Autism Dog Services Grad

So I volunteered to make and fill bags for the Graduating teams of Autism Dog Services for 2016. The Ceremony was held at the Parade of People and Pets that took place last Sat at Confederation Park in Hamilton and although the weather didn't cooperate, we had a nice large pavilion to take shelter in. More on the actual event later.

I made up cards with help from my friend Keri for the 10 families that would have their lives changed by welcoming a Service dog into their family. For such a small organization, this is a great accomplishment to match so many teams up.

And inside the card...

I also made a bunch of Chocolate covered Oreos for the bags and for the Silent Auction.

For the bags, I found a design on my Silhouette for both the dog name and the child's name and used my Lawn Fawn alphabet dies to cut out the actual names. I was happy to finally use the Silhouette again. I should be using it more often.

The bag was stuffed and topped off with tissue...

It was a fun day and making the bags was right up my alley. Although I'm very glad that this Event is wrapped up and I can move on to some other things, like CLEANING!

Parmesan Potatoes

I seem to be on a run in the recipe department. While I have been crafting, its for an event coming up this weekend so I don't want to show off the results of my work until after the fact.

I recently had some company and wanted to fancy up my potatoes to go with the yummy T bone steak and grilled veggies.

Parmesan Potatoes
Baby new potatoes (about 12, just guesstimate how many for your family)
Green onions (2)
Parsley
Red Onion 1/4 cup
Pepper 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Olive Oil, 3 Tbsp
Parmesan cheese (grated) 1/2 cup

Mix up everything but green onions and parsley (which I didn't have judging from the photo), its only for garnish anyway.
Spread potatoes on a cookie sheet lined with foil and bake at 350F until tender. Stir occasionally to get all the edges nicely browned.
And then garnish (or NOT)

Butter Brickle Dessert

This dessert is a long time favourite but you better make sure that you have lots of company coming over because it makes a big batch and it will be calling your name from the freezer. You can amp it up and make your own caramel sauce but I opted to go with store bought. This recipe comes together very quickly and your guests will thank you for it.

Butter Brickle
2 cups flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup chopped pecans
1 jar Caramel sauce
1 pint vanilla ice cream

Melt butter, add flour, oatmeal, sugar and pecans. Pat thin on a large cookie sheet and bake at 400F for 15 minutes. Crumble while hot and spread half on bottom of 9x13 pan. Drizzle half caramel sauce over crumbs. Spread ice cream over top. (I but it with a knife and just lay it on top). Cover with remaining crumbs and drizzle with the rest of the caramel sauce.

I like to scoop some extra caramel over at the last minute. You can never go wrong with lots of sauce!

August 30 day challenge

For this month's 30 day challenge, I borrowed the Die-namics 3 hole die from Keri and she borrowed the Penny Black Dog image from me. For the life of me, I couldn't find a picture of the die image but you can get the idea from the card. I cut this one the closest ever, leaving just 40 minutes to complete the challenge on time. I confess I took a similar idea from the Net because time was of the essence, if you know what I mean.
It wasn't my original plan to use the same Penny Black stamp set but it ended up quite well although the images were a bit of a pain to fussy cut....

And here is Keri's card using the Stampin' Up Grunge stamp and the larger Penny Black image. I totally LOVE it and may have to make a few more for my collection....

Super cute cards. Here's the stamp set that we used...

We've already picked our items for next month. Stay tuned to see what we come up with. Hopefully I won't leave it to the last minute again.

Lemon Chicken

I'm back again with another great recipe. It's always really good to have a tried and true recipe from someone else. I've been going over to my friend Kathy's for years and quite often she will serve this recipe with mashed potatoes. YUM! We recently had it over the weekend and while its not exactly summer friendly requiring about an hour of oven time. It's a good recipe to have in the repertoire. Bake uncovered.

This product has recently come to my attention and while its pretty easy to boil rice, I especially like Basmati, which does take a bit of time to prepare. This pouch is ready in 90 seconds and comes out beautifully.

So there you have it. A quick and yummy meal and its also gluten free which is a nice option.

Lemon Chicken
Boneless, skinless chicken (2-4) depending on size ( this dish works better if the chicken is not too thick)
Dredge chicken in flour, salt, pepper and thyme (pinch)
Fry in butter

Mix 1 cup white wine
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
And pour over

Fry 1 bundle green onion and 1 tray sliced mushrooms in butter. Put over chicken and bake, uncovered, for approximately 1 hour at 350F until chicken is tender.

Collie Envy

Two of my friends just adopted dogs and I must say, I'm having a little "Collie envy".
Let me introduce Finn...

Isn't he just gorgeous? Those kind eyes just melt your heart. He's so gentle and calm. Rescued from a shelter, he's about a year old and was surrendered. I don't know how anyone could give away such a sweet dog. He's got the best family now and he's going to have a wonderful life.

And then there's Jupiter....

Ahhh! the sweet smell of puppy breath. Jupiter is about 12 weeks old and also came from a Rescue organization. She seems to be the calmest puppy ever, and those markings! I am a sucker for those eyebrows and she has the tiniest white tip on her tail. She's going to be spoiled rotten and have a great life with her new family. Can't wait to see both of these dogs grow and develop their personalities in the coming years.

Freshly Made Sketches

As soon as I saw this week's Freshly Made Sketches 248,  I knew I wanted to use my wheat dies which I had never used before since they reminded me somewhat of the feathers. Who knew I would have to cut them out several times attempting to find the right colour. I'm not happy with my final colour selection even though I tried to darken them up by inking but I wasn't going to start again. It's a beautiful die but very intricate so it was fussy to glue down and this was NOT my first attempt. All in all, it turned out not too badly.... they always look better in person.

And here's the Sketch I based it on ...

I guess that's why they call them "challenges".