Alfie

Meet Alfie, the newest member of the Dairy Barn family. He's a 10 week old labradoodle whose favorite hobby so far seems to be chasing chickens.



Coming next week sometime are Thumper and Bumper.  Nope, not rabbits, something a bit bigger :-)

Big Ole' Chandelier part two

Here is the second half of that same chandelier overlay and two of my goofier friends (they were playing dress up in the mall's prom section).  The background was too busy in the photo, so I just enlarged
it and then cut the girls out.

 


I am still very, VERY frustrated by Cricut's Opposites Attract cartridge, it eats up so much paper and the script letters don't flow very nicely into one another.  All this could be solved by their design software, I know, but I have a Mac and and I don't know if I can really justify buying a whole 'nother computer just so I can make one cartridge behave better. Sigh.  On the other hand it was just the look I wanted, so I just grumbled and trimmed the cricut cut letters by hand.
Caveat: I cut glitter paper with the Cricut.  DO NOT DO THIS unless you are sure that the glitter on your paper can't come off.  I think they call that style thermography or something similar.  DCWV glitter cardstock, for instance, is safe (that's what I used) and Doodlebug's Sugared Cardstock is not safe.  One of my friends used the sugared cardstock in her Cricut Expression- scary grinding noises ensued.

Big Ole Chandelier part one

I stocked these really great hot pink chandelier overlays by Hambly in our shop, oh, two years ago?  And I hadn't done a single layout with them, was totally stumped by their size and because I really, really didn't want to cover any of their coolness up with some lame-o photographs.  Then I realized "oh, duh, I can cut them in half!"  Since overlays are on the more expensive end of specialized papers, making the stretch through more projects is always good.  Dontcha just love two-fers?


Just a quick FYI, if you're going to be journaling on overlays or other acetates, you are going to either need a Slick Writer or an Identipen.  I really like the Identipens better because they are double-ended with one thick nib and one fine.  Once again stretching one tool further.  Yay!

Italian Herb Overnight Bread

This recipe is based on the Mezzaluna Bread from one of the Dairy Hollow House Cookbooks, Soup and Bread, I think.  That was a killer cookbook.  In fact all of Crescent Dragonwagon's cookbooks were pretty awesome.  I lived too close to Eureka Springs growing up to ever really justify staying at the Dairy Hollow House, but I'll always be a little sad I never did before they retired.

The background paper is some relatively old 7 Gypsies from my stash, the stems and title mat are cut from Flair's Fresh from the Vine paper.  That sunflower that's really too big for the page but I love anyway is one of the new Spellbinder dies :-) very "under the tuscan sun".

Serendipity

I know serendipity accounts for sudden fortuitous events, but I don't know if it can account for these midnight cupcakes and what ever I was channeling because I swear I didn't intend to swirl the frosting into roses.  Just weird. 

These were just ordinary chocolate cake mix cupcakes that I stirred some kirsch soaked dried cherries into, then topped with a buttercream that had a little ground fennel in it.  Pretty tasty...and prettier than my usual slap and dash frosting methods :-)