Happy New Year!

Wishing you and yours a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2011. Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!

Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Who took my mojo?

Please tell me that I am not the only one this happens to. I am busy all day long for one reason or another. As I work, all kinds of good ideas just floating through my brain. When will I get a break to actually work on a project? How many more minutes, hours days? Then out of the blue a magical few hours open up in my day. No hubby (big honey) and no child (little honey) to bother me.

Where do I begin? What do I do first? Then it happens. I stand there looking at my hundreds, okay probably close to a thousand dollars worth of craft supplies and I’m dumbfounded. I stare and I stare and I have NO flipping clue what to work on. Could it be that I have too many projects? Do I have too many crafts? Do I have just too much of everything? So, what is a multi tasking, overworked, under appreciated crafting mom to do?

Well, here is what I did. I surfed the web and bookmarked a few hundred more projects to work on and called it a day. Or more like, my family put in end to it. Little honey came back from her play date and big honey came home from work. So, it was back to making dinner, clearing the table and probably more cleaning. I’ll work on those projects one day. I promise! Until then I guess I will just dream about the next time I have a few hours to myself and see if I actually get something done.


Creativity Bug ~ Sandy

Pounce on over.... Collar Craze

It is Tuesday Pounce Day with the Estian Newbie team and today the Creativity Bugs have chosen Collar Craze as our personal pounce shop. As pet lover to our brood of 2 cats (Poofy and Annie) and 1 dog (KeeKee) collectively, this store caught our eyes.

Collar Craze is owned by Lynsie, the mom to 3 dogs - 2 Labradors, Thumper and Ditto, and 1 Great Dane, Ximmy. She also has 4 cats, Kit-ten, Banshee, OnzaPous and ReignaPous. She started making collars for Ximmy because it is very hard to find large enough collars to fit a Dane and  had so much fun making them that she decided to sell some.

The collars are made with expert craftmanship in a number of different designs and fabris. They fit neck sizes 16 - 22", but special orders in different sizes are always welcome.

For the masculine dog, why not check out the Brown Collection - Paw Print Martingale Collar

For the female dog, our favorite is the Pink Zebra Striped Martingale

So adorably modeled!

So take a moment to sit back and online shop at Lynsie's Collar Craze.

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Chicken What? Chicken Bog!

Last year at Christmas my sister-in-law and I helped out her mom for Christmas dinner. I made this delicious Emeril’s Stuffing and she was going to make something called Chicken Bog. She lives in South Carolina and apparently this is as common as, I don’t know; hotdogs and pizza to us Midwest folks. Her husband loves this stuf!. It looks like something you would find in that Annie movie that they fed the orphans. It looks bland and so unappealing, but this stuff is heaven on a plate, or bowl in our case. The spicy melded with the cooling rice. De-lic-ious!

Here is the recipe tweaked from Paula Deen’s original Chicken Bog recipe.

Ingredients

• 4-5 chicken breasts

• 1 pound smoked link sausage

• 2 links andouille sausage (I used Trader Joes chicken andouille)

• 1 cup chopped onion

• 3 tsp butter

• 1-2 gloves garlic
• 2 teaspoons Seasoned Salt (recommended: Lawry's)
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon of garlic powder
• 3 bay leaves
• 8 cups water
• 3 cups raw white rice

Directions

Slice the sausage into 1/2-inch pieces. In a stockpot, sauté butter, onion and crushed garlic until just translucent. Next combine the chicken, sausage, seasonings and bay leaves. Add the water, bring to a boil, cover, and cook at a low boil for 40 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and let cool slightly. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Add the rice to the pot and bring to a boil, stirring well. Boil for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the rice is done. Remove the bay leaves, and return the chicken to the pot.

This can be transferred to a crock pot to keep warm. My in-laws love to throw some hot sauce of their choosing into their bowls.

We have slowly been introducing what we have now pegged as “Bog” to our neighbors and friends. The Bog craze is sweeping the Midwest, or at least our little corner of Illinois/Wisconsin border.

Creativity Bug ~ Sandy

New Years Eve with Laura Denison

Calling all you paper crafters! Need something to do on New Years Eve? Then join Scrapadabadoo and Laura Denison of Following the Paper Trail as they host 5 hours of Ustream fun December 31st starting at 7 pm PST.

Here are the details from the Scrapdabadoo blog:

We are excited to say we are teaming up with Laura to make New Year's Eve Fabulous and Fun. We will be doing live give aways with those of you who are chatting, but for those of you who are faithful followers, have no fear we will still be doing random drawings that will include you too.
 
If you are interested in participating and entering the drawing send an email to scrapadabadoo@comcast.net with the following information: name, e-mail address, country, and a message saying "add me to the fun".

Hope you can join in on the fun!

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy and Sue

Etsy Shop is coming!

For all of those followers that noticed very little blog posts in November and December, it was due to a new venture being started by the Creativity Bugs. Currently under construction and ready for business Jan 2011 is our Etsy shop called CreativityBugs.

We will still  be showing products, demos, challenges, how-to's and more on our blog, but will also post links to items that you can purchase from our Etsy shop. The shop will include paper crafting gifts, crafting supplies, project kits, handmade doll accessories (that fit American Girls), hair/fashion accessories, handmade cards, holiday items, and a kids corner.

Look for an announcement coming soon for the grand opening!

Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Holiday season!

The Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy & Sue

Stamped Ornament Class at Craft Fancy

Craft Fancy located at 1818B North Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004 is offering a Stamped Ornament class on Thursday Dec 16th from 11 - 1 or 5:30 - 7:30. If you are interested in signing up for the class call 847.670.6065.

Here are the details:
Still looking to create a special heirloom decoration for your home? Maybe you need a lovely hostess gift? Be sure to join Marnie on Thursday, December 16th from 11:00am – 1:00pm & 5:30pm – 7:30pm and make these gorgeous ornament toppers using Oulines Stamps. These would really brighten your holiday season and you can use and cherish them for years to come.