Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Letterboxing Anthem

Product Review . . . chocolate chai tea and chinese food


I spotted this little beauty of the grocery store shelf the other day and just had to try it.  Two of my favourite food groups:  Chocolate and Chai Tea.  I brewed myself a cup when I got home and I have to say its not bad.  Not as chocolatey as I thought it might be and it wasn't as spicy as chai tea usually is . . . but not bad.

My favourite drink in the whole world.  
  • 1 cup (275ml), 35, 0g, 3g, 5g

And of course, to make my new favourite drink, a Tassimo coffee maker.  This little beauty is so simple and quick to operate.  I use it 2-3 times a day.  I have this older model which I picked up through a buy, sell and swap group for a great price.


Poor old St. Thomas' Kings Buffet.  They have had a rough time in the press and on social media lately.  They were recently closed down for a couple of days by the Health Unit for some infractions.  Now all I hear is ew, I'm never going back there because they have bugs and serve cat.  Seriously!  LOL.  You can see they are trying hard to bring back business with sales and promotions.  This past week lunch was around $5 and supper was $10 (rounded).  Guess what?  This is probably now the cleanest restaurant in town.  They would have to be to reopen AND they are now subject to random inspections for the next while.  I wonder just how clean other St. Thomas restaurants are?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Ohio Star

Just finished the second square for my oddball afghan.  Definitely needs to be blocked but I think it is pretty cool.  Pyjama Stripes is next.


Monday, August 27, 2012

Sometimes I think I am so clever . . .

I dabble in eBay from time to time.  Nothing serious.  A dollar here, a couple of dollars there.  Mostly craft supplies.  A few weeks ago I won an auction for double-pointed bamboo knitting needles.  I paid a ridiculously low price and the shipping was free.  I have always wanted bamboo needles and just couldn't afford them.  I figured that if they were crappy I wouldn't really be out much money.   They arrived the other day and they are lovely and smooth and polished and ready to use . . . until I looked at the labels . . . the sizes were all printed in Chinese . . . LOL . . . I have a measuring gauge for needles but what a pain that would be measuring them all the time.


When I took the bundle of needles apart today to photograph them for this blog post, I found the numbers carefully etched into each needle.  Thank goodness.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Happy 29th Anniversary

Okay, before you even look at the following layout, keep in mind it was done about 15 years ago before I had a clue what I was doing.

Now you can look . . .


 . . . and here we are now . . .



Saturday, August 25, 2012

Oddball Afghan: Flower Beds


Many many years ago I started making the very odd squares which make up the oddball afghan.  I finished 5 or 6 of the squares and then life got in the road.  After sitting in a basket for several years I must have given them away.

Now, you know I promised myself not to start any big projects until the end of the summer.  Well, the end of summer is nearly here and I've always wanted to complete this afghan.  So it is now officially on my Dreaded To Do List.

I just finished the first square, Flower Beds, tonight.  I'll be starting Ohio Star next.

Wait until you see what other big projects I've put on my list.  Its going to be busy around here for a while.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Paint on, paint off . . .




To create this tag you will need a piece of white cardstock, black cardstock, a foam alphabet stamp and a rubber or acrylic patterned stamp, black acrylic paint and a foam brush.



 Brush black acrylic paint on to the foam alphabet stamp.



Press the rubber or acrylic patterned stamp into the paint on the foam stamp carefully.  You should notice that the paint is lifted off the foam stamp where touched by the patterned stamp.



Stamp your painted image onto the white cardstock.



Now that you have your stamped impression, it is time to find some fun embellishments to decorate it.  I chose 3 different ribbons, a crocheted flower and a stem of beads.



 Trim your white cardstock, centring the stamped image, to 2-1/4” x 4-1/4” or the size necessary to keep your stamped image intact if it is larger.  Snip off the top corners of your tag.  A simple trick to make both corners identical is to trim the first corner then flip the cut off piece and hold it over the second corner.  Snip.


Trim a piece of black cardstock 2-1/2” x 4-1/4”.  Adhere the white tag to the black cardstock.  Punch out a small circle of black cardstock and adhere it centred near the top of the tag.  Use a punch to punch a hole in the centre of the black circle.  I prefer putting tags together this way because it is the simplest way.



Tie ribbons through the hole in the tag.  Adhere the flower and stems of beads to the tag with glue dots.