Birthday card

The builders finished my new  craft room yesterday. (pictures to come) I love it.  Now we can move our boxes and my 8 foot craft cabinet in and get everything unpacked.  I can't wait.

I made this cute Teapot birthday card for my oldest Granddaughter, Kara's birthday.

Because I am so limited with supplies and room, I made the card entirely with my new Cricut.

I will tell you more about that later.

Merry Christmas

Jon and I want  to wish you all a very Merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Panko Chicken

Panko Chicken

 
Panko Chicken

This baked chicken recipe is one of my favorite chicken dishes. 
Delicious chicken coated in bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.
Sooo easy, but your guests will never know how hard you didn't work!

Ingredients:

4 large or 8 medium size skinless, boneless chicken breast halves -
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoons garlic powder, divided -
1 cup bread crumbs (I love Panko Bread Crumbs)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley

Directions:
I marinate my chicken and pork chops in butter milk all day. This makes for very moist chicken.
Then rinse it dry, and put between wax paper and pound dry so all pieces of chicken are the same size.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

In a shallow bowl, beat the egg with salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon garlic powder. In a separate dish, mix bread crumbs with 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and Parmesan cheese. Set aside.

Mix together the melted butter and lemon juice. Pour about 2/3 of the butter mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Tilt pan to coat the bottom. Spread mushrooms in an even layer in the bottom of the dish.

Dip each chicken breast into the egg mixture, then into the bread crumb mixture. Place on top of the mushrooms. Drizzle remaining butter over the chicken, and sprinkle with parsley.

Bake uncovered for 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until chicken is golden brown and juices run clear.

New Card

Most of you are probably familiar with the Cricut.  I now own the newest Cricut Maker.  This machine is totally awesome.  I had an older Cricut years ago and it did not cut with precision at all.  Well, let me tell you this new one does.  It also will cut fabric with a new rotary blade and they're coming out with a knife blade that will cut very heavy things such as chip board.   I'm totally in love with it. So much that I bought my daughter and five granddaughters one for Christmas. I think it will be great for Lori as she home schools the 5 girls and I will have time to spend with them when we go north for the summer.

We  are adding on at craft room and computer room which I think I told you about in an earlier post. Because of hurricane Irma, it has been delayed getting started.  So, at this time my craft stuff is packed and all I really have to craft with is my new Cricut maker. The card  above I made totally with the Cricut, other than the embossing on the front.  The Cricut cut out the design, squares, leaves and even scored it at the top to fold. So much fun.

We have a Craft show in our Association on October 25, so I am selling Tee Shirts with the Pine Ridge Logo on them. I will show you some in my next post,  It has been a very fun new learning experience.

News from Florida

It has been a while since I have had a chance to update you on what is going on in our lives.
You would not believe the whirlwind it has been since July.  We had an offer on our home on a Friday, our good friend Debbie arrived on Monday for a week long visit...,not a very relaxing one for her I must admit as she was a huge help packing.  Lori our daughter, good friends Sherry and Jeff Six and John and Marta Gerard helped pack us up and we left for Florida in 2 weeks and 3 days.  Unbelievable if you (some of you do) knew how much "stuff" we had.  I brought most of my crafting stuff with me too .  We had an estate sale selling everything our kids didn't want or we couldn't take with us.  We did not want to be there to see it go, so we left before it started and we hired a moving company to bring our big stuff.  The rest we broght in our truck and trailer.

Jon hurt his arm in Indiana, but we waited till we got to Florida to have it operated on. After unpacking most of our stuff from the moving company (no craft things are unpacked yet as we are adding on a 16x13 foot craft room) Jon had rotator cuff surgery where the doctor put in 10 screws.  He did great and has had no pain.  But, it limits us on what we can get done.

Then came Hurricane Irma (welcome to Florida, huh???)  We had to totally clear our courtyard, which I had just finished decorating and prepare our house.  We chose to stay in Florida as Jon was not able to drive the many hours it would have taken to get far away from Miss Irma.  

We were so blessed with no damage, but our association looks like a war zone,.  We lost 31 palm trees and several large trees. 3 trees fell on roofs, but as far as I know no damage was done.
Very scary indeed, but by the time it reached our house Irma was reduced to a category 2.  They say we had about 100 mile an hour wind, although we gals played cards all the time even using a flashlight after it got dark.  We were truly blessed.

I purchased a Cricut Air 2 from Terri at Joan's Gardens before I left and I am trying to teach myself how to use it.  I hope to make some Pine Ridge tee shirts at our craft show the end of August.  I have ordered the vinyl from Terri which should soon be here.

I will share what I am doing once I learn the program.  Would love to hear from you .

Hugs
Joan

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to everyone!!!  We are so thankful for our country and all that has fought for our freedom.
May God Bless America!!!!

A Birthday Card for a Special Friend

Marcia and I met at the pool in Florida 3 years ago when we each rented a condo in Fort Myers.  We became fast friends and it is because of her that we bought our Villa in Pine Ridge.  Marcia and Tom also bought a Condo in Pine Ridge at the same time.  They have since sold it and also bought a Villa.  She is a very special friend and I feel like I have known her all my life.

I used the Belleek Inspired Technique on the Embossing Die (which cuts and embosses at the same time).  If you are not familiar with it, you can read about it at Kittie Kraft's by clicking here!  She is a beautiful designer and explains this very well.

The flower is another one I made from the Foamiran foam.  That stuff is so fun to work with, but I need to order more.
I get my foam from here!.

If you want to see a beautiful flower made with the foam, check out Selma's latest post here!  It looks like she picked it fresh from the garden.  Selma is going to give me lessons. :)

I cute the top off of a red cup and placed it over the flower and put it inside a clear pouch to ship it.  I hope it arrives in good shape.  I thought that was a good way to protect it, so we will see once Marcia receives it.

I hope you enjoy the birthday card.

Pineapple Fluff with Pretzels

This recipe is a huge hit every time I serve it and it is so easy.  The difference is you add the crushed pretzels just before you serve it, not as a crust. So yummy and easy.

PINEAPPLE FLUFF WITH PRETZELS

Ingredients
•1 cup coarsely crushed pretzels
•1/2 cup butter -- melted
•1/2 cup sugar -- divided

•1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese softened
1/2 cup sugar
•1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple BE SURE TO DRAIN - I use Pineapple in its own juice not in heavy syrup -- drained
•1 carton (12 ounces) frozen whipped topping thawed

Directions
•In a small bowl, combine the pretzels, butter and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into a 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. 

 • Bake pretzel mixture at 400° for 7 minutes. Cool. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until creamy. Fold in pineapple and whipped topping; chill until serving. Just before serving, break pretzel mixture into small pieces; stir into pineapple mixture. Yield: 6 servings 

Foamiran Flower Card

Friends of ours had a death in their family.  She is a card maker, so I wanted to do something special for a card to send to them.  I just love working with this foam.  I love watching how it curves and changes when I put it on the iron.    I am experimenting with another die and hopefully it will be ready to show you soon.  I have lots of birthdays in June and July, plus some specialty cards that have to be made.  My gardens need my attention too.  And, I need to be packing things in my house.  Just not enough hours in the day.  Do you experience this too?

After I got this card put together, it was crooked.  I was so disgusted with myself.  So, I reached for my fabulous UN-DO and much to  my dismay, my bottle had tipped over and was empty.  I couldn't believe it.  I just can't craft without it.  I have 4 bottles I think in Florida and thought I had more here....but I don't.

If you haven't used this stuff, it is fantastic.  

The embossing folder I used is a Marianne and has been discontinued.

Standing Butterfly Card

I made this butterfly card for my granddaughter, Lisa who turned 13 this week.  She loves pink and always wants a pink card.  I think she will love her card.

The butterfly lays flat to mail.

The butterfly stands up.

This is a side view of the card.  Directions are below.

First I placed the Memory  Box Butterfly 98583 Delia die a little above the folded card stock and cut it out so there are two connected pieces.  Then I embossed it using a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder called Kassie.  Next I cut another single butterfly with the same die and embossed it with the same folder.  A decorative Delia butterfly was die cut.

I scored the fold as deep as I could, then the butterfly that is laying down was scored with the ridge up to prop up the standing butterfly.  The single embossed butterfly was glued to the half of butterfly allowing it to stand above the double cut butterfly.  The decorative cut butterfly was attached to that butterfly.  Then a row of  rhinestones were glued to the middle of the top butterfly.

Strawberry Pie

My Mom and I created this Strawberry Pie recipe and it is yummy.

 PIE SHELL 
1 ½ cup flour 
2 T Sugar
½ tsp salt 
½ cup oil 
2 T milk 
Preheat oven to 425.  Mix all ingredients together with a fork and press into a 9 inch pie pan.  Bake for 10 minutes or slightly brown.    Cool.

 FILLING:
 1 Cup sugar 
1 Cup water 
2 ½ T cornstarch 
2 T White Corn Syrup  
1/3 cup strawberry jello 
1 quart fresh strawberries 
Red food coloring if desired
Boil Sugar, water, cornstarch, corn syrup together until thick.  Remove from heat and add jello.  Stir and cool.  Fold in strawberries.

Cream 1 package cream cheese with 1/2  cup sugar.  Add 2 T of cool whip.  Spread on bottom of cooled pie crust.

Add strawberry mixture on top of cream cheese and refrigerate until ready to eat. 
Enjoy

Graduation cards

I couldn't believe that I didn't have any graduation stamps or dies in my stash, but if I do they must be in Florida.  At least I didn't find them.  So, I had to be creative with the cards I made for 2 different graduation parties.
I think they turned out cute.  I kept them very simple as June is a month of lots of birthdays for me which means lots of cards.

 This is for my cousins daughter, Emily.  School colors are black, orange and white. She is a very classy young lady and I think she will love it.

                                                     This is the inside of the cards.

                                           For our friends son's graduation.

As you can see, they are very simple and I made do with what I had to work with.

Birthday box for Benaiah

Our Great Grandson Benaiah's birthday is this week.  He will be in kindergarten next fall.  He has the sweetest personality and talks non-stop. He loves to play Uno and wins a lot.  We had such a good time with him (and his family) when they visited us in Florida.  What a joy it was.
I asked him the other day what he like and he said "Darth Vader".  Now being a mother of only one daughter many years ago, I had no idea who or what that was.  Thank goodness for the Internet as I looked it up and printed off the graphics.  I made this cute box for him.

I love making this box and I have a tutorial that you can see by clicking here!  The are so many different things you can do with the box, but since this is a 6 year old boy I didn't make it too complicated or elaborate.  A great thing about the box is it folds completely flat to mail.

Boys cards are the hardest for me to make, but this one went fast and it helps when they give you a theme to work with.    Please click on the pictures to enlarge them so you can see it better.

My first Foamiran Flower

I don't know if you have discovered the newest trend in Europe....Foamiran Flowers.
These Flowers are made with ultra thin foam and look so real.  I made my first one yesterday.
How fun!  There is definitely a learning curve and I have a long ways to go, but it truly is a joy to make something that looks so real.  There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to do it.
If you  have any questions, please leave me a comment.  It is good to be back in my craft room in Indiana.

Birthday card

 I spent one afternoon organizing and labeling the few card making supplies that I have with me.  I sure do miss all the supplies I have in Indiana though.

Now that I have things somewhat organized it did make things easier to be creative. 

This card was made for one of my card making friends.  The focal dies are from Maryann and the corner dies are by Cheery Lynn.  The stamp is by B-Line Designs.

  

Cards I have made this year.

I am sorry that I have been missing this year.  I dont have a crafting place right now, so it is hard to be motivated.
Below are the 3 cards I have made.

 I made this card for our daughter, Lori. Wasn't she a cute baby?

 This card was made for our Great Grandson Bleydn.

This card was made for our Great Grandson Daitin.

Both boys are very involved in sports.