Scrapbooking Retreat!

Turns out I didn't have much time to bake for the freezer (other than some bread), because I spent the entire rest of the wek getting ready for a scrapbooking retreat :-)

Karen and I travelled to Debden together, my car was full to the gunwhales with bags of paper, trimmers, embellishments..... you name it, we took it! I took along my entire collection of punches - they filled seven boxes (and a large portion of the car boot!). The journey wasn't so good when we had to queue for the Dartford tunnel from 8 miles away.... I have never done 8 miles in first gear before, and hope I never will again!!

Still we got there eventually, it took a while to unload the car, but then we could finally get down to some serious scrapping. Over the weekend I managed to finish off my 2008 album, apart from a couple of bits of journalling, and start my Venice album, which had proved very difficult to choose photos for..... In all I managed a total of 15 pages, then I ran out of photos! Did some stamping and made a couple of ATCs, then the weekend was over :-(

The journey back was a lot quicker and after I had got back from dropping Karen off, I collapsed in a heap on the settee with a nice glass of wine :-) What a fabulous weekend!

It's freezing!

Yesterday I finally, after some months of saving, got my brand new freezer. I went for a frost free one as I was so tired of having to defrost the old one every 6 - 8 weeks....... So yesterday morning DH got the old freezer out of the kitchen before he went to work and I waited for the delivery men, who turned up at about 8:10.

They got it into the kitchen, but after much umm-ing and ah-ing, decided it wouldn't go into the slot without other things being moved, which wasn't their job, so they left. I asked them for the cardboard box it had been packed in so that we could move it around the kitchen without damaging the floor, but they didn't want to take the polystyrene out of the box and didn't have any other empty ones. Then they drove off, leaving me with an barely accessible kitchen (it's galley shaped, so a freezer in the middle fills it up quite substantially!) and worrying about having to move everything.

10 minutes later it dawned on me that if DH had got one freezer out on his own, couldn't the two of them have got one in, reversing what he did???? Why is it I never think of these things when I am actually talking to the delivery men???

Last night DH came home from work, he and DS1 got the freezer in, without moving anything else, in about 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing or what :-)

I feel a baking session coming on :-)

Recipe - Indian dip for samosas or poppadoms

When Sy got here on Friday, we did samosas and the minty, yellowy dip which we invented a few weeks ago and which I promised you all the recipe for! Here it is, though I forgot to take a picture and then we ate it all :-)

1 200g carton tzatziki dip ( we used Tesco's own)
1 tb sweet chilli sauce (we used Amoy sweet chilli dipping sauce)
100g (approximately 3 or 4 slices) tinned mango
1 tb syrup from the tinned mango

Put everything into a blender and whizz until smooth. It is quite thick rather than drippy, you could thin it either with a bit more syrup or maybe some yoghurt.

Friday Fun

Well here are the other two DLOs I did over the weekend, as promised! They are quite simple, an 8" square of DCVW Old World in the centre of some bazzill aztec and sienna, with stamped borders and corners. Unusually for me, the photos aren't matted, I didn't think they really needed it.

It's the first weekend of September! That can only mean one thing, Saturday is a craft day and Sunday is a crop day :-) Sy is on her way here as I type and everyone else (Karen and Eve) will be here tomorrow. We are going on a long-planned expedition to the Craft Barn in Lingfield! Though I don't think I will be spending as much as I did at the Glitter Pot, since I have other commitments this month, such as buying a new freezer! More on that another time.

Bank Holiday weekend

What a weekend that was! Not sure where it went, but it was good while it lasted. DH and I tackled the half of the study that usn't occupied by my crafting stuff, and managed to make it organised enough so that not only can we find things, we can get to them too...... :-)

I finished 6 pages that I had started at the previous crop, 3 double LOs, will post the other two tomorrow. I also did Misty Morning from the page kit I had made up from the crop but not got around to starting - just as well because the finished page is very different from my original idea :-) It hasn't photographed very well - there is a flash reflection in the photo and the purple colours look more brown... trust me, it's better in real life and I am very pleased with it. Calais is what I call a "serendipity page" - a page resulting from desperate attempts to cover up mistakes, which ends up as a good page you would never have thought of otherwise! No, I am not going to say where the mistakes were......

I also roasted a huge turkey on Sunday, which was lovely ....... as were the turkey sandwiches and turkey curry we had on Monday .... and the turkey sandwiches today ...... should be having the last of it tomorrow :-) Oh apart from the two bags of chunked meat, the three bags of turkey & gravy pie filling and the pints of turkey stock that are in the freezer!

Out with the old, in with the new

I can't believe I haven't posted since the beginning of August! After I had done so well posting every day of my week off..... Well, going back to work hit me like a sledgehammer, I was exhausted, no energy at all :-(

So what's been happening? Well I have had a birthday! I had great trouble thinking of something I wanted as a present, then finally, as I was trying to craft in the tiny area of my desk that wasn't covered with stash and scraps and glue and rubbish ............... it came to me. I needed a new desk! DH was a little bit puzzled.... "you want a piece of furniture for your birthday?"

So the order was placed with Argos, and they actually delivered on my birthday, which was nice. I resisted the temptation to sit at work phoning DS's to see if it had arrived yet.....

We built it over the weekend, and I have spent the last week or so taking everything out of my craft room and then trying to put it back. I now know exactly what I have, a blessing and a curse because now I have to use it!!! Everything is stored properly rather than stuffed into a gap where it will fit :-) My main problem seems to be fabric rather than paper - the result of too many visits to Crowsons fabric factory sale .... oh and all the patchwork fabric I have bought....

ahem.

And here it is! everything to hand and still space to work ..............bliss :-)

Strawberry mini flans

Just a quick update to show you what I did with those mini flan cases I baked on Friday. I haven't done anything like these before, and they got the thumbs up from Karen and Sy at the craft day yesterday - I made a cream cheese frosting rather than using whipped cream.

I managed to break my craft robo yesterday....... will have to be a bit creative about making titles until a new blade arrives LOL

Off to pack for today's crop now :-)