Recipe #2!

What a week! Oh my goodness! It was filled with appointment after appointment. I hardly got anything fun done but I guess that's what weekends are for, right? I'm happy to say I did get another recipe done for my "one recipe a week challenge of 2011". :)

Slow-Cooker Provencal Beef Stew

Ingredients: 1 lbs (450g) boneless stewing beef cubed
3 tbs flour to coat meat
2 large peeled cubed potatoes
1 can (28 fl oz/796ml) undrained diced tomatoes
1 sliced zucchini
1 chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup beef broth
1/4 cup Sun-Dried Tomato & Oregano dressing
1 tbs basil

Coat meat in slow cooker with flour, then add remaining ingredients and stir. Cover and cook on high for 5 hours. Enjoy!

We absolutely enjoyed this meal. There were no leftovers since everyone had more than one plate-full. Be back tomorrow (hopefully) with a mail update. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Oh sweet, sweet mail!

Hello, hello, hello! :) I had a fantastic mail week swap-wise. It was great finding something in my mailbox everyday. It cheers me up during these long and drab winter months with pratically no sunlight. Take a look below at some of what the mailman brought me.

Two Vintage Sisters Decos from a group swap. They are lovely!

A Vintage Paris Deco and a Vintage Christmas Deco from a group swap. I LOVE vintage.

Some various decos from another group swap.

A beautiful Vintage Beauties Deco from a group swap.

Cute Characters at Christmas FBs and a couple of others for a group swap.

A fantastic letter from my friend Kimie. She also included some HQFBs and Decos.

I've been rather busy myself with answering letters and working on swaps. I haven't posted anything I've crafted because I was not quite satisfied with it. More crafting and letter writing coming up this weekend too. I am really in the mood for making vintage Valentine crafts. Have a nice rest of the weekend!

Recipe # 1!

Here is my first recipe for my New Year's challenge. In a previous post I mentioned how FED UP I am with eating the same foods so I have challenged myself to make one new recipe per week for the entire year. I chose "Sausage with Peppers and Pasta" and it turned out really great. It was simple, quick, and delicious. We love pasta dishes in my house.

The first step is to cook the cut up sausages and peppers. Aren't the colours just so pretty?!

Then add Italian-style diced tomatoes and warm touroughly. Mix in pasta and 4 Cheese Italiano shredded.

Top with parmesan and serve. Delicious! I haven't yet decided what I'll make for my next recipe, but I'll let you know how it turns out.

On another note, I thought I'd share this adorable photo of Mustang totally relaxed and snoozing. :)

Be back tomorrow to update on mail and swaps received. :) It's blowing and snowing right now so I'm happy to be cozy inside. I'm off to an evening of crafting and letter writing.

Card crafting & mail news!

Happy New Year! Hope this New Year has been treating you all nicely so far. No complaints on my end. I never make resolutions but I do give myself challenges. Here are a few: trying one new recipe a week because I have become so bored with eating the same foods, more crafting and opening an online shop, working for myself, and taking care of me for a change.
Below are a couple of birthday cards I made for some special friends. Instead of rubber stamping I decided to print out some vintage images. I think they turned out nicely.

I received a bit of mail in the past two weeks, mostly swaps. The ones below are from a swap partner and the themes were; Christmas Tree Deco and Snowman Deco. I think they are lovely. She also included a cute Christmas card.

My friend Claire from New Zealand sent me a pretty House Mouse stamped Christmas card and some ribbon.

These three Cute Characters at Christmas FBs are from a group swap. Adorable!

A cute thank you card from my friend Nicole in Massachusetts, USA.

A sweet letter from my friend Agnes from Poland which included a Christmas card, FBs and lovely postcards.

An absolutely beautiful Vintage Christmas Deco from another group swap. She also send a cute Christmas card.

And, three lovely Vintage Ads FBs from yet another group swap.

I'll be working on swaps this weekend and doing more letter writing. I've been in a writing mood for the past two weeks. Have a great weekend everyone!

Christmas!

So, Christmas has come and gone. We've already put our decorations away and we're ready for the New Year. Besides, whether we're ready or not it'll come anyway. For us it's only the change of the calendar though. We don't usually do much during the holidays and it's fairly quiet. On Christmas morning this year we were happy Noah got up at 7:00 instead of last year's 4:00am. He was really happy with all of his presents. Everyone is always spoiled in my house and we are grateful. So many people have nothing and it really doesn't seem fair, does it?
We had lunch at my parents' and have been relaxing ever since then. I've been trying to get some letters written and I desperately need to clean out stuff and get organized but somehow that doesn't seem as fun.

Noah Christmas morning.

Here is a photo of my presents from friends, pals and family. Thanks to everyone.

Of course the kittens were quite excited too. Here is Mustang seeing if Santa brought him something and he did, a stocking full of toys to share with Subaru. Kylie, the older cat couldn't care less. She just wants peace and quiet.

Subaru, pooped after playing with his toys.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I'll be back in the New Year. :)

Handcrafted teacher gifts!

Hey there! I said I'd be back with photos of the finished teacher's gifts I made. I decided to paint a shoe design and sew buttons on these cotton blue bags I bought at my local craft store. The shoe pattern is a design made by my painting teacher Linda Tozzi. She's an amazing artist and teacher. I love taking classes with her. Anyhow, I thought a pretty bag to carry a spare pair of shoes in would make a nice and practical Christmas gift. I was even thinking of making and selling some but we'll see. :)

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas...

Oh my goodness, isn't Christmas just creeping up on us so quickly?! Today I went shopping with my mother so we could finish up some of our gift buying. I have been so incredibly busy and I haven't even gotten out most of my Christmas mail. Ugh! I will get it done tomorrow for sure. I just don't know what happened. I had plenty of time and not I hardly have any. Yikes! I have also been painting some gifts for Noah's teachers which has taken me two days. I still need to add a few touches and voila they'll be done. I'll show them off here in a couple of days-hopefully. Until then let me show you a few other things that have been keeping me busy. :)
I wanted to make most of my Christmas cards but I didn't get many done again this year so I'm afraid some of my friends will have to settle for bought cards. :( Here are three cards I did make this past weekend.

I thought I'd show you some of the decorations in our sitting room.

Every year since Noah's birth we add a house to our village. We haven't bought this year's yet. I love this family tradition.

What a strange mix here. None of the decorations really go together but I like my buffet looking this way. My mother crafted the snowman and his lady, I painted the tree with the children building a snowman on it and then my painting teacher Linda did the rectangle lit box with the snowman design.

I absolutely LOVE opening little surprises from a stocking. This was the stocking I had as a child. Santa fills another stocking for me now so this one is only used for decoration.

Last weekend we went to the Christmas Bazaar hosted by Noah's school. Every year the parents' committee has one to raise funds for the winter carnival in February. Of course we had to buy a few things. The crafts were so nice. This box was hand-painted and filled with sugar cookies which Jeffrey loved.

I love this decorated box filled with yummy fudge.

A pretty ornament Noah chose. The bear is painted on a lightbulb with a knitted hat. Isn't it cute?

Another one of Noah's choices.

One of the best things about December is receiving a bunch of Christmas mail almost daily. Last week I received a bunch of cards and some packages. The cards I opened but the packages are waiting under the tree until Christmas morning. This card is beautiful and made by my very talented friend Rosita from Finland.

Here are a few other cards I received as well. From left to right, Santa card from our vet, another cute Santa card from my friend Margaret from Scotland, a pretty Japanese card from Reiko in Japan, a very cute handmade bear card from my friend Susi from Austria and another handmade card by my friend Maiken from Norway.

Today I received these three cards, Suzy Zoo from Judy from England (I love these characters), a pretty handmade card from Gaby from Germany and the adorable cat card is from my great friend Molly from USA.

My sweet friend Beate from Norway sent me an Advent chocolate calendar and handmade card. Noah and I have been enjoying the chocolates.

I also received these very pretty decos from a group swap.

And, that's all she wrote today! :)