Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Thank You with pennants

As you all know, I make a card-a-month for my only grandma and my great aunt. I did so well in 2011 up until August. That's when work started to get crazy and my life got all out of whack on the home front. Well, I didn't create anything since September and decided to make this card. It's not for my grandma or my great aunt, but for some friends that I need to show my appreciation to. Grandma and Aunt Madonna will get a card for February and then I will be stay on top of it at least until work gets crazy again. It's such a small thing for me to make a card and it's a really big thing for them. They actually look forward to receiving their card and they tell my mom what they look like or what I write about. I love this design and will be using it again. I have one more to make, but it will not be exactly the same. It's very versatile and is a great way to use up some designer paper scraps. If you are like me, we have tons of those sitting around. I ran out of bobbin thread and since I was already tired, I left the uneven stitch lines. It gives it character right?

I virturally copied it exactly from the person who initially posted it on pinterest. I made two exact cards and they took me 3 hours. How is that even possible? An almost exact copy shouldn't take me 3 hours. I'm wondering if I just do better with sketches and starting off on my own than trying to copy someone else's cards.

Sketch Website (this site is awesome by the way).
Here is the card I virtually copied from Allison Davis  (I love the colors and used what I had that was similar)

The dogs and one cat get so excited when they see me go in my craft room. They know when I leave the door open, I'm in there longer than to just get a shirt off the drying wrack, and have my iPod on the speaker, it's going to be craft-time for me and nappy time for them.

Here is my version:

I added a layer of color, made the pennants a little wider and made my center piece more square than rectangle.

Supplies: Bazzil (white and orange), SU Kraft, SU pixie pink, The Paper Studio (orange and green polka dot), AG papers (pink orange and brown), DCWV (pinks), SU Chocolate chip ink, DCWV green flower, SU True Friend stamps, bling.

Roast Beef with Gravy - Crock pot

For all of those who know me and know that my specialty is pot roast made in the oven like grandma Leona used to make, I actually made one in the crock pot. It was delicious. I kind of used some recipes online and kind of modified it on my own. I have done the gravy with pork chops, earlier in my blog but had never done this for roast. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of this.

1 roast
1 package Lipton onion soup mix
1 can Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup
Garlic powder
Pepper

Put roast in crock pot frozen. You can do this with a thawed roast also, but mine was frozen. Because mine was frozen, I added a little bit of water while the roast was cooking. Cook in crock pot 6 – 8 hours and add the can of soup the last 2 hours of cooking. The roast had very good flavor before I added the cream of mushroom soup so I think you could just have it that way and use the juices as more of an Au Jus instead of a gravy. I used the gravy over fresh mashed potatoes.

Green Chili tortilla roll-ups

Hi Everyone. I'm back after a long time of being away. I didn't make much in my craft room in these last months, but I did make a few items in my kitchen. Just a few. I made these for Christmas Eve with Kim Simm's family. Barb, Kim's mom has a Mexican theme for the food for Christmas Eve and they have all the items I make well in the Mexican theme so I tried these. I went searching online for recipes, asked Jodi Levell for her recipe, and combined what I liked best from all of them and modified to my liking. They were a big hit. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of them.

Flour tortillas (I used approximately 10 burrito size tortillas)
16 oz sour cream
2 bars of Philadelphia cream cheese
1 can Herdez salsa verde
1 can diced green chilies
3 - 6 green onions diced
1 -2 cups Mozzarella cheese shredded
Black pepper
Lawry’s garlic salt

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Spread mixture on a flat tortilla. Go out to the edge but do not fill too full. Roll up as tightly as you can. Refrigerate the rolls for at least 5 hours. Slice with a serrated knife into half inch slices. Serve with con queso dip, been dip, chili cheese dip, or simply by themselves. I took these to Christmas Eve with my friend’s family and they were a big hit. I altered the recipes I found online by combining the best of what I liked from all of them. I got the idea from Jodi Levell since she makes them with her chili cheese dip.