Time to Start Thinking About the Holidays

Last December I had a cookie exchange.  This was my first time to have one.  I had always wanted to have one but I thought that it was time to have another one.  I sent my invitations at the first of November.  I really didn't have a good turnout, but those who attended had a great time and those who didn't come missed out!
Here is a great link on cookie exchanges and swaps,http://www.chsugar.com/cookieswap/.

The cookies that my cousin brought.  It was my aunt's idea to bring them in cute Christmas takeout boxes!  What a great idea!

All the cookies that you could ever want!

I made sugar cookies and gingerbread men!

The wonderful cookies!

Flora Bella and Skye Hardwick Double Givaway!

How cool would it be to get:
1. $250 Gift Certificate toward Florabella Photoshop Actions & Textures (items purchased this week will be refunded)
2. One Workshop Workbook (comes with free Posing Guide & More – read about here) {retail $399 + $125}
3. One 30 min phone consult with Skye – {retail $350}*

All you have to do is go to  http://florabellacollection.com/blog/?p=1102&cpage=22#comment-1661 by 11 pm pacific tonight! Good luck!!

Biscuits Yum Yum

I think this is a picture of my 2nd or 3rd try at making my grandma's biscuits.  They are slowly but surely getting better.  The 1st time that I made them, they were pretty terrible.  I haven't made any in the past few weeks because we have been working on the kitchen.  I can still cook in there, but not a full blown meal or something that requires extra room like biscuits.

Pumpkins and Fall

Ever seen so many pumpkins?

Wrapping Paper Season?

Well, it's not time to use a lot of wrapping paper, but here is what I made last summer.  I had this in my room behind my door and thought that I should use it to put gift wrap and ribbon on it.

Looking Back

These are the burp clothes that I made for my friend Mandy and her little boy PJ.  They were super easy to make.  I just used wonder under to stick the two ribbons together and then used a glue gun to put the larger ribbon onto the hand towel.

Now That I've Decided to Do This

After I decided to do this magazine recipe challenge. I thought, how am I going to get all of this food to make the dishes? Well, I'm going to stock up my kitchen first. I live in my grandma's house now, so we have all the tools and goods, but I need more things. Yes, I do grocery shop, but I know there's more to get at the store. (I'm starving, so that's why I'm rambling.)

Another reason why I've decided to do this, well there's a couple more reasons. First of all, it's healthy. I know the prices for the dishes are reasonable. The magazines are all aware that we all can't afford big complicated food all the time, plus we don't have the time for that!

So, I've made my trusty grocery list. So, far I have made eight categories. 1.canned food, 2.vegetables, 3.pasta, 4. rice 5. meat and 6. miscellaneous.

I know it will expensive and not really cost effective to buy all of these things at once, so I'll probably go to the discount grocery store to buy my canned foods and then eventually buy the vegetables when I know I am going to use them. It will be great to have these things in my pantry and freezer.

What I'm Cooking

Yesterday morning while I was getting my coffee ready before work, I had an awesome idea. I should cook the recipes that are in the magazines that I subscribe and buy. You know how you often do, you read the articles and then skim through the recipes. I don't know why I'm going to do this since I'm in the process of kitchen renovation. I know I will do a lot of cooking at my parents house which is down the road. They will be happy about this challenge.

I don't really plan on picking up any more magazines for my challenge although if I do find one that sounds interesting, sure I'll use that one. I subscribe to Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living and Country Living. Yes, that may sound like a whole lot or reading, but some magazines are the ones that my grandma read and I continued her subscription because I like them too!

Yard Crasher

My friend Kami went to Louisiana in July for about a week. She recently moved nearby, so I wanted to do something special for her. I thought, hmm, what could I do? My parents watch, "Yard Crashers," so I decided to "crash" her doorstep.

I got some Zinnia's and Moss Roses.


She said she got back in about 1 am and kept looking at the flowers and instantly knew that I was the one that put them there.

Gingerbread Train Stations

For the past two years, I've been making Gingerbread Houses. I wouldn't call them professionally built, but I do try my hardest to make them stand up on there on. If anyone of you has made one or attempted to, you know exactly what I mean.

This year, I had some new train cookie cutters, so I decided to make my Gingerbread House into a Train Station. It all stood up except the roof! I tried numerous times to keep the roof "glued" on the sides of the walls of the house.

Special Helpers

Last December, I got two kittens because I need some active little cats to keep me company. They sure do keep me company. Sometimes they like to help a lot!

Here is what the result of their help was...

Christmas Presents

This year, I thought about making presents, which I do make some of mine. But, I wanted something different. I gave my coworker some Starbucks Christmas blend coffee in a mason jar. I made a little tag and wrapped some ribbon around the lid of the jar. I knew she would love this creative little package. On the tag, I wrote down the brewing directions.

Embroidery

This is what I made my aunt Carol for Christmas last year.



I also made a pillowcase that my mom gave to her friend. I love to do embroidery and cross stitch. When I feel challenged, I like to do counted cross stitch, mainly on small to medium projects. I haven't done anything large in counted cross stitch.

Christmas Boxes

Before last Christmas, I showed my coworker how to make boxes out of paper. In grade school, we made boxes out of paper. I guess you could call it a form of hick origami.

Here is a picture of my coworkers paper box.

Catching Up

I definitely need to catch up and get busy with this blog. I've been busy developing a phototgraphy site and just life in general.

Here is a picture of me with my new camera that I got for my birthday. It is a Nikon D90. I was so excited to get it! I was speechless. I said, I don't know what to say and my 6 year old little cousin said, say thank you!

Country Primavera

Last night I wanted something warm for dinner. The grill at the store had already closed. So I went into the kitchen and pantry and found everything for my meal. In a little while, I will post the recipe.

For this made from scratch concoction I used:

1/2 cup chopped white onions
1 thinly sliced squashed
1/2 thinly sliced zucchini
1 slice of bacon chopped
1 small can of mushrooms...fresh mushrooms could be used depending on what you have available
1 can of tomato sauce
2 small tomatos chopped
2 cups of egg noodles
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp oregano
2 dashes of italian seasoning
salt and pepper

First, I cooked my egg noodles. Then in a large skillet, I fried the chopped bacon with the onions, squash and zucchini until they were cooked. I added the salt, pepper, garlic, oregano and italian seasoning. Then I added the mushrooms and tomato sauce. After the tomato sauce was in, I then added the fresh chopped tomatos. I added the rest of the italian seasoning. I then finally drained the egg noodles. I put the noodles in a bowl and put the vegetables on top of the noodles. I eventually put mixed the remaining noodles with the vegetables.

This recipe would be a great vegetarian meal if you left the bacon out.

Also, I've been picking wild plums for my grandma and I to make wild plum jelly! So far I've picked two big bowl fulls and the tree still has plums that are falling. I've also found a wild peach tree!

Getting a Little Organized

I got a new book case. It's about 6 feet tall and I love it. I've put my scrapbook paper box, ribbon box, miscelleneous box, embroidery bag and other things on it! This is what I needed for a long time. Now all of my crafts aren't all in the floor or in some huge cardboard box. As you can see, those organization classes for LIS came in handy after all!

Bucking Horse Fabric Silhouette

The other day I was looking at one of the Martha Stewart Living magazines that I had brought to work. There was a project for a painted fabric silhouette. I thought that this would be an awesome project. I would put a new twist on it by finding a bucking horse and painting that on the fabric canvas. I chose to use red fabric and black paint for my silhouette. Since this was my first time, I was just going to do it and give it to my mom. It's not the best picture, but it does show my project. I'll take another picture when my mom hangs the pictures on her wall.

This project was inspired by Anna Marie Horner who had made one of these painted fabric silhouette's on the Martha Stewart show. I really like this project because you could choose any type of material or outline that you wanted.

I didn't staple the fabric to the back of the canvas tight enough, so when the mod podge dried, there were bubbles in the fabric. If you hang it up on the wall, you can't see the bubbles from far away.

Country Frittata

This morning I was starving. I like breakfast but breakfast usually doesn't like me. I ran out of waffles yesterday, so I could make some toast. It was Sunday morning and toast is too little for such a great day. I asked my grandma if she would eat the rest of the fritata for lunch and she said she would. I actually had all of the ingredients!

This is how I made my country frittata.

1 zucchini cut into 1/8 inch slices

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

1/2 cup diced onions

dash of salt and pepper

4 eggs (beaten)

pinch of oregano

1 tsp. of grated parmesian cheese

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese or whatever type of cheese you have

Before I turn on the fire on the stovetop, I turn the oven to 350 degrees to preheat the oven. In a greased skillet (I used canola spray), I put in the diced onions, zucchini and mushrooms and also added the salt and pepper. I let the vegetables cook while I scrambled the eggs. In the eggs, I added the oregano and parmesian cheese. I took the vegetables off of the fire before I added my eggs to the vegetables on the skillet. After I poured the eggs on the vegetables, I put the frittata in the oven for 20 minutes. Halfway through cooking, I added the grated cheddar cheese.

I had made this before and told my mom to eat it with the soft Swiss cheese spread. She really liked my suggestion!

Christmas in August

Back before Christmas, William Sonoma had a rose wreath. This rose wreath was the inspiration for our Christmas wreath. The wreath that we had before for a couple of years had been white flowers with white snowflakes. We wanted something bright and colorful, so we chose red roses. The picture shows the wreath, but it was unfinished. This was the first step in developing the wreath.