7.4.08

Happy 4th of July!

I finally finished painting our half-bath yesterday and wanted to post a quick photo. I love how the cherry red turned out. It's a happy color! I am not turned on at all by any bathroom towels or sets that I've found. I wanted something FUN and different. So of course....enter Anthropologie. Their dish towels are exactly what I had in mind. So I'm ordering a couple more in red patterns to mix and match in here. I love the one I already have with the birds and the green pom fringe! (you can see the photo closer by clicking on it) Oh....I put some Basic Grey rub-on swirls on the corner of the mirror. They were white, so I just put a little brown chalk ink on my finger and rubbed over them after they were on the mirror. Perfect shade!

We are headed to my sister's in-laws' home today to celebrate the 4th. We'll be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, swimming in their pool, jumping on the trampoline, and lighting fireworks. We are taking cream cheese stuffed/bacon-wrapped jalapenos, cornbread casserole, and some Texas beer. Can't wait!

And here is my favorite rendition of the Star Spangled Banner - Whitney Houston at the Superbowl! (I always cry when I hear it)


"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." ~Benjamin Franklin

7.1.08

Last night we were headed to bed, but I just felt the need to make something.
So I loaded up an old quilted box with fabric remnants, embroidery thread, flowers, lace, seam binding, buttons, beads, letters, and a needle and headed upstairs. After sitting in bed sorting thru the box, I came up with this little collage piece. It was fun, creatively refreshing, and will definitely be finding it's way onto my big project for Inspired 2009. :)

Tomorrow morning I'm going to bake a loaf of this Blueberry Banana Quick Bread. I have lots of fresh blueberries and some bananas I need to use, so this is perfect.
Hope it's good! (has great reviews)

"Bread is like dresses, hats and shoes—in other words, essential!"
- Emily Post, etiquette maven, newspaper columnist

6.28.08

A FLICKR mosaic all about YOU.
Come on...try it!
Directions are below...

These photos answer the following questions about me:
(I changed a couple of the original questions)


1. What is your first name? Jennifer
2. What is your favorite food? Italian
3. What high school did you go to? La Grange High School
(fun...we got our marriage license at THAT courthouse) :)
4. What is your favorite color? Red
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Donny Osmond
6. Something you collect? vintage Christmas decor
7. Favorite dessert? chocolate
8. Favorite flowers? Antique roses
9. What do you love most in life? my family
10. One Word to describe you. creative
11. Dream vacation? Cross country drive thru small towns on back roads, staying at bed and breakfasts, antiquing, eating at little diners, and taking photos
12. Your favorite holiday. Christmas!

(click on the photo to enlarge)

While reading Kim Kwan's blog this morning, I saw this fun Flickr mosaic challenge!

Here's how you do it:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions above into Flickr Search.
b. Pick an image you like of the ones that pop up.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.
(make sure your mosaic is 3 columns, 4 rows)
d. Right click on your mosaic and save it to photobucket, or your favorite hosting place.
e. Share it on your blog! The mosaic maker gives you the html to put under the mosaic on your blog so all of the links will show up.

If you decide to do one, let me know in the comments section! Would love to see it!
Or you could just answer the questions in a comment. :)

And don't be a doofus like me and close the mosaic maker page BEFORE you have a chance to cut and paste the credit links for the photos.

6.24.08

Good morning! I made this layout this morning using some more beautiful Fiskars products. The patterned papers are all Kimberly Poloson's new Fiskars line - Old Fashioned Flowers. They were perfect for this layout about my childhood home. And the little chipboard heart is by Heidi Grace for Fiskars. It's part of the HG Add-Ons punchboard set We Are Family. They come with tabbed dividers at the top so you can add them to your punchboard collection. And the beautiful chipboard letters are new from Li'l Davis - Stripped Chip Alphabet Vanderbilt. I inked them with Colorbox chalk inks. They take the ink beautifully. I so enjoyed doing this page, especially the journaling. Brought back a lot of sweet memories. :) You can see close ups by clicking on the photos. I have to run...have a blessed day!

6.19.08

It's been a fun week with lots of swimming and cousin time.
Lots of popsicles, too! I'm so thankful for this relaxed time with Noah.

Here is a photo of the hutch in my kitchen where I've started collecting some kitschy kitchen things. Love the bright red and aqua together with the floral platter and old green scale. The little jam jar is from Sadie Olive. Still working on it..

I've been working on my project for Donna's INSPIRED 2009 event next May. I'll have it completed this summer and am so excited about my progress so far. I've spent hours already in Home Depot, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and looking thru magazines for inspiration. All I can say is that it will be a big project with lots of fun techniques on it. My goal is always to teach you something new and to inspire you to either make more of what we make or to transfer a technique you learned to another project. Sorry for being vague...but you'll see it soon enough. It's all on paper, post it notes, and sketch book pages right now anyway.

I am determined to use my slow cooker a lot this summer. It is so nice to have dinner ready and not have to heat up the house when it's so hot. However, there are lots of things that just don't taste right in the crockpot...chicken being one of them. I like chicken grilled or browned, not rubbery and white. So, I tried/modified a new recipe for dinner tonight and I thought I'd share it. It is YUMMY! If you have time to make the homemade taco seasoning, it's so much better. Lots better flavor and not as salty as the packaged. Also, the beans and corn can just be dumped into a strainer and rinsed under cold water. This makes the flavor better as well and cuts the saltiness.

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
(Jennifer's version)

1/2 onion, chopped (save about 1 Tbsp. of onion for chicken later)
1 16 oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed
14 oz. can crushed tomatoes
12 oz. chicken broth
1 sm. can diced green chiles, undrained
3 Tbsp. homemade taco seasoning (recipe below) OR 1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
1 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken breasts (will be cooked and shredded later)
shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream
sliced avocado
tortilla chips

1. Place the chopped onion, pinto and black beans, corn, crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, and green chiles in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning and stir to blend. Set slow cooker on low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.

2. About 1/2 hour before you eat, heat up a non-stick skillet on medium heat with a small amount of oil. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts on both sides and place in the skillet. Toss in the leftover chopped onion and a little chopped garlic (optional) if you like. Let the chicken brown well on each side and remove from skillet. Let it cool on a plate until it can be handled. Pick up each chicken breast and pull it apart into shreds. Place shredded chicken into a bowl and set up an assembly line with the sour cream, avocado, chicken, and shredded cheese.
3. Serve soup in large bowls. Top with chicken, shredded cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and a few avocado slices. Tortilla chips can be served on the side or crushed into the soup. Enjoy!

* Recipe for Homemade Taco Seasoning *

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." ~Sam Keen

6.16.08

Hi, all!

We had a wonderful Father's Day weekend here. Saturday night my mom had Noah spend the night so we could go out! We had a fabulous dinner at Starlite Cafe (highly recommended!) and got to see the U2 3D concert movie at the Imax theater. THAT was awesome! If you haven't see it...go! It made me like U2 even more. You feel like you are at the concert and the camera gets right up close to the guitars, the stage, everything. It was lots of fun. :)

If you are interested, here was our dinner menu. Everything was absolutely PERFECT and yummy and we would recommend any of these items:

Bottle of French red wine (don't remember which one, David ordered)

Watercress and Baby Butter Lettuce Salad (grilled ricotta salata, apple chutney, blood orange viniagrette)

Herb Basted Bobwhite Quail (ragu of sweet pork sausage, golden raisins, and cremini mushrooms, black olive tampenade)

Carmelized Onion Tart (asian pear and antique gruyere salad, aged balsamic, shoestring potatoes)

Portabello Mushroom and 3 Cheese Lasagna (roasted chestnut gnocchi, tomato pernod coulis, basil oil)

Filet Mignon medium rare with foie gras butter, grilled asparagus and fava beans, on a bed of yukon potato puree

NO room for dessert! :)

On Sunday, the three of us went to Mandola's Market, one of our favorite Italian places, for a late lunch/early dinner (av0iding the crowded time). They have a little Italian grocery store along with an espresso bar and a full bakery. SO good and again, highly recommended!

Here are some things I love lately....

Bath and Body Works' Fresh Pineapple foaming hand soap. Smells so good!

Cosmo Cricket's Hello Sunshine line. Really beautiful yellow patterned paper is hard to come by, and I LOVE these color combinations!

My Sims (Wii game). This game is so much fun to play! If you've ever played the regular SIMS games, it's similar, except you don't have to worry about your characters eating or sleeping or bathing, ha. It's for kids...sort of an introduction to The Sims. I'm almost to level 4. hehe :)

Tonight for dinner we are having some spice! I'm making this Buffalo Chicken Salad and these heavenly, want to eat 58 of them Cream Cheese stuffed Jalapenos. My uncle always brings these to family gatherings and now I'm attempting them tonight. I was searching for the recipe online so I could post it here (My uncle just told me how he makes them without a recipe) and I happened to find the recipe on the Pioneer Woman's website! So her recipe is linked above. My uncle adds something extra, though...finely crushed pecans stirred into the cream cheese. I can't wait until dinner! (Note: I'm using light cream cheese and lean bacon, so we'll see what happens, lol)

Our circumstances are not an accurate reflection of God's goodness. Whether life is good or bad, God's goodness, rooted in His character, is the same. - Helen Grace Lescheid

6.13.08

Do you love the 4th of July like I do? Scenic Route has a gorgeous new paper line called LIBERTY - beautiful and full of patriotic spirit! I created this fun 4th of July mini-album for Right at Home Scrapbooking. If you'd like to create one yourself, you can order an album kit OR you can take the class in person with Lisa on Saturday, June 21st! Click here for the details on getting a kit! :) (link for purchase on the right sidebar of their blog)

Tried a new recipe for dinner and it was really good! The only change I made was using a tiny bit of olive oil instead of the cooking spray. Yum!

Pork Loin Chops with Cinnamon Apples - Cooking Light Recipe

6.13.08

Guess I'm a southern girl!

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/map.php

Happy Friday!

The red states on this map indicate all of the states I've visited! The white states are ones I haven't been to yet. Isn't that funny? I guess I'm a true southern girl. And how funny because I love cold weather! You can click on the link and make your own travel map. :)

And here's David Cook on The Tonight Show...singing the Foo Fighters' My Hero. :)

Have a beautiful, blessed weekend!