Weeknight Dinner Planning

The other day when I was scrapbooking with some other ladies, I mentioned how bored I was with weeknight dinners. And I was not alone. All ladies scrapbooking echoed the same sentiment.



It then occurred to me that we were likely not the only ones. So searched online and found a few blogs that were particularly helpful.



The first is Eat At Home , the second is $5 Dinners and the third is This Week For Dinner. All blogs offer weekly meal planning, recipes and other tips. I've found lots of dinner ideas. And lots of tips,one of which I put in practice this weekend. That is to brown your ground beef with a bit of chopped onion then freeze it. Then its ready to thaw and use during the week to add to sauces, soups or make tacos.

Do you have any weeknight meal tips you can share?

Painting is Happening Right Now!

I did choose the Palladian Blue for the hall.



I may use the Wythe Blue in the living and dining rooms.

Papertrey February Blog Hop Challenge

Happy Friday all!

Can you believe it's time for another Papertrey bloghop?!

This month our challenge is to use scallops. I thought about layering scallops on a card but then decided to keep it simple with one scallop per card and created a set of note cards using PTI's large scallop die:



I used PTI's green boutique papers along with aqua mist ink and Signature Greetings stamp set.



Unfortunately you can't see the stamped sentiment in the upper left of each card very well but it looks really nice(imo)!

I also trimmed them with some twine and a resin flower.

Thanks for stopping by!

Little Red Wagon Challenge #69 -Animals

Happy Wednesday all! Its day one of my two day work week, lucky me!

And it's time for another Little Red Wagon challenge. This week Regan challenged us to use animals on our creation.

I decided to use up some Jolee stickers I had and created this set of notecards:



And a closer view:



Does a bird qualify as an animal? I sure hope so. I had orginally thought I'd add a sentiment to the front of each card but decided I liked them as they are.

We'd love it if you'd join us over at Little Red Wagon with your creation.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hawaii Layouts

I spent Saturday scrapbooking and worked on layouts of our 2009 Hawaiian trip.

I decided to post them now as I usually wait to add journalling once all the layouts for a particular album are done.









All layouts use KI Memories Seaglass papers.

Given how much it is snowing as I write this, I'd much rather be back in Hawaii!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sewing Covers!

Friday night a few of us gathered at The Art House to sew!

Here's Karen, The Sewing Rambo(aka Bonnie), Stephen and Regan.


Karen worked on aprons and headbands, Stephen worked on dog collars, Regan sewed a purse, headband and showed how her ruffler worked! Dee sewed cup cozies, a camera case and pillow cover.

Here's Dee in action using her Hello Kitty sewing machine, so fun!


Dee showing off her cup cozies!


Some of Dee's fabric!



I sewed covers for my sewing machine and cricut, here they are:



And I even lined them too!


It was a fun night,thanks for letting us invade your studio Karen!

Orchid Love

It's still blooming!

Bellarific Sketch

Its been awhile but I had a chance to play along with Bellarific friday over at Stamping Bella.

The challenge this week was to create a card based on a sketch, here's my card featuring Ida Lulu:



Thanks for stopping by!

Hall Paint Colour

I need your help!

I'm thinking of painting my hall and am torn between these two colours:

Wythe blue is on the left and palladian blue is on the right. They are painted on the current sage green. They are really a blue green colour, here's a couple of chips I found online:

Wythe Blue


Palladian Blue


I'm concerned the Wythe might be too dark for the hall.

Which one do you prefer?

Little Red Wagon # 68 - Use Your Mist

Happy Wednesday all! Its time for another Little Red Wagon challenge!

This week Avril challenged us to use mist on our project.

I created some flowers using Papertrey's Bloom Builder die then sprayed them with Glimmer Mist in Olive Vine. Love the shimmer the mist gives but it is only slightly visible in the photo.

I then added them to this card:




We'd love it if you'd join us over at Little Red Wagon with your misted creation.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Valentines Day!!

Work In Progress

Well, I thought I'd check in with how I'm doing on my 2011 resolutions.

The first resolution was organization. I've made pretty good progress on this one. All old magazines are gone, my scrapbook room is in way better shape, my completed pages filed, a few things have been listed on Kijiji, my clothes have been gone through and I've donated some items to charity(with another pick up this Tuesday). There's still more to do though and I'll be spending some time on this goal today.

Second was to recommit to healthful eating and exercising. This one got off to a slow start. I'm still getting to curves twice a week but have gotten on the treadmill a few times. I really need to get this incorporated into my weekly schedule. And as for the healthful eating, once I cleared out the Christmas goodies this hasn't gone too badly but now I have Valentine's goodies to clear out......I think they will be going to work this week.

Third was to use my sewing machine more. I have actually made some progress on this one too! I've sewn on a couple of scrapbook pages and I made a cute Valentines runner. That's one of 6 projects done! And some friends and I are planning a sewing evening for later this week. I've purchased some fabric to make a sewing machine and cricut cover so I think I'll work on those.

And finally my last goal was to use my Cricut more. I did use it to cut out the circles for the Valentine tussie mussies I made. Since I made 9 of them does that count as 9 of my 24 items or 1? Hmm, 'll think about that but I definitely need to continue to use it more!

So overall I've been making good progress on all my resolutions and there is nothing like revisiting them to not lose sight of them.

So how about you, how are you doing with your resolutions?

Valentine Swap

Last night I hosted my first ever Valentine swap and it was soooo much fun.
And part of the fun was the preparation and creating the table centrepiece. Lots of valentine candy!

Wrapped water bottles, I've always wanted to do that.
And one more pic, these are just dollar store vases filled with candy and trimmed with ribbon and a tag I mentioned here.
I also served chocolate fondue with fruit and mini red velvet cupcakes for a cupcake fondue, an idea I found here. We had pink themed drinks too, white zinfandel, pink lemonade and cranberry spritzers.

Then we got into the fun of seeing what everyone created. Each item was so unique and really reflected the person who made it. Kathryn sent along her speciality, chocolate dipped licorice,so yummy!

Regan made this awesome banner. I'm hanging mine over the mirror in my front hall, its the perfect size.
Jeannie filled these tins with items from her recent trip to Hawaii.
Aren't they sweet?
Avril packaged up her item beautifully.
And inside was a cupcake pin cushion, swoon!
Regan showing off hers! And in front of her on the table you can see what Dee made us, cute personalized create signs from thread spools. See that dress form, Regan's indicates her love of sewing.

Avril's is in black and white with a banner to match her craft room.
Mine has a shabby chic feel with butterflies perched on a piece of pussywillow.

Jeannie's reflected her love of travel and Anna's her love of shopping!(pics didn't turn out...:( ). This was such a good idea Dee! Such thought you put into each!

Then Anna made us a bottle to remind us to capture and hold on to our dreams. I love it!

And she had put them in these bags trimmed with bow created from old dictionary paper. I am so lifting this idea!
I made these candy cane hearts.
Simply glued two together and voila!
And I made tussie mussies!
I've always wanted to make them, and had a great time creating and adding embellishments to them.
And see that crinkled ribbon, you can get that from my friend Dee here. I love it.

And lastly, here is a pic of all us, we took a few but we all had our eyes open in this one!

From left to right is Anna, Deanna, me, Regan, Avril and Jeannie.

Thanks for a wonderful time ladies! Anyone up for another swap?!