Scrapping Fun Kits - White with 1 Challenge Guest Designer - Friends

Raelene here with my Guest Designer layout for the White with 1 April Challenge.
The March Kit had some pieces that were perfect for the April Challenge so I set the 2 items aside for this challenge and pulled some other cute bits from a upcoming kit.

You can see how this layout came together in my Process Video.

I started by selecting a photo that would work with the sketch and the colour.
This photo taken on the day my Mum met her lifelong best friend in 1982 was a weird size due to how my local photo printing place resized it to print, it had been a square photo but they made it a 3 x 6 inch photo.  So I thought this was a good one for the sketch instead of 3 small photos and due to the colouring in the photo brown suited quiet well.

I stayed fairly true to the sketch with this one, I loved the hidden journalling option in it and used the tag to record what event this photo was from.





I used the felt trim from the March Kit instead of paper for the top right section of the sketch and the ribbon from the kit as the ribbon in the sketch.  I also trimmed some flowers, leaves and a bit of vine from the felt trim to use as embellishments.
The other papers are up for consideration for a upcoming kit, what do you think of them?

I wanted to add this lovely lace that is from a upcoming kit so I added a small bit just under the photo mat on the left bottom paper, I love the little extra pop it gave the layout.

How cute is this burlap flower that will be in a upcoming kit?

I love how the leaves from the felt trim work in with the flower and lace.

This friends chipboard from the School Kit was the perfect title for such a important day.

I hope this inspires you to record a childhood memory and join in the White with 1 Challenge.

13th Birthday Card - Scrapping Fun Kits DT

I wanted to quickly share with you the card I made for Mr C's 13th Birthday using the April kit from Scrapping Fun Kits, a kit inspired by Mr C's love of all things STEM/STEAM.

Getting this card made without my munchkin seeing it was difficult due to time constraints, so it needed to be a quick project and the kit helped with that need.

I used the Rocket and starts from the cut apart and the paper from the kit to create a quick card.   The 13 is some old Thickers I got on clearance, the th is from a old alpha sheet I got at a store that was closing down and the Birthday is a Memorymaze Chipboard that had said Birthday Party but I cut the party away and then coloured it with gold paint.

I love how this card turned out.

There are still a few spots left for April so if you would love a kit head to the Subscription Tab at Scrapping Fun Kits and fill in the form.

Easter Egg Decorations - Scrapping Fun Kits DT

I was inspired by a post from Jennifer Dawn to make these cute Easter Egg Decorations with the boys using the papers from the March 2018 Kit.

I have created a Silhouette Cut file for this project due to my hand issues, it cuts 2 large and 2 small from each paper from the kit and is designed for use with 5.5 x 7.5 inch papers.
You can download the cut file here https://www.dropbox.com/s/1it5uoogbewcavv/Easter%20eggs.studio3?dl=0

Fold each egg in half, adhere 1 side together of 2 eggs, adhere some wool or ribbon in the middle, tying a knot at each end of the egg or adding a bead.  Adhere the last 2 eggs to finish the 3D effect.

This was a quick project that the kids enjoyed working on with me.

There are still a couple of these great kits left so if you would love one head to the Subscription Tab and fill in the form, enter March in the promo code box so I know you want the March Kit.

Paperless Post digital cards and invites - Guest Blogger

Today I wanted to share with you my experience using Paperless Post, a website for creating digital cards and invitations.

When I was asked to Guest Blog for them the first thing I did before agreeing to do a post was check out their website and start a account to see how it worked.
They have free options or you can buy Paperless Post Coins to use on the items that cost money.
By following 3 of the sign up steps (I didn't do them all) I gained 30 Paperless Post Coins to use on options that weren't free.  It is great that you can earn some free coins during sign up, it gives you a chance to create some cards or invitations from the range that cost coins.

I made a couple of Birthday cards for some of the Birthdays I have coming up and set them to send at 5am on the morning of the person's birthday. 

I was able to do a preview which emailed the card to me, so I could see how it would look in a email to them.It feels good to know that I have cards ready to send on their Birthday, this will add a little bit extra to my Happy Birthday wishes I do over the phone or in person.

I wanted to try the invite system but I don't have anything coming up that emailed invitations would suit so I created a invite to send my boys for our St Paddy's in the Park and had Paperless Post email them.

The invitation option prompts the person to rsvp to you which is really useful as sometimes people forget to rsvp.

When a guest responds you get a alert that someone has responded.









It is good to see a list of scheduled and sent cards and invitations.  I have a few more cards to create and schedule for the year and I am looking forward to quickly getting them done when I have a few spare minutes on the computer.

When you want to schedule a card instead of sending it straight away look to the left side of the part where SEND NOW is and click on schedule sending.  I keep forgetting this so I thought I should mention it so if you are like me hopefully it helps.

Overall I enjoyed using this website, it was easy to use for someone with my lack of tech ability and there are many great options for creating cards and invitations for friends and family.

St Paddy's Day Dinner - low FODMAP Guinness Stew

As part of our St Paddy's celebrations I wanted to make a special dinner, and made my first ever Guinness Stew.

I looked up several recipes and sort of adapted/mashed them together according to our needs as we are on a modified low FODMAP diet and due to my shoulder and hand issues I needed a slow cooker version and I didn't want to wind up with left over Guinness so wanted a recipe that would use the whole can.
As beer is low FODMAP due to the fermenting process I am assuming Guinness is too.
A couple of recipes suggested the stew is better the next day so I made it Friday to have on Saturday.  Hubby taste tested it on Friday night and said it was definitely far better on Sunday night, he said it was richer and more hearty than on Friday.  So this is a great make ahead meal which really helps with planning for a day that you know you won't be able to cook.

I managed to get 8 serves out of this recipe, we had a family meal and I put 4 single serves away for hubby.  Note he said it didn't do well being frozen and reheated.

So here is what my adapted recipe wound up being.

900grams of diced chuck steak
2 tables spoons of flour
A crack of salt and pepper added into the flour
1 can of Stout or Guinness
3 cups of Beef stock (either homemade or Massel stock cubes disolved in water)
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
2 teaspoons of dried thyme
2-3 tablespoons (I spilt it into my pot) of parsley (fresh was out of stock when hubby did the shopping so I had to use dried)
2 large carrots cut into chunks
2 potatoes cut into chunks (I used 3 and it was too much potatoe)
2 celery stalks diced
The greens from 3 spring onions finely diced.

Put the potato and carrot into the bottom of the slow cooker.
Place flour and a crack of salt and pepper into a freezer bag, in batches put meat into the bag and shake, set aside on a plate ready to cook.
Once all meat is coated in a heavy pan in batches brown meat, transfer to the slow cooker.
Add spring onion greens and celery to the pan and saute a little.  Add to the slow cooker.
Add tomato paste, stock, stout, thyme and parsley.  Give a stir without disturbing the vegetables at the bottom.
Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or low for 8 to 10 hours.
Cool and refrigerate to serve the next day.
My sauce did not thicken so for serving I decided I would put one family serve in a pot on the stove for 15 minutes to simmer off the excess and cook the dumplings in the sauce while doing it.

Serve with Mashed Potatoes or Rice and low FODMAP parsley dumplings.

Lucky Banner for St Patrick's Day - Scrapping Fun Kits DT

I wanted to create a banner for St Paddy's day from a cardboard box so I grabbed a empty wine box from a friend who has a wine with dinner to tear/cut up to make a cute banner and I was just going to cut the lettering from cardstock when I found this cute free printable Lucky Banner  I felt it was just what I needed for my lettering on the upcycled wine box banner I wanted to create.  I just tore the top flaps of the box and cut the long sides in half, trimming the shorter side to match the length of those.

Originally I wanted to stencil on the cardboard but due to time constraints I decided to go with simple layers using the papers and cut apart in the St Paddy's Kit from Scrapping Fun Kits.
I cut the dot paper into 4 and the shamrock paper into 3 so that I had one piece twice the size of the other 2.  Then I cut 2 of the tags and the pot of gold from the cut apart to use for layering.

I used Helmar Craft & Hobby PVA Glue to adhere my layers to the wine box.

I started just by grabbing one letter at a time and creating layers behind the free printable flag.

This cute tag from the cut apart was a great way to add a layer to the L, it has a slight overhang at the top which I love.

U and Y were a very simple lot of layering with just a piece of each paper, I also cut a scrap out from behind the Y to use on the shamrock.

C I just used the dot paper and the fussy cut pot of gold from the cut apart.  How cute is that pot of gold?

K and the Shamrock have the rainbow label from the cut apart, I simply trimmed it slightly to the right of the rainbow so I would have the left over for another layer elsewhere.

I loved how they all looked together while I was waiting on the Helmar glue to dry before I add the ribbon.

I simply used my standard hole punch to pun 2 holes in each banner and then thread multiple strands of orange bakers twine through the holes.

Getting a photo of the  Banner in action on St Paddy's Day was difficult due to some strong wind we were having but one of the other Mum's got this great shot of it.

I love how this banner turned out, it certainly was a hit.

St Paddy's Day Fun in the park.

Last year Mr C was unable to attend his school's St Patrick's Day activities and asked if we could do something this year so I picked out a few simple things to do with the Mr C and Mr E this year.

While making plans and searching Pinterest for ideas I realised there may be other Homeschooling or Distance Ed families who would like to do something for St Patrick's Day and that it would be a great way for the kids to socialise with other kids who love St Paddy's activities.  So I decided to ask in a local Homeschooling group if anyone would like to meet us at the park for a simple Leprechaun Treasure Hunt and a few fun St Paddy's themed foods.  I was excited when a few families wanted to join us.
My dilemma was the lack of supplies available locally, it is usually pretty limited but this year was more limited then usual, Pinterest saved my day, I was limited on time for creating and suitable supplies but thanks to Pinterest I was able to find some quick and easy projects I could do or could adapt to suit my needs.

I downloaded this free and very cute Lucky Banner to make creating my banner a bit easier as my time available for die cutting was limited.

A post detailing how I created the rest of this banner will be up on Tuesday.

Mr E enjoyed painting sanitised toilet rolls for this cute Upcycled Shamrock Garland.









Mr C enjoyed painting a cheap container and adding a black ribbon and yellow cardstock buckle to hold chocolate coins for our Leprechaun Treasure Hunt.
For the clues I used this great Rainbow of Shamrocks set of clues.


I was inspired by these cute Leprechaun Hat paper cups, however I couldn't get green paper cups so used recyclable green plastic cups.

I created a cut file of hollow squares to cut all the buckles for the cups, the container for the treasure hunt and our Pringles can Leprechaun attempt.  This saved me a lot of time.

I thought these Yarn Wrapped Leprechaun Hats would be a fun activity for the kids to do, however the kids wound up mainly playing on the park equipment so I have saved the supplies to make a banner with the boys next year.

Mr E loved helping make coloured green sugar for our marshmallow pops, you can get a recipe for Coloured Sugar from McCormick.

I made Rainbow Jelly and after that experience have sworn I will never do it again, but given how much Mr E loves it I might have to have one more try next year.









I also tried making Rainbow Water and Rainbow Bars, which were a hit though due to having to use pink marshmallows my rainbow bars weren't very rainbow.  And due to the warmth here at the moment the rainbow ice cubes were melting fast so once I finished pouring the water into a glass it was not rainbow water but a funny brown colour.

Other simple food ideas I did were:
Green pineapple juice.  Add a glass of green cordial to a bottle of pinapple juice, it tastes nice and is a fun shade of green, though I forgot to take it to the park.
Green marshmallow pops, I melted white chocolate and the boys had fun dipping white marshmallows into it and then into the green sugar Mr E made, they stood them a sheet of baking paper in a container to set in the fridge.
I used the left over green sugar that hadn't gone into the bowl for the marshmallow pops to coat some green grapes and created leprechaun grapes which were inspired by Leprechaun Candy though I was out of green jell chrystals so the sugar made a good substitute.
The last of the melted chocolate and the green sugar that had had the marshmallow pops dipped into it, I immediately mixed them together and set in the freezer to make green chocolate bark.

One of the other Mums (Amy) helped me set up on the day and brought some green cordial (a life saver when I forgot the juice), green chips, some green fruit and veggie sticks (Mr E loves capsicum so he  was really happy about that).  And another Mum brought chips, so we had a lovely table full of goodies to eat.





The boys had a lot of fun making new friends and eating fun food.