d's delights- cooking and crafts

SB Slaw Here is the slaw recipe I made today.   I did not shred my own cabbage- bought the store bought shredded stuff.   I would prefer it fresh-   but sacrifices have to be made when you are trying to eat healthy while dealing with a toddler…I bought a small bag of regular green cabbage and a small bag of red cabbage.   The green cabbage had a few bits of carrots in there too.   The recipe calls for 4 cups each of shredded red and green cabbage. Dressing: 1 C mayonnaise 3 Tbs Dijon mustard (I always use a bit more) 3 Tbs cider vinegar 1 ½ tsp celery seeds 1 tsp sugar substitute.   (Ok I used the real thing here, but wound up using 2 tsp instead.   I like slaw to be a little sweet too.) Fresh Ground Salt and Pepper to taste Mix the dressing ingredients   together, then add it to the shredded cabbage.   Serve chilled. This was pretty good… I would have liked it a little sweeter, though.   But still quite good and...

Red Leaf, Avocado and Apple Salad Dressing:                2 Tbs Olive Oil                2 tsp lemon juice              ½ tsp Dijon mustard                Salt and Pepper Red Leaf Leaf lettuce, washed and torn ½ Avocado, chopped or sliced ½ Large (or one whole small) Granny Smith Apple, chopped or sliced Shake up dressing ingredients.   I used more Dijon mustard because I like it. Tear up some red leaf lettuce, add the avocado and apple.   Toss in dressing. This was pretty quick to make, and it was yummy. Tips: To save half of your avocado, put some olive oil on the bottom of a plastic container, then put the avocado upside down in the container, making sure to seal...

Memorial Day Grilling! We got a new grill!   Our old one had paid its dues and had worked quite hard for me since 2003…   This one has a side burner and a rack, which is cool. Aside from the frozen hamburgers we can throw on the grill at a whim, (we found our favorite at GFS) we can also grill veggies and toast the buns AND cook up the rice on the burner! One of my favorite things to do on the grill is to make kabobs!   So, here is my recipe for a marinade.   You can use pork medallions or chicken.   I use red, yellow, orange, green peppers, onions, tomatoes on the skewer as well.   Whatever you’ve got or whatever you like.   ¼ C Honey ¼ C Brown Sugar ¼ C Soy Sauce ½ tsp garlic powder ½ tsp ground ginger ½ tsp ground mustard Marinate meat in the mixture, then put on skewers, alternating the meat and veggies as you please.   (You may want to brush the veggies with some oil.) Grill, serve with rice!

I haven’t written a lot in a few months… I guess I have been “busy,” and by “busy” I probably just mean “distracted”   I just have not found a lot of inspiration or time to fulfill any inspiration that I do have. Will is a bonafide toddler now, so putting him in one place hoping he’ll stay there while I do something is just not an option anymore.   The only way to keep him occupied sitting down quietly is with the Iphone, which he has figured out how to play Angry Birds and PBS kids on. I’ve also been spending any spare time I do have on two projects for church: Cumberland Arts Goes to Market and our monthly Taiz é services. Yesterday, I made some Mothers’ Day/Grandpa’s birthday presents with Will.   They were, somewhat, Pinterest inspired.   They both involved finger/hand prints.   The one for Grandma is his handprint in green for stems, with little finger prints for the flowers.   I freehand cut a flower pot and added a bow.   ...

Addicted to making stuff- I have made even more ornaments since my last post! I made some bird ones with paper piecing and a felt baby Jesus and an adorable felt Christmas tree. I feel like I am just addicted to making these thi ga and trying out new ones! And once I get going on one kind, I keep going until I just get tired of creating different versions of it! I don't even know what I'm going to do with them all! I have given some to friends or students, and plan on giving some to family... But holy cow! I honestly don't think I know enough people to give these things to! I guess it is a bit like when I get into a card making mode- I just keep creating and going... I will post pictures of all these cool ornaments I've made soon!

I was inspired by our church's project to encourage Reduce Reuse Recycle at the Cumberland Weihnachtsmarkt to try my own version of ornaments from aluminum cans. The ones we made at the market were made with aluminum cans and old sheet music. We used a cookie cutter and traced the shape into the aluminum and onto some sheet music. We cut them out, then put a hole and string to hang. I decided to try to cut out stars from a can and put it through my Sizzix Big Shot in an embossing folder. They turned out great! Then I cut out another star to hang with them. I had a stamp of Joy to the World lyrics that was the same size. So, for one I used the stamp. For the other, I just used red paper. I could have used music, because I certainly have plenty of old music-but I was not ready to demolish it yet! Here is how they turned out:

I’m still busy making ornaments! I really loved the felt manger ones I made, and wanted to do more, but I only had enough felt for those.   So, since my main form of craftiness consists of paper crafts, I decided to use my paper crafting skills for ornaments!   I found some paper piecing patterns on the scrapbooks etc .website, and printed them on my basic cream colored cardstock that I use.   I printed a stocking, a santa and a bird.   I decided to try the stocking first, because it looked the easiest! (I was right!) When I trace these, I put the template upside down on the back side of the paper I want to use.   This way, any pencil marks will not be seen, and the picture will still be facing the right way.   The stocking had 4 parts and two colors: The main stocking (color 1) and the top, toe and heels (color 2).   After I glued these together withy mod podge (this made it harder) , I then traced the entire stocking (upside down) on a basic car...