And not a sports stamp in sight

This pp is called Game On and was a sports theme pp from a few years ago. Again, I had bits and pieces of it. Problem is, I have no sports stamps! The one that I bought to go with it I used once for the swap I was in and sold it because I knew I'd never use it again. So. What to do with a sports theme paper and no sports theme stamps? Go with the black and white color scheme and use my Oriental stamps! These could be masculine or feminine, so I kept them very minimal, which is also something the Oriental people do. I have one more set to do for Deb and then I'm done with cards for the walk/run for this year.

And another one gone!

Used the dregs of yet another CTMH paper pack making more cards for Debbie's Save R Sight run/walk in April. And heaven help me, I threw the empty sleeve along with the name of this one away and it's gone to the Great Trash Heap at the dump already and I don't remember what the name was. Doesn't matter, I guess! Once again, used various stamp sets and embellies from my stash. Also used my latest "great invention" and glittered the new Kraft Borders.

I also cleaned up and donated 2 grocery bags full of old papers and various companies cardstocks that don't match my CTMH papers to the Girl Scouts over the weekend. They were selling cookies outside of Lowes when I went to get some veggies to plant in the Earth Boxes and I told them I'd bring them back some stuff for their scrapbooking badge. They were thrilled! A couple of the girls wanted to start looking at the papers right then but the leader had to remind them that they were there to sell cookies and not go thru the papers. She told them they'd have plenty of time to do that later! And speaking of Girl Scout cookies, course I had to get John his Thin Mints! They had one last year that was supposed to only be a one time shot but it was so popular they brought it back again this year. It's called Thank U Berry Much and it's chock full of crasins and white chocolate chips and is yummy beyond all belief! They are more expensive than the others since there is only one sleeve of cookies per box instead of two like you get with the others, but soooooooo much worth it!

Life Delights

This is the last project that was found on my (S)crap heap! Well, there was one more, but somehow the directions for putting it together got lost, thrown away, who knows?! I sat and finagled with it for quite a while but could not figure what I was supposed to do, so I threw it away. No sense keeping it if I don't know how it goes together!

This was a l-o-n-g ago promo for CTMH. Called Life Delights Memory Showcase Album. Life Delights paper is long gone. The Memory Showcase Albums are still available and they make great gifts! They come in 6 x 6 and 9 x 9. The saddest part of this being an unfinished project was that I had put all of the pages together. All I had to do was stick them in the album! So this one was completed in less than 5 minutes.

Bitty album

This is another of the projects that I found on my (S)crap table when I was cleaning it. This was given to me by the gal running the Kodomo booth at CHA 2009. Sadly, right after that, Kodomo USA went out of business. They still have a booming and thriving biz in Japan, but they are no longer in the States. I loved this idea. They took old kids books and cut them up and repurposed them to make small photo albums with. Since this one only has 6 pages, it's going to Joy the next time I see her. She can put pics of she and her bff's in it and have it as a keepsake. There is a pattern on the paper on the first two pages but no matter how I photographed it, the pattern would not show up. So you'll just have to take my word for it! All of the embellies, letters, etc were included in the kit and I have NO idea what mfg they are.

Caught

After about a 24 hour search, St Pete police caught the accused killer of Officer David Crawford last night. He is just 16 years old. His story kept changing during questioning and after a couple of hours, he finally admitted he'd fired the fatal shots. Police said he cried and said he didn't mean to kill Officer David Crawford. My comment is, what "normal" person carries a gun in their real life unless they mean to do someone harm. He had that gun for ill will. Nothing more nothing less. So at 16, he is sitting in juvie jail for the time being, being charged with the capital offense of killing a police officer. Police say he will be tried as an adult and they will be seeking the death penalty.

Officer Crawford leaves a wife and 24 year old daughter. He was a 25 year veteran of the St Pete police dept and was gunned down less than three blocks from police headquarters. He was eligible for early retirement last year, but loved police work so much that he opted to stay on. He had worked the midnight shift most of his career saying that's where he felt he did the most good and got the most accomplished. Like most cops, it was a profession he loved, he felt he'd been called to it and he gave it his all. He gave his life. Rest in Peace Officer Crawford.

Edit: Prosecuters will not be seeking the death penalty. Juveniles cannot be put to death. So this kid will spend the rest of his life in prison. He will not be elegible for parole. Ever.

Something new for dinner

I found this recipe on Kitchen Daily and it sounded good and simple! I will tell you that we do not like jarred spagetti sauce, so I used my own homemade sauce which has hamburger and garlic in it, so I omitted that part of the recipe. I heated my sauce on the stovetop and while the pasta was boiling, I added the zucchini to my sauce to cook for a bit. I also forgot to buy ricotta cheese and didn't realize it til I was putting it together, so mine had no ricotta. I will be making this again and hopefully will remember the ricotta! And I halved the recipe for just the two of us and we have enough for leftovers. Here is the recipe directly from Kitchen Daily.

3-Cheese Mostacchioli Bolognese

1 lb ground beef (those of you who don't use beef could certainly use ground turkey for this!)
2 minced cloves of garlic
1 med zucchini cut in half lengthwise and sliced (about 1 cup total)
3 cups of your favorite jarred spagetti sauce
6 cups mostaccioli or tube shape pasta (I used 1/2 box of ziti rigatti)
6 oz shredded mozzarella. (I bought the 8 oz bag and used it all!)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesean cheese (I used a mixture of parm, asiago and romano)

Heat oven to 400. Cook the beef and garlic in a 12" skillet til beef is well browned, stirring often to break up the meat. Pour off any fat. Add the zucchini and cook til crisp-tender. Stir in the sauce.

Stir the beef mixture, pasta, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese and parmesean cheese together and pour into a PAM sprayed shallow baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese. (I also sprinkled a bit of the 3 cheese mixture for good measure! One can never have enough cheese!)

Bake for 20 minutes or until it's all bubbly and hot and the cheeses on top have melted. I also turned the broiler on once this was complete and browned the cheese a bit. I fixed a salad and sauteed some broccoli slaw and enoki mushrooms in lemon juice and butter and some frozen garlic sticks to make this meal complete. Yummmmm! Or should I say...burp!!

Not again

After going over 30 years without an officer being killed, yet another St Pete policeman lost his life overnight. This is three in just over a month, with the deaths of Sgt Baitenger and K-9 Officer Yazlowitz last month. Officer David Crawford was only 46. He was responding to a call about a prowler in the area of Tropicana Field where the Tampa Bay Rays play. The suspect is a black man in his late teens or early twenties and a massive seach is on for him. The area around the Trop has been locked down. Three schools in the area have been closed for the day and students will have to attend classes at other schools not in the affected zone today. Many questions are yet unanswered. It's another sad day in the Tampa Bay area.

Magnifique layouts

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. So much for me working on Christmas and fair layouts. I don't know what it is about taking pics with our phones, but they do not want to print and look decent. The pics were all blue-ish and blurry. I have to wait for John to see if he can figure out whats up with the printer (and yes, I changed all of the ink cartridges), so in the meantime, I decided I needed to CLEAN my scrap table. I had just been piling stuff and my 6 x 4 table had shrunk to about a 3 x 3 work space. Un.acceptable! Even for me! I ended up throwing a lawn trash bag full of stuff away. (NO not just from the table! It wasn't that bad!) Stuff I kept thinking I might find a use for it. Figured if I hadn't used it by now, chances are I never would. I found some projects I've had for going on 2 summers now. Things I got at CHA Orlando two years ago. Layouts I got at Convention this past summer and never put together. Other stuff. So I made a pile of it and while I'm waiting for John's days off for him to look at the printer I'm working on getting them done.

I started with the Magnifique layout we got at Convention. I had to add some stuff to it because it was pretty plain and boring for my taste! The first layout uses 2 of the Flip Flaps. The second is two 12 x 12 layouts. ( and I'm not real sure I'm thrilled with the yellow flowers on the first set of layouts. I may end up switching them out for something else.)

And if anyone has seen my missing googlie eyes, would you please send them back home! That is part of the reason I cleaned my table and they weren't there. So I have NO idea of where they've run off to.

Yippee!

It's been a l o n g 4 months! Today Spring Training starts! The Rays are gonna have a totally different look this year. In the off season, we lost among many great players, Carl Crawford, Jason Bartlett, and Matt Garza (no great loss in my opinion there! Glad Spitter Boy is gone to the Cubbies!) But we got Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez so we'll see what happens with them. Manny can be, well, Manny if he doesn't get his way. And I think Johnny's best days may well be behind him. His salary is tied in with attendance, so I guess the owners think he's still a big enough draw to get behinds in seats. We hope to go to a few more games than we did last year. Hopefully getting to see at least one game from the Pepsi box!

Manly-man cards!

So I found what I thought could be used for guy cards in another o-l-d CTMH pp called Caprice. Browns and yellows and blues are guy colors, right?! So there are a few flowers on one of the papers! No biggie. Once again, these are a few of my fave's. And as is the norm for me, I'm getting bored making cards, so it's time to switch gears again. Time to do some layouts. We found some pics on John's phone from Christmas, so I'm going to scrap them and also the ones from the fair. There will be more sharing in the near future!

Scenes from the Fair

We went to the FL State Fair the other day. Hadn't been in 6+ years so we figured it was time. People are ruder than they were 6 years ago! They either "run" around you then poke along or run you over trying to go faster than everybody. And I don't get old men who think it's ok to fart in public and say nothing. Everyone around them knew it was them! Little kids pointing and laughing. And people in motorized wheelchairs who somehow feel "entitled" and the rest of the world should stand and wait for them to make up their minds which way they want to go and lord help you if you decide to go around them because they will. run. you. over.

I don't ride the rides because of height and motion problems and John doesn't because I don't so we never even went to the midway. We enjoy looking at the exhibits. Though I must say there were much less of them that the last ime we went. Used to be walls of home canned goods and handmade quilts, knitting and crochet items. Now they are displayed in small cases. Only one 3 x 4 case of canned goods and 4 or 5 cases of handmade items. What there was was gorgeous. There were only 4 scrapbook albums and one of the "word" albums entered. Had I known that, I might have entered the Washington DC album I did. Oh well, it wasn't meant to be! We have some very talented kids here in Fl who entered photography and paintings. Beautiful works of art!

Course the animals are a huge draw for us. We got to see some goat judging. Some goats were almost bigger than the kids showing them! One little girl kept taking allllllll the ribbons. Guess the lady judge liked her goats. Got to see eggs pipping out and the wet baby chicks come tumbling out. Saw lots of different kinds of chickens, which we always enjoy since we have chickens of our own.

Orleans

Has decided he likes sleeping in daddy's chair. Might as well since John's home so little! At least someone's getting good use out of it!

Another one bites the dust!

Catchy phrase! I think it might make a good song!

I'm using up paper packs making cards for Debbie's Walk/Run coming up in just a couple of short months. This one was called Perfect Day and at Convention last year, CTMH founder Jeanette told us this was her favorite paper pack ever. I had scrips and scraps left, but I hate to just throw them away, so I made good use of them. I had gotten some My Stickease, I think at Convention '08 in Orlando so I used up the rest of them as well. Now I need to go thru my hoarders stash and see what kind of "manly" papers I have and make some guy cards. We always seem to forget about the guys in our lives when it comes to cards.