Anything Goes at CD Sunday Plus

Today we are back to our usual Anything Goes challenges at CD Sunday Plus.

I've used lots of elements from the Polkadoodles CD "Winnie in Wonderland" to make a side-stepper card.

I am sharing this with

Polkadoodles challenge - Anything goes 

Don't tell Mrs. A!!!!

... but I've spotted signs of penguins BREEDING. And here's a daddy and baby to prove it.

If you follow Mrs A's blog you'll know all about the penguin problems  she's been having recently, she's not going to be happy to see a new generation coming along.  And I don't live all that far from her - I'm sure it wouldn't take a penguin very long to toddle over to her place.

I stamped the penguins and their iceberg (I'm sure they'd rather be on solid ground but with the polar ice caps suffering from climate change they don't always get the choice) using stamps that came with a recent issue of Creative Stamping plus lots of masking. I sponged blue ink patchily over the background card aiming for a frosty sky effect then stamped the sentiment when it was dry.

I am sharing this with

Christmas Kickstart - Penguins 

and

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Anything goes

Freshly stitched

I'm not normally a fan of die cut decoupage, but a couple of years ago I won a pad of the Dovecraft Couture du Jour range and it doesn't have the problems I usually associate with it. The pieces come out cleanly from the backing sheet with no tearing or "lugs" left behind, and because the prnting extends beyond the edge to the images there are no odd white bits where the cutting machine hasn't been perfectly aligned.

For the background I pieced together snippets from the matching paper set, cutting them with pinking shears and adding a faux stitching border. A die cut strip of "lace", a cotton reel charm and lots of buttons finish it all off.

I am sharing this with:

Cardz 4 Galz - Haberdashery 

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - Anything goes with patterned paper 

Make My Monday - female birthday 

Guest Designer at CAS Christmas

I'm delighted to have been invited to be this month's Guest Designer at CAS Christmas where the new theme is TAG.

I've used dies to make a tag for on my card.

The poinsettia is finished with a dot of liquid pearls. I'm excited to see what you all come up with!

I am sharing this with

The NEW challenge Fezziwig's Festive Frolics - anything festive goes 

Christmas Crafts All year round - anything festive or holiday related 

Carrots and Parsnips

Santa was very good to me this year - he brought me the entire range of Sheena Douglass Kitchen Garden stamps - three A4 sheets of fruit and veg themed stamps with some HUGE images like this carrots and parsnips one that almost fills the whole front of an A5 card. They include lots of sentiments and extra elements too. I love the sentiment on this one!

I coloured the image with Promarkers then layered it onto a card blank with orange distress ink blended around the edges. I stamped the sentiment onto a scrap of orange card and used a white gel pen to fill in the letters.

I am sharing this with

Craft Rocket Challenges - Something New (the stamps)

Passion for Promarkers - Mega Christmas Challenge 

Pearly Sparkles - Anything Goes

Cooking with leftovers - Ham and potato hotpot

First of all, please excuse the out-of-focus photo: I was just about to dive in and eat when I suddenly remembered that it's months and months since I've posted a recipe, and this is the sort of frugal, simple dish that I love to share.  So I just grabbed my phone for a quick snap.

Fortunately it's one of those dishes that tastes a lot better than it looks!

At this time of year we are often still valiantly trying to finish up the Christmas leftovers, so it's good to have some ideas for ways to use them. We'd had a large piece of ham on Boxing Day and I made this with the last scraps of it. You can use as much or as little ham as you have available, and if it really doesn't seem to be enough to feed everybody, you could add some chopped cooked bacon or even some turkey scraps. In fact next year I might try making it with turkey.

I like to make this in a well-greased traditional brown earthenware Lancashire style hotpot dish, but any casserole dish with a well fitting lid is suitable. Oh, and I always, ALWAYS serve it with sprouts, after all they are my favourite vegetable!

The amount here serves two, generously, but it can be scaled up or down to suit your needs.

A cereal bowl full sized portion of scraps of leftover cooked ham, cut into small pieces.
3 small onions
3 large potatoes
400 ml milk
50g butter
50g  plain flour
seasoning

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C (180 fan, 400 F, gas mark 6)

Peel and thinly slice the  onions and potatoes then build up layers of onion, potato and ham in the casserole dish, making sure the top layer is potatoes.
Make a white sauce by whisking together the milk, butter and flour over a medium heat until boiling - no need to cook out the floury taste, this beast is going to get 2 hours in the oven so it will cook out then! Season the sauce with plenty pepper - whether it also needs salt depends on how salty your ham is, which you'll already know if you are using leftovers, so use your discretion.

Pour  the sauce over the layers of meat and veg, making sure it covers the top evenly and trickles down among the layers.

Cover and place in the oven for an hour, then remove the lid, reduce the temperature to 150 C (130 fan, 300 F, gas mark 2)  and cook for a further hour. Keep an eye on the top, you want a lovely brown crust but if it looks as if it's about to burn, pop the lid back on.

Serve with Brussels Sprouts and make sure everybody gets some of the yummy Brown Crispy Bits from the top!

For a child at Sparkles Christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Apologies for shouting if you are nursing a post-Hogmanay hangover....

Anyway, here we are in January - have you started  thinking about next Christmas yet? Do you realise that if you were to enter the Sparkles Christmas challenge every month  this year you would have 12 of your Christmas cards ready and waiting ?

This month our challenge is "For a child" and I've used some of the adorable Clearly Besotted stamps that came with a recent issue of Creative Stamping.

I've used lots of masking to build up a scene, using circular die cut waste for the final layer of masking then sponging in blue inks to make a background sky, before removing all the masks and colouring with Promarkers. I've finished it off with some snowflake brads.

I am sharing this with

Passion for Promarkers - Mega Christmas Challenge 

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - any Christmas or New Year card 

A Place to Start - Happy Holidays