Month: April 2025

Tulips on Tuesday | 100DayProject Day 52

100DayProject Day 52

These are the three cards that we made in my 10:30 online class for Dementia Society today.

I was trying to figure out how to colour in ladybugs and am not yet quite happy with the result. At dinner I consulted with Roland and Kevin. Tomorrow I’m going to try to colour the head in black and perhaps add eyes (and maybe other facial features) with a white marker.

Trying to figure out which colours work best for the flower and ladybug. I really enjoy colouring with these watercolour brush markers. This could potentially be my Picture This Year prompt 105 (brush) photo but I have another idea in mind which I may add to the end of this post tomorrow.
A trial card inspired by one of my bee cards. But a few adjustments are necessary. I’m making these for the Arts for All program at Canadian Mental Health Association. It think black dots with red sentiment may be better.
Starting to work on my next card (Card 32) for my Altenew Let it Shine course. An adaptation of that ladybug card using the Color Throwdown Challenge 830 colours.
Adding some shine to my ladybugs with some Crystal Glaze. I turned one over by mistake.

Tulips on Tuesday

Here I am starting my writing at 9:40; again up past my ideal bedtime. So this will be pretty short. I have a fair bit to say but I think I will at to this tomorrow.

I made some of mom’s Lemon Squares today

Heidi bought and arranged some tulips for her friend, Hannah, last night. So my theme for today is tulips. It’s a good thing I took the photos last night because Heidi and the tulips were gone before I came downstairs.

Sprinkling with icing sugar for the finishing touch.

It was a busy day; it’s a good thing that the Arts for All class at Canadian Mental Health Association that I had in my calendar should actually not have been there. I spent some time getting ready for that class before my 10:30 online class and was happy when I found out that it’s another day because I really wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. I did some more work on it after class and did some work on my 100DayProject but don’t yet have another finished card to share. I will share the photos of the 3 cards that my 10:30 online class assembled. The nice thing about having uncomplicated cards to assemble is that we get a lot of time to talk together during class rather than mainly focusing on making sure that everyone can follow along with the projects.

My mom’s banana bread recipe is great as well.

I went with Roland mid-afternoon so he could pick up his car after the tire swap. I did some groceries at Costco on the way home then did a baking and cooking spree before Kevin came for 6:00 dinner and I had my 7:00 walk then dropped some baking off at Louise’s for her to take to Collingwood to share with Stefan, Georgia and the rest of the gang over Easter weekend. I also dropped another Lego set at Karen’s to round out her birthday gift since we were about 10 days short of Lego pieces in her daily envelopes. Then it was time to clean up the kitchen when I got home and to put the chili that I made into containers to put in the freezer, get the corn bread into a plastic bag in the freezer, put away our lemon squares and our banana bread (I’ll type up and post that recipe soon). I’ve left my chicken bone broth on simmer for overnight. I usually make a broth after buying a Costco roasted chicken. I’ll make some type of soup with it tomorrow.

I didn’t follow a recipe for my chili today; hopefully it’s good because we have a lot of chili to eat.

Mail It Monday | 100DayProject Day 51

Mail it Monday

Roland was up early and went with me for part of the walk with Luna before he went to Pickleball. I skipped that today since my back had been bothering me since mid-last week, perhaps due to Pickleball last Tuesday. It’s mostly feeling better now but I didn’t want to reaggravate it since we have our last Monday curling tonight, and one more curling on Thursday so I may skip it this Wednesday as well. I did get out for a swim which was great. We also went into the (now fixed) sauna afterwards for a while. I had my Card Crew at the Dementia Society from 1:00-3:30 then an appointment with a dentist to have my night guards checked. Fortunately I haven’t been having any jaw issues (knock on wood) since I had a ‘rinsing’ surgery several years ago. It was such a nice day that Luna got some extra walks before and after my card making class.

These are some of the 5 cards that I mailed out today. The first one is the one that I used for inspiration for the cards that we made at Card Crew at the Dementia Society today.

This was the inspiration for the cards we made today. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the die for the wispy circle shape so I had to use a more solid circle which worked reasonably well.
I send out 4 of these cards. It’s nice to mix up the embossing folders. I couldn’t find this stamp set so we didn’t make any of these cards at Card Crew today but I hope to find it before next class because I think it is a very cute spring card too.
Slightly different stamping on the envelope for this and the other 2 of these cards that I sent out today.

Card Crew

There was a great group out at card making. 2 of my regular ladies were not there, but 1 (very independent) lady as well as another lady with her caregiver were there. Plus there was a new wife with her husband who has dementia plus two new ladies with their daughters. I was glad to have the help of two volunteers but I was pretty busy getting the papers cut out and the die cuts made. Hopefully the new participants all enjoyed it and will come back again. My aim is to not have too much prepared in advance and to have the participants and volunteers using the tools for most of the steps themselves. That being said, I should make sure to have more sample cards available and/or photos/instructions for the sample, and possibly at least a few kits available for those who aren’t as interested or able to make their projects entirely from scratch.

My class at the Dementia Society made a lot of cards today. Here is a sampling. One participant made 4 cards, the other 4 participants and their caregivers (4) made 2 cards each.

I love the look (and ease) of using patterned paper on cards. It’s been a while since I’ve made cards using patterned paper but I think I will definitely have designs using it more frequently in Card Crew classes.

Picture This Year

Picture This Year prompt 104 (stick). Prompt for today and photo taken today. Luna was actually not very interested in stick play today so it was a bit of a challenge to include her in a stick photo today.
Picture This Year prompt 104 (stick). We have no shortage of sticks at the front door. Now that both Roland’s hockey season and Heidi’s ringette season are over I think it’s time to move the sticks into the garage to make room for the spring umbrellas!

100DayProject Day 51

Unfortunately all the personal crafting I had time for today was to watch the rest of the video for the Day 1 class of Altenew Let it Shine course entitled ‘glitter’. There are a few more good ideas for adding glitter to cards which hopefully I can try out tomorrow. I know I definitely won’t be making my own glitter paper anytime soon!

Honeyed Chicken

My metal pan of chicken turned out darker than Louise’s which she cooked in a glass pan.
It was interesting how much lighter Louise’s batch turned out which she cooked in glass rather than metal.
It was also interesting how her chicken browned a bit more after it had been sitting. We transferred all of hers to another container and put the sauce in mason jars so she didn’t get sauce sloshed all over her car when she drove home.

Background

This is a recipe that I have refined a bit since it was given it my my cousin Leila about 35 or 40 years ago. The original recipe I jotted down was 3 pounds of chicken wings, ginger, salt, pepper, garlic and soya sauce, 300 degrees, covered. I have since decided to make it using chicken thighs and have specified some quantities and added a few cooking instructions.

Ingredients

  • 1 large (Costco size) tray of chicken thighs (about 25-30 pieces)
  • grated ginger (a piece about 1-2″)
  • minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 2 tbsp soya sauce
  • 2 tbsp corn starch

Instructions

  • Place the chicken thighs reasonably tightly together in a baking pan. I use a 10.5′ x 14.5″ pan for a single batch and a 12″ x 18″ pan for a double batch.
  • Mix all remaining ingredients together.
  • Pour the liquid over the chicken and move chicken around gently so that the sauce seeps between all the pieces.
  • Cover the pan.
  • Bake at 300-350′ covered, stirring occasionally, about every 30-45 minutes depending on the size of batch you are making and the temperature you bake it at.
  • I usually move the outer pieces in towards the centre and move some inner pieces out towards the edges of the pan partway through cooking to ensure they are move evenly cooked. I also turn the chicken over for a while to facilitate even cooking.
  • I usually use an instant read thermometer to test the chicken doneness (165’F / 74’C) to prevent over cooking.

Notes

This freezes and reheats well.

We tend to serve this over instant/ramen noodles (such as Mr. Noodles brand which we just cook without the flavouring package) or spaetzle noodles. And often serve with canned corn.

This is our family’s go-to recipe to drop off as a meal for friends. We make a big batch and divide it into labelled 2-cup cottage cheese / sour cream / yogurt containers. Then we package those freezable containers with some canned corn and instant noodle packages. That way the receiving friend can choose to have some within a day or two and/or to put the chicken into the freezer.

When warming up in the microwave, check it and stir frequently and separate the pieces of chicken as soon as you can to help prevent the chicken pieces at the edges getting overcooked. You can also thaw it out in the fridge beforehand to make it quicker and easier to reheat.

Stacking on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 50

At the summit of one of the hills on our hike. Such a gorgeous day!

Stacking on Sunday

As I start writing at 10:12 p.m. the original theme for the day is slipping my mind. So I’ve changed it to Stacking on Sunday. We had a wonderful hike in the forest with Luna this morning. She’s taking advantage of there being a lot more snowy patches at the cottage than here in Ottawa so she did a lot of snow angels on route. For the most part we didn’t have troubles navigating the snowier sections where there isn’t as much sunshine, but Roland did get a soaker when his boot went through the snow and into a puddle well over the top of his hiking boots. I got a photo of Roland and Luna at the top of one of the hills and as I scrolled through my photos for the day I remembered my original theme of Summiting on Sunday – which had me thinking about progress on some goals because I am now half way through my 100DayProject. Do you have any goals that you have accomplished? It also makes me think about getting out hiking – ’tis almost the season for that so I hope that you’re finding opportunities to be outdoors.

I did a bit of crafting while Roland finally got the chainsaw going. It turns out it needed fresh gas to run properly. Which makes me think of a theme for a Friday – because I know that, like a chainsaw, I run better on quality fuel and it’s high time I make a few changes in my eating habits. But, back to the Stacking on Sunday theme. Once he got the chainsaw going he cut a few trees that had fallen earlier this spring into logs. I helped him to stack the logs and branches, adding to our already good collection of logs for our summer campfires.

We had gone to Costco on our way to the cottage to buys some chicken thighs to make Honeyed Chicken in the evening. We also picked up a bike trailer since we’re getting new bikes and want to be able to bring Luna with us on outings. Louise came by at 7:00 and we really enjoyed our evening making the chicken together. I thought that would be a lot more fun that just sharing the recipe with her. Which is was.

The finished tray of Honeyed Chicken.
The Honeyed Chicken portioned into containers for the fridge and freezer. I put 5 pieces in each container which is generally good to feed two people.

100DayProject Day 50

I made just one of these boxes to hold my extra mini ink pads today. The pattern is below. I had forgotten the sizing for them so had made a few boxes of other sizes before calling Heidi to get her to measure them at home. I need to make a separate blog post to show how to make these which will be easier to find the right dimensions when I need to make them in the future.

I did some crafting at home as well and had done a bit of cutting and assembling of some boxes in the car on the way to and from the cottage.

This was one of my crafty projects today. I made these to hold my blending brushes which you can see below.
The boxes grouped together in sets of 4 so they will stand freely on the desk.
These box nicely hold and separate the blending brushes by colour.
These are the solid coloured cardstock box pieces that I cut (that I had previously cut to size and scored) in the car paired with their patterned paper pieces that I had cut to size a long time ago . These will be used soon in a class at The Canadian Mental Health Association. These boxes are sized to hold A2-sized greeting cards.

I forgot to include photos of these cards that I wrote yesterday.

Picture This Year | Prompt 102 (solid) | an extra Prompt 100 (stack)

Picture This Year prompt 100 (stack). This is an extra photo that I took today for Thursday’s prompt. This isn’t even the whole stack of logs that we ended up with after all the chainsaw work that Roland did cutting the tree trunks into logs.
Picture This Year prompt 102 (solid). This was the prompt for yesterday which I photographed today. These are all of the solid coloured cardstock boxes that I cut on the way up to the cottage today. I had already cut them to size and scored them but there was a lot of cutting to form the sides of the box and tabs which get tucked inside.

Stay at Home Saturday | 100DayProject Day 49 | Card 31 | Card 32 (started)

100DayProject Day 49

Card 31 (Pop Art)

I started and finished my card for lesson 5 of the Altenew For the Guys course in which we were to make a Pop Art inspired card. I searched for some images and used one as inspiration for the card. I used Gina K masking strips to create the grid then ink blended the red grid.

Card 32 (Glitter) (started)

The first lesson of the Altenew Let It Shine course is entitled, Glitter. The lesson demonstrated making your own glitter cardstock. It was the first time I tried to do that. And will likely be the last. I actually had to have two attempts because I decided to try to burnish the glitter by running it through my diecutting machine rather than just using a bone folder/spatula. The adhesive of the 2-sided adhesive paper beneath the glitter ended up sticking to the printer paper I had put over the glittered cardstock before running it through. The next attempt I put a piece of acetate over the glitter before burnishing it in the die cutting machine then ran it through again with my hello die. Clearly I shouldn’t have put a piece of printer paper over it even after I had it burnished.

I am only partway through putting the card together. There were a few other techniques in the class including stamping the floral image on vellum and colouring the image on the wrong side with alcohol markers. All of my alcohol markers are at the cottage so I thought I’d try to colour ink by mixing some ink with some Simple Solution Acrylic Medium. I’m not sure if that’s going to work. I’m letting it dry overnight.

Stay at Home Saturday

We stayed home last night and today since Heidi is having some friends up to the cottage. We definitely had a slow start to the day and eventually got out to walk Luna then we went to the Cottage Show at the EY Centre. We bought a few new decor items for the cottage which are still in the car so I’ll photograph them tomorrow. We also bought some date humus as well as some soup mixes. It’s always fun to try out some of the interesting food and to support local small businesses at events like that. We were a month too late to buy end of season cross country skis at Fresh Air Experience. We’ll head back there in early December. We also went to Bushtukha to look for some hiking boots for Roland and some light hikers for me. But it was quite busy there so we’ll go back another time. Roland has had a very frustrating time trying to put in a replacement part into the leaking washing machine. He went to Princess Auto to buy a wrench but still had no luck getting it apart. So he went to Metro and got some nice steaks on sale for his dinner to bolster his mood. I did some cardmaking while Roland watched some curling.

Picture This Year

I’m going to try to start following along with Tracey Clark’s Picture This Year 2025 prompts now that I have discovered them.

Picture This Year prompt 101 (bag). This was Friday’s prompt and I took the photo on Friday. I love this bag that Heidi gave me for Christmas. The other side is the outline of the lake that our cottage (which we bought in 2001), is on. Heidi did a great job with our cottage logo, which like the lake image is also on the matching sweatshirts that she gave us all for Christmas.
Picture This Year prompt 100 (stack) | This was actually Thursday’s prompt. I had the idea on Friday and took the photo today. I had Heiid’s Bananagrams game out because I had borrowed it to play at our girls getaway near Montebello. Even though you don’t actually play with the letters stacked I thought the game would be a helpful prompt for this photo prompt.
Picture This Year Prompt 103 (out). This is actually the prompt for tomorrow and the photo was taken today. While I was taking the photo for Prompt 100 (stack) I realized that the Bananagrams game would be helpful for this prompt as well. In fact, I like it better than my stack idea.
Picture This Year prompt 97 (vibrant). This was Monday’s prompt and I took the photo Monday night just as I was heading to bed. That was the evening that I had discovered the challenge. These bright pink (can we say vibrant?) laces were calling out to me to be photographed when I caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye as I was reading through the April prompts which I had printed out to review in bed. I’m not sure whether I’ll go back and do some of the past prompts, but I do hope to continue doing many of the daily prompts for at least April and May.
Picture This Year prompt 98 (bird). This was Tuesday’s prompt and I took the photo on Tuesday. The birds in the conservation area were quite elusive on my walks so I decided to use this photo of the bird card that I’m making to cover off this prompt.
Picture This Year prompt 99 (line). This was Wednesday’s prompt this photo was taken on Wednesday. Everyone was very good about lining up on the woods while I got my phone camera set up in the ‘Y’ of a branch with a timer setting. It was such a fun afternoon with all these friends in the woods near Montebello between Ottawa and Montreal where we met to celebrate a recent 65th birthday as well as a recent retirement.