Ahh the winds of change..

Here's a toast to new beginnings and the memories of all that has come before.

in two days it will be exactly four months since we made the adjustment to star a new life for our family here in Blackfalds, Alberta.  I think we have finally reached the stage where we are settled in to our new community and our new life, because as I was discussing with my friend just last night, now has come the twinges of homesickness.  We spent 9 wonderful years in our hometown and the house in the country.  High Level and Rocky Lane were the places where my hubby and I grew up and it was where we chose to settle down and start our family and watch it grow.  So it was bittersweet to say goodbye to all of those memories in order to journey on this new path here in Blackfalds, but I am a firm believer that if you are going to try something new than you need to embrace it with all of your energies, and that is just what I have been doing in our new home.

Let me just start by saying that I like our new home and our new community.  I find Blackfalds very welcoming, it's got the same small town feel as High Level, and I love that my children can now play down the street with their neighbours or go for a bike ride, or we can go to the local rec. centre whenever we feel like swimming, or playing badminton, etc.  It feels comfortable to live here.  I also like that we are just minutes away from a more urban community such as Red Deer.  We can go into the 'city' for a movie, dinner, or just for a day of shopping and errands if we like, which we do often...then it's right back to Blackfalds for the small town feel.  All in all, we really like living here.  

I would say the only downside of living in our new community is that I haven't met many crafty types yet and I've come to realize that I, myself, do not feel very crafty unless I am around other creative types to motivate and inspire me..so in this way I am really missing my crafting friends back home.  I haven't even touched my craft supplies or played in my brand new craft area since we've moved..it's sad really but I just can't seem to get motivated to take on a project, of any kind.  The biggest thing I've done since moving here was putting together the Halloween Wreath kit from Stampin' Up! with my son and I only did that because we were decorating outside for Halloween and it was either put the kit together or forego it for another year..so the time crunch forced me to do it.    I know it's time to get in there and get gluey but I'm just not sure how to motivate my self..one thing I've been thinking of is to try to start a new card group here, the timing is right with Christmas just around the corner..I think a group would be fun to make cards for the holidays.  Perhaps that's the way to start, inviting others to join me for a holiday card group.  Can't hurt to try right?!  

In the mean time I am back in Roller Derby and trying to push myself to get better every week, to master some of the derby skills..it's slow going but I'm determined to get better and faster; I also joined a belly dancing group this week and that was a lot of fun...one way or another I will find my niche here in my new town and I will find a way to get my creative juices flowing once again.  For now, here's a taste of some of what I've been up to in the past few months ala photo journal style but in no particular order :)

Cheers

Orange pound cake recipe from Pinterest, I was in a baking Mood!

Since September I have been on such a Pumpkin kick..and now I can get the coffee whenever I want..my grocery store sells the Keurig pods

My son loves all things Halloween and his birthday is at the end of September..he says its the best of both worlds

Strapped on my skates again for Roller Derby! I'm still Fresh Meat but one day I will Benchmark!

Beautiful beach sunset by Gull Lake

The beginnings of my new craft area

I love fresh cut flowers and all summer I've been able to get these kind of bouquets from the local farmers market

Got to see this play again this summer..AWESOME!

The view from my room :)  an early fall weekend away with friends in Canmore/Banff

Window shopping for the perfect pumpkin

Just Pin It!

Good afternoon everyone!

Spring is just around the corner, I can feel it in my bones (or rather my feet..soaked through my boots and gonna have to invest in some rubber boots very very soon!) and I can hear it in the air.  Yesterday I heard a bird outside my house that I haven't heard all winter..couldn't tell you what kind of bird it is but I recognized it's song as one that comes every spring and that got me all excited and giddy like a kid.  I am sooooo not a winter person.  I bundle up in the winter, I try to hibernate, and I most definitely do NOT enjoy outdoor winter sports, pfft...just give me a good book, a warm blanket, and a place in cozy bed to hide.  Anyhow, Spring is so close and one of the things that comes with spring is new inspirations to craft, cook, and yes, even clean!  Crazy huh!  I've been pinning like crazy on my fave social bookmarking site - Pinterest.  Feel free to look me up under My Pinterest Profile .  I am a bit of a Pin addict and I try to go on the site at LEAST once a day for new ideas and inspirations.

YUP This is ME!!

Today I thought I would share some of my favourite pinspirations with you so you can see that not only do I pin voraciously but I do actually use the sites I've bookmarked as well.  There are some great recipes, some great craft inspirations but also some genious gifting ideas too...I just love this site, can't say that enough..love love love Pinterest!  Anyhoo..enjoy my pinspirations and have an awesomely cheery spring day!

This image just makes me smile because there really is beauty in the unlikely and the simple.
find it at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/283586107756057495/

I have 365 pins on Stampin' Up! Inspirations alone, soo many great ideas
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/283586107760372282/

Tried these, loved these, and will make again!
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/283586107759343465/

Used this idea for a work giveaway..it was fabulous!!
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/283586107757638638/

These are just some of the many many pinspirations that are out there and just a taste of what's on my boards.  Feel free to check out my boards, and please share with me any great ideas you might have, I'm always looking for something new to pin!!

P.S.  This is a site I keep going back to because I just love making these flowers and the tutorials show you how to make different kinds and it's really simple to follow.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/283586107757350377/

The Apple of my eye!

Wow, can't believe summer is here and in full swing!  I keep telling myself that I haven't really had a chance to relax yet because I've felt so busy cleaning, running errands, living up to commitments, etc. but really that's just a cop out I think.  The truth is that I have had time to relax but I've just been taking that time in such small doses that it hasn't registered with my multi-tasking brain.  I really need to take more time for me and put aside the other stuff so I can truly feel rested.  Like today for example.

I woke up craving apple fritters and coffee for breakfast.  It just seemed like such a homey and comforting morning treat, that is until I went on Pinterest and realized the recipe would take a little longer than I first thought and since I got distracted looking on Pinterest in the first place, I didn't actually start making breakfast until after 11.  But what the heck, I was still craving it and I was in the mood to bake so I went ahead with it anyways!  Boy was I glad that I did!  This recipe is actually a lot easier than I first imagined, you prep your apples, topping, and oil while the batter sets up and let me tell you, once you sit down with that hot cup of coffee and take your first cinnamony bite of the fritter, it tastes like homemade tart apple pie goodness finished off with sweet melt in your mouth dusted icing (be sure to have a napkin handy cause that 'dusting' tends to find its way onto your clothes).

I'm literally drooling as I post this and may have to go back for seconds...okay thirds! Cheers and enjoy!

I just couldn't start my day without taste testing this recipe and enjoying a great cup of coffee in my favourite coffee mug!  Find the full recipe here:  http://userealbutter.com/2012/09/30/apple-fritters-recipe/

What's a little frying between friends!

not sure if I added enough icing sugar  LOL

Made with love!! And, no I did not pose this pic!  Cool huh!!

Administrative Assistants ROCK!

Last week was Administrative Assistants Week/Day where I work and I felt the need to write/share a post about it this week. I have a school based job and I see three to four Administrative Assistants on a weekly, if not daily basis.  These people amaze me every day with their roles.  They are right up there with the job of 'Mother' in my opinion, because each day they multi task, manage, and care for the students and staff within the schools they work for.  They have to be organized, creative, flexible, and empathetic of a variety of situations.  Kudos to all these talented gems that we work with!

As soon as I found out that it was Administrative Assistants week with the official Day being Wednesday, April 24th..my creative brain started to percolate.  I wanted to do something to thank these special people for all the great things they do, especially considering all they do to help me function in my role and really, I feel like they do a lot!  So I went home and logged on to my Pinterest account for inspiration and along with a healthy dose of yummy goodness from the Betty Crocker Website, this is what I came up with.

These cute little purse/treat bags and this lemon whoopie pie recipe.  The only thing I changed to the recipe was that I added in about a teaspoon of Lemon Chiffon Dip Mix (from Epicure) to the icing mixture.

Beautiful and delicious treats for some truly awesome women that I know, it was truly my pleasure to give these to the ladies that I work with because I really do appreciate everything they do in their jobs and especially when they help me in mine :)

How do you appreciate your co-workers? Please share!

Cheers!

A Pumpkin, a pin, and an Elephant?!!

Greetings and salutations from Northern Alberta where we are finally getting hints of Spring!  It almost seems like we forego Spring though and jump right into summer, because as soon as that warm weather hits I see people wearing shorts, shedding their winter coats for light sweaters, and puddle jumping!  All this while it's still -5 out and there is more snow than water on the ground..but hey after our long hard winters, we need the sunshine and warmth, so I'll take it!

I haven't been doing too much crafting since my last post.  I think I needed a crafting break or rather one of my other hobbies was calling to me instead.  Over the past few weeks I've been itching to get my baking supplies, not my paper supplies, out and in use.  I was off work for the Easter Break and I spent most of my time baking up a storm for the kids and company.  Here are a couple of things that I made.

My cousin has been bugging me and bugging me, for the past month, to make her Elephant Ears!  I only make them once in a while because the recipe I had called for a long rise time with the dough...but then I found this new recipe that rises in half the time and tastes way better.  Anyhoo..I did promise I would make her some, so here they are.  I had a few other cousins over that day, so suffice to say they didn't last long!  Here is the link to the  Elephant Ears Recipe



As you all know by now, I LOVE Pinterest!  I get inspired daily by the Pins on this site.  Now I have a standby Spinach and Artichoke Dip recipe that absolutely love, not only for it's flavour but also because it is a Clean recipe so it's a lot healthier than your typical Spinach dip.  If you look for me on Pinterest, you'll find the recipe as 'Caramelized Onion, Spinach, & Artichoke dip'  under my 'Healthier Me?!' board.  You really must try this recipe, it is amazing!! As great as the recipe is (and yes I did pin it!)  the real Pinspiration came from the display of the dip.  I saw this great picture on how to make individual bread cups to hold my dip and another pin on displaying your veggies oh so prettily, so I combined the two ideas for two different ways to serve veggies and spinach dip!  The final presentation was not only beautiful but practical too..no more double dipping and it's portion controlled..AWESOME!!

Now I mentioned a Pumpkin in my post title today, yes I did..because I got to hang out with some wonderful ladies for our first "Ladies Night out with Paper Pumpkin!" at the beginning of the month.  It wasn't a full out Crop or craft night or anything like that, it was just a quiet evening with friends to do a short half hour project that will hopefully (fingers crossed) promote further connections with friends (I want to send out my cards to friends that I don't get to touch base with very often..who says snail mail is dead!).  Here are a couple of photos of the very first Paper Pumpkin project.  I really enjoyed this project from Stampin' Up!'s newest product line.  It was short, sweet, and since it required no effort at all, actually seemed to enhance the socializing part of the fun as well. 

 

 

Paper Pumpkin is a monthly kit that you get in the mail from Stampin' Up!  It's such a neat product that it has it's own website, you can look here for more info.  www.mypaperpumpkin.com   Whether you are new to scrapbooking or have been at it for a while, want to do it on your own or share an evening with friends, Paper Pumpkin is a sweet paper treat for everyone!

 

That's all I have to share for now, but there's always more fun and creative stuff to share next time!

 

 

Cheers!

Creatively Christmas Part Two

Okay so I know it's the brand new Year and not actually the holidays anymore but you'll have to cut me some slack since I only just took down my Christmas tree today!  2013 seems to have hit fast and hard in my house and it's been so tiring and hectic that today is the first time we've all been home to actually get stuff done..the serious after holiday cleaning is still being procrastinated on..I'm thinking February LOL! 

Anyhow, I wanted to share some photos from my holidays because although I didn't post, I was busy crafting and I DID get my FIL's quilt done! I was pretty happy with how it turned out and he loved it, which was the main thing.  I even have more fabric should I be ready to tackle a new quilt any time soon (though I tend to sew only every few months..it's so hard on the back to sew for those long hours, don't know how hardcore seamstresses do it...says the scrapbooker..haha)

So here's what the finished quilt looked like:

Aside from that I made some homemade snack mixes for gift giving!  The kids and I made Smore's snack mixes that we gave to my co-workers, their teachers, the daycare staff, etc.  I only wish we had saved some to snack on at home:

Then of course there were the Christmas cards I did with some students from work and of course I had the best of intentions to get my cards out to F&F before the holidays, BUT  I just sent them out last week *sigh*  oh well, better late than never!  Really I know this reflects bad on me and I seem like the worst of procrastinators *L* but normally I am a very organized and efficient person..truly I am!  I am!!

Finally, I did some baking and I tried some new recipes from Pinterest.  I Love how easy the recipe was for making this French Bread, I learned more from the tips and techniques than I did the recipe itself.  Did you know you can speed up the rise time by placing a warm wet cloth over your dough and popping it into a microwave (don't turn it on) that has been pre-run for 2 minutes.  the residual heat in the microwave and the wet cloth provide an optimally warm moist environment for the dough to rise in, my dough rose in 30 minutes instead of the normal hour...I LOVED THAT!!  Tried the same technique on my Cinnamon bun dough last week and it works great!  Now I'm more likely to make more bread dough recipes because I always hated how long the rising process took. Anyhow here is how the bread turned out, we've gone through 5 loaves already!

Oops, forgot one more thing..See told you I was busy last month..can I use that for the excuse why I didn't post ;P   I must share my photos from the Stampin' Up Cookie Basket Classes I did..these were so cute and the cookies were delicious and fun to make!

So that was the Month of December in Pictures, pretty much!  I did spend my two weeks of holiday blissfully relaxing and catching up on PVR'ed tv shows, holiday movies, and just some oldies but goodies.  I shared time with F&F which is always fun during the holidays and despite January kicking off with a bang, it's also been a good sign of the year to come!  So I'll be posting again soon with more fun stuff from my Gemini Life!

Cheers!

Blogging and Baking

I can't believe I have just one more day of work (with my day job) and then the summer is mine to create, craft, and of course..bake!  I love baking but I have to be in the mood for it or creatively motivated.  In this case I am being creatively motivated to do a lot of baking for my Uncle's 60th birthday party on Saturday.  I love my uncle Doug and I'm happy to contribute however I can to making his party a success and in this case that means baking up a storm over the next couple of days! 

I've been spending the last few days getting my baker's "hat" on, figuratively speaking, and trying to figure out what's best to bake, what I should store it in, where will I store it, and again..what to bake?!  I am one of those people that, before I do anything, I have to be mentally and physically prepared to complete the project from start to finish.  On the upside this makes me a great multitasker, but on the down side..I am one hell of a procrastinator too!  I should have started my baking process on Sunday but here it is Wednesday and I'm just getting started..but that's okay, I work well under pressure!

Anyhow, I thought I would share with you one of the yummy ideas I'm planning on making.  I've only made these once and I'm still amazed by how well they turned out the first time.  I'm crossing my fingers they will turn out just as well, if not better, the second time around.

French Macarons!  I'll include the link for the recipe at the end of this post if anyone else wants to try them. 

 A few tips I will note, as I learned from my mistakes the first time around..1) make sure you have a good mixer or hand blender for when you are making the meringue.  My mixer does not do well with small amounts so I was pretty much just stirring around the egg whites instead of whipping them and it took me 10 minutes to whip them by hand. 2)  The recipe says to use paste food colouring and I highly recommend this..I used regular food colouring and while the cookies still looked okay and tasted just as good..as you can see by my photo - the colours came out more pastel than bright!

 I made sure I understood the directions well before I started and that I had the right baking tools on hand.  It paid off to be prepared, because in the end the recipe is actually very simple to make, as long as you are using the right equipment.  For example, I made sure I had a good sieve for sifting the icing sugar and ground almonds..it made it so the cookie batter was nice and smooth.

Also it is very important to let the cookies dry before baking and to make sure you adjust the heat as directed on the recipe so you don't burn your cookies and so they are able to rise properly and develop the 'claws' on the bottom of each cap.

I'll post pics soon of my second attempt, unfortunately I won't be able to let you taste test them..but I can do that for you :)  hehehe.  Just teasing..here's the link for the website where I got the recipe (Giver's Log).  I'm very happy to send more people to this blog..it's got some fabulours DIY ideas!!  http://www.giverslog.com/?p=1089

Have a great day!