An Experiment

Next-morning update: The pickles are very tasty, just still a bit too cucumber-y for my taste. I took out about half the horseradish, because they definitely have enough of that flavor, so I don't think it needs to be in the jar any more. Next time, I might leave the horseradish in bigger slices (so there's not as much surface area exposed to the brine) and put a bit less in there. So far, so good though!

So this isn't stamping-related, but I had a wild hair to try something new this weekend. When we were in Atlanta several months ago, I had the most amazing homemade bread-and-butter pickles at a restaurant (restaurant-made, I guess?) - they were so good fried, too. So I wanted to try making my own bread-and-butter pickles.

I documented the process:

I started with the slicing and dicing - horseradish is PUNGENT. I could make like 10 jars of pickles with this giant thing.



Slicing up the cucumbers - I had to go to Central Market to find "pickling cucumbers." Found the horseradish there, too.



The pretty jar, with all of the chopped-up cucumbers and horseradish, along with a bunch of fresh dill:



Brewing up my stinky, stinky brine - turns out that "signature" flavor of bread-and-butter pickles is turmeric. Who knew?



I'm glad I actually thought ahead enough to think to put the jar in the sink... usually I spill something bright-colored or stinky everywhere before I think of that.



Pouring - nerve-wracking!



I'll keep you posted on how they turn out - the jar's just cooling now so I can put it in the fridge.

Evolution of an idea

Today's cards were made with my favorite new stamp set - I ordered it with the other stuff I showed off yesterday. It's called All Booked Up, and I got the bookplate die to go with it. When I ordered, I got a bag of cute green buttons that coordinate with their Spring Moss green that I love to use, along with some saddle-stitched ribbon in the same green and some twill tape (my favorite ribbon, I think) in the Hibiscus Burst pink. I wanted to integrate some of that, so I chose these colors and put it all together:



I liked how the first one worked out, but I felt like the overall color scheme was too dark for the springy pink and green, and it needed a little jazzing up over-all.



So when I made more, for a friend's birthday present, I went a shade lighter on the neutrals - white instead of kraft, kraft instead of Dark Chocolate. The rest of the colors and layout are the same, but I also used my Cuttlebug embossing folders to add a little texture to the background and pink stripe. Oh, and I wasn't very smart with the first one and put glue on the ribbon to stick it down - the glue soaked through and didn't dry clear like I thought it would. So with this one, I taped it to the back, then glued the bookplate shape over it to give it a little more stability. Turned out much better, I think! I love the effect of tying through the button with twine - I think it's a nice detail that gives it more interest than just a button by itself.

Back in the saddle again

At Lori's request/encouragement, I'm jumping back into this blog thing. For a while, I was living in an apartment with no good creative space - my office was basically a glorified laundry room, with no natural light and a noisy dryer running half the time, so I just wasn't that inspired to create. I also didn't have much storage/organizing space. Now we've moved to a new place where I have tons of great light, and I've been able to get my craft stuff out of storage bins and onto shelves where I can see everything to get inspired.

I also ordered some new Papertrey things - it's been a while since I've done a crafting order, so it was nice to have some new images and colors to get inspired by.

Since she encouraged me, I'll start with the card I made for Lori:



This card uses mostly new Papertrey materials - I based it around the"It's Official" patterned paper, picking up the colors and theme from that. The base is Dark Chocolate, with one of the It's Official patterns on top. I'd also ordered the cute Library Pocket die and Library Card stamp, so I used those, along with the Fresh Alphabet, to make the library card. On top are Hibiscus Burst tickets punched with my favorite new die, also from Papertrey, and stamped with Just the Ticket images. A couple of individual tickets, also stamped, are inside as a little accent.

I've got a few more things created, some with my new favorite stamp set - more blog posts coming!

Check it out!

If you enjoy my blog, take yourself on over to my new joint venture:

Now seating

The long-awaited furniture is finally here! At last, we can seat more than three people in the living room without having to drag in broken-down office chairs!

We ordered the couch the week of Thanksgiving, and when we ordered it, the salesman decided to order the matching swivel chair along with it, just in case. He was so convinced we'd love it, he wanted to make sure it'd be in the same leather as the couch and didn't want us to get the couch in, love it so much we needed the chair, and then have to wait another 12 weeks for the chair. And if we didn't want it, he'd just keep it in the store.

Smart man.

So we went to look at both of them last night, and (of course) ended up liking the chair too, and now we have a great, put-together living room!

Of course, there is that gaping space above the couch now... isn't there always something?

The Morning After

This little wooded area behind our complex is so pretty anyway, but it looks magical in the snow.



Everything looks so different today - more snow than Dallas has ever gotten at once!



Barnaby's thinking he probably won't get out today, either.

Thanks a lot, Northeast

I know you've had a lot of snow up there... would keeping the last 3 (...4 ...5) inches have killed you? I mean, this is Texas. In February. We don't know what to do with this stuff. No shovels, or plows, or, I don't know... whatever you have to deal with snow.



Barnaby's not too thrilled either.