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/

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!

The best crafts are the ones you can eat....Seriously!!

AHH..I love Saturday mornings!  I get to sleep in an extra hour (usually), I get to enjoy a gourmet cup of coffee (usually during the week I sprint out the door with a basic cup but on the weekends I can take the time to make a latte or froth the milk, etc.), and I get to sit in my comfy chair while I browse through Pinterest or other internet interests.  It's my time of bliss.  So hard sometimes to find those few moments where I just relax and do what I want, without having a task or to do list in mind, so I try to make my Saturday mornings a priority for me and my own peace of mind.

This Saturday morning I found myself wanting to record on my blog one of the projects I finished this week.  Every have those times where you get an idea stuck in your head and you just have to see it through?!  I get tunnel vision like that all the time.  I'll get an idea or project in my head and it will sit there in my consciousness like a stone until i do something about it, doesn't matter if it's impractical or time consuming, it will bug me and bug me until I pull it out of my brain and make it 3 dimensional.  *Sigh* that's what it was like with the knitting I did so much of last week...now that I've done a few scarves the feeling has passed.  This week it was the idea of making a Candy Bouquet for a donation.  I just had it in my head at first to make a small one, nothing big or expensive, but then when I went shopping for supplies it morphed into two Candy Bouquets, One big one and one Easter themed one and I couldn't seem to stop myself from grabbing a myriad of candy confections and treats to stick in these bouquets.  Suffice to say I totally blew my original budget out of the water and went a little overboard on supplies, but my children and hubby thanked me in the end because they got to enjoy the leftovers *L*.

No sooner did I get home then I had to go downstairs to my craft room and start pulling out tissue paper, cellophane, floral foam, skewers, and hot glue galore.  I couldn't just put my stash away for another day, no, I had to grab everything and play!!  Two hours later I had two Candy Bouquets completed that looked Good enough to eat (Seriously my 6 year old even offered to help taste test, which he did with some of the candies as I created) and my craft room looked like it had been struck by a tornado, but I was sated.  The tunnel vision had passed and I was able to think clearly again, for the moment.

Here are the results of my tunnel vision:

Since then my tunnel vision has started to twirl and whirl again, this time with thoughts of the scrapbook kits I need to get ready for next weekend, along with my overly organized desire to get organized and packed for same event.  Oh well, this is my life..better take the time while I can this Saturday morning to sit back, enjoy my coffee, browse through my new Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine, take a moment to relax and breath and then.....GO!!!


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!

What a Wonderland of Fun!

Oh me oh my..I'm late, I'm late, for a very important deadline, er date!!  I meant to blog a week and a half ago as I have set a personal deadline for myself to blog at least once a month...oh well, guess I was just holding out for something extra blog-worthy!  I'm glad I waited! 
This last weekend I attended the 'Down The Rabbit Hole' Wonderland Themed Crop here in High Level.  This is the crop I mentioned in my last post, where I was going to teach the project class on how to make the 'Mad Hatter's Hat'.  I was so ill prepared and felt so rushed because it was a crazily  hectic week and I very much felt like the Rabbit in the story, forgetting things left and right and muttering to myself; I didn't even get my cookies baked for the crop until the moring of, and of course I forgot to take a picture of the end product..silly me.  Which is unfortunate because I had made shortbread cookies and put them in pretty decorative cupcake holders with ribbon and a tag that said 'Eat Me'. Oh well, it can't be helped and in the end I managed to get my sh..stuff together and showed up at the crop...10 minutes EARLY!  How about that, I had the time wrong anyhow and was actually early for the crop!

Anyhow, I was still very nervous about teaching the Hat Class, this is only the second time I've taught a papercrafting class and I'm always worried that the projects won't turn out or people will feel like I'm a sucky teacher, I'm still feeling my way along as it were.  The ladies I taught were great though and their projects turned out AMAZING, and honestly it's due to their talents and not my teaching!  Thankfully, they gave me their permission to post their projects here..aren't they gorgeous!

From Left to right - my teaching demo, Monica's, and Kathy's

 

 

I also promised I would send along the link for my original inspiration for the hat!  Which is a site I found on Pinterest where a DIY tutorial showed me how to make a full size hat that is used for the Mad Hatter Costume!  here is the link to the website via Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/pin/283586107757269658/

 

Aside from the class, this had to have been one of my favourite crops to attend, partly because I LOVE Alice in Wonderland so I loved the theme for the crop but also because of the fun atmosphere the whole time I was there.  From the crazy teapots, to the decorations, to the games we played, it was all soo much fun!  The organizers are ladies that love to Crop and it shows in every detail they put forth..so thanks Bonnie, Gaye, and Mona..you ladies totally rock!!

 

Until next time...