{Where have I been?}

To learn where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing, check out my other blog Just Wait til You Have Kids. I’ll be posting non shop related things over there.

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{M.I.A.}

Sorry that I’ve been M.I.A for so long. I promise to be back soon (hopefully next week). Have had a lot going on and haven’t been focusing on the shops as much as I should be.

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{Black Friday through Cyber Monday Sale!}

{embellish*ology} is having a sale! Now through Monday receive 15% off your total purchase!!

Top 5 reasons to shop the {embellish*ology} sale:

#5 You’re getting top quality handmade items made just for you.

#4 Our products aren’t just for scrapbookers & paper crafters. Most of our products can be used for parties, gifts, and organizing.

#3 You will receive your purchase wrapped and ready for gift giving! We can also send directly to your recipient, with a personalized gift card included!

#2 Christmas is just around the corner and you need gift tags for all those gifts! Our tags look great on wrapped packages.

And the #1 reason to shop the {embellish*ology} sale:
FLAT RATE SHIPPING! Buy as much as you want and only pay $2.00 for domestic shipping ($3.00 International)

HAPPY SHOPPING! 

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{A Mini Photo Shoot}

So, I have been chomping at the bit to work on my photography skills. Right now, I don’t have too many cooperative subjects so I had to bribe my niece to pose for me.

For her 5th birthday, my sister fixed up her room in hot pink and zebra so I thought it would be cute to get some pics of her in her room.

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{Bicycles & Monsters, Oh My!}

As promised, some awesome projects from DT Lovey, Diana!

 
How lovely is this card?! I just love the colors and that trim! Diana used one of the bicycle tags in the Enjoy the Ride Bicycle Tag set and can you guess the other {embellish*ology} product she used? If you guessed one of the tags from the Fright Night Journaling Squares set, then you are correct! She simply cut away the patterned part of the journaling square and added the ‘Thank You’. Genius!

Check this out! On this card, Diana cut out one of the little monsters from the Little Monster Embellishment Tags and popped him up on a wood grain/faux bois tag from the Wood Grain Tags in Halloween Colors.

So, you see, there are many ways to use even holiday themed products for non-holiday themed projects!

Have you used any {embellish*ology} products in any of your projects? We’d all love to see! You can share them over in the {Inspired} Flickr group!

XOXO,

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{DT Lovey Project}

Hiya! Just a quick post to show off Susan’s latest projects using {embllellish*ology} products!

How cute are these? For these cute birthday cards, Susan used the Kraft Cupcake tags. Buy a set of these cupcake tags and you could make a set of birthday cards to have on hand or give as a gift!

I just love this by Susan, don’t you? For this project, she used the Flying Beauty tags on kraft.

Check back tomorrow for some more ideas from another DT lovey, Diana.

XOXO,

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{Stir Fry Chicken Fajitas}

Another recipe I’ve been asked to share. Haven’t heard from anyone who’s tried any of my recipes so if you have, speak up! I’d love to hear what you thought. :)

2-3 Chicken Breasts, cubed or cut into strips
4 Tbsp Liquid Smoke
Green Bell Pepper, sliced
Red Bell Pepper, sliced
Med. Onion, sliced
1-2 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Olive Oil

Put chicken in a Ziploc back with Liquid Smoke, set aside.

While chicken is marinating, heat wok or skillet with butter on med-high and sauté onions & peppers. Remove onions and peppers from skillet.  Add olive oil and chicken to skillet (carefully, since skillet will be hot). Brown chicken on both sides, about 5-7 minutes.

Add onions & peppers to skillet, mix with chicken then cover. Continue cooking on low heat until chicken is cooked through (about 10 minutes).

Serve with all the fixins!

YUMMYLICIOUS!

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{Halloween Dinner Party}

Hi! How is everyone? Been a while, huh? Well, I have a little treat for you from one of the DT lovies, Tessa!

When Tessa sent me her projects, I immediately thought of a Halloween dinner party…

How about this for an invitation design? Tessa used the chandelier tag from the Fright Night Halloween Cut-Outs.

Now that the invitations are taken care of, how about some place cards for the table? For these, Tessa used the Fright Night Labels and mounted them onto black cardstock.

Ok, so we have invitations and place cards how about some favor tags? How cute are these?! To make these tags, all you need are the Fright Night Journaling Squares and some dimensional Halloween stickers

Want an alternative to the invitation above or thank you cards to send home with your guests? Whip up some of these using the Happy Halloween tag from the Fright Night Halloween Cut-Outs.
 

Also, don’t forget in the shop we have these Spooky Halloween Tags that would be perfect for cupcake toppers…

Or these Halloween Wood Grain tags that could also be used for favor tags or labels for your menu items.

So there you have it…a complete set for your Halloween dinner party!

Thank you to Tessa for her great ideas! I’m so glad to have her as a part of my Design Team.  :)

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{Belated Giveaway Winner Announcement!}

Oh. My. Goodness. I can’t believe it was almost a week before I realized I forgot to announce the winner of the LiveTeachCreate giveaway! I. Am. So. Sorry!

I numbered all of the comments and used random.org to get our winners. So, without any further delay, the winner of the Teresa Collins Documented Envelope Album Kit is……

Mamatha!!

And the winner of the Teresa Collins Family Matters Clipboard Cover Kit is…..

Carrie Duvall!!

Congrats ladies! Please click on Contact at the top of the page and email me your snail mail address to receive you prizes!

Thanks Everyone for participating!!

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{Operation Reorganization: Kitchen Pantry}

Remember this post where I ranted about my pantry and told you that it was all going to change? Well, the next day I thought about how I was going to tackle the reorganization and when I got home from work, I emptied out the entire contents of my pantry, filled my dining room table and sat in the middle of my kitchen on a step stool trying to figure out how to put it back together. My first thought was that the contents in my dining room could not go back into the same cabinet they came out of so this is what happened.

I relocated my bake ware to the pantry and moved the pantry contents to where the bake ware was. It was closer to the stove microwave so it made sense to me. Also the cabinet is not as deep as the pantry so hopefully food won’t get lost in it’s new location.  :)

This is the contents AFTER I sifted through and pulled out the food that was expired. Forgot to take a picture of all that but I filled an entire garbage bag (and felt extremely guilty for throwing out that much food.) There were things in there that expired in 2006!! Eeewww!

Ok. So I did a little switcharoo and you would think that would be the end of it, right? Well, it wasn’t. I also had spices and ingredients for baking in the pantry and when I went to put those items in their proper places, I was again sickened by the lack of organization there too so I emptied the cabinets where I had the spices and baking stuff.

The before pic is after I sorted through my spices. I had 5 of some things! Seriously people, it was ridiculous! Those racks in the after pic pull out & down which is great because that cabinet is above our microwave that’s over the stove and I’m short so any little help I can get so I don’t have to use a step stool is wonderful!

Before I show you where the baking supplies and spices were mixed together, let’s check out the “overflow” pantry that we have in our laundry room.

Well, it looks just as crowded but it’s a little more organized than before. My hope was to move the doggie stuff to a cabinet above our dryer but those bins didn’t fit. Plan B is to put it all in the cabinet under the sink in our laundry room but hubsy is going to have to go through that stuff because well, it’s all his crap under there. Remember how I said the paper plates, cups & stuff was suppose to be in this cabinet? Do you notice in the after pic that it all made it to it’s originally designated place? :)

Ok, now let’s go back to the kitchen and check out that cabinet with all my baking supplies. Before, all my spices, baking supplies, some random dishes & disgusting bugs were residing in this cabinet. After a thorough cleaning, I managed to put it all back together. I so wish I had taken a pic of the before when it was all in the cabinet.

This is, hands down, my favorite part of the reorganization project (even though I had no intention to touch this cabinet originally).  In the after pic, on the top left are all my extracts, food coloring, baking spices (like nutmeg, pumpkin spice, etc), and cupcake liners. On the right are all my oils and cooking sprays. The middle shelf is all my dry goods like sugars & flours. If I had extras, I placed it behind the jars. The bottom isn’t baking stuff, it’s pasta, beans & tea bags. All my pasta was where the spices are now so I had to relocate them somewhere.

Ok, so if you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen my tweet about how giddy I was that I got to use some labels from my {embellish*ology} shop! Many of you wanted to see them in action so here ya go! All I did was add the ingredient of each jar, printed & cut them out and ran them through my Xyron. Want some customized labels for your organization project? Let me know, I’d be happy to customize some for you!

So what do you think of Operation Pantry Reorganization? I hope you are inspired to use {embellish*ology} products now.  :)

XOXO,

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{My First Sketchy Thursday Challenge}

Ever since Diana became one of my DT lovies, I was determined to participate in one of the challenges on her Sketchy Thursdays blog. Since I was on a digi scrapping kick this weekend, I thought now was as good a time as any.

Here’s this week’s sketch:

 

And, here’s my take on the sketch:

Hope your Monday was a good one…mine kinda sucked.  :(

XOXO,

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{LiveTeachCreate Giveaway and a Coupon Code!}

Jenn, one of my good twitter friends and vendor of {embellish*ology} has put up some goodies for two lucky readers to win! YIPEEE!!

One lucky winner will win this Teresa Collins Documented Envelope Album Kit. And another lucky winner will win this Teresa Collins Family Matters Clipboard Cover Kit!

For this little giveaway, we are going to do a scavenger hunt through Jenn’s online scrapbook store.

To Enter the Giveaway:
BE SURE TO LEAVE 1 COMMENT FOR EACH ENTRY/ITEM FOR MULTIPLE CHANCES TO WIN.
*Participate in our little scavenger hunt. 1 comment per clue.
*Follow Jenn on Twitter @liveteachcreate.
*Follow her blog.
*Blog about this little giveaway.

Are you ready for a little scavenger hunt?

Ready. Set. Go! http://shop.liveteachcreate.com/

1. Name one adhesive carried at LiveTeachCreate?

2. Name 1 die cutting machine Jenn carries in her shop.

3. Name one {embellish*ology} product that LiveTeachCreate currently carries?

4. What is your favorite item on this page?

5. If you could have anything from the LiveTeachCreate store, what would it be?

Winners will be announced Monday, September 20th. Good Luck!

P.S. If you don’t want to wait to win the goodies, Jenn has also offered a coupon code for 10% off purchases of $25 or more!
Use coupon code 10EMB25.

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{It’s a Pantry Raid!}

This post was inspired by Katie over at Cleared for Takeoff.

Ok, so tonight I went grocery shopping….which is bad enough but what I dislike more than grocery shopping is putting up the groceries once I get home. Tonight was no different. I strongly dislike putting up groceries because I am not happy with my pantry situation. Let’s take a little tour and I’ll show/tell you why.

(Pics aren’t going to be pretty because I snapped them real quick with my iPhone)

Ok, this is my official “pantry”. Doesn’t look so bad, you say? Well, can you see that stuff in the back? No? well that’s because it’s like 2 feet deep! There is probably stuff back there that has been there almost as long as we’ve been in this house (10 years). There’s a bottom part to this pantry but I have things like plastic containers, appliances we never use, etc.

 

Because the pantry in our kitchen is so inadequate, we purchased a free standing cabinet to catch the overflow. Not being utilized very efficiently, huh?

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
This is the top two shelves. The top is mainly Ziploc bags because I bought them in bulk at Sam’s due to the fact that it seemed like we never had any when I needed them. That shelf was designated for things like that along with paper plates, cups etc. Notice that some other things have snuck up there and the paper plates have decided to party with the chips on the second shelf.

 

Ok so you’ve seen the top two shelves of the “overflow pantry” lets take a look at the bottom two shelves. These shelves have been designated for the dog stuff. That’s a lot of stuff for a dog that does nothing but lay around and sleep! Oh, and no, those aren’t really dirty dish rags & towels…I just haven’t re-labeled that basket yet.

My little tirade tonight while putting up groceries has led to my weekend project….organizing this pantry so figuring out what to make for dinner doesn’t give me  a headache LOL.

Now that you’ve seen my pantry in all it’s glory, head on over to Katie’s blog and link up your pantry.

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{Wordless Wednesday}

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{Make it up as I go Chicken & Pasta}

So, today I spent all day cleaning and was still in cleaning mode when hubsy came home from work. I wasn’t too worried about having dinner ready because he likes to do his P90 workout before dinner so I pulled a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer to thaw having no idea what I was going to do with it. About an hour later, this is what I came up with.

 

Here’s what you’ll need:
Chicken Breasts
Rotini Noodles
1 can Crushed Tomatoes
1 Squash – Sliced,diced or however you like it.
Italian Seasonings (Garlic, basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram)
McCormick Garlic&Herb Seasoning
Olive oil
Garlic Breadsticks

In a saucepan, warm the crushed tomatoes & Italian seasonings (to taste). Add squash & zucchini. Cover and let simmer.

While the sauce is simmering, start cooking the Rotini noodles.

In a skillet, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (enough to cover the bottom. While oil is heating, season chicken breasts with the Garlic&Herb seasoning, add to skillet. Cook on med-high heat until cooked through.

Right before chicken is done, warm garlic breadsticks in oven and mix the tomato sauce & pasta.

Serve to hungry family.  :)

If you make this, I’d love to hear what you thought. Also would love to hear any variations you try.

XOXO,

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