We're so glad you have joined us! Julie has gathered together her friends and tons of sponsors to make this a GREAT event!

Here are our wonderful sponsors!

You'll be inspired by each stop of the hop.  The theme, "Lucky to Call You Friend" will be evident in the projects of Julie and her friends.  Many of the talented ladies have blog candy to give away on their blogs, so watch for that, and follow the individual rules on their blogs for how to win it.

Here is the complete hop list:

Julie - http://muddypawsinkyfingers.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-3rd-blogoversary-blog-hop-its.html

Amy Hurley-Purdie - http://amyhurley.typepad.com/my_weblog/ 

Brenda - http://centralnyscrapper.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-3rd-blogoversary-celebrating.html

Paula - http://scrapaddictsattic.blogspot.com/2015/03/welcome-to-3rd-edition-of-julies.html

Kary - http://karyg.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/celebrating-julies-blogoversary.html

Ruth - http://ruthscraftyplace.blogspot.com

Miwa - http://miwannascrap.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-blogoversary-blog-hop-fwf-12_19.html - YOU ARE HERE!

Karen -  http://www.kernowdesigns.co.uk/blogoversary-blog-hop/ - GO HERE NEXT!

Chris- http://thriftysisters-chris.blogspot.com/

Regina   http://reginaeaster.blogspot.com/ 

Donna K - http://createdbydonnak.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-blogoversary-hop_20.html
Gwen -  http://windchimesandlilacs.blogspot.com/ 

Ema - http://www.ema-gination.com/2015/03/blogversary.html

Polly - http://pazasproductions.blogspot.com/2015/03/BlogHop.html

Lucy - http://littlescrapsoflucy.blogspot.com/2015/03/come-celebrate-julies-3rd-blogoversary.html

Beth - http://nursiebethsbeauties.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-blogoversary-blog-hop.html

Corrie - http://corriescrafts.blogspot.ca/2015/03/julies-blogoversary-blog-hop.html

Maria - http://riacreations.blogspot.com

Karen - http://karey2005.blogspot.com/2015/03/julies-blogoversary-hop.html

I've known Julie for the past few years (from Cropchocolate!) and this is my third blogoversary hop with her. We have quite a few things in common, one of which is Unity Stamp Co! So today, I chose to showcase 3 Shrooms - which is a great kit to use when sending a card to a good friend - in four different ways. Oh, and I'll admit that I wanted to play with my brand-new Prima watercolor pencils! I also used the same MME paper pad for the three sketch cards...

Here is my CAS card...

Here's a great sketch from The Deconstructed Sketch blog, followed by my take on it...

Here's a different sketch from Mojo Monday...

Finally, I used Unity's Inspiration Challenge card sketch...

Do you want to know about the prizes, and how to win them?  Leave a comment on Julie's blog, with your email address, so she can send you the free digi paper that EVERYONE gets!  Leave a comment on each hop along the way.  Prizes will be hidden along the hop.  

Here are the prizes available:

The Cutting Cafe -- any 3 sets

DigiStamps4Joy -- 1st prize - $10 gift certificate and a Guest Designer spot on a challenge

                              2nd prize - 2 digis of choice

Fitztown -- 3 digis

Snapdragon Snippets -- $15 gift certificate

SVG Attic -- $15 gift certificate

3 Girl JAM -- $20 gift certificate

QKR Stampede -- 3 images

Eureka Stamps -- 3 images

Timeless Twine -- $20 gift certificate

Aurora Wings Stamps -- $15 in digis

Close To My Heart Stamp Set 

Unity Stamp Company -- 25 random stamps

Decosse's Dynamite Doodles -- free digi paper for each participant

    3 mini sets of papers - grand prize

    3 individual sets for 3 other prizes

    Mini Heartland paper set 

Creative Bugs -- 5 images

Amy Doodle's Stamp Co. -- free image for everyone, plus 40% off of entire purchase for one lucky winner

Please enjoy this free image from Amy Doodle's Stamp Company -- Nerdy Girl!

It's time for the next stop on the hop!  Have fun, and thanks so much for participating!  Off you go to Karen's blog!

P.S. For those of you monitoring my progress with my weekly recipe challenge, I decided to make some meatballs this week, using this recipe. Why meatballs? I still don't have a range hood and was really craving spaghetti (with meat). Who knew the inability to brown grown beef could be so frustrating?

These turned out relatively well, but I should have trusted the oven setting (in the recipe) and stuck to 350-degrees (versus being paranoid about making sure the meat would cook thoroughly and using 375-degrees). At any rate, I consider the leftover meatballs to be my protein pellets for the day... :)


Next week, I think I'll be focusing on lemons - I pruned my Meyer lemon tree today and despite giving away about two dozen, I still have another dozen left. Any ideas???

Yummy cauliflower and a blast from the past - FWF #11

 

Hi, folks and happy Friday! Hope everyone had a wonderful week...

 

 

For this week, I was inspired by this sketch at Freshly Made Sketches...

 

I thought "That Stinks" would go well with the sketch... who can resist a skunk holding a flower, with a heart on his tail, right?

 

I buy almost all of our produce from the local produce store, just up the street (where Bo also met us). They have the yummiest fruit and vegies and the staff is so nice - I always ask about recipes when trying out something new and well, that was cauliflower for this week. Lisa recommended I look on pinterest for a recipe she had used, with sriracha and that supposed tasted just like chicken hot wings.

 

This is the recipe I found - Sriracha Chipotle Cauliflower "Wings". First of all, I want to mention that I made it (I abstained from the broiling, just because I didn't want to risk ruining the whole shebang) and it was AWESOME. Both kids ate multiple servings and DaddyDude polished it off - and one kid actually asked for leftovers this morning! 

 

And the blast from the past? I tend to read/scan blogs very quickly, so it took me awhile to figure out why there was a picture of Brandon Walsh with one of his girlfriends, from the Beverly 90210 days. Yes, now you have an idea of how old I am - but for the life of me, I couldn't remember anything more from that storyline, except that Brandon broke her heart.

 

Anyway, I highly recommend this cauliflower recipe (the kids have already asked for it again) and that you check out the sale at Unity's Spring Clearance Sale! Happy crafting!

P.S. If you have any other cauliflower recipes, please share! I am still without a range hood, though...ugh...

Love Me Some Greens - FWF #10

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you're all well - life is finally settling back down to normal (the tile company is sending replacement tile [3 weeks out] and our puck lights are still stuck in the massive backlog at the Los Angeles port, even though the strike ended a few weeks ago).

Bo and I have been enjoying our long walks again, as the weather has been wonderful.We had a spell of rain, which meant snow for Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead (it was actually cold enough for a change). I love this view and hope no McMansions are built in this field any time soon!

 I was really excited to receive my March KOM a couple of days ago. Love it!

I used some old MME paper (cropcholate.com peeps may recognize it)...I will never run out of paper!

And a big thank you to everyone sharing their Brussel sprouts recipes with me! Unfortunately, we still don't have a range hood (this "no frying" thing is driving us nuts!), so I used this roasted recipe. This was our very first time E-V-E-R eating these greens, so we didn't know what to expect. The flavoring was very good but we were a little surprised by the slight natural bitterness of it - I will say, though, that it provided an interesting jolt to the palate. We're definitely going to try more recipes (we had no leftovers!) and thanks to you fine folks, I have several to try out! :)

Next week, though, I'm going to try cooking some cauliflower...woohoo!

Thanks for visiting and hope y'all have a fabulous week!

Almost there...FWF #9

Hello! Hope everyone had a great week! Time for another "Friends With Flair" post - and don't forget that they are repeating their 60% off sale, so be sure to check out the deals...

This week, I made a thank you card for my friend's mother, who kindly let us borrow some boxes of hers, to temporarily store our kitchen stuff. About half of the boxes have been unpacked, so we are hopeful that next week, we can return all of the moving boxes to her. I'm planning to include a gift card to Bath & Body Works as a thank you...

 

I used stamps from the Hello Thank You Sentiment Kit (July 2014) - I've always loved how cheery the set is and continuing to be in a CAS kind of mood, this thank you card was born.

 

So, the kitchen finally has a working sink, stove, and oven BUT the range hood hasn't been installed (and I don't think the electrician really wants to install it, for whatever reason), so I can *cook* but I cannot FRY anything. It also takes me longer to cook anything, because I am digging around for ingredients... LOL! Where is this? Where is that? *sigh*

 

For this week's recipe, I had an eggplant as my "challenge". Searching pinterest for "baked eggplant recipe", I stumbled on this one - "Better Than Fried Eggplant Parmesan". However, I was intrigued by one of the comments (I've learned it's always best to read them with a new recipe - sometimes there are good suggestions or they catch "mistakes" by the author), where they simply spread mayonnaise on both sides and breaded the eggplant slices. I adopted that approach and topped each slice with garlic powder, pepper, basil, and parmesan cheese. They were great! Even my 11-year old thought they rocked.

 

Which reminds me... if anyone has a wonderful brussel sprouts recipe, please share!

 

Happy crafting and hope you have a wonderful weekend!



Getting Desperate - FWF #8

Happy Friday, everybody! Hope everyone had a good week! Don't forget to go shopping at Unity - they are offering an unprecedented 60% off promo code!

 

For this week, I chose to use #174 from Freshly Made Sketches...

 

And used Birdie Conversation (hey, it's on sale this week for $6, too!!)...

 

Can you believe that they're still not done with our kitchen?! *sigh* This week, I decided to make "Pigs in a Blanket" - yup, another great American classic that I've never made. I found this recipe, but skipped the Dijon mustard since there wasn't any in the house - it tasted great without it.

Next week, I hope to have something a little more gourmet - probably with rice, because I am really craving some! Ack!

Happy crafting and thanks for visiting!

It's a Wrap (Almost) - FWF #7

Happy Friday and it's time for Friends with Flair again! Unity Stamp Co is having a Valentine's Day sale (many discounted items) - plus it's $1.40 shipping for purchases over $20 AND you get a free stylus/writing pen if you spend over $14. Woohoo!

Supposedly, our kitchen will be complete next week. The end of near - supposedly! Meanwhile, I find myself shoving things aside on my craft worktable, in order to make anything. What a mess!

This week, I was inspired by Mojo Monday's sketch...

Of course tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I wanted to make a card for hubby. I had kept hoping that Unity would bring back this retired stamp, but they never did, so I finally bit the bullet and purchased it on Etsy. I just love this image, it's so cute! It doesn't hurt to be partial towards turtles, either. :)

 For the inside, I used stamps from the Hearty Barley set...

We've moved onto microwave dinners, because we're so tired of eating out. However, last night I decided to make wraps. We've actually never done this before, but the kids had a blast - I guess everything really does taste better to kids if they help make it. This is a wrap I made for lunch today - roasted peppers, cream cheese, salami, sriracha mustard, lettuce, capers, cheddar chese - probably tons of calories but it was so good! Nobody else in the family likes capers (what?!) but I just love that little bit of kicky flavor. Mmmmmm...

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend of crafting! Thanks for visiting and see you next week!