March Scrapbooking Retreat

Do you live near Lake Geneva, WI? Then come join me and my friends at the Lay It Out Loud crop retreat. Here is all the details:

The Cove Resort (Lake Geneva)
March 5-7, 2010

Escape with Lay It Out Loud to a crop weekend that you can customize to your schedule and budget. Why pay more for a crop with catered meals when there are so many restaurants within walking distance, including Houlihans which is on-site. If you are staying at the cove you may want to bring in your own food- all suites include a full kitchen (no oven in some suites).

What's Included?

• Virtually unlimited cropping 6PM (You can start at 3:00!) Friday-2 am Saturday
  8 am Saturday-2 am Sunday
• 8 am Sunday-3 pm Sunday
• A Welcome bag full of wonderful scrappin' goodies EACH DAY.
• Generous reserved cropping space (at least 1/2 of a 6' table) in the crop room that stays open until 2am. Leave your stuff out all weekend!
• FREE LIOL make n' take workshop and vendor make n' take
• EACH DAY Everyone will choose the prize of their choice from the fabulous prize table.
• Convenient shopping on-site - Lorraines Memories scrapbooking store will be joining us!
• Challenges on Friday & Saturday to inspire you to try something new, use your old supplies in a new way and earn chances to win even more prizes!
• Each Saturday attendee will receive at least $5 of Scrappy Cash to spend at on-site vendors one attendee will receive a $50 Shopping Spree!
• All snacks and drinks.
• A chance to win the Grand Prize a LIOL custom scrappy cabinet loaded with wonderful scrapbooking supplies!
• Free use of Creation stations. Whether you want to try your hand at the latest techniques or just leave your messy stuff at home, the creation stations are the best around! Inks, stamps, distressing supplies, paints, foam stamps, computer and printer for journaling, cutting tools, diecut machines and dies, embossing inks and powders, staz-on ink, and more.

The Cove of Lake Geneva's deluxe guest suites pamper guests with all the comforts of home. From the fireplace and whirlpool, to fully equipped kitchen and balcony, the suites were designed to offer everything you need. There is also a fitness room, indoor pool and a Houlihans restaurant & bar. One bedroom suites include 1 queen or king bed & a queen sofa sleeper only $135 per night. Loft suites sleep up to 6 people and include 2 bathrooms and an extra loft bedroom for only $185 per night. Please contact the Cove for room reservations after Jan 19th- at (262)249-9460 or toll free at (800)770-7107 make sure to tell them you are with Lay it Out Loud! and reserve your room by Feb. 5th to receive the discounted rate.

Very Berry Pancakes

This recipe serves 2 people and is made with healthy ingredients, but are oooh sooo good!

Ingredients:

1 cup Bisquick Heart Smart mix

2/3 cup fat-free (skim) milk

2 tablespoons fat-free egg product (such as Egg Beaters)

3/4 cup fresh or frozen (thawed and drained) berries (such as blueberries, raspberries, 3 berries mix)

Directions:

• Stir ingredients except berries until blended.
• Gently fold in berries.
• Pour by slightly less than 1/4 cupfuls onto hot greased griddle or pan.
• Cook until bubbles break on surface. Turn and cook until golden.

Makes 8 pancakes

Nutrition:

1 serving (4 pancakes)

280 calories

4 g fat (0g saturated, 0g trans)

0mg cholesterol

570 mg sodium

2g fiber

Organizing It All

As you can see, I haven't been crafting lately. That is because I have been trying to organize all my crafting supplies to make finding things more easy. It also gave me the opportunity to inventory all my stuff and do a little purging. I ended up donating a box of papers to my sister for the Boys & Girls Club and the other box of items is coming along with me to share at the next scrapbooking retreat in March.

So are you interested in seeing what I have done so far in my scrapbooking space and bonus room?

This is the double set of closets in my bonus/dining room closed. My mom and I painted them to match the wall and put a bookshelf in between for knick knacks. You can't tell from the picture, but they are painted in a light coffee color.

Here are the closets opened, organized, and labled.

And in my office, here is one of the two shelves of pens and markers

And lastly, my pegboard with odds and ends

I am still working on organizing my 12x12 papers and all the scrapbooking paper scraps.

Apple Oven-Baked Pancake

If you are Catholic (like me) and don't like fish, you find yourself looking for other non-meat related meals to each during Lent. One such meal is pancakes. This is a super easy bake in the oven pancake that makes 4 servings. You can have it for any meal during Lent and for breakfast the rest of the year.





Ingredients:
1-2 tablespoons butter or margarine (I use 1 tablespoon Brummel & Brown)
1 egg (it tastes the same if you substitute with equal amount of Egg Beaters)
3/4 cup Fiber One™ Complete pancake mix (from 28.3-oz box)
1/2 cup milk (I use skim)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (splurge and use real vanilla and not imitation)
1 small apple, very thinly sliced (leave the peel on for more fiber)
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon-sugar (I use half in the batter and half sprinkled on the apples)
Maple-flavored syrup, if desired


Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400°F. While oven is heating, melt butter in 9-inch glass pie plate in oven.
2. Meanwhile, in small bowl, beat egg with wire whisk or egg beater. Beat in pancake mix, milk and vanilla. Pour over melted butter in pie plate. Arrange apple slices on batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.
3. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are deep golden brown. Serve warm with maple syrup.


Nutrition Information:
1 Serving: Calories 190 (Calories from Fat 80); Total Fat 9g (Saturated Fat 4 1/2g, Trans Fat 0g); Cholesterol 80mg; Sodium 230mg; Total Carbohydrate 21g (Dietary Fiber 3g, Sugars 9g); Protein 5g Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A 6%; Vitamin C 0%; Calcium 15%; Iron 4% Exchanges: 1 1/2 Starch; 0 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Vegetable; 1 1/2 Fat Carbohydrate Choices: 1 1/2 *Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Happy Valentine's Day

Wishing you and yours a Happy Valentine's Day!

HG - Chicken with a Kick Pack

I found this yummy one serving recipe from Hungry Girl that is a low cal winner!



Chicken-with-a-Kick Pack

PER SERVING (entire recipe): 245 calories, 2g fat, 923mg sodium, 24.5g carbs, 5g fiber, 4.5g sugars, 31.5g protein -- WW POINTS® value 4*

Ingredients:
4 oz. raw skinless boneless lean chicken breast, cut into pieces
1/3 cup canned tomato sauce
1/4 cup canned seasoned black beans, lightly drained
1/4 cup canned sweet corn, drained
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 tsp. Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce
salt, to taste

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.


• In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Set aside.


• Lay a large piece of heavy-duty foil in front of you. Scoop chicken mixture into the center of the foil.


• Fold and seal the top and bottom edges of the foil, and then the side edges, to create a well-sealed packet.


• Place packet on a baking sheet, and cook in the oven for 15 - 17 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.


• Allow packet to cool for a few minutes, and then cut to release steam before opening it entirely. (Careful -- steam will be hot.)

This recipe is extra-saucy, so empty it right into a bowl. Dig in!MAKES 1 SERVING

Scrap Spaces Challenge - ribbon

As you can tell from my lack of posts lately I haven't had much of a chance for crafting lately. This is due to the fact that my crafting spaces are a disaster and I can't find anything, hence the reason I joined the Scrap Spaces Challenge group at Simply Scrapping Crafts.

The first thing I did was organize my ribbon that was stuffed in a huge box all tangled. It went from this:

to now looking like this:

Another idea for ribbon organization is to buy wooden clothes pins from the dollar store, wrap your ribbon around them, secured with a pin, and storing them in plastic shoe boxes. This was a suggestion from a fellow organizer in my challenge group.

Hope either idea has helped you in your own organizational goals!

Sweets Box

Whenever the chocolate is gone, my dad says "your mom ate it all" and my mom says "your dad ate it all". So for this Valentines Day, I made a special sweet chocolate stash just for my dad filled with his favorite dark chocolates.

The box is just a crosstitch thread container covered with pattern paper from the dollar spot at Target. I then added felt letters and some bling with clear gems.

And don't forget to cover the inside to hide all your glue from the other side of the box.



Now my dad will have his own secret chocolate stash to enjoy when "mom eats" all the other chocolate in the house.

Valentine Bookmarks

I wanted to do something special this year for my niece and her classmates for Valentines Day. They are in the first grade and learning to read, so I thought why not make a bunch of bookmarks. Using digi stamps from MyGrafico, some cardstock, glitter glue, and leftover yarn I was able to create these cuties.

Sure hope all the kids will enjoy them!

All Scrapbook Steals Giveaway

Look at the awesome giveaway from All Scrapbook Steals for the month of February.

How can you get a chance to win this huge giveway package? Here are the rules posted as posted on the All Scrapbook Steals Blog:

1. This giveaway is only open to residents of the United States and Canada.

2. Enter by leaving a comment on this post about which product is your favorite product for Spring. You can check out all the products here.

3. Receive a second entry if you post about the giveaway on your blog or website. Please leave the link to your post in the comments section here so they can verify your second entry.

4. Entries will be accepted until Midnight PST on Feb. 10th.

5. Winner will be randomly chosen from all eligible entries received by midnight Feb 10th by random.org

6. Winner will be announced on Feb. 11th here on the blog.

Good luck to everyone!!

Simply Scrapping Crafts

Join the Simply Scrapping Crafts site and enjoy groups such as Color Combo Challenges, Card Weekly Challenges, and my favorite Scrap Spaces Challenges.

I mentioned in my earlier post about a scrapbook organizational class that I was taking. It is actually through the Scrap Spaces Challenge group at Simply Scrapping Crafts and there is still time to join. Participate in the challenges, discussions, share with your scrappy spaces, problem areas, storage suggestions, tips, solutions, ideas, products, and questions.

The weekly agenda for this 24 week program includes:

• Week 1 - Overview

Inventory your space. What bothers you the most? What is your biggest Storage issue? What would you change first

• Week 2 – Vision-Your Dream Space

What does your perfect space look like?

• Week 3 – Let’s get a MOVE on

Get boxes, your favorite beverage, great music, and lets getting packing. Everything you don’t NEED.

• Week 4 – Purge the Paper

I have paper everywhere. Stacks and Stashes, Scraps and more Scraps. We are going to organize your paper

• Week 5 – Pieces of Scraps

What are you keeping? What are you Tossing? How are we going to organize those pieces we can still use.

• Week 6 - Embellishments

Solutions for your Small Embellishments. Brads, Buttons, Clips, Beads, Flowers, Gems, Jewels and more.

• Week 7 – Incomplete pages

Let’s brainstorm on how to organize your projects that you have ½ completed.

• Week 8 - Ideas

I have ideas all over-stacks of printed off ideas, papers with written notes, magazines pages, and more. We need to get these in order.

• Week 9 – ABC’s

Let’s put our heads together and come up with ways to store our letters.

• Week 10 – Rub Ons & Stickers

When you box runs over and stack falls over. They are getting bent and coming off the sheet. Or worse stuck to something else.

• Week 11 – Ribbon-Fibers-Stitching Threads

Our beautiful adornments.

• Week 12 - Ribbon, Thread and Fibers

My pretty little things!

• Week 13 - Stamps

Organize and put away. Know what you have and where they are at.

• Week 14 – Ink, Ink Pads, Embossing supplies

What do you do with these when they take up a lot of room and space. I know you have ideas.

• Week 15 – Paints, Stickles, & Pearls

How to deal with these little things that take up so much room!

• Week 16 - Punches

Border Punches, hand punches, big punches, little punches.

• Week 17 – Adhesive

Glue dots, Glue Bottles, Tabs, Foam, Tape, let’s get it all together for easy reach.

• Week 18 – Chip Chip Chipboard

Let’s get our raw chipboard in one place.

• Week 19 – Pens & Pencils

From Copics, to Journaling Pens.

• Week 20 - Templates

By theme and by color

• Week 21 - Dies & Die Cutting Machines

Sizzix, Cricut, Quickutz, Cuttlebug

• Week 22 - New Items and Keeping it Neat

How to keep your space neat and not get into this MESS again.

• Week 23 – Cards & Card Supplies

The box is full, you have enough cards to send for the next 5 years. What to do with them?

• Week 24 – Décor

Spring Spruce up. Let’s make our space cozy and pretty.

Don’t worry if you do not complete your assignments. Just start at the beginning and remember there is NO deadlines to complete this.

Busy Life

Sorry not to have been making posts the last few weeks. My job has been keeping me extremely busy with training, new project releases, a lot of QA, and tons of additional work because of high absenteeism. In between all this, I started an organization class (to organize your scrapping space) and a weight managment class through Kronos to get my personal life in order.

Since I don't have anything crafting to share with you (I promise something to come later this week), I decided to post some of the things I learned in my weight management that might help others.

10 Foods You Should Eat

• Nuts & Seeds
  a. Healthy fat
  b. Provide fiber
  c. Helps avoid blood sugar spikes
• Leafy Greens
  a. Antioxidants
  b. Provides fiber, vitamins & minerals
• Berries
  a. Low in sugar and calories
  b. Provides fiber, vitamins & minerals
  c. Aids with memory and helps with UTI
  d. Antioxidants
• Beans
  a. Heart healthy
  b. High in fiber and protein
  c. Helps reduce cholesterol
• Salmon
  a. Omega-3 healthy fats
  b. Helps with memory
  c. Improves metabolism
• Sweet Potato
  a. Complex carbs
  b. High in vitamins A, iron, potassium, and calcium
  c. Antioxidants and anti-inflammatory
  d. Good for eyes and skin
• Tomatoes
  a. High in lycopene = cancer protection
  b. Reduces blood clotting
  c. High in vitamins
  d. Good source of potassium and fiber
• Barley
  a. High in fiber and vitamins
  b. Lowers cholesterol & blood sugar
  c. Reduces heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancers
• Dark Chocolate
  a. Flavenoids = antioxidants
  b. Helps improve moods
• Avocados
  a. Lowers cholesterol and blood sugars
  b. Reduces cancer risk