Quick Kit Makes.

I hope you all had a good Christmas. Although we didn't get a white one, it's snowing hard right now!

All my craft stuff is still packed away, as I normally use the dining room and it's been needed for our festivities, so at the moment I can only make very quick and easy items. Luckily I recently won a huge bundle of Hunkydory goodies from Quick Cards Made Easy magazine, and they included a few very simple kits that really needed nothing but adhesives and a scoring tool to assemble, so here are some of the goodies I made.

Naughty Christmas at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers

It's almost Christmas, and of course it wouldn't be Christmas without a naughty card or two from me! Luckily for our latest challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, Edna has chosen Naughty Christmas as the theme and she's going to make sure Santa brings all the sistahs nothing but coal!

Here's my naughty card

The, erm, lady is a Kenny K image coloured with Promarkers, and I went over the boots with Glossy Accents because she looked just the type to  wear PVC boots. The sentiment is from the lovely Gingers House where there are some brilliant sentiments provided as free downloadable word art, and the poinsettia is made with magazine freebie dies.

I am sharing this with
C.R.A.F.T challenge - Anything Goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything Christmas goes

Last Minute Christmas at Cardz 4 Guyz

Here in the UK, today is the last posting date for Christmas second class mail  so if there are any cards you've not sent yet, you need to get your skates on. And if there are any you've still not MADE you are going to need to make an ultra-quick one, which is why the latest challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz is Last Minute Christmas.

This card is ideal to make if you are in a tearing hurry - in fact it took me less than five minutes to make, and that included the time spent rummaging in my snippets basket  for the bits. I ripped off the idea from something I saw on Pinterest - just tear the strips of card, stick them down, trim the edges and stick on googly eyes and a gem nose, doodle in a mouth and some rosy cheeks and sprint to the post box!

This was made entirely from snippets - or should that be rip-its? So naturally I'm heading over to share it in the Snippets Playground .

And as it was so very quick to make, I'm also sharing it at Sparkles Monthly where the challenge is Quickie Christmas/Happy New Year.

PS I see it isn't actually the last posting date until tomorrow so you have time to make a whole host of these, should you feel inclined!

Late to the party

The flamingo party that is. Last year you couldn't take three paces in Blogland without bumping into a flamingo or two, and I never joined in because I had nothing flamingo related.

Or so I thought.

Tucked away in an old tin in the box room I found a few unmounted stamps that I'd got in a grab bag years ago and set aside without using, and among them there was this fun flamingo. So to celebrate the fact that my shoulder is getting better and I can crank the handle of my  Grand Calibur again, I had to make a card!

The image is coloured in with Promarkers. I sponged a little blue ink to form a lake and as he's apparently just taking off, used a stencil (it's actually from a water lily design, but I masked off the flower) to add a little darker blue for ripples. The sentiment is from a Lawn Fawn mini set.

I am sharing this with

Less is More - birds/feathers
Fab'n'Funky - Anything but Christmas

Christmas Flowers and/or foliage at CD Sundays

It's time for our final challenge before Christmas at CD Sundays. The last posting date is very close and I'm sure you need a last burst of pre-Christmas card making, and of course using a CD can speed up the process no end! So our theme this time is Christmas Flowers and/or Foliage.

I've used Joanna Sheen's lovely Vintage Christmas CD set (it's a set of three CDs packed with gorgeous images and papers).

A vintage image like that really cries out for ribbon, lace and pearls, the result being a very quick but luxuriant looking card with the pearls echoing the mistletoe berries and pulling everything together.

I would like to share this with

C.R.A.F.T - Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge  - Anything goes (or glitter)
Winter Wonderland - Anything Christmas Goes
Christmas Cards All Year Round - Anything Christmas Goes
The Holly and the Ivy - Anything Christmas Goes  

Quick makes with a kit

I'm afraid my shoulder is STILL not better so I'm not crafting much at the moment (however I do have three scheduled posts coming up over the next week, thank goodness I was ahead with all my DT projects before I hurt myself).

It's very frustrating wanting to craft and not being able to - luckily a kit that I won came to the rescue. I've won a couple of lovely prizes from Quick Cards Made Easy in the last few days - one for my letter being the letter of the month in the latest issue, and the other for winning one of the monthly challenges on their website, and part of one of the prizes was a Hunkydory kit to make four each of bags, shadowbox cards and mini trinket boxes.

If my arm was more mobile I would customise them, adding my own bits of ribbon, lace, pearls and gems, I think they would lend themselves perfectly to it, but for now it was just a joy to be able to make something without having to use a knife or die cutter and with the minimum of scissor work!

Chicken and sweetclems with couscous

I'm still having problems with my shoulder and not really doing any crafting, so here's another recipe for you. It's  loosely based one I adapted from a 20 year old copy of Good Food magazine (yes, I do have rather a lot of dog eared old magazines that I couldn't bear to part with).

Start preparing this well in advance as it takes about an hour to cook and also needs at least an hour of marination.

For two people you will need

2 chicken joints, I used leg and thigh quarters
juice of 1 lemon
1 large clove of garlic
1 finely chopped onion
salt and pepper
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
a splash of sunflower or rapeseed oil for frying
800 ml chicken stock
3 sweetclems, each cut into 6 sections, skin on (you can use any small citrus as long as it doesn't have a loose skin that could fall off during cooking)
30g flaked almonds
12 Kalamata olives
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley

Coucous, rice or pasta to serve

Slash the skin on the chicken joints a few times and place them in a non metallic dish. Mix together the lemon juice, oil, garlic, onion, ginger, cinnamon and seasoning and pour over the chicken, turning nd rubbing so each piece is well coated. Cover and allow to stand for at least an hour.

Heat a large sauté pan that has a well fitting lid over a high heat, adding a smear of oil. Remove the chicken from the marinade, scraping any clinging bits back into the bowl, and fry it on both sides until browned. Tip in all of the remaining marinade, mix well then add the stock. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove the lid and add the sweetclem sections. Continue cooking for another 20 minutes, leaving the lid off until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce, about a quarter of its initial volume - pop the lid back on if it seems to be reducing too fast.

When the chicken is cooked through, the sweetclems are soft but not disintegrating and the liquid reduced to a sauce, remove from the heat and scatter over the olives, almonds and parsley. (You could add the olives when you add the sweetclems, but I don't like hot cooked olives, so I prefer them added at the end. It keeps them nice and shiny too!)

Serve over cous cous, rice or pasta