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Yarn Wreath Tutorial.

Crumb Cake

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Coconut Sugar Scrub

A simple, yet luxurious gift. Don't forget to make one for yourself!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Happy Everything!

I enjoy making blank cards; ones that can be used for any occasion.  I had some gorgeous designer paper (but of course it was left over from another project and I can’t remember who makes it), and really wanted to highlight it. 

I really loved the bright colours, and the little birds.  I found some buttons that matched up well and glued them on.  I layered three paper flowers to keep the colour theme going.

 

 

I cut the tag with my Slice machine- I’m loving this little machine!  I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it, but it came in really handy for a wedding order I had (more on that later).

 

 

The card base for this card is Baja Breeze, with a layer of Pear Pizzaz, and Pumpkin Pie.  I rounded all the corners, and used some grosgrain pumpkin pie ribbon.

 

 

 

I’ve listed this card in the A Paper Buffet Etsy shop for your shopping enjoyment!

 

Happy Sunday!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Slice of Life Saturday

Last week I started for Darrah Parker’s Slice of Life Photography class.

I now have three cameras (four if include my cell phone, which has taken the place of my old Sony point and shoot), and needed some motivation to get back behind the viewfinder(s). cameras

From left to right- I have my dad’s Canon AE1, an SLR camera my uncle bought for him in Japan in the late 70’s; a Nikon A70, an SLR given to me by a long-time friend, and my own Sony HX1 bridge camera. My bipolar love affair.

Both the Canon and Nikon are film.

Film!? Is she serious? Yes, they still sell film. Yes, they still develop film.

I brought the Canon to NYC in December, and shooting with film again is, well, terrifying. The Canon is completely manual. The Nikon, which I haven’t been able to shoot with yet, is completely automatic. Both have a learning curve, but I think it’s going to make me a better photographer.

Last week, our first assignment was Home; we were to capture what is important to use and what makes us feel at home. I decided to use the Sony HX1 for this assignment since I was shooting indoors and I’m more familiar with how to adjust. And shooting with film is, well, terrifying.

This is my favourite photo from week 1. My aunt gave each of her nieces a Haida ring as a way of being close to use. She lives in British Columbia, and we all live in Ontario. My ring is the Raven. I wear it every day, and feel naked without it. I only take it off to shower, or when I have to put lotion on. When I do take it off, I usually place it on the bathroom counter, or on my bedroom dresser. But I’ve been known to leave it on my desk, on my coffee table, and then go into a full blown panic when I don’t see it on the bathroom counter. I received the ring bowl as a gift from a friend, so now my ring has a place to live, when it’s not on my finger.

Since I’m playing catch up, here’s my favourite photo (so far) from week 2. Our second week assignment was Routine. I make the coffee first thing when I get up, so I can sip it as I’m getting ready for work. I chose to edit this photo in black and white; partly because the makeup palette was too distracting for me, but also to show that I’m not really awake at this point in the morning. I was also looking for an excuse to use the book my mom got me for my birthday two weeks ago- “The Photoshop Elements 8 book for digital photographers” by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski (another bonus to using the Sony digital camera for this assignment). Since the Sony HX1 is a bridge camera, I don’t have all the options a DSLR camera would have, and one of those options is to shoot in RAW. However, with my new Photoshop Elements 8 book, I learned that I can open a Jpeg in RAW format and edit! Who knew?!

So here’s my photo, entitled “Beauty”, edited to black and white using RAW in Photoshop 8.

morning

I’m loving the course so far and being back behind the camera, instead of just using it for an event, or an outing. I’m also looking forward to really exploring what Photoshop Elements can do, now that I have this great book. I hope to share a picture with you each week, as a way to document my progress through the course, and as a way to get back to blogging on a regular basis.

Happy {Slice of Life} Saturday!

Monday, July 18, 2011

A Note of Thanks

I was recently, and most generously, given a very good film camera.  I wanted to create a special Thank you card, and have it reflect photography in some way. 

 

 

I found a line drawing of a camera, and then shaded it with a grey marker to give it some depth.  I cut it out and matted it on a circle to make it stand out.

 

 

 

I wanted to keep the card simple, so I used a small tag for the sentiment, inked in SU Crumb Cake and the edges distressed.

 

 

Cardbase: SU Pear Pizzaz

Mat: SU Baja Breeze

Ink: SU Crumb Cake

 

Happy Monday!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Hello strangers! and a post for Nat.

Well, we’re back into the swing of things here…the postal strike is over! I’m hoping to add some new items soon, and have been putting some things on sale to clear out some stock.

I’ll post more on that later, but this post is for my friend Nat.

This weekend I celebrated my birthday. I spent it with friends, including one from out of town. Which means, I got to be the hostess-with-the-mostess. I love entertaining and cooking for people. With busy schedules and many friends living in other cities, I don’t get to do it as often as I would like. Nat, knowing my craftiness in the kitchen, wished me a “happy birthday” on Facebook all the way from British Columbia and said she couldn’t wait to see what I made for dinner and for dessert.

I had a menu planned, but I didn’t have any intentions of posting pictures on my FB page, but I had to after Nat’s desire to see what I was cooking up. After I posted a few pictures, she told me I should start a blog….little does she know…

It’s been quite a while since I posted recipes here, so here we go!

french toastI made Nutella stuffed french toast for my birthday breakfast. Really easy and super decadent, just spread some Nutella on the bread before you dip it in your egg batter, and voila!

I started out with great ambitions for the afternoon cocktails. I decided I wanted to make pina-coladas from scratch, using this recipe on the LCBO site. pinacoladaIt looked simple enough, so I set out to the nearest Asian market and bought some coconut cream. Actually, this was pure creamed coconut and the instructions said to add warm water. The market stored the creamed coconut in the fridge, so I did the same. You add warm water to the creamed coconut to make coconut cream or milk, depending on the amount of water you add. Well, even with a potato masher, the refrigerated creamed coconut was rock hard and was not dissolving. So, I initiated plan B and brought out the Bacardi pre-mixed frozen pina-colada and mixed it. I pulled out my trusty hand blender, advertised as being able to crush ice, and promptly bent the blade. I was not living up to the hostess-with-the-mostess! So my friend and I took a hammer to the ice and ended up with some very tasty drinks. I was back on track!

For dinner, I had hoped to find some lobster tails to grill, but they didn’t look so great. I picked up some garlic and herb shrimp skewers and put the “shrimp on the Barby!” (you were all thinking it, I just couldn’t resist). I boiled some red potatoes, then put them in a foil packet with some butter, garlic, salt and pepper and put those on the BBQ as well. Some fresh cooked green beans, and dinner was served!

dinner

What I was most excited for, was of course, my birthday dessert. I will take pie over cake any day of the week, so I knew I wanted to make a pie. Fruit pies are delicious, but also time consuming. After seeing her smores in a jar recipe, I was seriously jones-ing for some smores. But I was nervous about putting jars in the oven, and then I found Jessica’s Smore’s pie recipe! It was o-so-simple to make and I knew it would awesome!

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And. It. Was.

smores slice

I had one more meal up my sleeve, the after-birthday-breakfast. Which after a fantastic, and random night downtown (anyone watch The Bachelorette? We met Craig from Season 6 of the Bachelorette at the bar…my friend recognized him as I don’t watch the show. He was very nice!), the birthday breakfast turned into birthday brunch.

One of my favourite, (and incredibly simple yet completely impressive) breakfast recipes is for Individual Toads in a Hole. I’ve adapted it from this recipe by Christine Cushing. I’ve made this recipe many times, and it’s always a hit. I use mega-muffin tins and wrap ready-cooked bacon around the sides of the muffin tin and then pour the batter in the middle. For these ones, I added green onions, mushrooms and grated cheese. I served them with hashbrowns fried in olive oil and a touch of butter, garlic, cayenne pepper and some more shredded cheese. YUM!

BRUNCH

Good thing calories don’t count on your birthday, right?

Enjoy!

Happy Sunday,

S

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