Dad's Birthday Card

So, today is my Dad's birthday. We took him out to dinner last night and all went to the Ray-Pec football game. It was senior night, which means that all the seniors get recognized and get to walk on the field with their parents.

I made him a birthday card, and since my camera batter was charged before we left last night, I took some pictures of it.

I picked a bunch of black and white paper up last time I went paper shopping (which was a very long time ago) And I thought the simple black and white would be good on a dad card. The music notes are from one of my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I sponged the raised part with black ink to give it that kind of old-ish look.

I just kept the inside simple too, stamped Happy Birthday and signed it.

We had a good time. Today is full of things to do. I slept all morning, which was great. And a bit later we have Oliver's puppy class, then we're going up to Weston to see Jonathan's parents and carve pumpkins. Oliver is going with us, so that will be interesting. I'm sure I'll have some cool pumpkin carving pictures tomorrow. I'll be taking the pictures since we all know how I feel about pumpkins.

Hope you are all enjoying your Saturday.

Jessica

Bath Time

I regret to inform you that this post has nothing to do with scrapbooking. I have a card to show you, but my camera battery is dead.

Anyway, so we get a lot of inquiries about what Oliver looks like when he's not fluffy. He's pretty fluffy all the time, but I'm sure we're approaching his "puppy uglies" where he'll loose his baby coat and grow his full adult coat...which if he's anything like his parents, he'll still be super fluffy.
After the RenFest he was pretty dirty, so we gave him a bath. I'm not going to say he liked it, but he was only 4 1/2 pounds, so he couldn't put up much of a fight.

This is Oliver before..cute and fluffy.


And Oliver after..drowned rat..and less happy.

He took the whole thing pretty well. But he hates to be brushed, so we made the mistake of letting him air dry, so he got lots of loose mats, so he had to be brushed. Needless to say we won't make that mistake again.

He looks so sad.

We dried him off with a couple of towels, he was trying to eat them, it was pretty funny.

Hopefully in the next day or two I'll have some card posts. My Halloween cards went out in the mail on Wednesday. So I guess it's time to start thinking about Christmas cards. I'm on day #2 of my 4 day weekend, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm getting ready to go up to my room and do a little crafting right now.

Hope everyone is having a good Friday.

Jessica

Halloween Costumes 2010

It's that time of year again. The time of year when I torture my animals for my enjoyment. Actually it's not that bad..and they don't suffer (that much). Well, this year we didn't get new costumes, and it was way too hard to get all 4 of them in a shot together, but it was fun anyway.

Bean took it the best last year, but I guess he'd forgotten.

He was definitely sorry for whatever he'd done to deserve this.

But quickly forgot and did his trick for a kitty crunchy.

Chippy kept trying to back up out of the bandanna.

We actually got a good shot of him this year. We didn't pester him too long, I feel bad for Chippy cat and that Oliver loves him so much...which translates into bites and scratches.

Aster has the least complicated costume of all, and he throws the biggest fit.

I think this is a pirouette or something.

And his pathetic attempt at escape. He drags is back legs around, even though there is no reason he can't use them. The second Jon took off the skirt he was over that gate and up those stairs so fast if you were to blink, you'd miss it.

Oliver handled it the best this year. He didn't mind wearing his lobster suit, he just didn't like the hood part over his head, he kept shaking it off.

He's a vicious lobster.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Friday. It's my Monday, so I am not, but I get a 4 day weekend full of activities next weekend, so I'm looking forward to that.

Jessica

Organic Produce and A Pumpkin Pie

So today's post has nothing to do with scrapbooking, and that's ok.

I got my first shipment from Door to Door Organics. A lady I work with was telling me about it, and I thought is sounded like a good idea.

If all my shipments are going to be as awesome as this one I think it's a very good idea.

This is what came in my produce box. I got the smallest option of mixed fruits and veggies. They send you a list of what they're going to send, and you have the option to swap items for others. We got,

3 pears
1 pie pumpkin (oh more on that guy in a sec!)
4 roma tomatoes
1 cauliflower
4 fuji apples
3 oranges
2 bananas
3 pomegranate and
1 thing of romaine lettuce.

All for $27 and they delivered it to my house! I'm already in love with it. My only problem is the bananas are yellow, and if you know me, you know that I don't eat yellow ones, only green ones. But that's a personal problem...and they look fine otherwise.

So the pie pumpkin was our controversial item. As soon as Jonathan saw the list he inquired about the possibility of pie in his future. I figured why not, I've never made a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, and as I was asking around to find out more about it, neither had a lot of people. So I photo documented the process I used. (hooray for the internet)


This very cute pumpkin met it's end by this very sharp knife.

You pull off the stem and cut it in half.

If you think pumpkins are gross (I'm totally on that wagon) then you get your husband to do the gross part. I love pumpkin pie, but hate actual pumpkins. They stink and they're slimy...I wonder how anyone figured out you can make pie from it.

When he's done, you take the credit and you have 2 empty pumpkin halves.

Since we didn't have a ton of time in case this whole pie making thing backfired we used the cheater method. You oil the cut side with vegetable oil, cut it up enough so it will fit into a bowl, add 1 cup of water, cover it....

And microwave the crap out of it. It only took about 15 minutes. If we were to bake it in the oven we're talking about 60-90 minutes..and I just don't have that kind of time. The weird thing is, that your kitchen will start to smell like fried chicken..I don't know why.


And again, since those pumpkin pieces are smoking hot, still slimy and stinky, you call in the reinforcements.

After you get back from the chiropractor appointment (right in the middle of the day, that is totally interfering with pie making) then the pumpkin will be cool enough to handle. I used a spoon and a blender. It was oily and stinky, and I was thinking the whole time that there is no way this is ever going to taste good.

You puree it, and if I had a better blender it would have happened a lot faster. But oh well. At this point you use your favorite pie recipe. And take a little help from the dough boy for the crust (unless you're that much of an over achiever)

Here is is. I forgot to use my crust cover..so the backside is a little brown, but that's ok. Some people like it that way.

It was tasty! I can't decide if it's better than from a can or not. It's way more work that's for sure. When I make a pie I use canned pumpkin, not canned pumpkin already ready to go. So it's pretty close, but now I can say I've done it..and it was worth it. I'm not sure if it will be a repeat performance or not.

I'm working all weekend long, so I hope everyone has a good one.

Jessica

Wedding Anniversary #2

I've got a pretty picture heavy post today. I've been busy working on things for our second wedding anniversary, which was yesterday October 18th.

We decided that we would participate in giving the traditional wedding anniversary gifts, because it would be more challenging. The first anniversary gift is paper, which you think would be easy, but I've got a cheater on my hands. He gave me a Kindle (which I love)...electronic paper..funny right? So this year we had a long chat about not cheating. The second anniversary gift is cotton. I did get some things made of cotton, but I also got a iPod dock that lights up and charges my iPod (also love it!) however..it is in no way made of cotton. Big. Fat. Cheater.

I had some help with my idea this year (thanks mom!) So here's what I did.

I made this card, it's a secret message card..but more on that in a few.

I used the broken glass technique on the front panel. And lot and lots of sponged edges.

When you open it you can see the first message.

Then here's the secret part.

Then some magic happens...(I had to take this picture out since you could read what I wrote..and this being a secret message card and all it was really only meant for my husband...watch Dawn's video to see how it works. It's totally awesome and I plan to make several more of these)

You can open it the other way to show a different message. It's really pretty cool. The idea and how to came from Dawn's Stamping Studio of course.

But this is what took the longest. It goes in a shadow box, it's like a scrapbook page, but instead of paper, I used cotton fabric! My mom ordered some cotton seeds for me.

I went and picked out a bunch of fabric that I thought went together, and when I got home I saw that this one had a cute boy and girl holding hands! I just had to use that part.

I printed a picture of cotton and put the seeds on a little wax paper pouch.

I'd never seen cotton seeds, they're really fuzzy. I have some extra in case anyone is interested in growing their own cotton.

It's been a really busy weekend. But now I have a whole year to think about what to do for our third anniversary...which is leather.

It's my Friday today since I have to work this weekend. I have some more exciting pictures to bring you..it's Halloween time and that means dressing our poor animals up in costumes..more on that later this week.

Jessica

A Fluffles Halloween

I do believe this is my last Halloween card..I hope I haven't forgotten anyone..if I did, sorry.

I've been trying to work on my scrapbooks some. It's been a year since our vacation, and the book isn't done. It's embarrassing. I've started on our Year 2 of marriage book, since that too is coming to a close in just a short week and a half. I'll never catch up..why? Well it's because I make Halloween cards...

But it's my favorite, so here we go.
It's Fluffles of course! This one is pretty simple. The cardstock is Concord Crush from SU! and the spiderweb paper is from a Basic Grey paper pack I've had for a while.
The drippy slime punch is Martha Stewart. It's green paper with green stickles on it.

On the bottom it says "Wild broom rides 5 cents" It's from a stamp set from All That Scraps.
The inside is plain for now, that's why there's no picture.

I hope everyone is having a good Friday. I'm looking forward to the weekend, hopefully lots of craft time. Somehow I doubt it. Oliver has puppy class, and my sister is coming over for study help. And we're going to the Ren Fest on Sunday..woo hoo. It's pet weekend so we're taking Oliver. It should be fun. Look for pictures soon.

Jessica

Oliver at 15 Weeks

Because it's impossible to see enough pictures of my adorable dog, I have brought you another installment of Oliver pictures.

He's about 15 weeks in these.

We went to the park last weekend. I think it's about 1.5 miles around the track. He was very tired. We're trying to take him up there more because he's afraid of people and other dogs, well sort of. If someone reaches down to pet him, then he's totally fine. He would just stop on the path if someone was running, walking or biking toward us.

A boy and his dog. This is one of my new favorites.

Oliver can get on the couch if someone is sitting on it to push the cushions down a bit. Bean does not like this. It won't be too much longer before he can get up there any time he wants. Then nobody will like it.

But how can you not like that face.

Chewing on some sort of stick or acorn or something.

He had his first puppy class last week. He's going to be the star student. Even though there is only one other puppy. Julia, the standard poodle. He doesn't care for her very much. He can already sit, stay(mostly), lay down, and we started working with the hula hoop today. What we really wanted was more interactions with other dogs..and for him to get practice paying attention...which is only a sometimes thing for him right now.

We started getting out the Halloween decorations..and you know what that means..soon to be all my babies dressed up. For the purpose of photo opportunities. Ha ha.

I hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Jessica