Last night I was making Ina Garten’s Raspberry Crumble for a school function and thought I would use that recipe as a base for thumbprint cookies. I played around, added a few ingredients and came up with this recipe for these cookies! Half were gone by this morning – a sure sign of a good cookie recipe! Hope you enjoy it!
I have searched and searched and SEARCHED for how to tie a straight bow! FINALLY I found out how!! Recently I received a gift of Jo Malone perfume from my dear husband. Upon looking at the bow on the box, I noticed how beautiful it was – how symmetrical – how even – how it didn’t tilt to one side like MY bows! As I carefully untied the bow, I took photos of each step of untying (it would drive me crazy to watch someone open a gift as slowly as I did – he is a very patient man!) and I made a video of how to tie this most perfect of bows! Here is a link to the video – for your reference and my own!! Enjoy!!
I had a cocktail party in my studio last night and served these amazing scone ham sandwiches and thought the recipe would be a good one to share because everyone at the party asked for the recipe!
Savory Cheddar, Thyme & Sweet Corn Scones
Astoundingly good, savory and wonderfully chewy!
Makes approximately 30, 2″ scones
Ingredients:
2 c. Self-rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp. English mustard powder
1/4 tsp. ground Cayenne
Paprika for sprinkling
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. minced fresh thyme + about 30 whole leaves for scone tops
1/4 c. cold unsalted butter
2 c. grated cheddar cheese
1 can of corn
3/4 c. 2% milk plus extra for brushing
juice of 1/2 lemon
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
1. In the bowl of a food processor, mix flour, baking powder, mustard, cayenne, salt and minced thyme leaves. Cut butter into 6 slices and add to flour mixture. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Add most of the cheese and all of the corn and pulse until incorporated. Mix the milk and lemon juice together and with the processor running add to flour mixture through the feed tube. Very quickly, it will form into a thick batter/dough – don’t overwork the dough. Don’t panic! This is a very wet dough!
2. Put dough on floured board, sprinkle with flour on top and knead a few times. Using a medium spring-loaded scoop (like a small ice cream scoop) – or a spoon, drop 1/2 golf ball sized pieces of dough onto prepared baking sheet.
3. Brush each scone with a little bit of milk and lightly press ball down with brush. Sprinkle with a bit of cheese and paprika and add a thyme leaf or two.
4. Bake for 7 – 12 minutes or until scones are risen and golden brown. Cool on rack.
Add shredded ham to dough while kneading or add Herbed Cream Cheese Spread and ham to make little cocktail sandwiches!
Herbed Cream Cheese Spread
1/2 c. cream cheese
1 Tbs. butter
1 tsp. minced fresh thyme
Salt & Pepper to taste
Mix all ingredients and use as spread for scones.
Recipe adapted from: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/749706/cheddar-and-sweetcorn-scones
Since most of the jewelry I make it is quite large by most standards, it is difficult for me to come up with things for teenagers – because they like things small! I came up with these for my daughter for Valentine’s Day and thought they would make such a fun project for you! If you have some experience with silversmithing, these should take about 30 minutes! Enjoy!!
*** feel free to make these for yourself and as gifts – but please do not sell them….because stealing isn’t nice.
Here are process photos of how I finish needlepoint ornaments! There are many ways to do it, and this is how I do it! I am not great at responding to comments, so please do not feel bad if you do not hear from me – just thought you might enjoy!
…..and a different way to finish the top loop……
I LOVE A KID IN A CAPE AT THE GROCERY STORE….
You know when you see a “kiddle’ in a grocery cart and he/she has on a CAPE?! They feel so invincible, so awesome, so everything?!
I FREAKIN’ LOVE THAT!
And you know that Mom – the one that let them wear that cape or princess dress to the grocery store?
I FREAKIN’ LOVE HER!!
I was listening to a group of women talk about dressing their children (they were not talking about special events, but rather about daily life) and how important it was because they felt their children’s appearance was a direct reflection on themselves. I about spit out my coffee!
While I agree it is important to help choose their clothes initially, after the purchases have been made, LET YOUR CHILDREN DRESS THEMSELVES.
PLEASE, just let them dress themselves….they are so much better at it than you are and it is IMPORTANT to them – I mean seriously, everything in their life is controlled for the most part – what they eat, where they go & what they do.
I look at pictures of my daughter and her outfits and think “I would have NEVER put flowers and leopard print together – but she totally rocks it!”
When you look back at photos of them, dressed in whatever they wanted to wear…..you will be so glad you let them dress themselves!
Pick their wardrobe….but let them dress themselves. It’s like Scrabble with clothes!….and it is awesome!
I mean seriously, would you rather have photos of how YOU dressed them…or how they dressed themselves? (Hint: they will never dress themselves like this again…too soon the pressure to “fit in” will affect their fashion choices….and then they will look just like everyone else.)
Awwww…did you see the boots?!
PART 2 -Apps I love & how I use them. Grids, Fun labels & Filters (tutorial)
My daughter loves our scrapbooks – it is like an illustrated fairytale of her (our) life – how could you not love that!?
I love the IDEA of scrapbooks and I love scrapbooks themselves.
I love all of the little stickers, stamps, tapes and decorations for scrapbooks.
I love having a hard copy of the most important photos on my computer.
What I do NOT love is the stress of scrapbooking.
When I bought an iPhone, I discovered some fantastic, easy apps & the stress disappeared when I developed a “SYSTEM” that is fast – and fun!
I still get to use all those wonderful little decorations and we actually have a scrapbook to sit down and look through – which is better than a box of mixed up photos any day!
Scrapbooking with Iphone apps – made EASY, divided into three posts (I post on Wednesdays at 11:30 MT).
1. Scrapbooking with an iPhone – my SYSTEM & apps
2. Apps I love & how I use them. Grids, Fun labels & Filters (tutorial).
3. Tying up the loose ends from parts 1 & 2, extra apps – everything comes together!
SO HERE WE GO! PART 2!
Apps I love & how I use them. Grids, Fun labels & Filters
VISUAL TUTORIALS OF MY FAVORITE APPS!
This app allows you to combine up to 5 photos into a grid and add labels.
Click to enlarge
If you will be using your photo grid for a 5×7 postcard with the app PhotoCard, be sure to click the 3:2 measurement in the upper right corner (See #1).
2. Montage Magic ($.99)
This app allows you to combine tons of photos, label them and has great backgrounds – wonderful when you want to use more than 5 photos!
I previously posted a tutorial of this app and you can find it here!
3. Bill Atkinson’s PhotoCard – Postcards ($0.99)
This is my MUST HAVE app. It is the backbone of my scrapbook – I use grids, filters & labels on my photos and always import them into PhotoCard to send a finished 5×7 laminated photo postcard to myself for my scrapbook.
Click to enlarge
FILTERS & LABEL APPS
No tutorials on these apps – the filters are either super easy or difficult enough that I just mess with them until I get something I like and then save it; the labels are the same!
LABEL APPS
(great for adding a cute label to one photo)
(great for speech bubble photos and text)
Love this app! Let’s you add text like a ransom note with cutout letters!
FILTER APPS
Easy
Easy – SUPER FUN
– only works for square photos – it will force you to make your photo a 1:1.
This is my “go to” for editing
Easy photo editing; great filters
Easy
Hard – unless you just play around with it until you find something you like.
Play around with it.
***********
NEXT POST:
Pictures of my scrapbook pages
Comparison of other photo postcard apps – Pros & Cons
Scrapbooking apps
Tying up loose ends!
Next Post: WEDNESDAY, JULY 25th @ 11:30 a.m.
Be well! Have a safe weekend and July 4th!
By Eleanore Macnish
I have a cousin named Maureen who is an amazing scrapbooker. Her scrapbooks are like works of art – the layout, her color choices, use of space, font selection, etc. – she is a true “scrapbooker”.
I on the other hand, am someone who loves scrapbooks – but try as I might, I just cannot make all the elements come together. I can order the prints. I LOVE to go to craft stores and buy all sorts of beautiful paper, stickers, tapes, pins, jeweled brads & tools. I love all the organizational bins & folders.
But when it comes time to sit down and organize all those photos, date them, narrate them and use all those wonderful stickers and ribbon, it is soooooo frustrating that I end of getting very little done, and just throw everything back in the box.
When I bought an iPhone and discovered some fantastic and easy apps, everything changed and I developed a “SYSTEM” that is easy & fast and when I am ready to make the pages, everything is dated and narrated AND the photos are already laid out!!
While my scrapbooks are not works of art like Maureen’s, I still get to use all those wonderful little decorations and we actually have a scrapbook to sit down and look through – which is better than a box of mixed up photos any day! The narrations are way better than anything I could try to pull from memory – because I write them within hours of taking the photo!….usually!
Scrapbooking with Iphone apps – made EASY, divided into three posts (I post on Wednesdays at 11:30 MT).
1. Scrapbooking with an iPhone – my SYSTEM & apps
2. Apps I love & how I use them. Grids, Fun labels & Filters (tutorial).
3. Tying up the loose ends from parts 1 & 2, extra apps – everything comes together!
1. SCRAPBOOKING WITH AN IPHONE
APPS: Get these apps and start playing around with them.
They are so easy, you probably won’t even need next week’s tutorial post, but I will show you some settings that are good to know about, etc.
MY SCRAPBOOK “SYSTEM” – I swear to you, this is easy and it works.
**The black and white box in the title photo holds ALL of my supplies – Paper, stickers, adhesive ribbon, brads, double stick tape, scissors, labels and lots of Washi Tape!! The scrap box’s “home” is on the floor, tucked into the corner under the breakfast bar in the kitchen – it’s pretty and no one notices it anyway (-or you could always keep it in a cabinet). The fact that this box lives in my kitchen is one of the “keys” to my successfully keeping up with a scrapbook because the kitchen is where I go through the mail.
I use a 8.5 x 11 scrapbook because the size for page layout is easier for me. I buy them at Hobby Lobby (in our city, Michael’s does not carry this size of scrapbook or paper).
P.S. Yes, this is the second time I have mentioned PhotoCard. No, I have not been paid to promote it – it is quite simply my “go to” photo card app and it is better than the others I have tried…..by leaps and bounds!
By Eleanore Macnish
I’m taking a “posting break”! Every Wednesday for the next few weeks, I am posting past posts from my blog when I was at Blogspot! This one is from 2009! Enjoy!
Here is a site you will get absolutely addicted to……..WORDLE– it is so so so much fun! I played around with it for a while and thought “hey! What a cool invitation you could make with this!” All you do is enter a bunch of words and then the computer jumbles them up and makes very cool designs with the words! If you don’t like it, you just hit the button to get a new design!
If you want to make some words larger, just repeat them – “make a button button button earring” would result in a jumble of “make a button earring” with the word “button” being large.
And, if you want to keep the program from separating some words (like I did in the mock invitation) put a tilde between the words. “Eleanore~and~Tom” kept our names together!
P.S. Although there are some great color combinations from which to choose, you can also take a screen picture on your computer (you have to give credit to Wordle somewhere on your finished piece) and import it into something like Photoshop or PicMonkey and then play around with the colors. 
I’m taking a “posting break”! Every Wednesday for the next few weeks, I am posting past posts from my blog when I was at Blogspot! This one is from 2009! Enjoy!
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who works with a graphic design firm, asked me if I would like to be in a public service announcement with Erik Estrada. I thought “hmmm, it fits all of my requirements of “that sounds like fun”……the requirements being:
1. I’ve never done that before.
2. That sounds fairly safe.
3. Why would I not want to do this? (personal phobias do not count if number two is valid – even though I used to have a GIGANTIC public speaking phobia)
Oh my gosh – I’m so glad I said yes! We had such fun!
We arrived at the shoot location downtown and called our friend Heather to convince her to come down and be in one of the spots. Everyone joked around and had a great time – we asked the make-up artist if his hair was real – she said “yup! I just blow dried it! It’s all real!” The man is amazing.
It was a long day of basically messing around with intervals when everyone had to be quiet so they could film; in one of my spots, Erik kissed me….so I’m thinkin’ that kinda makes him my boyfriend – right?
Here are the links to the Public Service videos:
By Eleanore Macnish
