Lego

I love Lego. And those of you that have been reading my blog for a while might remember I just adore Lego advent calendars. I popped onto the Lego site to see what other treasures they might have and saw these:


Aren't they cute? Sixty seven pieces of Lego to build three Santa's, and the clear balls to hang them in. :-)

Keep your eyes peeled

These are starting to filter into people's mailboxes, so they will soon to be coming to a store or mailbox near you! I can't to wait to read mine! I was able to help out during some of the photography shoots for these magazines, and I know there are some amazing projects and articles to look forward to. The publication of Canadian Scrapbooker Basics #5 is a bit bittersweet for me - since it is the last issue of the Basics series, my workload will drop considerably as we just go back to publishing the regular Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. But I enjoyed working on Basic assignments so much! I relish a challenge, and especially enjoyed projects for CSB #1 that only used basic supplies, and projects for CSB#5 which used all kinds of unusual tools and embellishments - everything from hot glue to polymer clay. It's always good to have a challenge!

Tagged

by my friend Holly. I've gone through years of ignoring these types of quizzes, but since I like reading other people's answers, I decided I should maybe complete them myself every now and then! :-)

1. Where is your mobile phone? purse?
2. Your hair? blonde
3. Your mother? Inge
4. Your father? Mel
5. Your fave food? pasta
6. Your dream last night? work
7. Your fave drink? coffee
8. Your dream/goal? retirement
9. What room are you in? office
10. Your hobby? scrapbooking
11. Your fear? death
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? beach
13. Where you were last night? home
14. Something that you aren't? patient
15. Muffins? sure
16. Wish List Item? lens
17. Where did you grow up? here
18. Last thing you did? lunch
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? off
21. Your Pets? cats
22. Friends? fantastic
23. Your Life? great
24. Your Mood? happy
25. Missing Someone? nope
26. Vehicle? Mazda
27. Something your not wearing? socks
28. Your fave store? consignment
29. Your fave colour? orange
30. Last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? reading
32. Your best friend? several
33. One place that you go to over and over? work
34. One person who emails regularly? Kim
35. Fave place to eat? vietnamese

I'll tag Kim, Heather and Rhonda if they feel like playing along!

A Good Read

For my reading friends, I stumbled across this book a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it immensely! I highly recommend it! It's a fairly quick read with plenty of laugh out loud moments, a humourous murder mystery if you will. It features a precocious 11 year old detective, Flavia de Luce, who has a passion for chemistry. And what a character she is, hopefully she will be brought back in future books!

From book reviews: "A thoroughly entertaining romp of a novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is inventive and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject".

More Layouts

I have been scrapbooking like crazy for the last couple of weeks. Hmmm, must have something to do with impending deadlines for a few articles and assignments! I always seem to work best with a deadline, but am looking forward to this weekend, when I go off for a few days with my friends and just scrapbook for me. And I might squeeze in a massage or a pedicure in the spirit of relaxation. :-)

Here's a few more of my favourite layouts that were published this fall:


This layout features Fancy Pants chipboard and paper, and a handful of those metal label frames! Feels good to use them, they were collecting a bit of dust in my stash.


Basic layout with American Crafts stuff!

Glizt Designs paper and a lot of dingbats printed out on my computer and coloured with a marker

Nice way to use some Prima flowers!

Love the rich colours on this one - yummy Rose Moka paper, Coredinations cardstock roughed up with an edge distressor and a Glitz Designs rub-on birdie

Painting with Light

Hey, check out the new Hands On Photography assignment at the Canadian Scrapbooker website. Painting with light (or Light Graffiti as it is also called) is a very cool technique! A good way to impress your friends and yourself! :-) Read the tutorial, give it a try and be sure to enter your photos for a chance to win the prize pack this month.

Bear with me.........

sick kids, work overload, anniversaries, birthdays, scrapbooking deadlines.......... I'll be back as soon as my head is above water! Very soon!

Book Club Update

My book club met last night over Greek food and discussed The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Watson. A few ladies liked it a fair bit and would recommend it to others, but the majority of us weren't that crazy about it. We liked the premise of the book, but didn't like the main characters much or the pace of the book. And there were a few plot lines that were dragged into the story that never seemed to get developed and just left us scratching our heads.

The next book club selection is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. I've heard fabulous things and look forward to reading it.


Book Description
Abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle - a string of slaves - Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic "Book of Negroes". This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own. Aminata's eventual return to Sierra Leone - passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America - is an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey.



Another book I read last month was The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. I also listened to it on the audio book as I drove to work and back. I loved the story, the writing, the characters............ and absolutely hated the ending. But that said, I would read it all over again and recommend it to my friends. :-)

Cookies

I'm a little behind posting about this, but in our house we are still trying to pick a cookie recipe a week to try. I've renewed my Martha Stewart cookie cookbook from the library for another three weeks. All of the recipes are actually available on the internet, but the boys just love sitting down with the book and picking a cookie to bake. The photography is just gorgeous, a full page photo for each cookie, but especially useful, there is a photo index in the front of the book which breaks the cookies down into categories - rich and dense, cakey and tender, and so on and shows a small photo of each one. It's a fabulous way to find a cookie quickly!

Anyway, it appears that Marty always picks chocolate cookies, and Ben always chooses cookies with nuts. The latter I can't send to school in their lunches, so that's a pain. When it is their recipe, I get full partipation from each boy in the kitchen. This makes me very happy, since as they grew older, they were not inclined to help bake at all.

So we tried Buttery Pecan Rounds (just press the cookie title for the recipe) and Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies.


These were totally delicious to eat, but they didn't have a very appealing appearance. They spread so thin and flat during baking that my husband asked me if something was wrong with the recipe. I don't think so, it's because of the very high proportion of butter in the recipe, but they just don't look that good because of the very thin edges.
This cookie was very delicious and I will definitely make it again. Easy to bake and filled the house with the most amazing chocolate aroma! :-) I didn't make the cookies 'giant' - I shrunk them down to regular size so had to reduce the baking time a bit.

I think I will pick the cookie recipe this weekend. I have some cool Halloween cookie cutters and some themed sprinkles! Stay tuned..........

New Cookbooks

If you are a cookbook lover, there are two new ones out (or almost out) that you might want to pick up! These are both authored by ladies that blog about food - The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond and A year of Slow Cooking by Stephanie Odea. I have tried out some of their recipes from their blogs before and can't wait to get the cookbooks! If I buy both I should get free shipping from Chapters online, where I buy most of my books actually. It seems to be much cheaper to buy online, and the selection is a lot bigger. If you want to check it out, you can just click here chapters.indigo.ca for their website.

Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie Odea collects more than 300 recipes that provide affordable, delicious, and gluten-free meal ideas. About $17 at Chapters Online




The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond, released on October 27, about $23 at Chapters online