Time for a Picnic? Well, not yet....

Thank you all for stopping by my blog lately and leaving comments!  I'm so frustrated that I haven't been able to post any of my newest creations - and I have a bunch of them!  Arrrgh.  Please be patient --- I should have everything fixed up by the end of next week.  In the meantime - if you're new (or if you're returning) please feel free to check out my older projects - you may find something interesting.

In the meantime, here are a few pics and an experience I'd like to share.  Last summer DH and I took a day trip to Ferryland a small community about 70km from our fair city.  We went for a picnic at the local lighthouse.  Lighthouse Picnics caters to locals and visitors during the tourist season.  After you've placed your order inside, you're given a blanket (what's a picnic without a blanket!).  Then you go outside and select your spot close to the cliffs (but not too close!) to enjoy whale watching and the spectacular scenery.  In short time your picnic basket is delivered directly to your table...umm...blanket.   Voila - a lighthouse picnic!  How cool is that - have a look!    And check back next week for my paper craft projects...pleeze!!!   I need you!  :)  If you double click on the pictures you can see more detail.

Looking back at the isthmus.  We parked our car and walked the rest of the way!

Looking ahead - there it is!  About 10 minute walk from the car.

Self explanatory! 

Made it!  Now for a picnic lunch - yum.

A breathtaking view from the second floor.  If you look REAL close (double click the picture) you'll see there's a brave soul(?) down by the water. We saw a whale!  It's always exciting to see these magnificent creatures.

Fresh squeezed lemonade!  Mmmmmm.

Christmas Wreath

I dusted off and fluffed up an old wreath I found underneath our basement stairs.   I finished it today and this is what it looks like. Bought some ribbon at the local Home Hardware store, glued some extra pine cones that I picked up on one of my walks and added some Cricut-cut snowflakes.  I didn't want to add too much to it - and am pleased with the finished product!  Also made some soft banana cookies this morning - yummy.

Cheers!   -  Jackie

Weekend Card Making & SU Workshop

Hello - well I enjoyed my Saturday afternoon and getting new tips/techniques from the Stampin' Up! workshop.  My sister took me as her guest.  I also experienced my first card swap - pretty neat.  I came away with about 30+ cards and lots of ideas.  A LOT of talented ladies in that room!  Here's sister Jean, her friend Kelly and me (on the right).

Squeegie Man!

I just had to put these pictures up - a couple of weeks ago DH wanted to clean the outside windows after our visit from hurricane Igor.  We were fortunate - no damage or loss of power...very fortunate.  

To the rescue!!

We have some serious work to do!

Don't try this at home folks!

Noticing how dirty the windows were, DH wanted to buy a telescopie squeegie to clean them, figuring it would be a much easier task with that particular device (true enough).  After we purchased said squeegie at our local Canadian Tire store...that's another story in itself!!....  he got to work.  Finding the glare from the house hard on the eyes he searched around the house and found these sunglasses...belonging to our teenage son.  Squeegie Man was born.  He just had to make a superhero(?) of himself and thus the pictures.  T'was amusing indeed. 

Have a great day!

Cheers - Jackie

ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

Well I think so anyway - I made this batch tonight..before I went for a walk :)   I've had the recipe for a long time - it came from a package of Butter Flavour Crisco.  My milk jug however has been around for...well...almost ever.  I became it's owner when my mother and father-in-law sold their home and retired 20+ years ago.  This dairy company has since changed names to Brookfield Dairy and now Scotsburn Dairy (my husband works there - 20 years in 2011).  Anyway, I just devoured three of these with a tall glass of cold fresh milk.  Oh if the bottle could talk, what stories it could tell.  Have a great evening - I'm off.

Cheers,

Jackie

Fry's Cocoa {Fudgey Chocolate Brownies}

Fry's Cocoa...been around forever and it's the best for baking!  When I was in my mid-twenties I collected all kinds of recipe booklets / brochures from the Canadian Living magazines.  I'd buy the magazines at the used book store, check the advertisements and send away for free recipe books.  This was one of them.  The brownie recipe is nice and fudgey.  There's also a really good recipe for chocolate sauce - which is great for ice cream, milk and cottage pudding.  Cottage pudding is a white cake baked from scratch in an 8x8 pan. Mom used to make this and serve, most times, for dessert on Sundays.  My sister liked the chocolate sauce while my favorite was vanilla.


Have a chocolatey, fudgey day!!!  ;)

The Family

I just posted a blog but it's not coming up on my blogspot. Anyway, I'm trying another one to see where I may have gone wrong. Here are some Christmas pictures...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I mean to spend more time this year paper crafting - my day time job just takes so much out of me :) I spent my morning making several valentine hot chocolate sliders, browsing the internet for ideas, putting eyes on my cat/pumpkin paper piecing and in general enjoying the time off from work to be able to do this! I'll have to upload some pictures later - Taylor is lurking and wants his turn on the computer (he's my sweetheart 15-year old son).

I need to spend some time as well, updating my blog and getting used to navigating my away around in here! Am looking forward to it.

No time to blog...

Back to work and no time to blog. The month of September was unbelievably busy...getting the hang of my new job and just barely surviving it! How exciting though to know that I've gotten through the month and am now more knowledgeable because of it. I've had little time for paper crafts or any crafts for that matter...I hope with the coming months I'll be able to get back at my designing. I took out my Halloween stamps tonight - I have some treat bags started and will need to finish them over the new few weeks. Cheerio - 'til next time.

Timothy & Graduation

Although I haven't yet posted anything about my craft, I will be soon. I wanted to share a couple of recent pictures...my son's grad. Proud Mom dancing with son. Next time will be a wedding (ha ha).

Back at the Blog

First things first...I just learned how to upload a picture and the only half decent one I could find was one of my husband Keith and I on our wedding day (18 years ago). Cute eh? OK...onto the blog....

Things have been good this week...I've walked three days in a row. My goal is to have 5 pounds gone by this Friday (I weighed in Friday past - the 17th). It seems like a lot for one week, but apparently it's possible! My goal after that is 1-2 pounds a week, keep up the walking and watch the cheese and crackers (ha)...

My sister came to visit me last week for a couple of days and brought with her all of her cool scrapbooking stuff (I was in heaven). She has way more stuff than I do. She left me with a pile of doodles, sketches, ideas for patterns for our new website paperandpiecings.com (which I'm really excited about). I spent Sunday evening past going through the pile and discarded a lot of it...but there's still a stack of it on my coffee table. My next designs will be hockey, pregnancy, robots. I've got a zillion ideas. Can't wait to get these done and see them on the website!

I've been offline for a few days -- had to take the computer into the shop to get a new graphics card installed. Everything seems ticketie-boo now!

I also have to spend some more time figuring out and learning to do the blog thing...but I sure am likin' it. :) 'Til next time.

Welcome to Paper & Piecings.com

Well our new website www.paperandpiecings.com is up and running - albeit in it's infancy. I'm excited about this new endeavour! Back again later....

Welcome !

This is me...checking out my new blog. I'm here for the first time and I'm really quite new at this.