Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Sunday Breakfast and Weekend Cards

This weekend’s big breakfast was scrambled eggs, papaya, and a croissant. I ditched the home fries. My spouse and I were at the dentist last weekend and they checked his blood pressure, it was high (and I had a cavity). It was not good news. We’re making changes. I’m cutting way back on sugar and he’s cutting down on salt. This past week we’ve been eating a lot healthier. Way more vegetables, whole grains, and less junk. My sweet tooth is still raging, so when I want chocolate, I have dark chocolate. If it’s over 70% I can have it in the home without obsessing about it all day.

I’ve also worked out a few times this week, and not just walking (although I did that too, a 9km-10km walk through the woods). I went for a jog and lifted some weights as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked out. I’m really proud of myself.

I made cards this weekend. You might notice I ended up gluing the happy paper upside down on the card above. OOPS! I messed up that one, but the dog is cute.

The butterfly is a 3D one, that is propped off the card, but presses down to fit in the envelope. I wasn’t sure about that one at first, but now I really like it. I made the left one with an embossing folder. It’s pretty. I will make that one in pink too, with black ink.

The left card in this one is a gift card holder. I really like the paper on that one. The top slides off and reveals the gift card. The second one is an easel style card. There were no instructions or score lines to help. I had to guess and I have no idea if I made it right. I like the card but it was a pain to put together. You can use the dies to make a house in the Winter, or a Halloween house too. I really like how they all turned out, not so much the upside down gumball machine, but the rest were great. I’ll post a link to a video of the supplies I used below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNl0S5vTHlw&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts crafting, Food, sewing, vegetarian

Coffee and Cloaks

It’s a beautiful Sunday so far. The weather called for rain and clouds and it’s been warm and sunny – a beautiful day. I started my day with coffee and puttering around cleaning the kitchen.

My spouse woke up just as I finished cooking breakfast. It was the usual scrambles eggs, home fries in the air fryer, and today a side of sauerkraut. I bought the sauerkraut in this photo from the grocery store, but currently, I’m almost finished fermenting my own (I’ll post about that later this week).

As for the cloak, it’s cute and whimsical, but I felt silly wearing it out. In fact I carried it until I found a quiet spot by the river where my spouse could take some photos. He was weird about it too.

I’m more “free willed” than my spouse, he is my gage for what is socially acceptable. This cloak seems to have crossed the line. I know you’re not supposed to care, but I felt uncomfortable.

Being a warm day, I wasn’t able to judge how good this cloak would be at keeping me warm. It was getting hot wearing it to snap some photos.

It would definitely be more appropriate for cooler weather. I don’t think it would last in long in a Canadian winter against the temperatures. In the above photo I’m holding in closed, but it still stays open around the neck and chest. I used a tie closure made from the cloak fabric. I’m sure a different closure would help with that immensely.

I lined it with taupe coloured satin. I’ve been told satin is really hard to work with, and they are correct. The middle seam of the lining bunched during the sewing process and therefore ended up being short. I should have ripped the seams out and resewed it, but I didn’t, which in turn ended up messing up the drape at the bottom of the cloak.

If I want to fix the problem I would have to either rip out the entire lining and make it again, make the cloak shorter, or add some extra fabric to the lining which would make some strange lines on the inside. You wouldn’t see the inside lining, so that could be done. I’d still have to rip out a lot of the work I did. The cloak is pretty long, it wouldn’t probably be okay to make it a little shorter.

I’m going to leave it the way it is for now. I’m never going to wear the hood up. I like the way it looks down much more. It looked funny on, but the cloak would look incomplete without it. I do like the cloak, but not to wear it casually around. I will wear the crap out of it every Halloween season though.

I can’t wait!

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, The Great Outdoors

Walks, Cards, and Breakfasts

I’m relaxing on the couch on a rainy weekend. I’m still stiff from a 20km walk I did earlier in the week. Only a small portion of the walk was through this pretty treed trail, most of it was on the side of a road. I wasn’t sure if I’d be up for it since the longest walk I’ve done recently was 12km and I was super stiff afterwards. I stopped in a park about halfway through the walk to take a rest for about 15 minutes. It was so cold and windy I didn’t stop as long as I would have liked to. I’ve done this walk before and have been super thirsty and went through a couple bottles of water. Because it was so cold I wasn’t thirsty at all until the next day. Being cold helped. I made it to my goal and rewarded myself with a hot London Fog.

This weekend’s big breakfast was the usual eggs, home fries, and berries. I haven’t used self control at all this week. I ate drive through breakfasts at Tim Horton’s instead of intermittent fasting, ate lots of chocolate and snacks, and ordered take out a lot.

My inlaws gave us a giant bag of potatoes, so I made a big pot of soup. I didn’t follow a recipe. I used half an onion, a mixture of cashew milk and water seasoned with Better Than Boullion, and threw in a bunch of potatoes and boiled everything. Once the potatoes were cooked I tossed in a can of black beans, and leftover spinach. We had it with a whole grain small baguette and white wine. It’s been a carbarific weekend.

I made a bunch of cards this weekend. The rose card is my favourite.

I’ll post a video of the products I used to make them below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdi1qvRpwBY&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, decluttering, Food, weight loss

Breakfast, Cards, and Organization

This weekend the weather was beautiful. It’s finally starting to feel like Spring out there. The mornings were frigid and the afternoons were warm, which I hear is great maple syrup weather. For the big weekend breakfast I made scrambled eggs, with air fryer home fries, blueberries, and humming bird cake.

The humming bird cake came from Kitchen Smidgen and it was delicious. We’ve had it before, it’s one of the best things they make. Eggs and home fries are my favourite weekend splurge. I’ve been sticking with the weekday intermittent fasting. I’m still down three pounds, which is not bad since my birthday week benders of surprise dinners and a couple bags of chocolate eggs (that are gone now). I had gained back the weight and lost it again.

My bathroom drawer finally irked me into decluttering it.

It was a non-functional disaster. My bathroom drawers usually end up this way. Nothing organized, just dumped in a pile in the drawers. Before the pandemic, I was scouring the antique shops looking for decorative boxes or tins to tidy them up. I haven’t been back to one since the virus, I’m not sure they are even open. On Friday, I went on a 12km walk, during that walk I ended up at the MCC Thrift Shop in Kitchener.

This chocolate tin was there for $2.00 and ended up being $0.50 at the check out. It was perfect because the drawers aren’t very deep and this tin is thin. I put all my make up into it. It holds a lot

The drawer looks a million times better. It’s organized and functional.

I’m thrifting a couple things. A facial massager and a makeup bag. I’d like to refinish the bathroom vanity, it has a lot of superficial damage, but that’s a project for a different day.

I made some cards this weekend. I’ll post a video below of what I made and the products I used to make them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K2HGmJZc4c&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Plants

Flowers, Cards, And All The Spring Feels

We had a taste of warm weather this week. It’s cooled back down, but the sun is still going strong. I saw my first robin of the year and one of the local florists had tulips. It’s screaming Spring. Come on double digit weather!

I made a couple more cards. I love love love this rain boot cutting die set. You can make shaker cards and different styles of boots with it. Above are a couple examples. I’m not very into shaker cards, so I rarely make them.

The cloud on this rainbow card is too rough, but other than that I like the card. I fussy cut out a cloud stamp. I would like to add some cloud cutting dies to my card making supplies so I wont have to cut them out myself.

I made a lot of galaxy themed mini envelopes, here are a few examples. As you can see I had a couple sailing themed ones on the mix too. They are perfect for gift cards.

Lastly, any my favourite of the bunch, is this high heel card. The cutting dies layer so perfectly. There were more options for the heel and inside lining, but I think the shoes looked perfect like this. I love the new background I used on this card. It’s perfect for sewing related cards, but it’s versatile enough it works as a general background. I’ll post a link below of a video of the supplies I used to make the cards, and where you can find them online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9uFM__1p7c
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, sewing

Sunday Breakfast, Cloak Update, and Cards

This week’s Sunday breakfast, I made scrambled eggs, homemade scones (recipe here), and homemade clotted cream, in the Instant Pot (recipe here). I’ve made clotted cream in the oven before, but I’ll always be making in the Instant Pot now. It was super easy and turned out exactly the same.

I love clotted cream, but I haven’t seen it around since the pandemic started. In a province full of dairy farmer’s you wouldn’t think it would be hard to get, but we import it from England. It’s super easy to make, I’ll make my own from now on.

I found fabric for the cloak at FabricLand. Just my luck they were having a huge sale! It was still over $70.00 with the thread, cloak fabric, and lining. I am going to cut the tissue paper pattern out, possibly the fabric today. I’ll start sewing it during the week.

It’s been so sunny and beautiful lately. It’s still cold, but being outside is wonderful with all this extra sunshine. I’ve been loving Winter walks.

I made more cards this weekend. These two were my favourite. I’ll post a video of the rest and the supplies I used to make them, below.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food

A Sunday February Morning

I was down three pounds today, probably not after the breakfast I made this morning. We like to have big breakfasts on Sunday and this, or oatmeal is a common one for us. The home fries were done in the air fryer and the croissants were from the grocery store. I’ve never made croissants at home before. My original plan was to make wild sour dough bread, but my wild starter didn’t make it. The recipe I got it from said to use filtered water, but I used tap water (we have extremely hard water where I live) and it never got bubbly. I will try again with distilled water.

Daylight is lasting longer and I’m feeling it. The birds are chirpier, there is more sunshine, and I’m feeling happier. It’s still cold, but there’s something in the air. It was supposed to rain all weekend, but instead there was more sunshine yesterday, and although it’s cloudy today, it’s not raining. We’re going to go for a walk again today, not through the woods, but around the town.

I made cards this weekend.

I love the Autumn one, I made that with water colour paint, stamps, and water colour paper. The shark/whale is hilarious I want to use it often. I do like the peacock one, but it wasn’t quite right. I wish I had a flamingo stamp, or die to go with the palm frond embossing folder I used. My favourite card wasn’t pictured here, I sealed it in an envelope before I took a photo of it. If you want to see it, or what I used to make the cards and where to get the supplies for them, I’ll have it posted in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9nKWBXV2bo
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, sewing

Let’s Talk About Cloaks

Let’s talk about cloaks and why we don’t wear them anymore. I’ve never worn a cloak, but I really want to. I love the way they look, they remind me of fairy tales. I don’t know why we don’t currently wear them. Since I’ve never worn one, I can’t attest to their practicality. There are no arm holes and maybe they aren’t very warm. It might be a pain in the arse having to hold it closed, and how would you carry your handbag while wearing one (if you carry a handbag). Cloaks were the furthest thing on my mind until I went on YouTube.

Rachel Maksy’s most recent video popped up in my subscription list, she was making cloaks and wearing them. She showed the pattern she used and I bought it on Amazon. I’m going to wait until the pattern comes before I buy the fabric. I’ve got to try this cloak thing out!

I also made cards this week. The two pictured above were my favourites. I made the other three below as well. Jay liked the Thanks card the most.

I cut the Yes!? part off the cat stamp (it was part of the big cat stamp). I didn’t think it went together so I chopped it off. I tried Ann Melvin Positivelypapercraft‘s laminator hack, to make the cat window card. Mine was a little bubbly, I’ll need practice. I’ll post a video of the cutting dies, stamps, and embossing folder I used to make them, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAiM2Gdgu9s&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting

Valentine’s Cards – Steamy and Sweet

I made two Valentine’s cards, with cutting dies from Aliexpress, steamy and sweet. I attached them to a kraft cardstock base and left them simple.

The steamy one reminds me of a tropical beach at sunset. I had originally ran the dark blue card stock through an ocean patterned embossing folder, but it looked too busy, so I left it plain. The sweet one started with a tartan background strip because the silhouette reminded me of preppy (do people still use that word, preppy?) college kids, but they grey and black one won out.

I really like how they turned out and I’ll make more in the future.

Lobster Shorts books, card making, crafting

Cards,Books, and Gaming

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I made a couple more cards this weekend. My favourite is the one on the left (the little frenchie dog). I’m sending that one to my future inlaws for a Valentine’s card. They have a little frenchie and it looks so similar to the one on the card. I bought the stamp for this reason and I love how great it worked. It was another of my Aliexpress purchases. The one of the right was made with cutting dies, also from Aliexpress.

View post on imgur.com

I finished a book I really liked, by Samantha Irby (I wanted to hear more about pooping in a blizzard). I enjoyed reading her work and want to read her other books, she’s a funny lady.

I got an old playstation on the classified adds and I’ve been binge playing it off and on since the holidays. I ended up buying three consoles. The first two I bought from a gaming store and had to return them twice. Both consoles didn’t work! The shop owner refunded me and I got one through the classifieds. This one worked (YAY)!

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance. I want to get my hands on Dark Alliance II, it’s my favourite game and I can’t find it anywhere (unless I want it for $80 or more which I might actually pay one day, but not right now) and Scooby Doo Night of 1000 Frights. Now that I’m old (haha) I get nauseous if I play games too long and my butt gets numb. I’m sitting on a Bosu Ball while I play. If you don’t know what that is, it’s exercise equipment. I’m sitting on my butt playing video games on exercise equipment. I realize how laughable that is. It’s been fun.