Kuler Challenge

When I was playing around with kuler yesterday, this is the scheme that got me really excited

From Kuler

From Kuler

NB// The colour on the end isn't black, it's actually a really deep grape.

I just love it. So it' going to be what I base my next scrapping project on this week. If you want to come and play with me too I'd love to see your project. It doesn't have to be scrappy, it could be anything crafty! Just leave a link to your blog post/online gallery image in the comments on this post so I can see what you have created. Tell your friends! I'd love to see how these colours inspire the crafty ones out there :)

On an instructional note, Amy has asked how I get the images from kuler. Our main computer at  home is a Mac. I use a screen capture program called Grab. I can take a "photo" of a selection of what is displayed on screen, save it as a TIFF, then open it in a photo editing program to crop and add text.

On a PC the only way I know of is to do a screen cap (Ctrl+Print Screen) then paste (Ctrl+V) into a blank Publisher document. In publisher 2007, you can crop the image using the image tool bar, then right click and select "save as image". This will save just the image as an independent file.

Hope this helps Amy :)

kuler fun

OK so you've heard (or read!) me talk about this site kuler before. Well I have just stumbled across the best feature! If I give kuler a photo of one of my LO's, it will create the colour scheme automatically!!! Then I just need to tweak it to best represent my layout's real life colours.

So here are some I just whipped up (I've just named then after the layout):

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

From Kuler

Cool huh? OK so I'm a nerd, I admit it :P

The ones called patchwork and olive harvest are actually taken from these photos, rather than Layouts.

From Kuler

From Kuler

I'm thinking this might be a really cool way to find colour inspiration for scrapping. That is get a colour scheme from kuler, based on any photo, then scrap a layout using that scheme.

I'm going to do a new post tomorrow with a scheme I'll use for my next project. Anyone wanna join me?

Recipe Share - TUNA MORNAY

From Food

A Family favourite (if your family eats tuna of course!) and straight from the pantry.

Tuna Mornay
Ingredients:

• 1 x 425 gram tin Tuna , (in spring water or brine NOT oil)
• 60 g or 4 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 4 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour
• cayenne pepper & black pepper to taste
• ½ teaspoon mustard powder
• 1 stock cube or 1 teaspoon of stock powder
• 4 spring onions, chopped finely
• 1 cup corn kernels (frozen are fine and easier)
• 2 cups milk
• breadcrumbs
• grated cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Take the pan off the heat while you stir in the flour, peppers and mustard powder. Put the pan back on the heat and cook the flour and butter mixture for 1 minute, taking care not to burn it. Take the pan off the heat again while you add the milk. Stir over low heat while the mixture (a béchamel) thickens. Once it has take it off the heat and stir in the tuna, spring onions, corn and stock powder or crumbled cube.

Pour the mixture into a casserole dish and cover the top with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. Pop into the oven (uncovered) for 20-30 minutes until the onions are soft and the topping is crunchy. Serve with creamy mashed potato and steamed greens.

(Serves 4)

Note: Other vegetables can be added to this. The sauce also makes a great base for other mornays, the chicken and asparagus variation is yummy!

Is anybody out there . . . . ? or Pasta Disaster :)

Yes it has been a looooooong time between posts. Truth be told I was totally unprepared for how busy life was going to become when DS6 started year 1. Between working in the office 2 days-a-week (and the other 10 hours of paid work at home), DT work, housework, homework, soccer training, soccer games, doctors, dentist, counsellors, parent teacher meetings . . . . . well you get the picture.

It's been a total shock to the system. . . . still. . . . and it's May! So blogging has taken a back seat. IF I manage to get up at 5:30am I MIGHT get a chance to check the feeds of all of you (my fave bloggers), but commenting? rarely. And posting on my own blog? Forget it!

I am struggling to keep everything straight in my head.

In fact, how's this for a brain blip? This morning I DID get up at 5:30am. Ironed, put on a pot of porridge for the gang, got myself organised for work etc, etc. Dragged the kids out of the house at 8:20am and went to the neighbours' to pick up for car pool. Ding-Dong . . . . . Knock-Knock. Very perplexed looking Dad answers the door.

Neighbour: "hi"
Me: "Uh, hi is your DD6 ready for school?"
Neighbour: "Uh . . . it's a pupil free day"
Me: "Uhhhhhhh . . . . Oh . . . . uggghhh . . . . .CRAP!"

The thing is, I have been reading the school newsletters and I do remember seeing the pupil free day on the term calendar. It just didn't connect in my brain that that 17th of May was the same as today - the 17th of May.

Lucky for me I have an awesome employer that is alright with my kids lobbing up. As a matter of fact John (Boss) and DD4 sat on the floor of the workshop sorting nuts and bolts into little containers. I think he preferred that to the meeting we were having in the office?

So I'm laughing about it now anyway - what a bimbo!

On to Pasta Disaster

My first attempt at home made pasta using the new pasta machine from MIL for my birthday. I've done gnocchi before (which was yum!), but never pasta.

It looked promising

From Food

But is it just me or does this

From Food

look like entrails?

I would like to say that it tasted OK, but the truth is it was fairly ordinary! And Jaime bloody Oliver made it look so easy!

Well I'm determined, so we'll just put this one down to a learning experience LOL

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope I see you again real soon :)