Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, The Great Outdoors, vegetarian, weight loss

Cards, Kayaking, and Indulgences

It was a long weekend here in Ontario. I spent the first day making cards and catching up on some chores. I’ll post a video of the cards I made and the supplies I used to make them with, below. Some of them were really cute and I loved the new dies.

I saw the snake again this weekend. It’s much slimmer now, it’s either digested a giant meal, or has laid some eggs. It’s much more mellow away from it’s beloved garden hose (I mentioned in a previous post it was lunging at my spouse when he was trying to turn the garden hose on. We think it might have had a crush on the garden hose!). I was pretty close to it when I was doing some weeding, and it didn’t seem to mind too much. It was also between me and the door this morning and I had to step over it to get into the house. It didn’t seem to mind that too much either. I’m happy to see it’s in much better spirits these days. We had always got along in previous years.

We had wanted to go on a kayaking adventure out of town, but with potential thunderstorms looming, we decided to play it safe and stay on the local river. I brought my camera with the underwater case and took a looong video of the underwater view. It’s pretty murky as the day was gloomy for most of it, but I think it looks pretty cool. I’ll post that video below. I was looking for the really pretty rainbow darter fish, but they were mostly gone (I didn’t get them on the video). The Canada geese were also a lot more relaxed, including the ones with babies. They are terrifying and will come for you if you come too close. The local creatures seem much more friendly lately.

I indulged a lot this weekend. A LOT!

I had my regular big Sunday breakfast of a croissant and eggs with coffee and fruit. Monday, I had an omelet (pictured above). I had CRAVINGS this weekend. I wanted strawberry ice cream and cookies. And I had them, a lot of them. I have completely come off track lately. I haven’t worked out, or gotten that much exercise and my diet has been horrible the past week. I keep falling off the wagon and feeling discouraged with myself.

Time to pick myself up by the boot straps (what does that even mean??) and start again.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, decluttering, Food, vegetarian

Oatmeal, Cards, and Decluttering

Ontario has interesting weather this time of year. Yesterday, I was in a Winter coat, and today it was over 20 and I was kayaking. The weekend started with coffee and a bagel at the Stone Town Café in St Marys. We sat by the river in the sunshine and watched a muskrat swim around in the river, while we had our breakfast.

I felt like decluttering more of the bathroom today and tackled my hoard of a medicine cabinet. It was so overfull, that things would fall out when I would take something out. Half the bottles were empty, or expired.

This is everything I removed. The allergy medication had expired in 2018! It’s good to check on these things. Most of these containers are empty and going into the recycling bin, but the little Rubbermaid container and the glass jar I’m going to wash out and reuse. The Rubbermaid container had corn starch that I was experimenting with using as a dry shampoo. It worked okay, but not as good as the spray on type. The glass jar is going to end up in my crafting room.

I used these masks with my spouse after I finished cleaning out the cabinet. I bought them because people make them look fun online. We watched a TV show while we had them on (Gravity Falls, cute show!). They were really moisturizing, but I’m not a mask person.

It’s still pretty full in there. A lot of these bottles are sample sizes from Ipsy, that I won’t be buying again when they’re empty, same with the brands that use animal testing It’s a lot more functional now and things don’t fall on top of me when I pull something out. Overall, I’m much happier with it.

Sunday breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal with peaches, maples syrup, and pumpkin seeds. I used steel cut oats and they took a lot longer to cook. I like the rolled better, but these keep me full longer. I’m not sure which one is going to win, convenience, or the steel cut.

I made Mother’s Day cards with a new cutting die set. I love these teapot shaped cards. Too cute! They come with a word set that says Tea Party. I LOVE tea parties. I’ll use them again for invitations when we are able to have gatherings again.

I made the one on the left with an embossing folder and used gilding wax to make the pattern stand out. The love birds card is cute, but my love birds look terrified. I need more practice colouring pupils.

The card on the left is my favourite. The one on the right is a little plain, but I love the spa girl cutting die set. I’ll have to play with it more.

This bookworm die set is super adorable. I love it! I’ll post a video with a link to all the supplies I used below.

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

Breakfast, Cards, and Saving Nubbin

I paid for one of these plants, the other I traded years ago for an espresso maker, I didn’t use anymore. Guess which is which? The large dieffenbachia is the one I traded for. It was half the size and not very happy. Where the trunk(?) stalk(?) curves is how tall it was when I got it and it only had a couple really droopy leaves. I had to move it around a lot before I found a place for this guy to be happy. Turns out it likes a really dark corner. It’s beside a window, but it still doesn’t get very much light at all. It’s taken over a year, but this plant is finally starting to grow. It’s doubled in size and growing a lot more leaves. The leaves are getting big too.

The second plant, the leafless stem, I got on clearance at a big box store a long time ago too. It had a couple leaves on it when I bought it, but it was doing poorly. I decided to see if I could revive it. I also moved this plant to a lot of different places (including a dark bathroom), but I couldn’t make it happy. Eventually it dropped all it’s leaves and I was going to give up on it. Then I saw a video of Harli G on YouTube (she’s a plant Youtuber) and she picked up a stem that looked just like this one and was going to replant it. I thought once a plant lost all its leaves, it was done for. I decided to repot the plant in different soil (I don’t know why I didn’t try this a long time ago) and put it beside it’s sister plant (I call it sister plant because they are both dieffenbachias, but the leafless stalk has much lighter leaves), and try again.

It seems to be working. Something is starting to happen, and this is also why this plant will forever be known as Nubbin. I’m going to keep it where it is and hope it can be revived.

Sunday breakfast satisfied a craving I’ve had for days. My spouse was craving bagels, which got me craving berry cream cheese. So for breakfast today, I made scrambled eggs and bagels and cream cheese, and I loaded that bagel with cream cheese. The coffee was an instant cappuccino that I got as a sample, and I hated it. We both did. It tasted artificial and chemically. We dumped it out and made a regular coffee that was much better.

My healthy eating took a nose dive this weekend. We ordered a pizza last night and I had it for lunch today too. I went on a short hike with my spouse, but it was really cold and the trail was mucky so we turned around. I had another bagel with cream cheese when I got home, followed by a piece of dark chocolate. and I’m currently craving another bagel (I think shark week is coming). I’m going to wait and have a proper dinner, made with much healthier options. I don’t want to get on the scale Monday.

I made some cards this weekend. I like these vanilla bean cards. I don’t know what sentiment I want on them yet, so they remain unfinished. I was thinking something to do with beans, but nah, I’ll probably just stamp a “Hello” on them, or something similar.

I was meh about these two. I would like the autumn one more with a different colour. The green didn’t go very well, and this castle card needs something more.

I liked these two. My favourite of all of them was the girl reading on the chair. I liked the Hello card a lot too, but my glue seeped out at the edges. I can get rid of that with an eraser and a little patience. I’ll post a video of the supplies I used to make the cards, below.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.