My new "6 sticks" rule

Made strawberry/pineapple/coconut Zoku popsicles yesterday. But before I could make them, I needed to make a run over to Williams Sonoma for more sticks. I've come to the conclusion that if you ever want to make more than 1 flavor of popsicles with the Zoku, you better have a good supply of sticks! The 6 that come with the machine just don't cut it for more than a single batch, and it doesn't look like those things are going to multiply on their own. I'd say plan to have at LEAST 6 sticks per batch of popsicles, and more than that is even better. I ended up needing 10 for the s/p/c popsicles yesterday, which was all I had on hand since I still had 2 plain strawberry in the freezer. Of course, you can always keep your popsicle base in the fridge until you get some of your current popsicles eaten. ;)

So, word of warning, when you're buying your Zoku, pick up extra sticks. $12 for a box of 6. You're welcome. :)

Trying to update

In case you're following my other blog, you've noticed that I've started updating the Seebee's Freebies again, including a new Dream Trip addition yesterday. I really like the Toy Room mini kit; the cloud paper was especially nice for the background paper of my Toy Story Midway Mania layouts from our Disney 2010 trip. :) Yes, scrapping the album tends to lead to creating new papers & elements, which leads to new Seebee's Freebies items. And I'm not even halfway through the album, so I expect a few more things to go on that blog. Stay tuned.

Also, the holidays caught me doing a LOT of baking! (Most of it went to teachers & family as gifts, since baking staples were cheap at Aldi & we didn't have a lot of money this year.) Thanks to the America's Test Kitchen group, I'm getting more comfortable with pie crust, so I made several pies for the holidays. And, of course, their cookie recipes are favorites here, too. Being a diabetic, it's not really a great idea to have tons of cookies in the house, so I end up giving the bulk of the food away to my husband's coworkers or my kid's teachers. I'm finding that I really enjoy the process of cooking almost as much as the eating. Of course, the cleanup continues to be a pain. :D

Just to give you something to look at, I posted the picture of the coconut cream pie I made for one of the teachers. I've NEVER made one before, since I'm not a big fan of the texture of coconut. But the little bit I sampled of the filling tasted good, and I was told it was delicious. Another successful recipe from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook!

I want to get some more work done in my album this week, but I've also made a commitment to make several dozen cookies for someone. So, that'll cut into my computer time. If you want to get in a cookie mood, I'll tell you that the ones I'm making this week are: oatmeal (no raisins), peanut butter chocolate chip (my favorite), Wookkie Cookies from the Star Wars cookbook (double chocolate chip with cinnamon; really tasty & my son's favorite!), and triple chocolate cookies (ultra rich & yummy).

Speaking of baking, I have plans to make either M & M sugar cookies for Valentine's Day, or Red Velvet cupcakes. Or both. Again, teachers will be receiving the bulk of my work. I'm sure they hate me. Well, at least their scales probably do. ;)

All this food talk...can you tell it's lunchtime here? LOL!

Taking a breath

Ah, late with the updates again! If you've followed me on Facebook, you would have found out that I retired from selling my designs at the end of July. I had no problems with Digitals; I merely became "burnt out". No desire, no inspiration, no time. And while I still have some scrapping to do, I can tell you that I haven't opened Photoshop nearly as much this year as in the past few years, and I haven't regretted it. :) I still am a scrapper but I'm taking a much needed break.

My time lately has been spent reading & cooking, with a splash of cleaning thrown in there. While our house is still a mess, it's on the right track to getting it back to a clean-ish state. ;) My daughter starts school in a few days, and I'm sure having my Little Destruct-o out of the way for several hours in the day will help. (I love her, but our house has never been the same since she became mobile. Seriously.)

Hey! I can tie these two topics together by mentioning that I did open Photoshop to do a little scrapping, in relation to her starting school! She picked out this cute ladybug "purse-style" lunch bag for school. (Like a lot of stuff around here, it's from Target.) So I was trying to find a good thermos/drinking cup to go with it. It's more challenging than you might think because my daughter is autistic and she still hasn't figured out how to use a straw. I needed something that was not going to leak, but would allow her to tip & drink like a regular cup. I ended up deciding on the insulated coffee cup with removable insert by Aladdin. I believe it's this model. And I used my A Bug World kit to throw together an insert that works with the lunch bag. I'll see if I can get around to taking a pic for you.

Have a good weekend!

Whoa, a new product is actually available?

Goodness, it's true! This is just a quick note to say that I finished up a quickie project and got a new little embellishment set available over at Digitals. The It's a Swirl World Word Frame set allows you to emphasize a word or phrase on your layout, in swirl-ridden style. ;) You can pop over to Digitals to check it out, and I created a layout using it that you can find here. (I'm on a computer right now that doesn't have access to the files for me to give you a pic here, but I'll get that corrected later.)

Other Seebee's happenings

Taking a break from the brain block issues this morning to work on another little "project". I'm in the process of working up the wording for a limited commercial & S4H license to go along with a few kits. These will be the same kits that are already available, but for a little more money, you will have a license that allows you to use the kit items in your S4O/S4H projects, use on the design of your personal blog, use to create cards/products for your photography business, etc. So, stay tuned. I'll post here when those products are up & available.

Brain block!

Well, I'm in the middle of working on papers for August bonuses. It's hard going for me this time, although papers are usually not a problem. It's coming up with designs that work with this month's theme. :) (I won't spoil it for you yet.) My brain's not doing a great job, or my drawing skills are lacking...something like that. I'm sure I'll get through it.

Also, I signed up for Digitals' Christmas in July special, which is coming up. (In this month, obviously. ;) ) Look for more information on what that's going to entail soon! If I can get past my brain block, I'll see about getting some freebies together for that time for the SF blog. But I can't promise anything since it's been hard to get on the computer this summer. (My daughter is a waterbug and she keeps us outdoors a lot!)

TTFN!

New kit, Bug World, is out!

It's finished and now available at Digitals! I enjoyed making this fun, colorful kit, which started out with my son in mind. But it ended up taking a more general "kid" turn, so it would work well for boys & girls, IMO. For instance, I can envision a cute "baby's first crawl" page with the Crawling Snail tag. :D Anyways, you guys are more creative with scrapping ideas than I am! I'm just happy to finally get it finished & up and running. You can click on the Kaboodle link at the right, or the Digitals store link to learn more about it.

This week's Seebee's WW sale products

Just a quick note to say that I have marked down 3 kits for this week's Wonderful Wednesday Sale at Digitals. Look for Appletime, That Happy Feeling, and Plush Jazz Summer to be marked at 30% off on Wednesday, June 3! (I think technically the sale starts at 2 AM Eastern, but don't hold me to that!) Happy shopping!

As for me, I've just about finished my next kit, called Bug World. I've got to put the final touches on the example layout and get everything uploaded. I would think it'll be up by Thursday at the latest. Then, I have plans for another embellishment/template set that will be pretty nice if I can do what I plan to do. LOL! Plus it's about time to work on the July bonus stuff for the Digital challenges. And on top of that, my daughter's last day of school for the year is on Thursday, which means working around her craziness. So yeah, I'll be busy. ;)

Hey, if you didn't already see it, I put up a new Seebee's Freebies freebie last week; it's my first Dream Trip mini kit, and it was designed with castle pictures in mind. I even made an example layout which I have forgotten to post! Maybe I can remember to do that tomorrow. (I'm on a different computer right now.)

Take care, and I'll talk to you soon!

So many projects!!!

I always seem to find myself in two designing modes: on and off. LOL! Either I can't seem to come up with an idea to save my life, or I've got so many different things I want to do and not enough time to do it. Right now, I'm in the second phase; I've already uploaded a couple of new things in the past week, plus I have one other larger project in the semi-complete stage. And I'm working on another Quickpages album for the Jack Cosmo Cricket album. Plus I need to get my mini bonus kit for July finished. But my daughter's decided this was not a good time to get a full night's sleep, and I can't sit down and work with her around a lot of the time. (Sigh.) I really do need a "noneday", as Carolyn Leonhart would say!

Anyways, if you're a paper or digital scrapper and you haven't already checked out Digitals revamped hybrid section, I'd recommend it. We kicked off the selling of the Cosmo Cricket chipboard albums on Tuesday, and it's been going very well. I did do a set of "That Happy Feeling" Quickpages for the Kate album, and even though I threw it together as quick as I could so it would be done for launch day, I think it's still a nice album. It would probably make a good little gift for someone, too. My hope is to get the Jack album finished in the next week or two, plus one more Jack album.

Ok, sleep, toddler. Sleep! (sigh)