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. :)

Summer? What happened to spring?

LOL, I just checked & saw that I last posted here at the end of January! Talk about neglect!

We're in full summer mode here. 100 degree temps. Dips in the kiddie pool. Staying in the air conditioned house a lot. And now popsicles. I bought some Caribbean popsicles from Aldi that I love. My favorite fruit flavors are involved: strawberry, pineapple, and coconut. (Also mango & passionfruit.) Those three flavors were in my favorite smoothie from Frullati: the Affinity. I don't even think they make the Affinity anymore although I think you can get a similar smoothie there. Anyways, these popsicles are close and now when I taste them, they will make me think of summer.

And speaking of popsicles...last weekend we broke down & bought a Zoku Quick Pop maker. My friend Sara had bought one recently & raved about it, so I was curious. (Visit Sara's blog at http://www.threehungryboys.blogspot.com/ .) And since I could easily see myself spending hundreds of dollars on Caribbean popsicles for myself (not to mention strawberry ones for my son), I thought, hey, I really need to start making them at home instead of buying them. So...$50 later & about 24 hours later, we made our first batch of strawberry popsicles. Still being a novice to the Zoku, we did have the popsicles stick on us, but once we got them out of the machine, they were delicious! Just like a really sweet, cold strawberry. I used a recipe from food.com which you can find here: http://www.food.com/recipe/strawberry-popsicle-375304 . I'm guessing the water in the recipe may have made the pops stick too much, so I need to tweak it 'til I get it right. Tastewise, as I said, they were awesome!

I also hunted down a mocha popsicle recipe I'm going to try, as well as the pineapple & coconut recipe from Zoku's blog (http://blog.zokuhome.com/ ). So I'll be busy freezing this summer instead of baking, I think. Although...I did want to make some inspired-by-strawberry-lemonade cookies soon. We'll see if I'm desperate enough to run the oven during a 100 degree day! :)

'til next time!

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!

This week's update

Still working on the new kit. The working title is Sherbet Forest. There's a mild floral theme & the colors are pastels that remind me of sherbet. Now you know! :)

On a different note, a few weeks ago I was blessed to be led to the Mars Hill Church podcast sermons, originally through the Stitcher app but now I subscribe through iTunes. God has been rich with His Spirit in Pastor Mark, and it's been so refreshing to hear these sermons. Highly recommend checking these out. Search for Mars Hill on iTunes or check for videos on YouTube.

Bye 'til we meet in blogland again!


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Scrapping update

Hey there! So today I'm outside, listening to the Betamouse podcast on my iPhone. It's motivated me to give you a post. I've been doing some design work over the last week, but am having trouble focusing, as usual. The pirate kit I've been working on for months continues to be in limbo. I've come to realize that pirates are just something I don't have a passion for! Sorry, Jack Sparrow! I think I will finish it eventually but I've put it on the back burner.

So I started another kit which is zipping along. I decided instead of trying to do something trendy, or trying to create something with the thought in mind of "Will it sell?", I would make another kit with my own taste in mind. That's why I started designing in the first place but I kinda lost sight of that. And it's amazing how much faster I can work when my goal is to just create what I want. I finished 6-7 digipapers in about 2 hours! I really have a feeling this kit will be available soon. Stay tuned.

Also I have a lot of pics from our recent WDW trip to scrap. I finished a few layouts, and I'll get you a link to view them when I get back on my computer. (If you're on my Seebee's Facebook page, you can view them there.) I'm currently scrapping Small World pages, so I may have a little freebie up on the Seebee's Freebies blog. I can't promise anything but I'm trying.

That's all for now!


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Quick update

Hard for me to believe, but 2 weeks ago I was walking around the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World resort! It doesn't seem like that long ago. I've been working on a (way too wordy) trip report, which I'm posting exclusively at the Be Our Guest podcast forums. (I believe that's at www.beourguestpodcast.com/forum if you're interested.)
I'm also in the process of finishing up that pirate kit that I've been working on for Digitals. Keep up with my Seebee's fan page on Facebook for the latest on its inevitable release.

Of course a trip to WDW means I've got pics to scrap! Once I get into that, it wouldn't surprise me if another Seebee's Freebies or two comes out. We'll see how inspired I get!

Take care; have a good Wednesday! :)

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