Our Week

We took our dog out on her first boat ride.  She's a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to water. 

 A lab that doesn't like water...that's our dog!  She actually had a really good time. :)

Look at that tongue! 

We got rain!  I think this will allow our yard to survive the summer.

And more rain!  I haven't seen Lake Day in quite a while! 

We got a total of 6 inches of rain this week!!!!

Since it was raining we decided to make dinner with something around the house.

We made Plain Chicken's Buffalo Chicken Spaghetti.  It was super yummy!

We used some black eyed peas and squash from my parents' garden.

It was kind of a weird ensemble but it was yummy and we didn't have to leave the house!

Spicy Black Eyed Peas

Spicy Black Eyed Peas

3 cups fresh black eyed peas
2 tbsp. canola oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 strips of bacon (cut into 2 inch pieces)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
6 cups of water (may substitute 1/2 with chicken stock)
2 bay leaves

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Once hot, throw in the garlic for  few seconds until it starts to brown.  Next add the bacon and onion and stir frequently.  Cook for 6-8 minutes until the onions start to get soft and turn brown.  Add the salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and continue to cook until the spices blend into the mixture, ~2 minutes.  Pour in the water and/or chicken stock and add the bay leaves.  Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat in order to simmer.  Add the black eyed peas and cook for approximately one hour.

Get Well Card

Here's a get well card that I made a few weeks ago for my grandmother.
She's doing well, no worries.
She fell and broke her wrist, so I wanted to send a little cheer her way!
I think this is my favorite card I've made so far!

I started with this owl design and tweaked it to my liking
(added the hat, the white in the center, and the heart).
For the banner I used this banner kit. 

Thirty & Flirty

One of my closest friends from college turned thirty last month.

I wanted to make her a fun card and here's what I came up with.

Who doesn't love Paisley?!?

Chevron Longhorn

This frame is my next item up for re-use.  The back support of this frame broke a few years ago...Since I like the front of this frame, I decided to keep it for later.  Well now it's time for a new use.

I started with some left over fabric I had laying around.

 

I then traced a chevron, Texas, and longhorn pattern on my Silhouette.  See this post for a how-to on tracing.  I then cut them out using contact paper.  Here is the settings I used to cut out the contact paper.  You can click here to see a tutorial on cutting Contact paper with the Silhouette.  After cutting, I put the Texas pattern down first in order to get a good seal.  I then put the chevron pattern on top.

Here's what it looks like after a coat of grey acrylic paint.

I then took the remainder of the Texas cutout and laid it down in place.  I had to put a longhorn in the shape.  It's just second nature!!

Now for the Burnt Orange!

And there we have it!   This was a quick

project and  it  required very few items.

Now there is one less thing in my junk closet!


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