About Me

I am a techno/gadget freak. I love almost anything that has to do with computers and software. I have an engineering background, but I haven't worked in that field for over 10 years. I married my wonderful husband in September 2004 and look forward to spending every single day of the rest of my life with him. I love cats and even call myself "Cat".

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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Brakefast Club Challenge #23 - Three

I'm back with a new project to show you all.  That was quick eh? (Yes, I'm Canadian...)  This week's challenge over at the Brakefast Club is to use 3 of something on your project.  Three buttons, three different papers... you get the gist of it.  I had an Easter card to make for a fellow member on the Stampin' Canada board, so I kinda cheated and combined both projects into one.  Here is my card for this week's challenge:

Supplies
Stamps:  Lilies (I Brake For Digis), sentiment (SU! Well Scripted set)
Papers, coloured cardstock (SU!), white cardstock (Wausau Exact Index 110#)
Tools & Embellishments:  Craft Robo, Elegant Bouquet embossing folder (SU!), embossing ink (VersaMark), clear embossing powder (Stampendous), Copic markers, Liquid Pearls, Onyx ink pad (Stampology - Autumn Leaves), embossing stylus

To create the background on the yellow cardstock, I first embossed it with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder.  Then I took my VersaMark re-inker and used a paint brush to paint on the ink over the design. Initially, I tried to use the ink pad and rub it on so that it only hit the high spots, but that was a disaster. Painting the ink on worked sooooo much better.  Then I poured on the embossing powder, shook off the excess, and hit it with the heat gun.  I like the way it turned out.  I cut my "faux nesties" with my CraftRobo. To finish off the image, I put three little "pearls" with the Liquid Pearls on the bottom side.  Its pretty simple in design, but I really like the colour combo.  And it also fits into the challenge - 3 colours (also the 3 little "pearls" works too).

Thanks for stopping by today.  I'll be back soon with something new to show you again.

Take care...

Cat

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Blog Candy Update

I just got a message from Laura and she did get the blog candy - yay!  I'm always worried about sending things through the mail.  If they get lost, there's really no way to recover the items.  So anyway, here's what she said:

     "I did get the package. Thank you so much.I love everything you sent.I can use it all. thanks again..."

I'm glad she likes what was in the package.  Ok, Laura, lets see what you make out the shtuff!

Till next time...

Cat

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Brakefast Club Challenge # 22 - Primary Colours

Hi everyone!  Today I want to show you my project for the Brakefast Club challenge that ran last week.  I know I'm a little late with this, but this project took waaaaayyyy longer than I had expected.  The challenge was to create something using primary colours.  I love bright colours, and I thought this would be a great combination for a project that had something to do with kids.  So I decided to do a scrapbook page with pictures of my niece.  Here it is:

Supplies:
Stamps:  Beach Toys (I Brake for Digis)
Papers:  Coloured cardstocks (Recollections), Domtar Cougar 130# white cardstock (picture matts), Wausau Exact Index 110# white cardstock (journalling), Matte finish photo paper (Kodak), Glossy finish photo paper (Canon), Digital patterned paper (Summertime Designs)
Tools & Embellishments:  Craft Robo, Silhouette cutting files, Sharpie Markers, Zig Memory Writer markers, red, green, & gold Stickles, Mod Podge Dimensional Magic,  paper crimper, plastic wave template, foam letter stickers, rhinestones, pop dots


The title is some foam letter stickers I've had in my stash for about 5 years (finally used them - yay!) and all the other embellishments were cut with my CraftRobo. The sunglasses have Mod Podge dimensional magic on the lenses to make them shiny. I added a little bit of stickles on the rims to glam them up a little bit. The digi stamp was coloured with Sharpie markers and traced & cut on my CraftRobo.  I also created a white mat around it so it would stand out a bit and adhered it to the page with pop dots. The patterned paper is a digi paper from Summertime Designs and cut in a large square scallop on my CraftRobo. The little flipflops (Silhouette cutting file) have rhinestones glued to the strap at the toe. I used a plastic template to trace and cut the wave design, and I used my wavy paper crimper on the banner going across the page.  The journalling block is, again, another Silhouette shape.

Here are a few close up pics of the different elements on the page:






Well, that's all I have for today.  You can pick up the Beach Toys digi stamp in the I Brake For Digis shop. Its a great stamp to have for all those summer projects I know you'll all be creating here shortly. :)  Don't forget to grab the discount code in my sidebar before you head off shopping.  Another challenge starts today over at the Brakefast Club.  So pop on over there too to join in this week's fun.

Take care & talk to you later...

Cat

Monday, April 04, 2011

Baking Sour Dough Bread

One of the things I've been trying to learn to do lately is to bake bread.  There's something about the satisfaction of soft, hot bread out of the oven smothered in melting butter that just transports you to heaven.  I had really good success with white bread thanks to a recipe I found on the Our Best Bites site.  They have loads of information that really helped make my attempts a success.  I had tried to make bread quite a few years ago (over 20 years ago) and my loafs of bread were more like brick doorstops. So, I didn't try it again.  My husband actually got me into it.  We bought a big new top of the line Kitchen Aid for ourselves for Christmas.  My husband always makes pizza dough from scratch and he was getting tired of kneading it by hand all the time, so he wanted the Kitchen Aid.  Then he started to experiment with bread.  Well, a few loafs turned out, but for the most part, they weren't that great.  So, I thought I would try to see if I could do it (kind of a little bit of competition).  Well, I researched how to make good bread first on the internet and that's where I found the Our Best Bites recipe.  My first attempt with that recipe was so successful, that I thought, hey this is easy.  Yeah right.  My next two batches weren't that great.  They were heavy - but still soft - so that meant I used too much flour.  Then I thought I'd change gears a little bit and try making sour dough bread.  I had watched a show years and years ago about a woman who's sour dough starter was from one that had been passed down for a couple generations and was purportedly a hundred years old.  I have since read that it is true that some old family recipes today are using starters that their grandmothers started.  Well, my first starter started great, but I wasn't ready to make the bread yet, and when I tried to make the sponge, it just didn't work.  I was a little disappointed, so I started over.  This time, I made sure I didn't have anything happening for a few days and made a starter which worked great, then the sponge and that went like crazy.  It was great.  It was all going a lot faster than what I had read, so I thought I'm going to have a loaf of sour dough by the next day (it can take up to three days to get a loaf of sour dough).  I mixed up the dough and left it to rise.  And left it.  And left it.  It took forever!  Then I had to punch it down and let it rise again!  It took 2 1/2 days from start to finish to get one loaf of sour dough bread.  But it was so satisfying taking it out of the oven.  And it looked so perfect.  But the best part was cutting off big slices and lathering on the butter.  OMG!  It was good!  Here's a picture of the perfectly formed loaf just after it came out of the oven.


It doesn't look very big in the picture, but that's an XL pizza pan its on, so the loaf was probably a good 10" across.  It was enough bread to last us all week.  Good thing, because it took 1/2 the week to make it. :)

If you're interested in learning how to make sour dough bread, I found this site (click here) to be a great resource.  Of course, if you google it, you'll find hundreds of sites that will help you learn how to make great sour dough bread.

That's it for today.

Cat

Friday, April 01, 2011

The Brakefast Club Challenge #21 - Sewing

Hi again!  I have a little card I made up for this week's challenge over at The Brakefast Club to share with you. The them is sewing - anything that has to do with sewing.  So you could use actual sewing, faux stitching, pins, thread, etc., etc.  You get the idea.  I have a friend who is turning 50 in a couple weeks (I'm not long behind her - yikes!) and I also needed to make a card for her so I combined my efforts and killed two birds with one stone.  The image is called Two Friends (how could I not use this image) and its available in the IBFD shop.
Here's my card:

Supplies:
Stamps:  Two Friends (I Brake for Digis), faux stitching stamp (Hanging by a Thread set, Technique Tuesday)
Papers:  Recollections cardstock, digital papers (Summertime Designs), Wausau Exact Index 110# cardstock, matte presentation paper (Epson)
Tools & Embellishments:  pencil crayons (Crayola, Roseart), oms, French Script font, edge distresser (Heidi Swapp), brads, edge punch (Recollections)

I thought the image was so appropriate for my friend since we have been friends since we were about 11 or 12 years old - like FOREVER.  Even though we don't keep in regular contact, we do send the occasional email and I go visit her when I go to Winnipeg.  Its nice to have a friend that you can pick up right where you left off the last time you talked - even if it has been a year or so.  I am actually quite lucky to have two friends like that.

Well, that's it for today.  I'll be back in a couple days with something new.  Until then, take care...

Cat
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