Celebrating Earth Day

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Happy Earth Day! We try to do our part in our home to be kind to Mother Earth, but I know we can do more. It’s not like we’re the Begley family, hehe, but we’re learning. Conserving water and recycling are considered typical now. Last year, I brought the little ones to our local Earth Day celebration, but this year we missed it since we were celebrating First Communion.

So to combine efforts, I transplanted spider plants for last Saturday’s favors. Spider plants are so easy to take care of and have been known to actually help purify the air! I’ve started plantlets by rooting them in water and had good luck with planting them direct into soil which it what I did this time around. To dress it up for centerpieces, I used squares of plastic wrap (to keep water from spilling out, not-so-earth-friendly, sorry) and gift wrapping paper to cover up the plastic pots I saved from last year’s gardening. Reusing is good, no? They look like little Chinese take-out boxes, and looked cute on the tables. Even Martha’s doing it – check here.

Other earth-friendly projects to try out can be found below! Check them out! Let me know which ones you’re trying. You know me, I’ll try everything I can.

Earth Day Carnival at Craft Critique (my latest review is also here)

Gift Bow from a magazine at How About Orange

T-shirt necklace from chictopia.com (saw something similar on Martha Stewart recently)

A Weekend of Firsts

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My first born…

…celebrated her First Communion. Walking down the aisle with her, seeing her wear communion veil I wore, I thought, this isn’t the first time you were all dressed up in this church.

We attended our first craft show together, a first of many mother-daughter crafty outings I hope.

With Laura (Bugawumps.blogspot.com)

And she played in her first soccer game.

Am I a soccer mom yet? I think not. It was the first time I screamed out loud, “GO, ABBY! RUN!!! Get the BALL!!” but not the first time I’ve cheered her on. That’s every day: when she leaves the car (Bye, Mom!) and runs off to school, when she’s working really hard on her homework or a project, when she’s sitting with her little brother and reading a book to him, when she tells me a funny joke and she’s messing around with her dad. Go, Abby!

Self-Binding Receiving Blanket

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I’ve learned another trick – self-binding blanket! I didn’t know it would be as simple as it was. There are plenty of resources around, but I found these to be the most helpful.

Everyday Mom

Piece N Quilt

Getting ready for hosting family and friends to celebrate Abby’s first communion this weekend. I’ll be back next week with the reception, a bunch of recipes and crafts!

Happy Monday!

Baby Shower Card

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It’s taken me this long to recover from Easter weekend. I ate too much. I exercised too little. The kids were delirious at the dinner table last Saturday night when we celebrated my uncle’s birthday at an Italian restaurant known for their incredibly generous portions. Then we had brunch Sunday morning after Easter mass. Glorious, isn’t it, especially when it’s good food? I felt okay up until Sunday night… when I put on my pj’s to sleep and felt like a blown-up beach ball about to burst at the seams. Sunday morning should’ve clued me in when I woke up and wasn’t hungry until 11:00 AM.

But, besides birthdays and Easter, it’s baby shower season! We have 11 pregnant friends, and they’re all delivering between May and August of this year. Quite the “Year of the Tiger“! And this card, no stamping needed!

  • 8-1/2″ x 11″ cardstock (Bazzill Basics: Hazel)
  • Four cardstock squares in a contrasting color 3/4″ x 3/4″ (I used black. Brown would have been nice.)
  • 3″ x 11″ piece of coordinating patterned paper (blue skies/so happy together by American Crafts)
  • Rub-on letters (close to 3/4″ tall)
  • Equipment: paper cutter, adhesive

1. Take your solid color cardstock, lay landscape and cut off about 1 centimeter. Save the strip. (Yes, I switched to metric.) Making the paper 27 cm wide makes it easier to measure evenly. Now cut 9 centimeters off. Save that scrap. With the remaining 18 cm, fold in half. The card should be 9 cm x 11″. This fits into a regular business size envelope.

2. From the large scrap, cut four 1″ x 1″ squares (a.k.a. inchies).

3. Use rub-on letters to spell “baby” on contrasting 3/4″ squares. Adhere to the 1″ squares.

4. Cut a 3″ x 11″ piece from the patterned paper. Center and adhere onto card front.

5. Place and adhere “baby” onto the cardfront.

6. Take the tiny strip of cardstock saved from Step 1 and glue that to the cardfront, also. In your own penmanship write the word “Welcome”. I repeated the word, separating it with a dot. (kind of like: welcome • welcome • welcome)

I’m thinking of featuring some bread recipes next week, but I might be a bit busy with Communion activities… only 10 more days!

Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

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Back to the daily grind! My husband and I went away for a little “stay-cation” in the city. It was really nice not having a schedule, but we did miss our kids. I’ll be sharing some foodie moments from the weekend another time… haven’t downloaded the pics, yet.

When I was little, I actually liked vegetables. Maybe it was because my mom cooked them in and with delicious sauces or gravy which was really good with a bowlful of sticky white rice. My kids aren’t like that, and it’s a little disheartening that they don’t like veggies as much as I did at their age. I’m hoping they grow out of it, sooner than later. What is promising is that they enjoy vegetables if they are prepared Chinese-style or somehow Asian. Actually, when I feel the kids aren’t eating well at all, I pull out all the Chinese-Filipino recipes and they magically start eating again. Here’s my recipe for a nice side dish that the three-year old ate with rice. He passed up the chicken main course and ate only this.

  • 3 cups of broccoli – mostly florets
  • 1/4 c. water
  • 2 tbsp. oyster sauce (can get in most groceries)
  • 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  • dash cooking wine
  • 1-1/2 tsp. light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp. vegetable oil
  • 2 cloves garlic crushed
  • 1 tbsp. minced ginger
  • 1 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in 2 tsp. water
  • dash of sesame oil

Combine water, oyster sauce, soy sauce, cooking wine, sugar in small bowl. Mix well, set aside.

Prep the broccoli by blanching – fill pot with enough water to cover broccoli. Get water to boiling first, then place broccoli in pot, cook until bright green, about 1-2 minutes. Drain, rinse with cold water, set aside.

In a wok or pan, heat vegetable oil. Add garlic and ginger and toss until fragrant, but not brown. Next, add the sauce you mixed before, and heat.  Return broccoli to pan and mix in sauce well. Cook for one minute, then add cornstarch mixture to thicken. Add a splash of sesame oil at the end if you’d like, only optional. Stir around, and plate…

Some Birthday Card crafting

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I’ve been hard at work 1) finishing up a product review, my second one, for Craft Critique, 2) trying to schedule a speaker for the NAWIC Chicago chapter, 3) getting Communion invitations together.

In the meantime, we had a few special birthdays to celebrate. It was really fun experimenting with my Copic markers on the cupcake card (shown above). I don’t even have a full blown set, but enough where I can mess around with the shading. Then I felt compelled to pull out my Lumiere paint and start this:

which turned into this… a sort of Griffin and Sabine-Nick Bantock feel. Perfect for the recipient. It wasn’t intentional, either. I so love my Nick Bantock stamps. Two of them are on the card; the archaeological glyph-ish stamp and compass rose.

And what a difference with the details when I used VersaFine ink! Tried the Copic markers again, and then went over the image with a gloss.

Other updates:

  • I was recommended for appointment to the Historic Preservation Commission. I really need to get started on some reading now.
  • Compost container is almost done. I didn’t finish it in class, but all the pieces and parts are here. Wait until you see it!
  • Exercising took a small setback with Daylight Savings. Seriously, I am having such a hard time getting up in the morning, but I got back on the bike yesterday and today.
  • A HUGE thank you to everyone who answered the survey. I used a name randomizer on www.annabet.com for the Midwest Living magazine subscription winners: Elmin Pittges and Sally Chalex.

And, I’d like to introduce a new interactive scrapbooking community, Club Creating Keepsakes! Please check out this link at Craft Critique to learn more and win giveaways!

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