All That Scrap For Me

Hey y'all! Back at ya today with another one of the cooking classes Dan and I are taking at Charleston Cooks in Greenville, SC. Our "lesson" for tonight's class was Meat and Poultry in which we learned how to make the following: Fried Chicken with Pan Gravy, Smoked Pork Chops with Orange Barbeque Sauce, Oregano Steak and Mixed Pepper Fajitas, Chicken and Red Rice Stuffed Peppers, and Chile con Carne. Tonight was another fun night! The kitchen was HOT with all of the cooking going on. The food was a bit fancier this week but was still good. Here's how everything turned out:     While we were eating dinner, Mark (the  super awesome instructor) asked everyone to sing happy birthday to Dan which was really special. He blushed ;) (I don't often get to see him blush). He was also suprised by 2 ladies in our class with 2 cupcakes!   My favorite dish was the Fried Chicken with Pan Gravy. I've never made fried chicken (is that a surprise seeing as ...

Hello again! I was browsing some of my old blog posts and realized that I had stopped participating in this sketch blog challenge (gasp!). I lost my old email address a while back and just realized that Shannon's email was one of the ones that I had forgotten to update (tsk tsk). So, of course I emailed her right away to get back to this challenge. I have just a couple of cards to share with you using this month's sketch by Shannon White at http://scraplady324.blogspot.com/ . Shannon has created another wonderful sketch for us this month:   When I first saw this sketch, I immediately thought "Oh goodie, I get to scrap some of those Christmas pictures we took." Well, then I stepped into my craft room and quickly remembered that my room looks like it was hit by a tornado. I haven't been able to unpack from the recent retreat I went on so everything is still packed up and in chaos from when I was in a hurry packing. I'll get it cleaned one day but in the...

Hello again! No paper project for you today ... decided to mix things up a bit and show you my mosaic "skills". A while back, Groupon ran a special from Laura K. Aiken Studios  for a Mosaic Tile class. A group of my friends decided we should try our hands at this new craft (as we don't have enough already lol). Here's my creation and then a group shot of all of ours: I am definitely not a "pro" when it comes to working with little pieces of glass LOL. We had a really GREAT time together at least (isn't that the important part?!). These were really quite easy to make. We started with a 4x4 piece of foam board and using some type of glass glue (it looked like Elmer's glue), we simply glued these tiny pieces of broken glass down. The teacher gave us a ton of glass to choose from and we were only supposed to pick out squares and rectangles to keep it simple. She told us to glue down the pieces as we found them but my personality wouldn't al...

Hi ya!! It's Tuesday! Know what that means? It's time for another one of our cooking class at Charleston Cooks in Greenville, SC. Our "lesson" for tonight's class was Everyday Sauces in which we learned how to make the following: Tomato Bruschetta with Balsamic Vinaigrette, Grilled Steak with Basil Pesto, Lemon Caper Chicken Piccata, Classic Marinara Spaghetti and Meatballs and Chocolate Ganache Covered Peanut Butter Cakes.   Tonight was another really fun night! The food wasn't nearly as heavy this week as it was last week. Here's how everything turned out: The plating was a bit messy tonight. I think there were too many hands involved in trying to get everything on the plates so folks felt rushed and just started tossing stuff on them. The food itself still tasted pretty good. I think I'm spoiled by Dan's handmade marinara sauce as I didn't really think what was made tonight was all that great. The sauce needed a lot more seasonin...

Hello! Just thought I'd share some of my recent quilling projects. I haven't really talked much about quilling so now is as good a time as ever. I recently had the pleasure of teaching a class at our local AC Moore store and I had so much fun! The class was a Quilling Basics Workshop so the designs were pretty simple. These are the three cards the students learned to make:       Since this was a class folks had to pay for, I can't share the nitty gritty details on how these cards were created (that wouldn't be fair to the fabulous students that took my class). I can at least tell you what products I used :). All of the cardstock was from my stash but I think it was all Bazzill. The designer paper was from My Mind's Eye and is part of their Lost and Found 2 paper line. In general, I'm not a big fan of paper packs and I find that I very rarely purchase any. The main reason for this is because most of the paper is single sided and I feel like I don...

Howdy! If you're in Greenville, SC, you can relate when I say I am sick and tired of rainy days! Hoping we get some snow tonight but I doubt we will. I always loved seeing the snow when I lived in Virginia and really do miss it. So, to fight some of the rainy day blues, I thought I'd share another quick project I've done recently. These "rinchies" (I know it's not a word LOL) were made for a swap going on at the Fancy Paper Crafters group. These are simply round "inchies". These are primarily used as embellishments on various projects. I collect them ;) (what don't I collect, right?!). Anyway, here's an up close photo of one set of rinchies:     These were so super simple to make. The swap is a Valentine's them which is why I did "love". I used my Cricut to cut everything out. Using my gypsy, I was able to make sure that everything fit properly - so much easier! The bling on each letter are little Swarovski crystals th...

Hello again!! So Dan and I went to our second class at Charleston Cooks tonight. It was HOT in the kitchen tonight!! Our "lesson" for this evening was "Classic Sauces" in which we learned how to make the following: Fish Sandwich with Blue Cheese Coleslaw, Basil Chicken Pot Pie, Four Cheese Macaroni and Cheese, Hollandaise over Eggs Benedict, and Orange Raspberry Coulis over Grilled Pound Cake.   Dan and I really got to cook tonight which was really fun! If you know us at all, you'd know we immediately gravitated to the Four Cheese Macaroni and Cheese dish. I was skeptical at first as I'm pretty "plain Jane" when it comes to cheese (Kraft Mild Cheddar on everything just about does it) but it was soooooo goooooooood!! I have never made macaroni and cheese that wasn't in a box (of course Dan has!) and I was quite surprised at how really easy it was! Tonight was quite different as we got a TON of food (way too much for one person to be able t...

Hello again! Today I thought I'd share a little Artist Trading Card (ATC) that I made for a Valentine's Themed ATC in the Fiskateers craft group. If you've never heard of an ATC, think of it as a crafter's version of a baseball card. It is small in size (3 1/2 inches x 2 1/2 inches) and is intended to show your creativity. Crafters will commonly collect them (which is pretty much what I do) or use them on craft projects like cards or scrapbook layouts. So, without further ado, here's my little creation:     These little cards took quite a while to do, but you know the old saying, "good things come to those who wait" right ;)?! Here are the products I used: - Bazzill Cardstock - Bitter Chocolate and French Vanilla - My Mind's Eye Designer Paper - Be Loved - Lovely Loops, Sweet Hearts and Dearest Dots - Tim Holtz Distress Inks Walnut Stain and Evergreen Bough - Some form of a distressing tool (I like the Heidi Swapp one) - Heartfelt C...

Howdy folks! So, first of all, let me tell ya that me and my camera were not getting along when taking pictures of these little things. Of all the ones I took, these are the best so please bear with me :) (I'm definitely not a professional photographer LOL).   A while back, we did a stick pin swap at Fancy Paper Crafters . I had so much fun making them last time, I wanted to try them again. These are the completed ones from the swaps last year:     After digging through numerous drawers of embellishments for a project I was working on, I gave up trying to find "the perfect one" and made my own! Here's a list of supplies that you'll need (fortunately, all of these are pretty easy to find at any local craft store). - Corsage Pins or White Round Floral Pins   - Copic Marker of your Choosing (I think I used BG23 - Coral Sea ) - Beads of your Choosing (I used Swarovski Crystal Beads and a random antique silver bead I found in my collection) - G...

Hahaha so I know I totally suck at this blogging thing ... I'll get better one day. Actually, I'm kind of being forced to get better because a lot of the online design teams want you to submit your blog. My poor neglected blog is not getting submitted to anything as is stands now lol. So without further ado (wow I use this statement a lot lol), here's a little bit of fun for the day :). Haven't posted anything that isn't crafty related in a while and I thought to myself today, why the heck not?! I bought my husband a 6 week cooking class at the Charleston Cooks store in Greenville, SC. Our first class was tonight and it was called "Kitchen Fundamentals 1: From Stocks to Soups to Stews". We started out by learning how to make our own Chicken Stock and Seafood Stock (who knew Seafood Stock existed?! Not this lady!). Then, we broke up into little groups and each group made one item from the following: Chicken Tortilla Soup with Crispy Tortilla Strips, C...