I’m here…….

I’ve had a VERY busy weekend! I spent Saturday afternoon painting my craft room, yippee! I used a Martha Stewart paint color called ‘Vintage Map’, it’s an aqua/robins egg blue shade. And while the paint website won’t let me save a picture of the paint sample I did find this picture on google that uses the same paint. So here’s a sneak peek of the wall color:

Last week Sean and I went to Ikea to look for some new office furniture and other fun stuff for the house and found what we were looking for. So on Sunday we went back and got my bookshelf unit and storage supplies. We also bought my wall mounted desks that will run the length of one side of the room. All of the furniture is a brown black so it will be so pretty with the light aqua walls. The only thing left to get is my desk and we are getting that and the last odds and ends in a week or so. The minivan was PACKED when we left!

We ended up getting the girls a bunch of stuff yesterday, a crawl through tube/tunnel, a tent, tables and chairs and a fun rug that looks like a map with a road for driving cars. They had a lot of fun playing last night! By the time we put them to bed we didn’t have the energy to put any of the furniture together, so that is left for tonight!

So as you can see I have been busy, busy, busy this weekend and not able to use my room. But I should be able to get back to some fun stuff tomorrow after I get nice and organized tonight!

I hope you all had a great weekend. I was without my computer since we dismantled the office/craft room (Sean shares a corner of it with me) and I found out today that I was nominated for a couple of awards, THANK YOU! I will be back later to comment on that and be a good blogger.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Double tagged

I was tagged what seems like forever ago by Bee and I have been really lazy about getting around to it. And this morning I was tagged again by Shannan, so I’m gonna do them both and overload you with random facts about me!

The first is just 7 random facts about me:

1. I have 5 tattoos
2. I love shopping for my girls clothes.
3. I like bread pudding. (Sean pointed this out to me since I mentioned that croissant chocolate chip bread pudding sounded good. But then I think you’d be CRAZY to not think that sounded good!)
4. I have really bad dry winter skin, all of us do…..sad.
5. I like Partylite almost as much as stamps (gasp!)
6. We just put together a new carseat for Ava, a big girl booster seat with leopard trim.
7. I like to make cards while listening to ‘Massive Attack’ or ‘Hooverphonic’.

And now for Shannan’s tag:

Five things I was doing 10 years ago:

1. Working at Nordstroms selling cosmetics.
2. Dating lot’s of guys at once.
3. Smoking (I was a 3-4 pack a day girl…..so bad!)
4. Driving my bright blue Neon
5. Listening to “Massive attack” and “Hooverphonic”

Five things on my list to do today:

1. Get out of pajamas and take a shower-check!
2. Clean bathrooms.
3. Make a grocery list.
4. Get rid of my migraine.
5. Finish DT projects.

Five things I will do when I’m a millionaire:

1. Buy my mom a big house.
2. Donate to more charities (there are so many I want to support)
3. Buy every stamp and embellishment I want without regret or looks from Sean!
4. Pay off student loans.
5. Have a spa day once a week.

Five things I will never wear again:

1. Hypercolor!
2. A scrunchie, either in my hair or around my wrist.
3. My wedding dress. (it’s preserved in a pretty display box, I’ll open it for the girls though)
4. A duran duran button. (both my sister and I have school pictures wearing the same button!)
5. liquid blue eyeliner.

Five of my favorite toys:

1. Stamps
2. Kitchenaid mixer
3. Vitamix
4. Makeup
5. Video game systems (Wii, Xbox, Nintendo DS)

My five banes of existence:

1. Sweeping the kitchen (it never stops!)
2. Stubbing my toes.
3. Martin barking at his own reflection in the fireplace or sliding door.
4. Not being able to fall asleep.
5. Mornings…..I am not a morning person!

And now I am going to be a party pooper and not tag anybody. But of course, if you feel like sharing odd facts about yourself then let me know and I’ll come take a peek!

Cute cookies, too good to keep to myself!

Ok, so this is one of the 25 projects I’ve talked about and I wasn’t planning on showing it. But honestly they are too cute and it’s a great idea and you might want to use it for Valentine’s day.

So I was standing at the checkout looking at magazines and decided to open up Martha, and the first thing I see are these felt fortune cookies! They were so adorable and I had some ideas so I bought the magazine so I could make these.

I made some as they were intended in the magazine, red and pink for Valentine’s day:

And then I decided to play around with them and make wedding favors!

If you would like to make them, they are really simple. I made a circle template using the largest circle in my coluzzle cutter, approximately 4 1/2 inches. Then I traced around the template on the felt, and I could get 4 circles out of one piece of felt. Once they are cut out you put down some tacky double sided tape and then a strip of floral wire and then covered with coordinating ribbon. Then you just cut out 4 1/2 x 1/2 inch strips of paper and make your fortunes!

The cost for these as wedding favors would be about 50 cents or less, making them SO DANG AFFORDABLE FOR A WEDDING! I believe that Sean and I paid $5 (probably more) per person for cookies and a candle at our wedding.

I hope you enjoyed these cookies. Sean really liked them and he is getting some on the 14th! I have a lot of things I need to get done over the next day and a half so I may not post anything until Monday. But from then on you’ll have plenty to look at!

Enjoy your weekend!

A delicous recipe for you to try!

I made a delicous meal today and I wanted to share the recipe with you. A traditional strata is a layered bread casserole that is covered with an eggy custard and baked until puffed and golden. But this recipe uses tofu in place of eggs, so if your allergic to eggs or just don’t like eating them, then this is for you!

I promise on my scouts honor that this does NOT taste weird or like tofu. It has a very traditional texture of eggs and has so much flavor that you wont even know anything is “missing”.

Mushroom and spinach strata:

Heat oven to 350

6 slices stale or lightly toasted bread, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 1/2 C thinly sliced shallots (about 5 or 6)

3 T olive oil

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced thin

3 cloves garlic, minced

2t dried thyme

1t dried rosemary

1t dried oregano

1/2t crushed red pepper

1t salt

10 ounces well washed, chopped spinach (about 8 cups)

Custard:

1 pound soft tofu

2 T lemon juice

2t prepared yellow mustard

1 T cornstarch

1/2 C vegetable broth

1/4t salt

Saute shallots in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and saute for 7 more minutes, until the mushrooms are tender.

Meanwhile, prepare the custard. Place all custard ingredients in a blender or food processor. Crumble tofu as you add it. Puree until completely smooth, scraping down the sides to make sure you get everything. Set aside until ready to use.

To the pan of shallots and mushrooms, add the garlic, herbs, peppers, and salt. Saute for another minute. Add a handful of spinach and mix with the mushrooms and shallots. Continue adding spinach by the handful as the previous bunch wilts and makes more room in the pan. This takes about 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat, move vegetables to the side of the pan and add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Toss in the sliced bread and mix to distribute.

Pour the tofu custard over everything and toss so that the bread is soaked with the tofu. Then transfer to a 9×13 pan and bake for 55-60 minutes. The strata should be firmed and lightly browned. Let cool about 10 minutes before serving.

For sale….updated

ETA: Everything has sold.

THANK YOU!!! 

Updated sale list

Here is the current list for Friday 12/28 at noon:

Punches:

Marvy Giga Scallop Circle Punch (purple) $8-PENDING
Marvy Giga Scallop Oval Punch (purple) $8-PENDING

Stamps: Retired hostess sets with purple rubber (all are mounted but unused)
Tags so much (2006) $6-SOLD
Vases in Vogue $15-SOLD
Event Full $10-SOLD

Mounted without staining:

Sheltering tree $8-SOLD
Best Bar Codes $4-SOLD

Mounted with slight staining (one stamp or one block is stained) :

Looks like Spring, WITH matching punch $15-PENDING
And Everything nice $8-PENDING

Mounted with staining (very LOVED):

Friendships grow $5
Friends are like flowers $6
Birthday Bunnies $7

I have several current sets that I no longer want. I will list their names and if you wish to email me you can….

A tree for all seasons (mounted, unused)-SOLD
Wishing you cheer (mounted, used once)-SOLD
Fun and Fast Notes (staining on 4, mostly on hedgehog)-PENDING
Time Well Spent (upcoming level 3 hostess set) (slight staining on one stamp)-PENDING

For SALE!!

It’s that time of year when I must clean out my stamp collection, some are recent retirees and some are a little older. Then there are some that I will be willing to part with, if you email me. I will ship these flat rated Priority mail to any USA address. I will also fill the envelope as full as I can, or ship it in a flat rated box. I will only be shipping to the US to make it as easy and quick as possible.  Payment should be made by Paypal only.

Please email me at ebethneu@gmail.com for a total with shipping.

Also be assured, all items come from a smoke free, odor free home. We do have kitties and a small dog incase you have bad allergies, but no pet hair will be traveling with the sets!

The Marvy punches have been used possibly 3-5 times each. I bought them in August and then quickly replaced them with nestabilities. I have no need for them anymore, so if you’ve been wanting one now’s your chance!

 Punches:

Marvy Giga Scallop Circle Punch (purple) $8
Marvy Giga Scallop Oval Punch (purple) $8

Stamps: Retired hostess sets with purple rubber (all are mounted but unused) Tags so much (2006) $6
Vases in Vogue $15
Event Full $10

Checking in

Sorry to leave you all hanging, but as you can imagine it got very busy around here! With 2 little girls both under 4 years, the days can get away from you. And as soon as I finished my last gifts on Saturday, I took a break from my crafting! And I couldn’t post pictures of the gifts, since I still had 3 days before they would be open!

Anyway, I am putting together a list of some retiring stamp sets that I will be selling. I will be posting soon with info if you care to nab one, or two! ;)    I have several of the hostess sets available as well as some older sets, and probably a few “secret” one’s too. 

 I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! This was Ava’s first year where she understood what is going on, we made cookies to leave out for Santa, which she loved doing. And we finally took the girls looking at Christmas lights! There were a lot of squeals in the mini-van!

I should be back later today or tomorrow with something fun, or my list!

Lucky, lucky…..we have a winner!

And the winner is #5 at

December 13th, 2007 at 8:48 pm e

Shannon McGann!!!!!!!

Shannon please email me your snail mail and let me know which set you would like, ebethneu@gmail.com

Thank you all for playing and for all the lovely comments. They have all been heard and hopefully you will continue to be excited about upcoming Treehouse stamps releases. I know Ashley and Kristin are already hard at work on their next creations!

Have a lovely afternoon!

You asked and I heard!

I have had MANY requests here, through emails and SCS for a tutorial on the spiral bouquet jewlery, so I will be putting a tutorial together for you! I am trying to revise it so it will be more user friendly. The resin part of it can be a little tricky; hard to find, needs EXACT measuring and setting, and isnt a technique for everyone.

So I am trying to play with it and see if I can use diamond glaze and if I like how it turns out. If it looks as good as resin then I will write the tutorial using it. But if it doesnt give a good result then I will have to use the resin.

I cant promise that the tutorial will be written before Christmas. But it should be within the next month. Just let me play a little and see how some different techniques work first.

Im so happy you all like it as much as I do! And I PROMISE that it looks so much MORE fantastic in person! I will try to get a few shots of it being worn too so you can see it in action!