LOAD Day 23 - All About You

Today's prompt was to scrap a page that was "all about you".  Well, I am "all about" my dog, so I made a slight re-interpretation of the prompt.  Especially when I took these pics of Rudy on the couch this afternoon - I couldn't wait to scrap them!

Now, I know Rudy is a boy dog - but he can handle flowers.  And doilies.  He's confident in his masculinity, LOL.  Since today's prompt was "all about you", I decided to stick with a scrappy style that *I* love.  I wasn't feeling it the past couple of layouts, but THIS one?  My heart is going pitter-patter.

The layout is based on a Sketchy Thursdays sketch.
Supplies:
Base "wood" paper: My  Minds Eye "Dilly Dally" collection
All the other pattened papers: Simple Stories
Doily: Wilton
Flowers: Prima
Dew Drops
Dear Lizzy Thickers
Signo pen
And I used my Distrezz-it-all to distress the edges of the papers.

Only 5 days left! Thanks for looking!

LOAD Day 22- Taste

Wow, we're in the final week of LOAD.  And to be honest with you - I'm starting to lose steam, and I'm looking forward to the end. 

Today's prompt was to scrap about "taste" - how something tastes to you, your favorite taste, whether you love sending Christmas Cards because you get to lick 47 envelopes.... ;)  I decided to scrap about the fact that I have a definite sweet tooth.  There's no denying that!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Core'dinations
Pattern Paper: American Crafts (I really dug into my old stash for this, LOL).
Border Punch: Martha Stewart
Liquid Pearls
Dymo Labeller
Signo Pen
The tooth and 'Sweet Tooth' were cut on the cricut.

And I was told this AWESOME story tonight when I picked Rudy up at his doggy daycare.  A few years ago, the owner's oldest dog passed away, and I had scrapped a memorial page for Calvin, framed it and gave it to Stephanie.  It's been hanging in the reception area at the daycare ever since.  A month or two ago, another of her dogs passed away, Winnie.  Winnie used to come greet me and to get attention when they were in their first location.

I was going to ask Stephanie for pictures of Winnie so I could do a layout like Calvin's, but she had a lot going on at that point so I decided to wait.  And of course, then it slipped my mind.   Stephanie recently went to a Medium; and during the session, the Medium asked if she'd lost a dog recently.   So of course Steph said yes, and mentioned Winnie.  Know what the Medium said?  "She wants to know why SHE doesn't have a plaque on the wall".!!!!    This Medium hadn't been to the daycare, so would have no way of knowing about Calvin's layout.  How cool is THAT??  

Hold on, Winnie girl, I'll make you one.  I promise.

Thanks for stopping by. :)

LOAD Day 21 - Landmark in your life

Day 21.  Three weeks complete!

Today's LOAD prompt was to scrap about a landmark in your life - your house, the spot your hubby proposed, etc.  My high school was a HUGE part of my life, and I look back on those days fondly.

A lot of people know BHS as the school related to the "Boys in Red" tragedy from a few years ago.  And while that will also be forever etched in my mind, it doesn't take away from the wonderful memories that I have of my high school years.

Supplies:
Black paper and flower, and Red twine: Bazzil Basics
Alphas: Thickers
Ribbon, Red corrugated paper: Dollar Store
Dew Drops
Button: from my friend Jessica (Hey Jess, have you got any buttons? *private joke, sorry*).

One week left!  Thanks for looking.

LOAD Day 20 - Hidden Element

Today's LOAD prompt was to have a hidden element on the layout.  This was really hard for me, I never do hidden journalling or anything like that on my layouts.  I figure my pages are in page protectors, and the only way people are going to see the hidden journalling is if they take the entire page out of the protector.  And realistically, that's not going to happen.

So, I couldn't go the full month of LOAD without sneaking in a layout about Thomas Ulsrud.  Lain, the woman who is running LOAD, has a thing for Hugh Jackman.  She can have Hugh, I'll take Thomas, LOL. 

As you can see, I busted out my Cuttlebug to emboss the red and silver paper.  And I fussy-cut some curling stones from pattern paper that I have (and that's something else I rarely do, is fussy-cut).  The layout is based on a PageMaps sketch (sorry, I don't have a link to it).  And the hidden element?  It's behind the photo:

Yep, that's his autograph.  I got it a few times the week of the Ford Worlds in Moncton in 2009.  I also have pictures of him and I (don't get me started on the photobomb, where a fellow volunteer and new 'friend' lost patience with the kind gentleman taking our picture who didn't know how to work my camera.  She stuck herself right in between us.  Grr.).

I'm on the homestretch now for LOAD - 8 layouts left! 

LOAD Day 19 - Tigger or Eeyore

Hi everyone;
Today's LOAD prompt was to think about a Tigger or an Eeyore in your life, and scrap about that.  You know, Tigger is always upbeat and happy, and Eeyore... well, he's not, LOL.  So when I think of Tigger, my friend Judy comes to mind (hi, Judy!).

That girl is BUSY!  And she's a very positive person.  Compared to her, I am definitely Eeyore.  Yes, I can admit it.  I'm Eeyore.  Although I always loved Roo the best.  OK, I'm getting off track.

Here's the layout I made today.  I went a little outside of my comfort zone by using pastels.

Supplies:
Paper: Fancy Pants
Twine: American Crafts
Ribbon: Dollar Store
Flowers: Prima
Dew Drops
Doilies: Wilton

As you can probably tell by the last few layouts, I have a thing right now about using Doilies.  I love them!  They're not just for baking. :)

Anyway, thanks for looking.  Nine layouts left now!

LOAD Day 18 - An oops that turned out well

Hi folks;
I woke up this morning feeling like I hadn't slept at all, and just downright blah.  So I turned off the alarm, took the dog out to pee in about 2+ feet of snow, then crawled back in to bed for a few hours.  When I got up, I had to clean the driveway (yay for my snowblower!) and I napped when I came back in.  And I laid down for another nap this afternoon.  Hopefully all this sleep will nip whatever it is in the bud, and I'll be fine tomorrow. (I'm hoping to get to bed early tonight, too).

In between napping, I thought about what to do for today's LOAD prompt: scrap about an "oops" moment (something went wrong) that ultimately turned out well.  I was having a hard time thinking of what to do, so was just going to do ANY layout, ignoring the prompt.  Then I found these photos of my parents, brother and nieces and I having dinner on my patio.

Every time my parents come down to stay for a day or two, they insist on going out for dinner.  I've suggested many times that I could make something, and they say no, and we go out.  So I finally told them I was getting a complex, that they think I can't cook.  So we agreed to BBQ that night and invite my brother and his girls over as well.  Anyway, I *still* didn't cook!  Dad manned the BBQ, and Mom wanted to do some roasted potatoes (I threw together a salad).  Anyway, Mom couldn't find a jellyroll pan - and she didn't ask me if I had one - so she used one of my flat (no edges) cookie sheets.

Dad, Mom and I were sitting at my dining table chatting when all of a sudden Dad gets this weird look on his face, and asks "Why is the oven on fire?!?".  Yeah.  The oil on the cookie spread over the sides,and ended up catching on fire when it hit the base of the oven.  Have you ever tried to take a pan with hot oil dripping over the sides out of the oven?  Well, I managed.  And we put the fire out.  And put the potatoes in the proper pan, back in the oven.  And we had a great dinner.   And Mom cleaned out my oven later that night. :)

Only 10 more days of LOAD to go!

Taco Soup

Hi everyone;
With yet another snowstorm-y weekend, and with both hamburger and canned tomatoes on sale, I thought it would be good to try a hearty soup as my new-to-me recipe.  So I've gone back to the Crockpot365 blog this week and decided to try her Taco Soup.  You can find the recipe here: http://crockpot365.blogspot.ca/2008/02/original-taco-soup-crockpot-recipe.html

Here is a photo of the ingredients.  Although I didn't use that much hamburger; I took half and used it in another batch of Stuffed Pepper Soup that I made a few weeks back.  My heart broke a little last week when I took the last serving out of the freezer, so I made another batch this morning. :)

Everything thrown into the crock - it makes a lot!

And the final result:

I would say it makes more of a loose chili than a soup.  The taste is good, I would totally scoop some into a taco shell, and it would be great.  But to be honest, I probably won't make this again.  This isn't soupy enough for me to consider it a soup.  And if I'm going to have chili, I want the chili that I normally make.   That's just my personal opinion though.

Oh well.  I tried!