Monday, September 30, 2019

Craft Room Organization Challenge #5 ~ Stickers, Die Cuts, and Rub Ons

Challenge #5 - Stickers, die cuts, and rub ons 

Stickers, etc. are another great challenge to me.  I have yet to find my perfect storage solution so once again I will be seeking inspiration from you.



Stickers, die cuts, and rub-ons are some of the hardest things to organize because the different sizes and shapes pose many challenges. Rub-ons present their own challenges because if they aren't stored properly, they stick to each other and then they are useless.

SORT: time to be ruthless. Consider if you are really going to use these items. If you bought a whole sheet of die cuts just to use one or two tags, why are you hanging on to the whole sheet? Those stickers you bought in 1999 were adorable then, but definitely not your style now, are they? So, sort into piles: TRASH, SELL, DONATE, TO KEEP

PURGE: Throw out the TRASH pile. Bag up, and assign a price and your initials to the SELL pile and put them directly into the garage sale box. Make immediate arrangements to rid yourself of the DONATE items. 

ASSIGN: The KEEP items need to be divided into categories that make sense to you: by colour, by manufacturer, theme, size, or type.

CONTAINERIZE: Here is an article about storing stickers, die cuts and rub-ons: http://www.simplyorganized.me/2011/12/scrapbook-organization-stickers.html

EQUALIZE: take a few minutes at the end of each scrap session, and whenever you return from a crop or a shopping trip to put your stickers, rub-ons and die cuts where they belong.


When you are done, please share a photo showing your storage system.  Post here.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Baby Mini Album How To


I found this adorable little mini album while "visiting" Pintrest.  I'm planning on trying it out this week.  I think it would be an excellent gift idea.  I found the instructions here.

Sketch Challenge 28 Sep 2019 ~ 13 photos 2 pages


Enjoy!

Downton Abbey (2019)

Image result for downton abbey movie

Mom and I went to see the Downton Abbey movie at the local theatre this past week.  You know how "these things" can go so very wrong but I can honestly say I was enthralled.  It was brilliant.  And be seeing it on the big screen it was easier to see all the details of the beautiful costumes and furnishings.  I will not go into details because I don't want to spoil the event for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

The best part is that you don't have to have watched the TV series in order to follow the movie . . . but . . . it was so nice to see our favourite characters again and how they have changed and, more importantly, stayed the same.  I really loved the downstairs mutiny.  (oops! I guess I let one spoiler slip)

Dame Maggie Smith (aka the Dowager Countess) is her wonderful ascerbic self.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

A Taste of Canada ~ Clearly Canadian

Image result for clearly canadian

I know I've seen these in the grocery store but I don't think I've ever tried one.  Can someone tell me what they are like or do I need to go out and buy my own . . . LOL?

CLEARLY SIMPLE

There’s only four (4) simple, non-GMO ingredients in your favourite Clearly Canadian Original.
1 - Carbonated Spring Water
From Canada's finest natural water sources
2 - Pure Cane Sugar
Sweetened with non-GMO cane sugar
(25 grams / 325ml bottle)
3 - All Natural Flavouring
The natural essences of your favourite fruit flavours
4 - Citric Acid
For shelf life and a little extra zing

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

The Final Day of Our East Coast Trip ~ Gananoque to Home







We started from Gananoque ON with some pretty ambitious plans today.  First item on our list was to visit Fort Henry in Kingston ON.  There is a special promotion right now that we were happy to take advantage of.  We paid full price for our visit to Upper Canada Village at the beginning of our trip and that allowed us free passes to Fort Henry.  It works the other way around as well. 

Another thing I learned is that if the entry fees to all the National Historic Sites we visited total to more than the cost of a season pass, we might be entitled to a refund of the overage.  I'll be adding up our fees and if we meet the criteria, we'll see if I'll get the refund over the cost of a season pass.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and the fort is very interesting.  I'm so glad we went. 






Hold on tight, Hal.  You really don't want to fall in!













We bought some of these delicious chocolate chip cookies for the ride home.





Our tour guide





We spent so much time at Fort Henry that we decided to skip the letterboxing and try to make it through Toronto before rush hour.  The 401 was a zoo as usual in the GTA but we survived it and made it home before 7:30 pm.  I had called Tim to put a chicken casserole in the oven for us . . . so we came home to a lovely hot supper. 

It is so nice to be home.  And we got to meet our new neighbours.


Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Top 250 Movies From the Last 10 Years (2019) - 12 Years a Slave

Image result for 12 years a slave

I really did enjoy watching 12 Years a Slave.  I found most of it to be dramatic and well-acted.  My only disappointment was the way the ending was done.  It seemed like the director said "well I'm bored now" and really rushed the end.  Is the book like that too?  I've never read it myself.

Did you know the original book was writter by Solomon Northrup (the main character in the book and movie) who was a farmer and professional violinist in New York until he was tricked, drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery?  Well, I didn't know that.  I am going to add this book to my to read pile which is so long I will probably by 89 before I actually open the front cover.

Did you ever watch the movie?  What did you think?



Academy Awards, USA 2014

Winner
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Brad Pitt
Dede Gardner
Jeremy Kleiner
Steve McQueen
Anthony Katagas

12 Years a Slave (2013) became the first film directed and produced by a black filmmaker (Steve McQueen) and also the first to be written by an African-American (John Ridley) to win the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Lupita Nyong'o

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
John Ridley

Nominee

Oscar Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Chiwetel Ejiofor

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Michael Fassbender

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Patricia Norris

Best Achievement in Directing
Steve McQueen

Best Achievement in Film Editing
Joe Walker

Best Achievement in Production Design
Adam Stockhausen (production design)
Alice Baker (set decoration)

Declining your ballot: Not in the next federal election

Declining your ballot: Not in the next federal election

The federal government has no interests in changing the federal elections law in the near future to allow voters a chance to register a declined vote, a form of protest vote that hit record numbers during the recent Ontario election.
Voting
Voting ASHLEY FRASER / OTTAWA CITIZEN
SHAREADJUSTCOMMENTPRINT
The federal government has no plans to change its elections law so that voters can register a declined vote, even though that form of protest hit record levels in Ontario’s recent election.
The Conservative government made sweeping changes to the federal election law this year through the Fair Elections Act, including detailed rules around voter identification at polling stations. However, the office of Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre said this week that the government “has no plans to amend the Canada Elections Act to track declined ballots.”
More than 31,000 Ontarians declined their ballot in the June 12 election, the highest number to do so since 1975 and a dramatic increase over levels in the last election.
The next federal election is expected by the fall of 2015.
Formally declining to vote is different from spoiling a ballot (or not showing up at all): the voter must publicly declare his or her refusal to vote at the polling station itself. Provincially, the right is available in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta. Voters who formally decline their ballots do so for a variety of reasons, such as a conviction that none of the candidates on the ballot represents their beliefs, coupled with a desire to ensure elected officials know this.
Federally, Elections Canada simply lumps those ballots into the “rejected” ballot category. That is a much broader category that includes ballots left blank, marked for more than one candidate, defaced or not marked properly. There is no way of knowing what the voter’s intent was in failing to mark the ballot properly for one candidate.
“It should be on the ballot as ‘none of the above’ on the bottom with a couple of lines to give a reason,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.
More than 25 years ago, the federal elections agency unsuccessfully pushed for the right to register a protest vote. Two private members’ bills to enshrine the declined ballot in federal elections law — including one that would have allowed Canadians to write in why they were declining to vote — also failed to capture the necessary endorsements.
“It clearly is a mechanism for combining a message of being an engaged citizen (willing to come out to vote) while also saying no candidate, and/or their party, has the citizen’s support in a particular election,” said NDP democratic reform critic Craig Scott.
“It is well worth including it on the list of electoral reforms — including reversing the negative effects of this government’s ‘unfair elections act’ — any government will need to consider after the 2015 election.”
That list of needed reforms is long, said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, but declined ballots isn’t a priority for her. Topping her list is proportional representation, which would distribute seats in the House of Commons based more closely on parties’ overall vote counts.
May said the declined ballot should officially be offered to all voters, and that it might be possible to make it a confidential ballot, but this would be a more pressing need if accompanied by mandatory voting.
“It should be an opportunity,” she said. “Anything that gives voters the chance to participate in the electoral process and feel empowered by it is an important step.”
Liberal democratic reform critic Scott Simms said the idea of declined ballots sounds good in principle, but he questioned how it might work federally.
“It’s one thing to do it, but then you have address the question (of) what do we do now if the majority decline?” said Simms.
jpress@ottawacitizen.com

Monday, September 23, 2019

Craft Room Organization Challenge #4 ~ Tools and Adhesives

It's Week 4 of the Get Organized Challenge


Tools and Adhesives


Gather together all of your tools and adhesives into a big box and let's start S.P.A.C.E.ing them!

Sort: one by one, put each item into piles: FAVOURITES, TRASH, TO SELL, STORE, DONATE. 

Purge: For the SELL pile, bag up and assign a price and your initials to tools and adhesives that you don't love or use anymore and put them in your garage sale box. Throw out the TRASH pile. Arrange pick-up or drop-off of the DONATE pile.

Assign: Store your most used items in a basket or box or other system right on your desk, within easy reach. Divide the STORE items into categories that make sense to you: cutting tools, pens, punches, templates, etc. 

Containerize: This is the time to tidy up your tools. Tools need regular maintenance to keep them efficiently working. As you put your tools away in whatever container (drawers, shelves, boxes, baskets - always ensuring the container is clearly labelled) give them a little maintenance.


scissors - sharpen your scissors using a small scissor sharpener, or have them professionally done. Carefully clean the blades (I like alcohol swabs to remove sticky adhesive)

pens - test pens and throw out the ones that are dry or don't work well.

craft knives - change the blades

trimmers - clean the deck of your trimmers with a damp cloth, and a little cleanser if necessary. Replace dull blades, or cut through fine sandpaper or aluminium foil.

work surface - clean ink, adhesive and paint from the mat.

punches - to prevent punches from sticking, punch through wax paper. Problem punches may need a little lubricating oil such as sewing machine oil, then punch through scrap paper several times to remove oily residue. Dull punches can be sharpened by punching through aluminium foil or fine grade sandpaper (both right side up and upside down)

rubber stamps - stamps should be cleaned after each use, but if there is a build up of ink on your stamps, you should clean them with an alcohol free baby wipe, or paper towels moistened with a mild cleanser (ammonia free/bleach free) Use a soft toothbrush to remove ink stuck in the crevices of a design. Store stamps flat, rubber side down.

Equalize: Once you have a system in place for you tools, putting them back in the same place every time will become a reflex, and you will never have to hunt for you scissors again! Take a couple of minutes at the end of each scrap session to put your tools away.


Thursday, September 19, 2019

Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken

This chicken dish was a hit with everyone at our last family dinner.

Image result for mediterranean stuffed chicken
I used much more stuffing than this photo and my chicken was really juicy as a result.  This photo was borrowed from Google since my chicken dish disappeared before I could take a photo . . . LOL.

2 chicken breasts, skinned and boned
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
4 cups spinach
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup cubed feta cheese
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Butterfly the chicken.  Coat the inside of the chicken breasts with mustard.

Chop the spinach and place it in a mixing bowl.  Combine spinach with half the olive oil, the vinegar, feta cheese, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt, and pepper.  Mix well.  Place the spinach mixture on top of one breast and then place the other chicken breast on top.   Coat liberally with the remaining olive oil.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes, basting once.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Cut in half to serve.

Serves 2.

From The $10 Gourmet by Ken Kostick

Cauliflower Soup with Blue Cheese


Image result for cauliflower soup with apple and blue cheese
I had to borrow this photo from Google.  I wish I'd taken a photo of the soup I made.
3 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 cups cauliflower florets
4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 cup light cream or whipping cream
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 apple, thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot.  Saute the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes, or until the onions are translucent.

Add all the other ingredients, except the cream, blue cheese and apple.  Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes

Using a hand blender, puree the soup until smooth.  Gently stir in the cream and blue cheese.  Garnish with apple slices.

Note:  Not everyone was excited by the idea of blue cheese in their soup so I left it out and put a bowl of crumbled blue cheese on the table with the apple slices.  This soup is really delicious on its own, but truly amazing when you add the apple and blue cheese.

From:  The $10 Gourmet by Ken Kostick

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Day 13 of our East Coast Trip ~ Quebec City to Gananoque, ON



Except for one stop to pick up a letterbox and the occasional Tim Hortons stop, today was spent driving from Quebec City to Gananoque ON.  Translation . . . I dozed and Hal drove.

We had planned on supper at our hotel, Ramada by Wyndham Gananoque Provincial Inn (how's that for a confusing long name?), but the restaurant served only Indian and Pakistani cuisine.  There was not even a sandwich or burger on the menu . . . sigh . . . I would have been fine but you know Hal wasn't having it.

Supper was at a nearby Chinese Buffet (Hal even had a Chinese beer called Tsingtao) and then we settled into our room for the evening.  We have Sportsnet so we are watching the Raptors game.


Looking forward to being home tomorrow.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Craft Room Organization Challenge #3 - Photos

It's Time for Challenge #3


So, your paper is beautifully organized, your scraps carefully stashed or purged, and your desk is gleaming! You are starting to get organized. Doesn't it make you feel creative? Don't you want to get cropping? Well, you CAN'T scrapbook without PHOTOS!
Our third challenge is to organize our photos. Here is an excellent article to get you thinking about how to organize those precious photos before we start to S.P.A.C.E. them:

https://www.scrapbook.com/articles/organizing-and-storing-your-photos-and-negatives


Please take a moment and read this excerpt from Design Strategies for Scrapbookers:

Photo preservation begins with safe storage.  Remove photos stored in the old magnetic albums immediately.  A magnetic album has cardboard pages with adhesive on them and a plastic sheet to cover the photos.  The adhesives and plastics in these albums are highly acidic and can ruin your photos very quickly.

To safely remove photos from magnetic albums you can use:

1.      Dental floss – Slip a piece of dental floss under one corner of the photo and use a gentle back-and-forth sawing motion to lift the photo.
2.      Blow Dryer – Set your blow dryer on low heat to soften the page’s glue and then carefully lift the photo.
3.      Spatula/pan scraper – Use a thin spatula to slowly pry photos loose. 
4.      Undu Adhesive Remover – Undu neutralizes adhesive’s stickiness, making photos easy to remove.  It dries clear and will not damage photos or smudge most inks.
5.      I have heard about freezing the pages first  but I’ve never tried it so use at your own risk.

Use an acid-free photo box with dividers or an archival quality photo album for storage.  Organize photos chronologically or by theme, event or subject depending on how you scrapbook.  Write notes on the dividers or on the back of the photo for later reference.  Don’t use ballpoint pen to write on backs of photos.  Buy a special photo-marking pen or pencil. 

Always save original photos if they are one of a kind and can’t be replaced.  This is especially important with heritage photos.  Instead, scan and print new copies, storing the original for safe-keeping.  If you are determined to use the original, use photo corners to adhere these precious photos to your layouts so they can be safely removed.

I just had a reminder of this rule recently.  I’ve been working on a family tree album and needed some baby pictures.  I scrapbooked all my baby pictures when I first started scrapbooking many years ago.  And that was the problem.  I had cut them all in shapes and used decorative scissors on them.  Not one was complete enough for me to scan and reprint.  My mom and aunt are going through their old photos in hopes they have some originals.  So I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to save original photos.  Scan the originals and have them reprinted. 

Don’t forget to properly store and organize negatives.  Plastic negative sleeves will hold 4-7 negatives, depending on brand and the size of film.  If you have older negatives in smaller sizes (such as 110) you can easily create subdivisions in the sleeves with a sewing machine and clear nylon thread.  You can store negative sleeves in a 3-ring binder or folder.  Label each sleeve with the date and/or subject.

Digital photos have their own set of rules.  Always back up your computer files, including your digital photo files because computers crash and hard drives fail.  Store a back up copy of your photos and important documents to an external hard drive.  You can also download your digital photos to CD’s or USB drives although there is some debate as to how long they last.  There are many online sites that you can save your photos to as well.


When you are looking for a safe place to store your memorabilia, photographs, negatives, supplies and albums, keep in mind that they will do best in a dry, cool place, out of direct sunlight.

 Design Strategies for Scrapbookers - black & white edition
Available in colour, black & white or large print

SORT: Gather together all of your photos, and sort them into categories that make sense: TRASH (it's okay to throw out photos with bad colour, expression, composition. Why keep them? You're not going to scrapbook them) TO SCRAPBOOK (the shots you know you are going to use) TO STORE (photos that need to be kept, but aren't necessarily going to be going into your scrapbooks) TO GIVE AWAY (doubles that you want to send to friends and family)

PURGE: Throw out the TRASH pile. Put the TO GIVE AWAY photos in envelopes and mail them to friends/family, or put them in your car so you can drop them off the next time you visit. Do not leave them in your studio, or they will creep back into your organized space.

ASSIGN: Sort the final two groups of photos into a system that makes sense to you:

Chronologically
Holiday/Event/Vacation
Person

CONTAINERIZE: Now it's time to decide how you want to store your photos. Perhaps you want to put your TO STORE photos in acid free envelopes or albums. Perhaps you want to put your TO SCRAPBOOK photos into photo storage boxes, or accordion folders.

EQUALIZE: Next time you get new photos from the photo processor, spend a couple of minutes and put the photos where they belong: throw out the bad shots, give away the extras, put the keepers away in their album, and sort your photos for scrapbooking into their container.



We have started a Facebook group as a place for us to share photos, accomplishments, encouragement, tips and tricks as we work through the Fall 2019 Craft Space Organization Challenge.  You are welcome to post before and after photos of your photo challenge here.