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

This Week’s Cards, Sunday Breakfast, and Lawn Snake Update

This is such an easy breakfast to make, if you buy the croissants already made, which I did. I must admit I over baked them a tad this time. I am one of those people that if I drink too much coffee I get a headache, jittery, and my face feels weird. Too much coffee for me is two cups (unless it’s a latte. I can drink a plain coffee and a latte in the same day and not react). I rarely finish a cup of coffee. Most people I know get a reaction if they don’t drink any coffee. I have no reaction to skipping coffee in a day. We are all unique little snowflakes.

One of the snakes on the lawn is either about to expand the family, or had a giant meal. It still looks like this a day later. I don’t know much about snakes to be able to tell. It also has a favourite spot. If I want to check in on it, it’s usually in the same spot. Maybe it’s too full to move?

I made cards this weekend. I really love the paw print background with black cards stock on the kraft card base. It’s cute enough for a plain note card itself and I love these little dog cut outs too. They had more pieces like eye pupils, a tongue, and a couple more ear pieces and toe pads, but they were so small and finicky, I didn’t use them. They are cute without them.

I used a living room cutting die set that was fun to use with patterned paper. I still need to put a sentiment on it, but I’m not sure what sentiment I would want to use with this card. There’s always “Hello” which typically works on anything, which I used on the plant trellis card. The trellis card is on the plain side so I it’s not yet finished. The Father’s Day card is minimal, and I like it that way. It’s another set that would work with patterened paper.

I made these cards and more with a new coordinating envelope and die set. I made a couple more envelopes to use with letters to friends and family. They aren’t quite long enough to fit a standard letter into. I hope one day they make one that size. I have been looking for one. The rose paper on the top card gave me a cottage core vibe, which I have been into lately. I will get a lot of use out of this die. I love matching the envelopes and cards together. I’ll post a link of a video of mine where you can get the supplies I used to make the cards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PBL6KjA8YU&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, vegetarian

Breakfast and Cards

This morning I laid in bed for about an hour after I woke up. Normally I get up right away, it was nice to be dozy and stay there for awhile. Breakfast was quick and easy. I heated store bought croissants in the oven while I scrambled eggs and made coffee. I sliced some bananas and served it with blueberries and a slice of cheese. It was delightful.

I’ve had a sweet tooth this weekend (of course I did). Saturday my spouse and I like to go for a walk around town and get a latte and egg and cheese sandwich from the Stonetown Cafe. We did that, but instead of a sandwich I got oatmeal cookies and a latte. She makes a delicious oatmeal cookie there.

I made more cards this weekend. I loved the size of the dies for these beverage cards. I’ve noticed they’ve started to make larger sized dies and I love them. I do prefer they fit on the note card sized cards, as that’s my preferred size to make. These did fit, it took up the majority of the cards surface, but they fit. They fit even better on a slimline card, which I rarely make, but they look best on that size. I loved how these cards turned out. My umbrella is placed too high, but I still like this card and love the die set.

The card on the left was a clothing die set. It had other accessories like a tie and suspenders and i made it into a Fathers Day card. I loved the dinosaur die set too. It came with a top hat, which is what convinced me to get it. Too cute! The little spines near the tail were a pain the butt to glue down, they were so little, but the rest came together easily.

I made these cards as well. The castle card had congrats on it because I’m giving to someone who just got a new home. The die set of that one is really big and needed 12″ x 12″ paper to cute the folding base out. I store dies in a binder, this one is going to pop out the top, but it’s worth it. I loved the die set. It cut out really well. Even the small holes popped out super well. Normally with small finicky dies you have to run it through the machine a million times and tear the pieces off a little bit. Not this set. It came right out. I was really impressed with it. I’ll post a video of the supplies I used, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDuT6AVAwTY&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8gOLQEDzcE&ab_channel=LobsterShorts
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 lifestyle

Valentine’s, Long Weekend, and a Butt Load of Cards

This long weekend was a fairly quiet one. My sweet spouse picked us up a bottle of vintage wine and brought me beautiful white roses (one of my favourites). We made a charceuterie board and watched TV.

The charceuterie board was made with cheese from the Cheese Of The Month Club and they were all delicious. My favourite was the heart shaped cheese. We added fruit, veggies, crackers, pickles, dips, and chocolate almonds. It was delicious and low key.

My spouse had a sore back all this weekend, so we spent most of the time relaxing. We went for a walk through the woods for Family Day. It was cold and beautiful. I love the woods in Winter. There are a lot of hills. I want to hike through the woods and take a GT Snow Racer and sled down the hills through the trees (I feel that is breaking an age appropriate line, but sometimes you just have to try things).

I made a lot of cards this weekend. My favourite was the headphones girl and the slim line jar card.

This mason jar shaker was my least favourite. I love the lid, but I’m not very good at making shaker cards yet and I just didn’t like the look of it. I would have liked this better as a flat jar. I’ll post a video of the cutting dies I used below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdGUwi8rrls&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 card making, crafting, happy mail, wine

A Week Of Mail, And Wine

This week I got some crafting supplies in the mail.

These two embossing folders came. I love plants and grow many of them in my home. They couldn’t be more perfect for me (especially since my favourite plant is a monstera deliciosa, which is the leaf on the right).

I love these sweater cutting dies. When I look at them I hear a line from a Lana Del Ray song “You fit me better than my favourite sweater”, which would make a perfect sentiment for a card with these dies.

These rain drop embellishments came. They are bigger than I thought they were. I hope I can make them work. There is a very slight difference in colour.

I ordered this double sided adhesive to see if it was a better deal then going to your local dollar store, but really I think you might as well go to the dollar store. The adhesive isn’t would tight and I don’t think there is as much of it. I’ll go to the dollar store for it.

As for the wine, I bottled a batch of Merlot at the wine shop, last Wednesday. It made 30 bottles. We drink a lot of wine at our home, so I ordered a batch of a blend of Gewurztraminer and Riesling. I’ve never made wine with Gewurztraminer before. I hope I like it.

Lobster Shorts lifestyle

August 20/2020 Mail

The mail came with a lot of really great things that I’m excited to try.

These cutting dies make a really nice tri/quad fold card. On the example it was done in red and gold and really pretty.

This alphabet set it cute. It’s letters with a stitched like pattern on them.

A couple embellishments came. I love the rain drops and the circles are cute.

I adore these gnome stamps and cutting dies. I like that you can use them for things other than Christmas. I’ll probably use There’s Gnomebody Like You.

Ah yes, and the new band for my FitBit (that I never wear anymore). This must be a sign I should put it on again. Now that it’s cooler, hiking might be back on the table.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail, Plants

August 15/2020

I have been having to cut my glad flowers off. I didn’t plant the bulbs deep enough and they are falling over and growing flat on the ground. So far only one of the grown bulbs has been able to stay upright.

I bought a bag of glad bulbs at my local Costco and they are BEAUTIFUL! I only planted half the bag and the colours have been gorgeous. So far pale lilac, soft pinks, red, and white glads have grown. There are a few more that still haven’t bloomed and I can’t wait to see what colour they are.

I wanted to use the new cutting dies with this spider web embossing folder. I haven’t used either one of them yet.

I loved the spider web background and the doll dies are cute too.

I have no idea why I chose Thinking of You as the sentiment. It really didn’t go with the card. It came off as bad creepy, not good creepy. I’m still struggling with embossing. I powdered the background of the Thinking of You sentiment before I embossed it, but the embossing powder still ended up sticking everywhere.

In the end I chose a craft paper card base, took the wings off the doll, and used the pink arrow background. It suited it much better. I’ll try an eraser to get the powder sprinkles off, but it’s melted on. I’ll keep practicing.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, happy mail

August 05/2020 Mail

Today’s mail brought me delight.

My Sizzix Big Kick die cutting machine had broken. I love to make cards and although I could still somewhat use the machine, it was a nightmare to cut with. It only partially cut and I had to shove things into it to make it work. Today, the new one arrived and I can’t wait to try it.

I got the replacement part for my food processor today.

I got this for Christmas years ago and although the base is built really well, the plastic jar became brittle and broke. Instead of getting a new one, I replaced it. I really like it, it does a great job and I wanted to keep it instead of trashing it. It makes pie crust so easy.

The little package was a cutting die. I will have to think of a cute card for an animal lover for this one. The little flower must be an extra add on. I didn’t order it. It’s cute too.