B-E-A-Utiful Blogs

My hairdresser sent me on a bit of a blog-hop yesterday. I started at the blog of a local wedding photographer that she had worked with in the past called Pixel Magix. So having a little poke around on their blog I found this post . . . . OH MY!!!! I know this is soooo cliche, but seriously, do yourself a favour and invest the time to check out all the beautiful, inspirational blogs that they list. Fabulous photography, fabulous style, fabulous ideas - truly inspirational. Obviously all wedding themed and totally gorgeous.

Here are some of my favourite images from my bloggy adventure:

From: Ruffled, Photographer: Adrienne Gunde

From Life From: 'I Do' It Yourself, Credits: See this post From Life From: West Aussie Wedding, Photographer: Unknown From Life From: Kiss The Groom, Photgrapher: Elizabeth Messina From Life Hope you have as much fun as I did :)

From Blog Bits

Sneaky Peeky . . . .

Just thought I would share a sneak peak of this month's CT LO for WW1 (wow I hope you all speak scrappers' code LOL).

From Scrapping Stuff

Of course we have to wait until Susan posts the criteria up in a couple of weeks time before I can reveal the whole thing (colours included)

Stay Tuned :)

From Blog Bits

And the Winner Is . . . .

Rochelle La'Brooy McIver!!!!!!

From Life

Congrats Rochelle you are the winner of the Raw Chipboard RAK. Start stalking your postman 'cos a parcel is on its way!

From Blog Bits

LO Share

Just wanted to share my most recent LO. This is my offering for this month's WIOIN Sketch Blog Challenge. Have I told you much I luuuurve challenge blogs??? probably not in the last 5 minutes huh? Well I do, I love the inspiration I find there.

Anyway, here is the sketch

From Scrapping Stuff

And here is my version of it.

From Scrapping Stuff

From Scrapping Stuff

From Scrapping Stuff

I have finally figured out why I have been so unhappy with my last few sketch interpretations. Duh! I like negative space. So I just have to shrink or scale the sketch down so that it works for me. I'm not slow am I? Now that I have had this revelation, I can't wait to take on another sketch :)

Aaahh, so many ideas - so many chores!!!!!

Finally, another reminder to scrappers to comment on this previous post to be in with a chance to win this RAK:

From Scrapping Stuff

Tell your srappy friends to 'cos I really want to send this stuff to a new home!

Thanks for stopping by!

From Blog Bits

Dinner Last Night - Recipe Share

Classic Shepherd's Pie

Classic winter warming family favourite

From Food

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon Welly Boot Extra Virgin Olive Oil


• 1 brown onion, halved, finely chopped


• 1 clove garlic, crushed


• 1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped


• 2 celery sticks, trimmed, finely chopped


• 3 rashers bacon, finely chopped


• 500 grams Beef Mince


• 2 tablespoons plain flour


• 500m l (2 cups) beef stock


• 1 dried bay leaf


• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce


• 1 tablespoon tomato paste


• Salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the Mashed Potato

• 4 kg mashing potatoes, halved (unpeeled)


• ¼ cup unsalted butter


• ⅓ cup double cream


• Melted butter, to brush

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, carrot, celery and bacon. Cook stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add beef mince and cook, stirring to break up any lumps, for 5 minutes or until mince changes colour.

Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until combined. Add stock, bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until sauce thickens. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile: Boil the halved or chunked (but unpeeled) potatoes in a large pan of lightly salted water. When they are soft enough to mash, drain them thoroughly then push the potato pieces through a ricer.

With a wooden spoon, beat in the warm cream and butter and season with salt, pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg, to taste.
Spoon lamb mixture into a 2L (8-cup) capacity ovenproof baking dish. Top with mashed potato and use a fork to spread over mince mixture. Brush with butter. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until mashed potato is golden brown. Serve immediately

TIP: To save on preparation time, I using the chopping blade of my food processor for the onion and garlic. Then while they are still in the bowl I switch to the dicing/chipping blade for the celery and carrot. Also, I like to use Prima pre-diced bacon from the small goods section of the supermarket. Minutes of chopping and dicing has now become mere seconds!

Scrappers, don't forget to check out this post to be in the running to receive a raw chipboard RAK!

From Blog Bits

Raw Chipboard RAK!!!

So I was going through my chipboard stash this morning searching for the perfect piece to finish off a LO that I am working on, when it occurred to me that I am shuffling past the same stuff over and over again. Stuff that is still good, but that frankly I am bored of seeing LOL.

So then I thought, why not have an RAK? I mean, everyone else is doing it, right?

This is what's up for grabs

From Scrapping Stuff

Package includes:

• Buzz & Bloom
• Collections
• Scrapware
• RW Lasercuts
• Bella
• And random stuff that I can't remember!

So if you are interested in adding to your chippy stash, leave a comment on this post and I will draw a winner next Saturday 17th October 9:00am WST (Aust). Internationals welcome :)

From Blog Bits

Weeding Fever

Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, I spent the entire day weeding today - and I loved every minute of it. Weird huh?

Let me start from the beginning :) I have been feeling a bit icky for the last couple of days. As is my usual plan of action when I'm sick, I just ignore it and hope it will go away. But unlike the norm, I had been getting progressively worse. So at four o'clock this morning, unable to swallow without crying out in pain and fighting a fever :( I trundled off to the hospital, leaving the family sleeping peacefully.

Turns out I have a raging case of tonsillitis/pharyngitis. I mean the doctor actually used the word pustules! Eeewwww!!! I feel slightly vindicated though. You know how you are never really quite sure if you are just being a big baby in a "Is this really as bad as I think it is???" kind of way?

Lovely, lovely doctor prescribed some lovely, lovely medication and was feeling normal (if not slightly high - gotta love those Panedine Forte LOL) in no time.

So back to the weeding. It was a really beautiful morning, so after getting dosed up on pain killers, antibiotics and steroids (the medicated not anabolic type LOL) I thought a bit of sunshine would do me good. So why not do some weeding, I mean we haven't done any all winter, right? And the result:

From Life

I came in to shower, make lunch and have a little rest. Then went back out until it got too dark. Now usually I am not a very committed gardner. I hate getting my hands dirty - no really! So I put it down to the pink gloves LOL.

A slightly amusing post script though. I didn't realise until I came in this evening that this was the state of the shorts I was wearing - no, I know about the bleach stains. At the risk of sounding terribly vulgar; check out the crotch :$

From Life

Erotic gardening wear? I think not! It actually doesn't look as bad in that photo as it is irl. I mean that baby was wide open! Sorry, vulgar again. Thank God I was only doing the back yard!!!!

Mmmm, perhaps the medication is having a stronger effect than I first though ROFLOL!

Thanks for stopping by!

From Blog Bits

Did you guess???

The new challenge at White With 1 has been revealed. Did you guess what the colour scheme was from the sneak peeks in this post? If you did you are very clever :)

From Scrapping Stuff

From Scrapping Stuff

From Scrapping Stuff

This month it is White with Duck Egg Blue and Distressing.

This was a really interesting colour to work with. I know everyone has a bit of a different idea of what duck egg blue is. So I used Google images to get a general idea. Then with that in mind I trotted down to my local hardware store and picked up a few paint chips. I assembled all the gear from my stash that seemed like it was in the same colour family and set to work designing my LO.

I’m not sure if you noticed, but I haven’t used any PP. Just the paint chip! Not my original intention, but hey – it seems to work.

Looking forward to seeing some of you guys have a crack at this one - pardon the pun :$

TFL

From Blog Bits