Combining Art and Scrapbooking - Layout Share

This year, once again, I have added doing some art to my goals list (I did this last year and only lasted a month before the motivation wore off and we were back at school and work). I also want to challenge myself to try different types of art and use different materials that I haven't before. Often what you draw or paint just gets tucked away and never looked at again, so I thought this year I might try and make what I draw or paint more meaningful and add it in some way to my scrapbook pages which then go in the Project Life album for the year.  So far, so good. I have managed to do two pieces. Combining them on a scrapbook page is a bit of a challenge though, but I do enjoy a challenge!

This first page includes an oil-pastel drawing of myself - a self portrait. I sprayed it with fixative before adding it to the page, and ended up trimming off some of the edges and loosing a bit of the background (LOL the wine bottles in the barrel behind me) to fit it on the page.  Looking at the picture I think I failed to capture the fact that I was smiling, and also I think I made my face too narrow at the bottom, but overall I am happy with the results.

This next page includes a watercolour painting of the Japanese Gardens which we visited with Mel and Kate on the way to Dubbo last week. I have never actually done a watercolour painting before, so I was pleased with the results, considering I am not a very good painter, and normally resort to drawing rather than painting.

Off to create some more art....
Laters Di :-)

Kitchen Kapers - Week 4

Monday

Started the week with a good dose of vegetables in a chicken, basil and pepper stir fry.

Tuesday

Feeling kind of guilty that I am meeting friends for dinner tonight, and Dave and the girls are staying at home and having pizza, so I made them baked eggs with Dukkah and toast solidiers for lunch, followed by banana brulee with icecream.

Meanwhile I went to dinner at Morks Restaurant at the Kingston Foreshore. It was labelled as Contemporary Thai Food, we shared some entrees and some mains. I wouldn't say it was heavily Thai - it was tasty, but didn't have the flavours I would normally associate with Thai food - ie. coriander, mint, chilli, fish sauce etc, and I must admit I was still hungry afterwards.

This is what we tried:

Entrees:
Pan seared scallops with pig ear terrine (this was very tasty and probably my favourite)

Pan seared king prawns, pork and prawn wontons, ginger,and soy emulsion, pork master stock

Balls of blue swimmer crab and chicken mince on egg noodles seasoned with kacap manis, soy sauce and chilli. 

Mains

Hunter ’s plate - Fried spatchcock with young chilli relish, fried beef ribs with nham jeaow sauce, sticky rice

Char grilled chicken, traditional style marinade, with ginger and fermented bean relish, master stock poached daikon, jasmine rice scented with ginger and garlic

Grilled Red Mullet served tomato, red onion, coriander mint and chilli garlic dressing

Wednesday - Thursday

The girls and I went on a road trip with our friends Mel and Kate to Dubbo for three days. So it was all about eating out. Wednesday night we had take-away Thai food. Thursday night we had Pizza Capers for dinner.

Friday

Feeling a bit tired on return to Canberra from Dubbo, so I whipped up a quick vegetable soup.

Saturday

Saturday we went back to Goulburn for Nee's 30th birthday which included a BBQ dinner, with some yummy Filipino food included in the mix.

Sunday

Get didn't get home from Goulburn until 6pm, so we made a quick stop at the shop to get ingredients for a spaghetti bolognese - used sherry in it (Apera as it is called now in Australia) as I had run out of red wine - tasted great.

Layout Share

Another couple of layouts to share today.

This one has been in the works for a couple of weeks - just waiting for me to get printer ink and print the smaller photograph. This layout is of Eliza and her Floriade performance with Vocal Group at School.

This next one is from my brother and I's recent birthday party. We quite often have a combined birthday with family as our birthdays are only 10 days apart ( plus 2 years ).

This one is of the family goals for 2014.  I lifted the goals out of the girls diaries - and I thought they were awesome - and very indicative of where they are at, at the moment. Dave had to really stretch to get 5 goals - he has never really been a goal setter.

Still finishing off layouts for 2012 in Eliza and Jasmin's albums. This one is of the Christmas Photo with Santa to go in Eliza's album. We didn't manage to get a photo with santa this year, but I do have some really nice photographs I took of the girls around the Christmas tree and making ginger bread so I will use these to do their 2013 Christmas pages.

Another for Eliza's album from our Fiji trip - in this case to an Island called South Sea Island. A tiny island you could walk around in less than 10 minutes (I think it took 6 minutes):

Happy Scrappin'
Di :-)

Kitchen Kapers Week 3

Monday

Started off with Jazz's Big Day Out today, so we ate lunch out (she choose to go with the Nachos from Guzman and Gomez), we were to have dinner out as well, but we decided we were not hungry at all, so we would delay her Big Day Out dinner until Wednesday night.

On account that I hadn't got anything out for dinner, I decided on this fairly unlikely pairing of Homemade chicken and corn noodle soup - as well as some Turkish Bread, which I topped with cherry tomatoes, feta and Parmesan cheese, crushed garlic and mint. I know - not normally a combo you would have together. I would normally serve this type of bread with a homemade vegetable soup. I always keep shelf fresh noodles in the pantry so it's pretty easy to whip up a homemade chicken noodle soup - and throw in whatever I have in the fridge, today that was shallots and corn cut off the cob. Other great things to put in include bok choy, mushrooms, tofu, cooked chicken, to name a few.

Tuesday

Waiting at home today for TNT to come and pick up Eliza's violin (as she decided she didn't want to do it this year). I had some rather sorry looking bananas in the fruit basket so I made these into Banana Bread. I use a simple banana bread recipe from Donna Hay's "No Time to Cook" cookbook. It talks about making wells and stirring eggs in and so forth, but I dump all the ingredients into my food processor and blend them - so quick to do! I have in the past also added frozen raspberries to this recipe as well - it makes a delicious banana and raspberry bread.

Our favourite way to eat this bread is with drizzling of maple syrup and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

Tuesday night's dinner was one of my favourite slow cooker recipes from the Woman's Weekly Slow Cooker Cookbook - Slow Cooked Best Bolognese. Made with prosciutto, carrot, celery, fresh tomatoes, pork and veal mince (although this time I used Pork and Beef mince), basil..... it's delicious.

Wednesday

Wednesday's dinner was at Hero Sushi, sushi train in Civic. Jasmin really loves sushi, so she wanted to go somewhere a little different for the dinner from her Big Day Out (which was actually on the Monday).  Dave recommends the Prawn Tempura, I had lots of choice with a huge number of sashimi plates to choose from, Jazz loved the black rice and tuna rolls, as did Eliza who also managed to snaffle the only bowl of edamame beans off the train!

Thursday

We had leftovers of the Slow-cooked Bolognese - tastes even better after a couple of days!

Friday

I was feeling a tad lazy and we had hamburgers. I'd like to say I made the hamburger patties (and normally I do), but I just picked up a pack of the pre-made ones at the supermarket. Jazz likes the little mini angus beef patties- so we had some of these as well.

Saturday

We had family for lunch - we caught up with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and aunt-in-law for lunch. My mother-in-law - Di, made me a chocolate cake to celebrate my birthday.

We were going to eat lunch alfresco, but it was just too hot, so we ate inside in the air-conditioned house.

On the menu were:

- Prawns with seafood dressing
- Nigella's chicken strips with creamy mustard dressing
- Chargrilled steak with a salt, garlic and herb crust, salsa verde, radish and cucumber pickle
- Asparagus, haloumi and grape Salad with a mustard vinaigrette
- Potato Salad which Gen made for me - Yummo!
- Sangria

Followed of course with the Chocolate Cake made by Di - as per usual, it was delicious and not too rich:

Sunday

YAY - my birthday, so no cooking for me (at lunch time anyway). I celebrated my birthday with lunch at Flint in the Vines, a winery in Murimbateman. I had a lovely lunch and the dishes I ate were delicious. I started with the Citrus Cured Ocean Trout, followed by Lamb Backstrap and Ragout with wilted spinach and sweet corn puree, finishing with the Petit Four plate (which I shared with Dave).

Tonight - I'm pretty sure I cannot fit anything more in my stomach! I'm sure the girls will want something to eat - I'm thinking a bowl of pasta with parmesan cheese might do the trick!

Happy Eating
Di :-)

Jasmin's Big Day Out

This week it was Jasmin's turn for her big day out.

We started the day at Questacon - playing on all the exhibits, as well as checking out the earthquake room, lightening strike and we even watched a Dinosaur puppet show. Jazz thought she would try the free fall drop as well, but chickened out at the last minute (she has done it before no problems, when she was about five or six, and had no problems with her mortality!).

Around 12:30 we met David in the city, where Jazz, Dave and I decided on GYG again for lunch - cannot beat their Beef Nachos - so yum. Eliza doesn't like Mexican so she opted for chicken nuggets from KFC.

Then it was time to head to the Premiere cinema at Dendy to see The Hobbit: Desolation of Smoag. Dave had pre-bought a heap of candy for the girls to eat, whilst he was waiting to meet us for lunch. This was the first time that the girls have been to the premiere cinema - so they were most impressed with the reclining comfy chairs as well as being delivered drinks during the movie (I splurged and went with a Margarita).

Afterwards we were to go to dinner - but after a brief discussion we decided to delay that until Wednesday night as none of us were hungry!

Wednesday night Jasmin selected Hero Sushi in Civic for dinner.

The Sushi train was massive, Jazz decided to try a couple of dishes she wouldn't normally have - including black rice sushi, she also tried these croquettey things (we weren't sure what they were made of).

LOL - we made Dave try these rolls - turned out they had sun-dried tomato and cream-cheese in them, and they were rolled in herbs, and topped with olives.

The girls really wanted to try the desserts - we tried to warn them that we thought they would be quite bland (as we tried a few in Tokyo), not to be deterred they tried them, and surprise surprise, they didn't like them!

 

 

That concluded "Jasmin's Big Day Out", which became a big day, and a night.

 

Looking forward to Dave's Big Day out (I'm not sure he has decided what to do as yet!)

Di :-)



Layout Share

Playing catch-up with a few layouts to go in the girls albums. These first ones are or their school albums, and are of their book week dress up day. They had to go as vampires of course, and the only vampire books they have read (or partially read) are "My Sister the Vampire" series.  They both went as Ivy.

Used a mask and glitter mist spray for this one - sewing around three of the stars:

Lots of sewing on this grid-style layout for Jasmin's album:

These two layouts are of the girls in their trick-or-treat outfits at Halloween. This was the first time they have ever been out trick or treating!

This one is for Eliza's album:

And this one is for Jazz's album:

Happy Scrappin'
Di :-)

Kitchen Kapers Week 2

Monday

We started the week with these Chicken Patties with Cabbage and Yoghurt Salad and char-grilled pineapple. Only thing missing really was some rolls or something.

Tuesday

Nan and Aunty Margaret came to visit so we had Chicken Saltimboca with rosemary potatoes and tossed salad, followed by leftovers of Jasmin's Orange Granita and Chocolate ice-cream. That night we had left-over summer bolognese from Week 1.

Wednesday

We had the trusty Tuna casserole with vegetables. The girls love tuna casserole, and often offer to make it for me as they know how it's made. It is really simple:

Mix together in a casserole dish - a can of "cream of" soup (we normally use cream of chicken), a large tin of tuna (drained), 3/4 of a cup of rice cooked, 1 cup of grated tasty cheese, 3/4 cup of frozen peas, 3/4 cup of frozen corn pieces, a chopped onion (optional). Add two crushed weetbix to the top of the casserole, sprinkle with tasty grated cheese and cook in the oven at 200 degrees until the top is melted and slightly browned.

Thursday

Jeff and I celebrated our combined birthdays (his on the day - mine is in 10 days time). We had a BBQ with all the usual suspects - including marinated chicken breasts, BBQ steak and snags, salads (including the Wombok salad as well as a watermelon/feta cheese/pine nut and rocket salad). I did make a different birthday cake for us - a red velvet chocolate cake with marshmallow icing and berries, served with a raspberry coulis. The recipe was from the Dec/Jan Donna Hay magazine.

Friday

Jazz is loving having smoothies at the moment, so for breakfast I made her a banana and mango smoothie.

I made these very quick avocado, pesto and egg bruschetta for dinner, the girls had left-over tuna casserole from Wednesday night.

Saturday

Saturday's dinner didn't really work out. I don't have too many kitchen failures, but this was one to add to the list. I attempted to make Adam Liaw's Crispy Beef and Shredded Carrot. It was crispy on the outside, but the meat appeared to be a bit stewed. So it really wasn't that nice. It did look like the picture in the cookbook though LOL!

Sunday

Sunday we had friends for dinner. Here was the menu:

To Start:  Crusty Italian Bread with Dukkah, Blood Orange Vinegar, and Lime Flavoured Olive Oil. Cheese Board.

Al Fresco Mains:  Homemade Nigella's Chicken Nuggets with a Creamy Mustard Dressing, Tandoori Prawns with Mango and Cucumber Salsa, Soy Marinated Steak with Coriander Relish, Chargrilled Pineapple and Haloumi, Shredded Salad (Jamie Oliver recipe from 15 minute meals).

Dessert:  Summer Crumble with Vanilla Ice-cream (the crumble included peaches, nectarine, blueberries, strawberries and passionfruit - the crumble on top included shredded coconut for that summery touch).

I didn't take a lot of pics of the food but here are a couple:

 

Until next week
Happy eating
Di :-)

Eliza's Big Day Out

I'm trying to think of interesting things to do on the school holidays - nothing could compare to going to Singapore or Phuket, but we can still have some fun even though we cannot stray too far from home.

I promised each member of the family that they could organise an entire day, and we would do whatever it was that they planned - as long as it was within Canberra or close to it!

First cab off the rank was Eliza. This is how we spent her day:

In the morning - iPlay (used to be called Tunsa Fun), in Belconnen Mall, for two hours of playing on the arcade machines, dodgem cars and remote control cars.

We stopped for a snack of these ice-cream balls whilst in iPlay.

Hang on mum - Myer men's wear section wasn't on the list!

Dave gave iPlay a miss on account that the colours and neons wouldn't agree with his poor eyes, so he sat at the Shingle Inn for breakfast and then we picked him up from Myer afterwards to go and get lunch.

Eliza's plan for lunch was to have whatever we wanted from the food court. For her it was a happy meal with Chicken Bites and one of those Sprite Frozen drinks. Jazz also had McDonalds, and Dave and I shared some nachos from GYG (Guzmen Y Gomez - who are now in the mall food court YAY! Minus the alcoholic Sangria and Margaritas though :-( ).

After lunch we headed off to the supermarket to pick lollies to take to the cinema:

We saw this (or should I say the girls saw this while Dave and I had a little Nanna nap!)

Aftewards we took Dave home - by that time he wasn't feeling the best and wasn't hungry. So we dropped him at home, and then came back to Sushi Bay on the outside of the mall for the sushi train. The girls loved that they had edamame beans on the train, and they ate a tonne of tuna rolls!

For dessert - we headed next door to Cold Rock (Eliza insists she is going to work here one day!). We took some home for daddy as well.

Thus ends - Eliza's Big Day Out. Next week we will be enjoying Jasmin's Big Day Out.

Di :-)