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!


Featured

Admit One Photo Box

I decided to start clearing out my junk closet... (Insert Psycho Music..EEE, EEE!)

When we moved from Austin into this house I had a number of items that I didn't know
what to do with.  So what did I do with them??  Threw them into a closet and FORGOT about it.

Here's the first item up for repurpose...

My husband and I bought this item many years ago at a trade days in Wimberely, TX.
Probably when we were honeymooners (ah...young love!).

I loved these boxes then... now the flowers are just falling apart.

However,  The wood finish is just perfect so I thought I would make a shadow box out of it.

I have all these tickets lying around so I thought I would start a ticket box.
There should be quite a few baseball tickets around this house but for some reason I can't find them.
I thought I would go ahead and make a baseball shadowbox and replace all
the non-baseball tickets with baseball tickets later.

The back of the box was a particle board.
I just Mod Podge'd a sheet of scrapbook paper to the board and
also put a coat on top of the paper for durability.

I made an "Admit One" ticket with my Cameo.  

You can see the tutorial in creating this ticket here.

You might wonder if we are Red Sox fans?  

Well yes, but our loyalty is with the Texas Rangers.  

I just don't generally take my camera to those games since it happens more often.  

I guess I'll have to take my camera to the next Rangers game!

Trace Function - Silhouette Tutorial

Here's a quick tutorial on how to use the trace function with the Silhouette Cameo.

First, copy or open an image into the studio.  Then open the "Trace" function 

and choose "Select Trace Area."

One you have selected your area, the studio chooses its default settings (see below).

You may need to tweak the settings so that the yellow area has clean lines. 

 I usually have to at least increase the "threshold."  

For this particular project I had to increase the threshold to 49% 

After you are satisfied with the lines, chose "Trace."

Here's the results.  

In order to make any changes, you will need to "Release Compound Path."

At this point I usually delete what sections that I do not want and add 

color for printing.

I wanted to print all of the letters and numbers in black.  

So I highlighted them and made each section a compound path.  I then filled them with black.

Don't forget to change the center areas to "No Cut."

And Viola!!

If you need to know how to print and cut after you have your
design good to go, click here for a tutorial.