Owl cards

I have the Owl punch but have not made very many owls. 

I made this one Sunday morning for a young man in our church. He turns 11 this week and his mom arranged for Hagrid to bring him a birthday cake with his invitation to attend Hogwarts ( and a trip to Florida to the Harry Potter park) 

The owl is white to sort of resemble Hedwig. The inside said 'Hope your birthday is 'owl'some' 

So today I played a little more. I like the off center circle. 

And another birthday card. 

And a couple love birds for an anniversary card. 

I am also challenging myself to use some of my Pinterest treasures this week. I made our menu using recipes I have pinned. 

Crockpot chicken and dressing casserole. 

Thai red curry soup and homemade pita flatbreads. 

Crockpot porcupine meatballs  these are very similar to a recipe my mom used with a large skillet. 

Whale fun.

PI borrowed the Oh Whale stamp set from my sister and I finally got some time to play with it. Had a to of fun ! 

Made all of these tonight. 

I own the Big Shot die that goes with the set but never bought the set. The die also has a heart, anchor, fish, star, and spout spray cut outs. 

I recently purchased the roller with the waves. 

This was the first one I made. I had no idea what it would become - hadn't even picked out the colors when I started putting it together. 

I like the Get Whale Soon sentiment. I'll probably make a few more with this layout. 

I need some baby boy cards so the blue whales were put to use there. 

I really like the Calypso Coral with the blue. I drew the spout spray with a white gel pen and love the little anchor touch. 

Another little anchor. I plan to play with this design some more. 

I am always needing more anniversary cards.  I'll probably play with thus design too.

And I can't blog without including a recipe or two. 

My Pinterest recipe tonight was Chicken a Shepherd 'a Pie.  We all like Shepherd's Pie so thought I would try this. It was good but I think I would prefer it with a biscuit topping like a Chicken Pot Pie. 

It was simple to make. I just served it with some watermelon. 

Monday Menu

I haven't done this for a while but here is the menu for the week.  It usually varies a little (or a lot) as the week goes on but this is a starting point to insure I have ingredients for these meals.


Monday - Red Thai Curry Soup
                 Pocketless Pita Bread (Modified to use the bread machine to mix the dough.   I am trying to get a soft flatbread like at Olga's. I also tried using 1/3 whole wheat flour to 2/3 white flour )

Tuesday -  Crockpot Porcupine Meatballs
                  Freezer Corn

                  AuGratin Potatoes 


Wednesday - Easy Chicken Shepherd's Pie
                      Peas


Thursday - Leftovers


Friday - Honey Glazed Salmon
              Couscous
              Lettuce salad


Saturday - Church Picnic - I am taking a fruit tray and yogurt dip


Sunday - Crispy Chicken Wraps
               Refried Beans

Cupcake cases

Here is another card I cased from the catalog.   I used different colors and a different cupcake stamp set but the angled stripes and row of cupcakes are the same. 

I used the new IN colors for this card.  The frosting on the blue cupcake is some retired DSP. 

This would also be a cute card with a "One of a kind" sentiment.  

The multi-colored frosting is also some retired DSP.

More retired DSP.  I need to use up some of the old DSP so I can buy the new :-)

More retired DSP - each cupcake is unique on this card.   They all look delicious.

And one more design - a simpler one.  

Casing my cases

Some time ago I saw a challenge to case something in the annual catalog. Instead of blindly choosing page numbers, I picked the ones I wanted to case. Then I played with the ideas and create some of my own. 

This is cased from a card on page 68 of the catalog.  It's a little different but the same basic design. I really liked the piercing along the bottom. I forget to add some on those personal touches. 

So here are some others cards that were inspired by that design. No ribbon and two rows of piercing. I pierced every other hole and alternated between the two rows. 

Another - and yes I botched the stamp of the sentiment when I did it directly on the card front so added the Crushed Curry strip. I added piercing to it similar to the card front to tie it in more. 

This one has no flowers and a more elegant bow. The piercing was done using 3 rows. The middle row is pierced in every third hole. 

This card was cased from a card on page  80. The original was done in crumb cake but I had this retired Calypso Coral DSP with the white hearts that I thought was perfect for a new baby card. 

And if course, that inspired some more cards. 

The penant on this one is scored.  I scored on one side doing every other line, then turned it over and scored the lines I skipped on the first side. I like the look. 

I made a couple like this, using different colors got the circle and scalloped circle pieces. 

More tomorrow - I've been working on cupcakes inspired by the card on page 58 of the catalog. 

Weekend Wrap Up

Friday - lunch with Bekah to celebrate her successful summer and kick off the fall semester. She wanted sushi so we went to Asia Garden.  I had teriyaki chicken with rice and a salad. Really ?  A salad in an Asian restaurant. It was iceberg lettuce smothered with a creamy dressing.  I think that is what I got last time we went there - probably a year ago- l must try something without the salad next time. The teriyaki was good and had lots of veggies. I only are half because of the weight loss challenge.

I finally removed the Jamberry wraps. There was about 1/4 inch of plain nail at the cuticle so it was time :-). 2weeka plus and they still looked good. 

Friday night Tom and I went to choir practice for the Christmas cantata.  Love the music. I'm going to sing alto this year - can't hit those high soprano notes any more. 

Saturday - Tom worked and I crawled our of bed about 9.  Decided to get my hour of bike riding in first thing. Got interrupted a couple times but I went right back to it. Finished about 1130. 

Spent 3 hours prepping veggies for meals throughout the week. 

All of these got chopped, peeled or sliced for the week. Beets were roasted for 2 recipes. Cauliflower was roasted for supper that night. Pepper, onion and mushrooms were also for supper that night. 

And speaking of supper - here it is. Yummy veggie pasta goodness with pepper, onion and mushrooms. Pasta sauce and freshly grated Parmesan. 

The southwestern cauliflower and watermelon completed the meal. 

Sunday, church, then picking up a few things at Aldi's. Found this 

I've been eating lettuce and tomato sandwiches - no bacon - and thought the bacon flavored reduced fat mayo would be good on them. It's okay - very subtle bacon flavor.  

And the low carb bread - same price as the regular bread but same nutritional info as Healthy Life wheat bread. Saved me from a stop at Walmart too

And supper tonight 

Pork chop with sour cream sauce, beet and tomato salad, and roasted red pepper and basil quinoa.

Put in 100 minutes on the bike today. Sure hope it shows on the scale tomorrow :-) 

Jamberry still looking good

The Jamberry nails are still looking good. They are starting to pull away from the cuticle as the nail grows but still look okay.  Will probably wait a couple more dsys before removing. It's been almost 2 weeks. 

I did buy a few more colors of the Sinfil Colors Professional polish. 

Also tried some new molds I bought on Amazon.  They are for molding hard boiled eggs or rice. Thought they would be fun. Boiled some eggs the other day to try them. Peel the egg while it is still warm and place it in the mold, them snap together and chill. 

My eggs were medium so thinking a large  might fill the mold better. This was the fish. 

And a bunny.  It's a good way to store the eggs too. The mold snaps together tightly. Eggs peel much easier when they are still warm too. This way they are peeled and ready to eat whenever I want one.