My New Year's Resolution

... .was to start making Christmas cards in January and make two a week, every week, all through the year. We usually send between 80 and 90, so allowing for holidays and times when life just gets in the way, it would see me with enough cards ready and waiting when it was time to start writing them. I've done this a few times and it's been brilliant; it's meant I could devote time to each card rather than relying on a last minute assembly line rush.

However something seem to have got in the way, because it's now the middle of July, we're half way to Christmas and how many cards had I made before today?

NONE.

So it's time to knuckle down and make a start, and that's what I did today. I made this little collection from papers and toppers in last year's Making Cards magazine Joanna Sheen Christmas Special, which I deliberately kept unopened so it would be fresh and new to me this year. I also have a CD of all the sheets from it, so that if there's anything I fancy extras of, or want printed on a different surface, I can easily do so.

My first card is made from Kraft card. with the topper mounted on a die cut label and the background made using a richly detailed Spellbinders embossing folder. The remainder are made according to my interpretation of the "serving suggestions" in the magazine. I used my beloved Hougie board to score the card for the final design.

Since navy and kraft is a very unusual combination for Christmas, I'm playing along with Christmas Cards All Year Round  where the July challenge is non-traditional colours

And  I'm also joining in with Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for July.

A Random Cocktail, or, Some Things can Never be Untasted

When I saw that this month's Random Recipe challenge at Belleau Kitchen was cocktails, I more or less decided not to join in. After all, we only possess one cocktail book and it's vaguely pornographic. And when we bought it, we didn't exactly have cocktail making in mind. Apart from that, we're not great cocktail fans and never touch a drink that is luridly coloured, served with a parasol or has half of Waitrose's fruit counter draped around the rim of the glass.

However the other day, not even thinking about the challenge, I idly picked up this book at random from a shelf for something to flick through while on hold.

And the page it fell open at was this: Virgin Maria Cocktail.

It just happened that I had all the ingredients to hand, apart from the olive juice, because I don't like dirty things (which you may not believe after reading the first paragraph). Actually, because we only ever buy Kalamata olives in oil, not brine. So I decided to omit the olive juice rather than having a layer of olive oil floating on the surface of my drink. And I used the brands of sauce that were in my cupboard, not those specified in the recipe book.

The other ingredients were tonic water. fresh lime juice, tomato juice, barbecue sauce, hot pepper sauce, black pepper and ice. Garnish was supposed to be a pimiento stuffed olive, for which I substituted a Kalamata one, sliced cucumber and a pickled bean. I don't possess a pickled bean, indeed I wouldn't recognise one if I met it in the street, unless they mean a green bit out of a jar of piccalilli, rinsed under the tap. But I wasn't going to waste good piccalilli on a drink that was starting to look so unpromising.

First into the shaker were the tonic water and lime juice. So far so good. Then the tomato juice and hot pepper sauce. Yep, they work well together too. It's when they all get together that it starts to get worrying - tonic water with tomato juice just sounds (and looks and smells) plain weird. And then in with a gloop of barbecue sauce. The stuff that's meant for spreading on sausages. Some pepper, and then shaking time. I'd never used a cocktail shaker before and maybe tomato juice wasn't a good thing to use for a first attempt, but it's OK, I've washed the walls and my arms now.

I have to say it looked pretty darned good.

However it didn't taste good. Not at all good.  In fact after a few sips I poured it down the drain. There is no way the quinine tang of tonic water should ever be placed within a mile of the metallic sweet-sharp flavour of tomato juice. And what's the point of shaking up something bubbly with twice its volume of non-bubbly stuff, it just flattens it! As for the barbecue sauce, please, folks, keep it for your bangers. I hadn't really expected to enjoy the drink, but I'd expected the unpleasantness to come from the addition of barbecue sauce, not from the cacophonous jarring of the tomato-and-tonic.

The olive was good though.

From now on I'm going back to drinking tomato juice my favourite way, with just a splash of Lea & Perrins and a swizzle stick made of celery. And the tonic water? I'll have it with gin please.

Lucky Black Cats

The challenge this week at Less is More is a one layer challenge, with the theme "Adapt a fingerprint".

I've never tried fingerprint art before but had lots of fun experimenting. I thought at first I'd try a foxglove, but I think I was overambitious  as it was a case of "less is mess". So although I'm not very confident with my own penwork, I decided on the cute animal route. After a few trials (you really don't want to see my lecherous spider) I settled on a cat - but from behind so I didn't have to draw a face. Coward! And black cats mean good luck, so my card became a good luck card.

If I ever find my white gel pen, I'll be back later in the week with my take on a fingerprint penguin!

Further adventures in foiling

Here is my latest DT card for Foil Play. The stamp is an old unmounted one - I bought it to make my daughter's engagement card and she's now married with two children. I can't remember where it came from but the vintage film clip style suggests it must have been The Artistic Stamper or Crafty Individuals.

Anyway, I stamped it in black, and then carefully went over all the stamped areas of the central heart with a red Quickie Glue Pen, left it to dry and then foiled it with red foil. Inevitably for such an intricate design, I missed glueing one or two spots but it was easy to touch up with the glue pen and foil the missed areas.

I layered it onto a DL card (why do we see so few DL cards at the moment? I think the tall thin shape looks very elegant) and added one of the new Easy Peely Sentiments from La Pashe to which I added a red peel-off border, partly to make it stand out and partly because the shiny finish jarred with the matt surface of the card.

 

The current challenge at Craft Room Challenge is Wedding Anniversary and I'm joining in with this card

D.I.Y.

This week's challenge at Cards4Guys is D.I.Y. Now I know the characters on "guy cards" are usually male, but I reckon this lady, from an old Marij Rahder decoupage sheet (bought in 2006 and sadly no longer available, although another from the same range can be found at Foil Play) is MUCH more suited to a man's card than a woman's. After all, she's obviously pretty clueless about DIY - she's even forgotten to put her overalls on! What man could resist helping her out with a bit of wood and a screw or two?

Canellini Bean Hummus

The other day I was furkling around in the fridge looking for things that would make suitable accompaniments to my Spiced Lamb and Broad Beans  and I came across half a tin of cannellini beans left over from Mark's Pork and Beans  and half a lemon because there is ALWAYS half a lemon in the fridge.

So I decided to make them into a hummus.

Ingredients:

½ standard tin (or one small tin) of cannellini beans
juice of ½ lemon
1 tbs tahini paste
a good glug of olive oil - about 2 tbs
salt to taste

Whizz all ingredients together with a stick blender or in a small liquidiser goblet until blended into a paste. As I was serving this as a side dish I kept it thick - to serve  as a dip I would have gradually  blended in a little more olive oil and enough water to get a creamy consistency.

Mine is garnished with a sprinkle of Za'atar but a pinch of paprika and a few sesame seeds would make a great garnish too, or some finely chopped parsley and a slice of lemon.

My other side dishes were tabbouleh  and a watermelon and feta salad

I'm joining in with the July No Waste Food Challenge at Anne's Kitchen and Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

And #CookBlogShare at Supergoldenbakes

Postcard from around the world

I've not been very well this week and have spent most of the week in bed with flu  rather than crafting - and maybe the fact that I'm still feverish shows, because I've thrown absolutely EVERYTHING at it - stamping, papers, embellishments, gems and doilies, and to cap it all made it into a diagonal easel card. It might look a bit overwhelming but boy was it therapeutic!

I'm joining in with

Make My Monday - Mail Art

OLLCB Challenge #160 - An Easel Card

and if there was a challenge for "How much can you pile onto one card" I'd join in that too! Maybe I should have called this post "Crafter's Penicillin" because that's the way it's worked.