Ireland Scrapbook So Far!!

I still have hundreds of photos left to scrapbook, but this is definitely a start!

Spaghetti and Roasted Red Potatoes

Hubby has decided it's time to go back on a diet so therefore he has begun counting calories.  I am therefore on a quest to cook more healthy things.  As part of this quest, I have joined a produce co-op in our area.  Pickup is every 2 weeks, and it has been a really great thing!  For just $23, I get a bag filled with a minimum of $50 in produce.  I learned of the coop from my mom who heard about it when she was in a couponing class.  Everything has been really great so far, and it is fun to try new recipes with the things I receive in my bag.

One issue with the coop is that we often get more fruit in a week than we can eat.  So, my solution is that I am going to take up canning.  I read an article today that talks about the standards for ready made foods (i.e. 1 rat hair is allowed per 100 g of peanut butter) and I was outraged.  I would like to have more control over what is in my food!  Making my own sauces, peanut butter, etc would not only allow me to know what is in my food but it will also save money and be overall more healthy- especially for hubby who is trying to lose weight!

So, off to Amazon I went to pick up a beginners book on canning.  I ended up going with Put Em' Up! A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook.  It had really good reviews and has lots of recipes, so it looks like it will be a good investment!  It should arrive today, so I am really excited about getting started on this journey!  I already know for sure I would like to make peanut butter, salsa, strawberry and grape jam, etc.

My hope is that I can track my canning progress and recipes on this blog.  I think it's fun to keep updated with what worked and what didn't and maybe get input from readers as well.  For last night's dinner, I made spaghetti and roasted red potatoes.  Overall, I would say both dishes turned out well!

Spaghetti


Ingredients:
Spaghetti Noodles- I used Market Pantry brand from Target
Pasta Sauce- I use Garlic and Onion chunky sauce from Schnucks
Fresh Roma Tomatoes- from the coop, chopped and put into sauce

Method:
1- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan.  Add spaghetti noodles and cook for 8 minutes.
2- While water is boiling, add pasta sauce to a medium sauce pan and cook over medium heat.
3- After noodles are cooked to your liking, drain off the water and replace noodles into large saucepan.
4- Combine sauce and pasta in large saucepan, stir, and serve.

Roasted Red Potatoes


Ingredients:
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 t. marjoram, dill weed, basil, parsley, crushed red pepper, thyme, salt
4 red potatoes, cubed

Method:
1- Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.
2- Mix olive oil and all spices in a large bowl.  Add cubed potatoes and stir until well coated.
3- Place potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until tender.

Craft Room is Finished!

When we bought our house, we converted the upstairs bedroom into our office.  A few months ago, Jason decided he wanted to pick up drums again and so we were faced with a dilemma of where to put the drums.  I didn't want them upstairs in the office because of the noise levels.  The office is directly adjacent to our bedroom and not too far from the living room so the noise level would be a little unbearable.  We decided that we would create an office space by framing out/drywalling/flooring one corner of our basement.  Once that was done, we decided to finish off the 3rd bedroom in the basement by painting the walls and installing carpet.  The office space downstairs therefore freed up the upstairs office/bedroom to become my CRAFT ROOM!  It's pretty much my dream come true...I've always wanted a place of my own!  Over the next month or so, I debated whether or not I wanted to paint the room or just keep it.  When we moved into the house, we painted every room.  We had chosen a 2 tone green paint scheme for the office (3/4 walls are lighter green and we have the other wall as a darker accent wall).  I thought about painting it a tiffany blue color with black and white accents.  Before I purchased paint, I decided to make a trip to Joann to look at fabric choices.  I didn't find anything I just loved in black and white, but I did fall completely in love with this pink and green fabric.  That pretty much made up my mind- I was keeping the green!  We had to sink quite a bit of money into Jason's drum room, and I decided that I didn't really want to spend a lot but I still wanted my room to look cute so I decided to sew my own curtains (hasn't happened yet), and make my own artwork.  I made 4 pieces of art.

First, I purchased wooden craft letters to spell out "CREATE."  I painted the edges of the letters white and then decoupaged different scrapbook papers to the fronts of the letters to give them character.  To finish off the effect, I decoupaged 3D scrapbooking stickers to the front of each letter.  Here is a picture of the letters right after I finished them:

I loved the way my letters turned out, so I decided to make a few more things.  Next, I picked up 6 (10 x 10) artist canvases for sale at Joann.  I found 3 coordinating pink/green/white fabric prints and purchased 1 yard of each.  I stapled the fabric to the canvases using my husband's electric staple gun and voila!  I love the way these turned out, and I think they look wonderful against the bright green walls in the craft room.  Here is a picture right after finishing:

The 3rd piece really came about by chance.  I was in the scrapbooking aisle at Joann (of course!) and I saw these stickers that I just had to have.  I don't scrapbook because I know I will get way too caught up in it and spend a fortune, so I knew if I purchased the stickers that I would have to do something cute with them.  I went into the canvas aisle and found 3 x 3 canvases.  I picked up 16 of them and decoupaged on the scrapbooking stickers.  Below is a picture right after I finished the canvases.  Before hanging on the wall, I added pink and white polka dot ribbon between the vertical canvases to reduce the number of nail holes my husband would have to put in the wall :)

The last thing I made isn't really an art piece as it is a functional piece.  I wanted something that I could hang on the wall to put my paintbrushes, scissors, etc. in.  I thought, "how cute would it be to use wooden clogs?"  I picked up a cute little pair of handmade wooden Holland clogs from Etsy.  They already had little holes in them, so I threaded a cute ribbon through the holes and hung them on the wall.  I love the way it turned out!

Here is one corner of my room, all put together...I'll post more on the details a little later!