Inspiration Alley

This just in ...

You know the Hilltop Memories Crop I will be attending in January. (OK ... I might not have mentioned it on the blog before, but definately on Facebook).

It's my first weekend crop I have scheduled in 2012.  

The one in my most favorite hotel, the Kenilworth Lodge.

The one with Sue Neal coming to teach not 1, not 2, but 4 classes.

Well ... it just got even better !!

Linda has advised that since the Monday is a federal holiday (Martin Luther King Day), that the crop will run an extra day.  We can spend the night Sunday and go home on Monday.

Looking at my calendar, Sunday is the night of one of my plays "Jersey Boys", so now I must change my tickets to another day.  I really hope I can make it work.  Shouldn't be a problem and an extra day cropping would be so cool.

Let's see what the day holds .

I've been without "my" work computer since Monday.  I've been working from my personal laptop for online stuff and hopping around to any desk where someone has stepped away for company programs.  

The upside ... I'm getting a brand new machine.  

The other upside ... we recently I mean a couple of weeks ago changed to a different backup system where everything gets backed up even stuff on your computer not just network stuff.  I am notoriously bad at doing back ups, so this is a good thing.  Everything will be restored right where I left off.

I work at my computer so much that it slows me down to be on a different machine.  How the keyboard functions, where you have programs set, it all makes a difference.

I've got my fingers crossed that today is the day.

Roasted Chickpeas

Time for the Pin-Did challenge.

Over at the Modern Marigold, there is a weekly challenged called the Pin-Did ChallengeEssentially you actually use one of the pins you've posted on Pinterest as inspiration for your own creation.  I pin quite a bit, so I have lots of inspiraiton to work from.

This week I made Roasted Chickpeas.

From Pinterest:

My Try:

This was my type of recipe.  Very easy, and can be done in a toaster oven.

You drain and rinse a can of chickpeas, spread them on a baking sheet and toast for about 45 - 60 minutes.  They are done when they are crunchy.  After about 40 minutes, I was taste testing until I felt they were done enough.  Once done, toss with whatever seasoning you like.

I actually used the recipe at WillowBird Baking for a Chili Lime flavor.  There are all sorts of recipes all over the internet, so just do a search.  I'm trying to eat a little healthier these days, so these were great.  If I can only mimic the flavor of Ruffles Sour Cream and Cheddar chips, I would be in my own personal heaven.

I will try these again.  I might try something a little sweeter using cinnamon and brown sugar, and maybe something with peanut butter flavoring.  Very tasty and fills the need for a healthy crunchy snack.  Best of all, they keep for a couple of days.  For hints, I would say, make sure to spread the chick peas out on the baking sheet as I occaisionally hit one that was mushy - throws off the whole effect - other than that enjoy.

Meow Monday - Maxwell has found the top of the fridge

and now Mr Mischiefalso known as Maxwell has found the top of the refrigerator. 

It's not like I don't already have enough to pick up from him knocking stuff one the floor.

Witch Hats

The contest for creepover was to take a paper mache witch hat and decorate it any way you like.

Every hat in the contest was outstanding but here are just a few up close and personal.

First the winner was Kelly's

Then my personal favorite and way to think outside the box ...


And then there was one done in a Wizard of Oz theme ...

And one where the witches hands are opening up the hat itself.

One of the ladies at the crop made a photo montage of all the entries into the contest.  The prize was that you got into the Winter Retreat crop for free, so the competition was stiff.
Now, you might be wondering just exactly which one was mine .... and yes, I did complete one.  Mine is on the far left in the middle.  It's a witch hat with a sign underneath.  The sign reads ... "You say Witch like it's a bad thing".  It's me, what can I say.

Aside from the witch hats, Linda and her crew did an amazing job with the decorations and the food.  In fact, Linda and Elle made 150 cake balls.  Yes ... 150 - I think I figured that it worked out to about 5 or 6 cake balls per person. Let's just say, I ate my share, and they were delicious.  I don't know ... for me, you can't get much better than one of the Hilltop Crops.  I am always in awe of the talent that is in that crop room at any given point in time. 

 

 

 

Creepover

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Hilltop Memories Crop called Creepover.  It was at a RV park called SunNFun.  I had planned to get a lot accomplished, but I knew I wouldn't once I got on the way.

First, I got a very late start on Friday.  Had some doctors appts and my annual mammogram -- (note to self, don't get your mamogram during breast cancer awareness month - they were 12 - 15 people in the waiting room).  Then hubby wanted to change the oil in the car and do a once over before I left, so I didn't get on the way until almost 4pm.  Which meant I didn't arrive until 8PMish.  Which meant, Friday was blown.

Saturday, Teresa did a very cute make-n-take.  You used one full 12x12 piece of cardstock and folded it all up into a little booklet.  There were tags and a page where you punched out part of the page and added a transparancy.  It was really cute.  I don't know how people figure out how to do these things.

I can copy really really well, but I'm not one to figure out exactly where to fold the paper to make something creative out of it.  Anyway .... loved the project.

Addams Family

This past weekend we went and saw the Addams Family at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

The show was wonderful.  If it comes to your area, go and see it. 

This was my first time going to the Adrienne Arscht Center which is in Downtown Miami.  I've seen it from the expressway, but never have been.  That being said, I couldn't help but compare it to the Broward Center which is where we usually attend the theatre shows.  In any case, the Arscht center is a huge beautiful building, and the parking was an open lot which wouldn't have been bad any other night except the night where it rained and rained and rained.  Since it rained everyone (except us) valet parked, so when we were leaving you couldn't get down the stairs and out the door because the lobby area was packed like sardines.  It's Florida ... a little rain won't melt you.  But really ... don't you think you could have sprung for a parking garage ?  I'm hoping the next play will be clear skys and sunshine.

Our seat were fantastic.  Great views and not too many people surrounding us.  The show, I can't speak more highly of.  It was a wonderful, funny, and creepy all at the same time.  Having grown up on the TV show, when we heard the familiar snapping theme song we were drawn completely in.  Really, go see it if you can ... it's that good.

ATC's

While at the same crop in Bonita, I also was working on some Artist Trading Cards, better known as ATC's, which are little works of art done in a 2.5" x 3.5" format.  I was a bit behind, so I was catching up a few months, as well as trying to work ahead some.  I'm doing these for to swap with some of the ladies from the Hilltop Memories group.

The first, the theme was Trees

The ATC is done on Kraft card stock.  I stamped the trees and colored with some Smooch inks and embellished with bling.

The next one theme I worked on was Steampunk.

I worked on Kraft cardstock.  The gears, adventure word, and hot air balloon came from a stampset by Darkroom Door Stamps called Steampunk.  I also used a flocked transparancy from the Fancy Pants It's the Little Things paper kit and the ribbon is from My Minds Eye.  You can barely see it but the hot air balloon is colored with Smooch Inks and I used some dimentional adhesive to build up the sign on the hot air balloon.

The last ATC I worked on was themed Vintage Halloween

I first embossed the card with the Tim Holtz spider web, then used a irridescent embossing powder.  From there I added the glitter pumpkin which was one of the Petaloo Dazzlers.  The black cat was a Tim Holtz/Ranger die which I embossed in black.

If you haven't seen them yet, the Petaloo Dazzlers are very cute.  I also bought some Frankenstein ones just because I couldn't pass them up.  They have some Christmas themed ones which will probably go into my shopping basket very shortly.

 

Pin It

Recipe Stand

I completed some projects while at the Scrapbooks Etc Crop.

First I completed a recipe board.  I started with a recipe magnet board kit from Adornit/Carolees Creations.  The kit came with the wood base, the metal board and the vinyl rubon that said Recipes.

From there, I used My Minds Eye So Sophie Collection Paper to cover the metal.  The base, I used Ranger Distress Stain to cover - I like the stains better than paint because you can see the grain line in the wood. Put a ribbon around the base and applied the decal.  The little birds are from Michaels and were originally just pop dotted decorative pieces, I added a magnet piece so that they adhered to the metal board.  

Pin It

Playing Catch Up

I wanted to post on some of the events and projects I've been working on the last couple of weeks.

About 2 weeks ago I went to a crop put on by Scrapbooks Etc in Bonita Springs.  It was their Halloween crop, and they did it in a Wizard of Oz theme complete w/yellow brick road.  It was way fun, and I really got some work accomplished.

First, here's a picture of the characters from the Wizard of Oz.  They even had a professional make-up person come in to do the make up - we were having lunch at the hotel cafe and it took me a minute to even recognize them.

I did get some work done while I was at the crop.  There were two make-n-takes.  

One was a cute S'more kit.

The other was a Halloween Canvas which was lots of fun to do.  We received the stamps as a gift when we arrived at the crop, and then worked on the canvas in 2 parts - first doing the background with the stamping and embossing, and then doing the banner flags.  Very cute and I can see using the same concept with other themes.

It was amazing to see how each canvas came out, some were more purple in color and some were more brown or beige in color.. They looked the same yet different.  The one black triangle flag is done with chalkboard paper so you can write on it with chalk.