Inky Fingers

 

Hey all, been a while again...I know...I SUCK! lol.

 

Ok, so todays post is based on making your own ink pad storage.

 

 

I decided to make this today, following a really good sort out of the cove, which was seriously over due...Not even pigs would want to wallow around on my desk, as it was this morning!

 

 

I will refrain from showing you the before and after pictures...I do not want that evidence, of my messy nature out there, for all and sundry to see.

 

 

Ok, so let me get started in showing you how I made my ink pad storage.

 

 

Things you'll need:

A narrow, strong, carboard box, that is slightly wider than your ink pads.

Extra, strong, clean cardboard for shelves

A good, strong glue; I used both acrylic, and hot glue.

Some lovely background papers of your choice, or you can just paint your unit.

 

 

 

I've had the box from one of those 'satnav' holders, from Poundworld, stuck on a shelf for a while now, as I have an aversion to throwing good cardboard away, when I know I can make something useful with it. So I decided to make use of it, seeing as it was kind of the perfect size for my, somewhat small, collection of ink pads.

 

 

 

I started off by sticking down any and all tabs that were on the box

 

 

I used Dovecraft Clear Acrylic Glue for this step, but you could use your own preference of glue.

 

 

 

Once they had dried and stuck well, I took one of my larger craft/Stanley knives and carefully cut away the front side of the box

 

 

I may have carried on a little bit too much and nicked my finger...OUCH...please don't do that!

 

Once I had removed the front, I cut about an extra 1cm from the depth of the box, making it the perfect size for my ink pads.

 

 

Once This was done, I then chose some papers to cover it with.

 

 

 

 

 

Once the box was covered, I started making the internal shelves. This was done by taking the front piece, that had been discarded, and cutting it to the depth of the storage part. This was then used as a template for the shelves.

 

 

For the shelves, I took some, un-creased, clean cardboard, and drew around my template, adding 3cm at either side, to allow for the shelf depth, making sure I was working with the lines within the cardboard. This adds stability to the finished product.

 

 

 

 

 

Once done, you should have something that looks like this...

 

 

Carefully score the line with the craft knife, being careful not to go all the way though it.

 

 

Check that your shelf fits, with the two flappy parts facing downwards. See below.

 

 

Also check that your ink pad fits, trim the shelve if needed to fit.

 

Once you are happy with the fit, cut out more shelves in the same way, to fill your storage space.

 

 

Apply hot glue to the sides of your main unit, and stick your shelves in place, lining up the flaps of each shelve, to allow you the correct depth for your ink pads to sit.

 

 

When all this is done, you should wind up with a usable storage unit like the one below.

 

 

As I left the top flap on my unit, it meant I could pierce a new hole through the top, allowing me to hang my unit up, to help save space.

 

 

This was the unit hanging from one of my shelf fronts.

 

 

Of course you don't have to hang it, it should be completely free standing as displayed below.

 

 

And that's it...Easy, right? You can adapt this unit to house a multitude of lovely crafty stash.

 

 

Well, I will TRY and not leave it so long before I post again.

 

I hope you enjoyed this little DIY post, and that you will give this, or something similar a go yourself.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

XOXO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BBQ Dry Rub- a dub dub

Hi guys, I decided to make a batch of Slimming World Friendly, Syn free dry rub mix. It's such an easy process, and can lift any of your pulled meat choices to the next level. I started off with a nice clean, and dry bowl. to which I added a multitude of herbs and spices, of which, I will add at the bottom of this post.

       

It's so easy to make, and I'm sure most of you will already have their ingredients in your store cupboard. 

You can use it to coat meat in, or used to liven up a lasagne or just a general marinade. If not using it straight away, decant it into a sterilised jar, and add a sterilised, tight fitting lid. You can also add a jar cover, and matching label, to make it special, maybe to give as a gift. It should keep for about 4 weeks, if stored in a cool dry place

This stuff is soooo good, and can be used fir so many tasty treats, and it doesn't have to be counted, so go ahead, know your selves out with how much you want to use, and what for.

This is the how to video

You will need:

A clean, dry bowl

A sterilised jar and tightly fitting lid for storing the mix one made.

1/4 cup of smoked paprika

2 tablespoons of cumin

1 slightly heaped tbsp of granulated sweetener

1 level teaspoon of chilli powder ( reduce for less spice, or add more to your taste, if you like plenty of spice)

a good twist of ground black pepper

2 table spoons of garlic powder

1 teasppon of coriander, dried or ground works

1 table spoon of onion powder

1 level Tea spoon of salt

and one vegetable stock cube, crumbled.  

Method:

add all the ingredients onto the bowl, and mix well,

then decant into a sterilised, clean, dry jar and keep the sterilised lid o the side, then screw on, once the jar is full.

if you like, you can add a nice lid cover, and a pretty, matching label.

you can keep this for yourself, or maybe give it as a gift.

The calculation of syns works out at zero, due to the fact that all the ingredients used, falls into the syn free store cupboard basics.                      

Thanks for stopping by again

Love Lindsi

 XOXO               

 

 

 

 

 

Healthy Chinese Salt and Pepper chicken

Hi there everyone,

It's been a while I know,

and I'm hoping to gain your forgiveness by posting this scrummy recipe for Salt and Pepper Chicken.

I've been trying to get my head in the right place, to get me back on track with trying to lose some weight. At the start of last week, it finally clicked, and I have been eating healthily since then, which is just coming up two weeks since I started.

Now the whole house is on the weight-loss wagon.

As a mum, of two, and the wife of a very hungry man, I sometimes struggle to come up with healthy, hearty meals, that suit us all, seeing as my husband is almost like having an extra child, and a fussy one at that.

He gets bored really easily, and soon loses interest in trying to lose weight, so my efforts this time, to help keep him on the wagon, have had to increase.

He has two main weaknesses with food. The first is gravy, he likes it thick, and he likes it in great quantities!

And the second, is Chinese food. He has a food love affair with salt and pepper chips, and salt and pepper chicken.

so the latter will be the main body for this post, with another, for another day, and will deal with his gravy needs.

I'd heard people talking about using instant potato flakes as a kind of breadcrumb coating, and pulled a face, as I couldn't see how it could possibly work, and thought it would just turn to potato flavoured mush.

I was sooo wrong. My first attempts started as a popular slimming word recipe, for KFC style chicken. I adapted this, and made homemade, chicken nuggets, and they were LUSH! they went down a storm, and I, for once had clean plates, with a chorus of requests, asking when I could make it again.

the instant mash, was an instant smash!

I then started to try and think out of the box, and how I could keep my husband interested in his diet, but so he could have what he fancied, and so came up with the idea of doing Salt and Pepper chicken.

It too was a roaring success, so I thought I would share my recipe with you all.

Here's how to make it.

THINGS YOU'LL NEED:

~1/2 cup instant potato flakes

a pinch of chilli powder

~1/4 tsp garlic salt

~1/4 tsp celery salt

~~a good pinch of pepper

2 chicken stock cubes, the bouillon kind

3 cloves of garlic

1 de-seeded fresh red chilli

4 good sized skinless,

chicken breasts,

with all visible fat removed.

1 thinly sliced onion.

fry light

1/2 cup of boiling water

Method

Preheat your oven to 190degrees Celsius/ 375 degrees

Fahrenheit/gas mark 5~in a clean shallow container, add 1/2 a cup of instant mashed potato flakes. add all the herbs and spices and mix well.

add the two stock cubes to the boiling water, and mix well, to create a loose paste.

 prepare the chicken, by trimming it of any visible fat, and cut it into roughly one inch chunks.

spray a baking sheet with the fry light and set up a little production line of the paste mix, the seasoned flakes, the chicken and the baking sheet.

dip the chicken into the stock paste,

then roll in the instant potato flakes mix, and then place on the tray, carry on this process until all the chicken has been coated, and spaced evenly

on the tray.

Then pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, and cook until piping hot all the way through, and golden brown.

While the chicken cooks, chop up the chilli and the garlic, then chop up the onion.

Once the chicken is cooked, heat a frying pan, and spray it with frylight.

throw in the onion, chili and garlic, and stir-fry until the onion just starts to soften.

add in the chicken, and stir-fry for a few minutes longer, to make sure the chicken has been well coated with the onion, chilli and garlic. try a piece to test the seasoning, and add extra salt and pepper should you wish.

then serve it up for a Syn Free version of this takeaway classic

This recipe is a tweak in the eyes of Slimming World, but they say it is down to personal choice. I class it as syn free, as I deduct the potato ratio of my meal to balance out what has been used for the coating, and this 1/2 cup amount is plenty for 4 portions.

and that's it, simple salt and pepper chicken

Here's the YouTube video accompaniment for this post

Disclaimer: Please be mindful though, if you do decide to tweak, and remember that if your weight-loss slows right down, or stops, tweaks should be the first thing that you revive and take out of your meal.

If you would like to try this recipe, but don't want to tweak, then you can always use breadcrumbs from your healthy b choice, using wholemeal bread crumbs. Failing that, eave off the coating if you are at all worried. It will still taste great

 Meals like this are now helping me and my husband on our weight-loss journey, as he still feels like he's had a real treat.

until next time...

XOXO

Just one Gelato...well 12 actually

Ok, so it's been a while since I posted, and in my absence, I have missed my first anniversary of blogging.

 

 

 

So I really am going to kick my own ass and start blogging again...or at least try.

 

 

So my post today is going back to my basic principles of saving money.

 

I have recently delved into the depths of art journaling and have completed my first double page spread. I'm not ready to show my efforts just yet, but would like to share my inspiration

 

Vicky Papaioannou 

 

This lady is AMAZING!

 

She has loads of fabulous videos covering a huge array of crafting techniques, one of which is her fantastic art journaling.

 

I have watched countless hours of her footage, and I longingly perve over her extensive materials list.

 

I digress...as usual.

 

As usual, my crafting budget is not very big, so I am always looking for alternative materials, or cheaper versions of the expensive products. I decided to look up Faber Castell Gelatos, and my jaw hit the floor...

 

Now I know many of you will think the average of £18 per set of bright's, isn't all that bad, but I can't justify that price, when I have a family that comes first.

 

So they got added to my ever expanding wish list.

 

Then, today, I was browsing through the Lidl (yes, the supermarket, and yes, I'm really that sad) app and came across a pack of children's GEL crayons, and my mind started racing. I read the description and then compared it to the write u for the FC Gelatos.

 

Both a creamy, gel wax, both water soluble, both with the twist holder...

 

 

 

yet miles apart in price.

 

I batted my eyelids at my husband and he smiled and grabbed the car keys.

 

 

I usually miss out on the bargains that can be bought at lidl, and their elusive glue gun with stand, always seems to be just before I get paid, then there are never any left come payday.

 

 

 

This time however I was lucky, and they still ad them in stock.

 

YEY!!!

 

 

they came in  a case, with a proper clip shut lid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 
 

not the best pictorial evidence, but hey, I was so friggin' excited to share this with you all. 

 

 

So how much did this set of 12 bright 'gel wax crayons' set me back?

 

A grand total of £2.99!

 

now I'm crap at maths, but even I know this is a bargain, and a saving of nearly £15.

 

I'll try not to leave it as long before posts next time.

 

XOXO

 
 
 
 
 

Bagain Betty Meets Bebunni

This week has been a week for bargains.

 

Last week, I decided to list my last three 'My Child' dolls on Ebay. Back in the 80's these dolls were the bee's knee's, and most little girls wanted them.

 

Now three decades later, these beautiful dolls are classed as vintage, and very collectable. I had some of them, that-shamefully- were collecting dust. So I brushed them off, combed their hair, and give them new, hair bows. I then popped their pictures on the major league selling page. I didn't want to mess around with auctioning them off, and set them at Buy it Now. Within a few hours, the first two sold, with the last being bought the following day. I made a tidy profit of £85. I couldn't use it all for craft stash, unfortunately, as there were other things that the money was needed for more, but I did have £20 of it.

 

I really wanted to make it stretch as much as possible, but wanted lots of things at the same time.

 

So off I went to browse the web for bargains.

 

My first stop, was to crafting.co.uk

 

The true home of Tattered Lace.

 

I decided to take a chance and purchase a mystery die set. They were all described as being mini dies, but from what I know, and from photo's that friend's have shared, on the crafting facebook pages that I frequent, there's nothing, actually, that small about them. These, when they are delivered, should include a selection of dies, twenty in total, and include sentiment dies, amongst other things.

This bargain cost me a total of £12 with free P&P...£12...for twenty dies!

 

My next stop was Crafters Companion.

 

Crafter's Companion always seem to have a sale on, and sell some pretty awesome stash, for really good prices. I purchased their last Crafters Inspiration magazine. This was filled with free stuff

 

Free goodies:

 

A Sheena Douglas, Fabulous Florals embossing folder.

 

A stamp set, including Bebunni Love, and Angelica and Adam images, with sentiments.

 

A Wirework crochet set.

 

A gorgeous paper pack, and the CD ROM, to be able to reprint them all, once used.

 

And a Video Resource DVD containing over three hours of tutorials.

 

This little lot cost me a grant total of £3.89. Crafter's Inspiration, usually sells for £9.99 per issue, but if you're prepared to wait, until the next issue is due out, they reduce the last edition printed, to-usually- £3.00. Postage is also £1. But if you sign up to their members reward scheme, you get a discount on top. Now this only saved me 11p, but it all adds up.

 

But one of my best buys was bought, from the baking section at Quality Save.

 

I know I now have a die cutting machine, but I am yet to buy a doily die. So I couldn't help but grin, when I found a pack of thirty doilies, in three different sizes, and white, for 49p!

 

The largest size will be too big, but the two smaller size ones are perfect, for anything up to an 8x8 card, or even bigger, should you have means to make ginormous cards.

 

The other perfect thing about these doilies is, because they're white, I can colour them up, with my promarkers, in any colour I want. This means I can colour co-ordinate them, with the colours I use to colour a digi image.

 

So I bought them :-)

 

 

 

My total for everything I bought, including 20 mini tattered lace dies, 30 doilies, a paper pack, a tutorial DVD, a papercrafting CDROM, a stamp set and an embossing folder, came to a grand total of..

 

£16.38!

 

My Crafter's Inspiration Magazine arrived today, and I wasted no time in ripping it open, to find my new treasures.

 

The papercrafting CDROM and paper pack, contains images from The Makey Bakey Mice, Bebunni, the vintage floral collection, Rachelle Anne Miller, Angelina & Adam, Love & Romance and Special Birthdays Card Collections.

 

I have seen so many peeps posting Bebunni Cards, and have found the images totally adorable.

 

So the first card I made had to include one of the lovely images, within my new paper pack.

 

I used my Basic Square die, from Joy Crafts, to cut out squares, from the paper pack, and stuck these down onto a piece of white card, to create a patchwork effect. I then matted and layered this onto some silver mirri card. I wrapped a boarder of pink ribbon, (bought in a sewing shop for pence) around the card, then added a second smaller band, of cream, lacey ribbon, from a ribbon pack from The Works. 

 

I then took one of the smallest Doilies, from the pack, and coloured it, using a letraset promarker, (colour listed below)

 

I cut out the Bebunni image and layered it onto silver mirri crad, then took the same image, but smaller, and layered this onto the first image, using foam pads.

 

I used some of the ivory, Jute Shapes, that I purchased from Poundland, a while ago, and added pink buttons to the centres. The buttons were from a multi-coloured pack from The Works, also £1. I die cut some leaves from green mulberry paper, and added these to the arrangement of flowers, which had been stuck down with hot glue.

 

I made a pink bow, from matching ribbon, on my makeshift Afro Comb Bow Maker, and added a Jute flower, adorned with a pink button, matching the ones previously mentioned, to the centre of the bow, and again, used hot glue to stick it in place. I added a simple sentiment to the bottom corner, and added the flowers and leaves to tie it in with the rest of the card. I finished it off with one, single, pink button in the top right corner.

 

 

 

My finished Card.

 

 

 

Letraset Promarker used:

 

Baby Pink.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by

 

XOXO

 

Just as an added note: I recently found out that the lovely, non other than Sara Davis, from crafters companion, included my card (the one above, that I posted on Instagram) in one of her monthly news letters!! EEEP. XOXO

Busy Bee and Period Pains

Don't be fooled by the name folks, it's just my need for quirky titles, and nothing to do with yucky lady problems, lol.

 

I have been a busy bee over the past month. I've made numerous cards (which I have just donated to our local spiritualist church) and been busy designing more background papers, based on past 'periods of time'...see what I did there?

 

I will start this post, and base it on a card I made yesterday. And will post the others over the next few days.

 

I printed of my little Bumble Baby image a while ago now. I took time to colour it properly and loved the finished look.

 

Then it got shelved, and I didn't get around to using it, until yesterday.

 

The card came about, as a result of a 'duh' moment, of which, I have many.

 

I was looking over my little collection of dies, day dreaming about buying more, and wondering what sort I would choose. I thought about a hexagonal one, so I could make a kind of patchwork background. I was all in favour of this daydream purchase, and the first thought that popped into my head, was that I would finally be able to use my little bumble baby! It was only then that my eyes fell on the small set of Joy Crafts, basic square die, which has the cutest, little stitch detail, which embosses, while being cut.

 

Straight away, I pulled out my cuttlebug, some lemon, and pale grey cardstock and set myself off cutting.

 

I did some basic matting and layering, using the bargain mirri card, that I got 20 sheets of, for 79p, from Quality Save (aka home bargains) and poundland, 200gsm, white cardstock. I made a chequered pattern on this, using the quilting squares, and stuck them down, using Dovecraft, ultimate craft glue.

 

For the topper, I cut out a circle of card, using the XCut circle cutter set, then embossed this with a sizzix embossing folder. Matted this onto more of the mirri card, and stuck my little Bumble Baby onto this. this was then added to the top, left corner of the card, after being backed with a DoCrafts doily, this was coloured, with a yellow Letraset Promarker, to tie it in with the theme.

 

I received a die cut swap, from a lovely lady on facebook, but have unfortunately forgotten the name of the die. This was coloured grey, again, with Promarkers, then stuck it to the bottom left corner.

 

I added three, differing size buttons, (from The Works) and glued them into the bottom left corner, and a fourth, in the top right corner.

 

For the sentiment, I cut out a scalloped edge circle, using the outer die, from a free die I received, when I signed up to the Tonic Gold members club (which was free, to sign up for, by the way). I hand wrote the sentiment, in black ink, stuck this to the card, and finished it off, with a yellow bow, made using an afro comb (another post will be done for this little money saving idea, another day), and some yellow ribbon, bought in Poundland.

 

 

finished card :-)

 

Things used:

 

Generic white card blank.

 

Poundland, white 200gsm card.

 

Silver holo card.

 

A die that I will find out the name of, lol.

 

Yellow buttons, from a mixed colour bag of buttons, from The Works

 

A Docrafts doily

 

A sizzix embossing folder.

 

Yellow ribbon, from a mixed pack, again, from Poundland.

 

Joy Crafts, stitch detailed, basic square creatables.

 

and my own Design, Baby Bumble digi image.

 

Letraset Promakers used:

 

Summer Sun.

 

Black.

 

Ice grey 1,3 and 5.

 

Cinnamon.

 

Blush.

 

Sunkissed Pink.

 

Cloud Blue.

 

Sky Blue

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

XOXO