Love My Crockpot

I love my crockpot, but I don't use it very often. I have sort of gotten away from it a bit.

My neighbour has published 2 crockpot cookbooks and she is now working on her third. As neighbours, we love when she is working on a new book. She does a lot of recipe testing.....so much that she can't eat it all herself.

We will often get calls asking if we would like a meal. Our only job is to give her feedback. It's tough, but we suck it up for her.


On Tuesday evening we enjoyed Pulled Pork Tacos. They were delicious. I delivered my crockpot to my neighbour the night before and she called me by 9am to come and pick it up and receive my instructions. Everything was prepared. All I had to do was plug it in.

When I arrived home from work, our house smelled amazing. I had to set the table and we were ready to eat.

I wonder what we will be testing next week? Don't you wish you lived on our street?

May Product Challenge

Due to the recent popularity of our challenges on the forum, we decided to run a product challenge at the store.

Karan made up this kit ,which you can purchase for only $3.99. The rules are that you must use at least a small piece of everything provided in the kit. You can add anything you like from your own stash. It has to be submitted by midnight on May 31st. You can upload it to our gallery or drop it off in person to the store.

Since I did so well with the challenges on the forum, I thought I would give this a try too. Here is the layout I created.

The only thing I added was a piece of red ribbon and some rubons from my stash. This photo was taken on Mother's Day! I did a photo shoot in my mom's backyard. It is hard to get photos of everyone together......so I took advantage of the opportunity.

I did a single page layout, but there is lots of product to do a double layout, if you prefer to do that.


Here are a couple of detail shots. I have uploaded my layout to our gallery as well. If you haven't picked up your kit yet, I think there we a couple left when I was there on Wednesday. Try it! It is a lot of fun.

A Perfect Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's day. The weather wasn't quite as nice as I had hoped, but I did spend the entire day with my family. My kids set aside the entire day to spend with me.....that is big for them. No friends, no X-box, no computer......see what I mean. This was a real sacrifice for my boys, and it was the best gift. They also gave me 2 of the most perfect cards.

Amanda was up to something, and I knew she was making it. I wasn't allowed in her room all week (I was sort of scared to see what was happening in there, she is a bit of a mess-maker), but the wait was well worth it.

She made me an 'I love you' jar. It was filled with handmade cards that tell me all the reasons why she loves me. Each card was hand written, inked and marked with an 'XO', done in purple Stickles. I love it. It is so sweet.

I am very thankful for my 3 children. They may not tell me every day that they love me, but I know they do. This is the first Mother's day that they have done something on their own to show me how much.

Online Scrap With a Friend

Last night I was in the mood for a little scrapbooking. I was just getting myself organized when Patti (from Alberta) caught me online. We decided to scrap together. I had never done this before, but I was up for the challenge.

She provided this sketch.....

I really enjoy scrapbooking from a sketch. It gives me the starting point and then the creativity just seems to flow.

Here is Patti's take on the sketch. She is so creative. I have to admit that I am a little intimidated by her. She is on a few different design teams and has a real flair for using embellishments.


So, here is my take on the sketch. I love how this page turned out. All of the papers are from the new Delight line from Fancy Pants. I used a border stamp and Vintage Photo Distress ink to do the doodle lines around the page.

One of my favourite parts on the layout (aside from the photos of my son) are the trees. I learned this technique from a friend. She had used it on a card, so I thought I would try it out. They are layered circles out of cardstock and pattern papers. I used a mister and sprayed the papers with water, crumpled them up and then opened them again to dry. It adds great dimension . I was very impressed with the results.

I used the Alphalicious font for the Cricut for my title along with another circle element for the dot on the letter 'i'.

Thanks to Patti for a great night of scrapbooking. I hope to do it again soon!

Snips & Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.....

I had the opportunity to visit my friend Sue again. She owns Moonstone Kennel and she is a very good friend of mine. It is always great to visit with her and visit with her puppies. She has quite a few litters and we were able to meet and greet lots of them. Most of these were sold, but there were still a few available.

Amanda has always wanted to have a dog, so this is a great way for her to get her puppy fix. She just loves visiting them. They seem to really love her too!

It is just a sea of puppies.....running, jumping, playing, sleeping! You just don't know what to look at first. Some are fat, some not so fat. Some are dark and some are light. They are all cute! I don't know how people pick which one they want.

The puppies love to play with each other. They wrestle each other and bite each others tails. It is all fun until one puppy yelps!

We spent a lot of time tying up our shoes. The puppies would find our shoe laces and tug until they were undone.

How sweet is her face. This is one of my favourite photos from the day. I love the expression on her face and how her face is in focus, but the grass is not. This was not expert photography, just luck.

Amanda brought her friend along and he was having a great time with the puppies. It looks like they are having a great conversation and the puppy is smiling! I love it.

This time I made sure that Amanda took a couple of photos of me. I never seem to make it in the photos with the puppies.

Matt joined us for the puppy visit too. It always amazes me how gentle my rough and tough boys are around these dogs. It is nice to see.

Ok, here is another favourite of mine. I took this photo of Matt holding one of the puppies and you can see one of his back paws! How cute is that.....another lucky shot!

Here is Amanda with her favourite puppy. It is moments like this that I wish we had got a dog for her.

What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Thanks to Sue for letting us visit again. She was very busy with appointments but it was nice to see her, even for a short time. We will have to come on a day where she will have more time to chat.