When is a crisp not a crisp?

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do

Benjamin Franklin

I fear I have just joined the ranks of the foolish and penned the following letter.....

Consumer Services Department
Walkers Snack Food Ltd.

PO Box 23

Leicester

LE4 8ZU

30 April 2014

Dear Sir/Madam,

Firstly, on the whole, I’m one of those consumers who never complain about anything, I think the phrase is “grin and bear it”. However in this instance I must put fingers to keyboard and write this letter.

Due to my husband’s cholesterol levels,  he has been put on a diet – sadly this has meant an end to pies and pastries, and almost resulted in a complete ban on crisps. I can tell you that ours was not a happy household at that point. However, upon further research, I relaxed my hard-line stance and treated the poor man to a multipack of “Walkers Baked Stars Salt & Vinegar Flavour” from Tesco.

Whilst the packaging of this particular variety of Walkers snacks looks as though it is aimed for the younger market, I can assure you they are hugely popular with slightly overweight, slightly high cholesterol suffering men of a certain age.

Sadly, peace did not last for long as, imagine the horror if you can, of reaching into a multipack of crisps and grabbing a packet of lower fat potato heaven, only to find the packet open and the crisps scattered in the bottom of the multipack bag! Not only that, the aforementioned poor man tasted said crisps to see if the packet had just opened as he touched it – this proved even more distressing as they were (apparently) decidedly “soft” as opposed to “crisp”.

I am sure you will agree that this is not the standard which we expect from Walkers and I fear my life will be even more miserable than that of the slightly overweight, slightly high cholesterol suffering man I live with if I don’t let you know how truly disappointed he (and therefore I) am.

I have included the offending packet for stringent testing.

Sincerely yours,

Claire Easson

Now then, what do we have here?

Evening folks! Cardmaking has been pretty much been on the back burner for the last year, but I'm trying very hard to get back into the swing of things and Easter is as good an excuse as any for card giving so tonight I made two. Right at the last minute as usual but as these will be hand delivered it's fine :)

I managed to find a couple of challenges to enter as well which is always a bonus - but honestly I thought I would find more Easter themed challenges, or is that just too obvious?

Anyway onto one of my cards - I found this handsome chap on Dulemba Coloring Pages, and coloured him in with my Promarkers, and just added a touch of sparkle to the egg with a Spica pen.

Challenges to enter are:

Passion for Promarkers - all creatures great and small

Polkadoodles Challenge - Animal Magic

I will also endeavour to craft and blog a bit more, but only once all the Easter eggs have been eaten. Gotta get my priorities in order you know......

Rather odd (but yummy) chocolate brownies.....

I don't claim to be the World's Best Baker, but I much prefer to make my own cakes and cookies - store bought ones always look amazing but they seldom taste as good. Using the Power of Google I found this recipe last night, and it's by a lady who's recipes I've used before, but this one made me go out and buy the book (not literally, I went onto Amazon and ordered it...)

They are very quick and easy to make, however I think next time I make them, and believe me, there definitely will be a next time, I'll use a little less cocoa powder and possibly make them as cupcakes instead of in a brownie tin.

Here they are in all their glory:

This is the recipe as I made them:

Ingredients (makes 12)

85g Dark Chocolate (I used 74% cocoa solids)
85g Plain Flour
25g Cocoa Powder (maybe tweak to 20g - they are very very chocolately)
1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
150g Light Soft Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Espresso Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2tbsp semi skimmed milk with a dash of lemon juice
1 egg
100g Light Mayonnaise (I know!!!!!!!)

Method:

1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water (or in the microwave if you can do this without totally destroying the chocolate, which is what I do each and every time I've tried it), then leave to cool slightly. 
2. Meanwhile measure out the flour, cocoa and bicarb into another bowl and set aside.
3. Grab your melted chocolate bowl and add to it the sugar, coffee, vanilla extract and milk mixture and stir together with a tablespoon of warm water. Then add the egg (I didn't bother beating it first) and the mayonnaise and stir until smooth and glossy. 
4. Sift in the flour/cocoa/soda mix and fold in gently without over-mixing.
5. Scrape into a prepared baking tin - I originally used the size she specified (19cm square) but there wasn't really enough mixture to spread into the corners. I panicked at this point.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/fan, 160C/Gas 4 for 30 minutes - although I found that about 22 minutes was more than enough for my gas oven.

As I said, I thought there wasn't enough mixture to fill the brownie tin but actually the mix does rise a lot during baking and makes 12 decent sized pieces. Mine worked out at 160 calories per portion (that's 1 brownie btw....)

Older and wiser?

I can honestly say, I have no idea where time goes, but then unless you happen to be Sheldon Cooper I guess we can all say that.
So where have I been for the last year? Well, right here actually. For some reason I thought Blogger had ceased to exist, and never thought to check. Go me.
Life in the Easson household is the same but my angle on things has changed slightly - about the time I stopped blogging several things were happening - the Secret Pals swap I'd been a big part of for over two years was over and I suddenly didn't seem to have much of a reason to craft anymore. I'd also bought myself an e-reader, fondly named Obi, which resulted in most of the hours I would have spent crafting, in either reading or searching for free reading downloads. However the biggest thing that happened was the impending horror of my 39th birthday. I woke up after Christmas 2012 with the realisation that in one short year (and a bit, my birthday is in February) I would hit the big 4-0, and I needed to get fitter and healthier. Kind of stereotypical post Christmas feeling. I am fairly predictable you know.
Anyway, I swiftly went onto Amazon (told you I was predictable) and bought myself a Zumba workout for the Wii. Obviously I didn't pay extra for quicker postage - I was having a mid life crisis, not a personality transplant. So from January to May I threw myself into the Zumba workout with reckless abandon, sticking with an almost daily workout - it is actually amazing fun. My knees weren't quite so impressed, after never having any kind of joint pain in my life I now had constantly painful knees.
Life after Zumba does go on, and although sore, my knees didn't stop me from wanting to keep up with exercising, I finally worked out that maybe high impact stuff wasn't the way forward for me, and actually if I just walked a bit more that would help. So armed with new insoles I took small odd man on daily walks, with me walking and him riding his bike. The knees gradually improved and a long hot summer ensued. Oh and I also changed jobs.
Six months of exercise and not a pound lighter, I decided to investigate reasons why this should be. I will confess I am a bit of a geek, I did sciences at University and I always want to know "Why?", so then I turned my attention to food. I always thought we had a healthy diet, I cooked a lot, didn't fry anything and takeaways were an occassional treat not a regular occurence, and ok I love ice cream and cake but everything in moderation, right? Well yes, everything is ok in moderation, but perhaps the definition of "moderation" needs tweaking.
As a tech junkie, I turned to Google for answers, but being supremely reluctant to spend any money or give up chocolate and ice cream, I knew that most of the nutrition and diet stuff online is far too extreme and expensive to actually do in real life, so I downloaded a calorie counter app (free of course) onto my phone.
I can honestly say, that at that point I had no real interest in losing weight, at 158lbs I was a UK size 12/US size 8, and had been for years, I just wanted to know how much I was eating and decided to stick to a calorie count of 2000 per day, which is the UK standard dietary advice for women. After the first couple of days I was slightly horrified, I was eating a good couple of hundred calories over that figure everyday and it was generally on the stupidest things - the leftovers on small odd mans plate, don't want to throw them away! The handful of raisins from the food cupboard, the spoonful of hot chocolate in my coffee (4 times a day), the list goes on. . . .
So I tweaked a little here, and a little there and really, if I wanted ice cream I had it, and I counted it and I tweaked a little more to compensate, and suddenly my clothes didn't fit. By October I'd lost 15lbs without really noticing, I walked a mile or two a day, I kept a food diary on my app religiously, and none of it was hard or stressful or expensive and I had dropped to a dress size I had never even been before.
I cooked a little differently, and googled recipes constantly but the family hadn't really noticed a change in their food (or in me, but that's only to be expected with three odd men).
Winter rolled in and I must confess I did get a little twitchy at the thought of not being able to go out for my daily walk if the weather was bad, but we got lucky here and although it's rained a lot, it's been fairly mild, no snow at all. Christmas came and went, with trifle, roast potatoes and hunks of chocolate, all of which got put on the app, and another 11lbs disappeared.
The big 4-0 did appear, and was something of an anticlimax. It was just another day after all. The previous 380 odd days were far more important than that one day in my life. I've learned an awful lot about me, about food, about body image and about the way I look at life in general. I'm still the same person as I was 26lbs ago, losing weight doesn't change your life or make you a better person. Clothes don't magically suit you just because you're thinner, but food does actually taste better when you appreciate every mouthful.

Take Time for Cake

Now that the excesses of Christmas are well out of the way, it's time for a whole load of birthdays to bombard me - for some reason almost all of our family and friends have their birthdays in the first six months of the year. This does mean Christmas is easier to plan and pay for, but I never seem to stop making birthday cards for six months!
The first one due is my friend Rachel, and as she's just started her own slimming club, what could be more appropriate for her card than the biggest cake in the world. Not that I'm not supportive of her efforts, of course I am .....

The image is one of the marvelous Mo's I'm so fond of, and she's been coloured with Promarkers and a couple of my new Spectrum Noir pens (I've always struggled with pink Promarkers - could never get them to blend nicely).
A couple of challenges this week - Make it Monday #122 - always anything goes and Anything Goes Challenge Blog - #83 good friends, I think I'll also sneak it into the DP2 challenge - #168 something new well they were new Spectrum Noir pens.....

Conveyor Belt Crafting

Is it just me, or is Christmas almost upon us? Last time I checked it was September - where have I been and what have I been doing? Not making Christmas cards, that's for sure! I recall last year, I was patting myself on the back by the first week in November for having all my cards made and ready to be written. Let's just say, I'm not quite so organised this year - although I have finished my Christmas shopping, go me!

Anyway, I sat down last night and decided I needed to be able to make some cards quickly and easily, which still look pretty good. Here's what I came up with:

My lovely friend, Althea, sent me the rubber stamp a couple of weeks ago, so I've no idea who it's made by. It does stamp really nicely though. I've applied the inks with a makeup sponge (as you can probably tell.....) and added a bit of shadow to the buildings with a brown sharpie. The sand is made up of Brushed Corduroy and Wild Honey Distress Inks, and the sky made with Denim and Purple Twilight Adirondack Inks. The panel is then just mounted on some blue card and stuck willy-nilly on a white card blank. The best bit of all, I managed to make four in half and hour.....

Challenges for today:

Try it on Tuesday - Inky
Make it Monday #118 - Anything Goes

Back from the wilderness....

.......The Blogging wilderness that is! Well, in theory anyway. This could be another once in a blue moon post, but maybe I'll surprise myself and be a dedicated Blogger again.

Anyway, my card making has been in the doldrums for the last few months (along with my Blogging!) and I've only really managed to make a handful of cards lately. Today's "treat" is an Anniversary card I made for a long married couple, who it's fair to be said, are getting on a bit. Although not quite as "on" as the couple on the front of the card! I just love the image (from Just Inklined) and I must confess I used the same image on their anniversary card last year as well! It's the only time I get to use the darn thing.....

I've coloured it in with my trusty Promarkers, and as it costs an arm and a leg to send anything remotely layered and frou-froued by airmail, it's just been mounted simply on card and contrasting BP.

Challenges for today:


One Stitch at a Time #142 - Anything Goes

See you again soon! Maybe.....

Christmas? Ha!

Can't begin to think about Christmas yet! It's only September! Oh, wait, I actually bought my first Christmas present today (not for myself either!). So, with that in mind I have also made my first Christmas card :)
I am a huge fan of the crafty magazines here in the UK, and the freebies are pretty good every month, and the two (yes, two) I subscribe to, inspired this card.
The first one I read had an article about Scandinavian style cards, lots of red and white stamping, which looked so effective. The second magazine came with a free set of Hot of the Press stamps, which I used to make a Scandinavian inspired card. I generally don't like mosts of the cards I make, but I do quite like this one, and it was very quick to make.

50 Shades of Grey

Ok, so I bet that got your attention, didn't it? Well, I'm afraid to say, this is not a book review! I had a go at monochromatic colouring today (during my lunch break at work!) - needed a card for a soon to be teenager, and being the organised (yeah, yeah) person I am, I bought the digi last night from Kenny K, printed it off and took it to work today along with my entire horde of Promarkers. Just a little bit over enthusiastic though, as I only used 5 of them and a blender pen!
Must admit I got a bit confused with the whole thing when it came to the skin tone on his arms, let's hope teenage boys don't notice things like that.....

A Cupcake a day keeps the cravings at bay.....

Apparently it's Cupcake Day! Does it count that I made cookies yesterday? No, didn't think so. I must confess to being slightly in the crafting doldrums, again. I seem to find so much other randomness to waste my spare time on, and then notice I haven't done any cardmaking for days.

However I can confirm crafting did occur yesterday and whilst I can't show that card off yet, I can show off one I made "earlier" ;)

I made it for my friend's little boy, Finn, who's recovering from leukemia, and had yet another a hospital appointment for treatment, the image is a rubber stamp from the now defunct Angel Company, coloured in with Promarkers, and mounted quite simply on red and blue card stock. The sentiment was a quick self made digi. 

Hopefully, the crafting will continue!

I flunked the Steampunk class

I may have mentioned before that I suck at "vintage", well it turns out I pretty much suck at "steampunk" too! I'm not too concerned by this as it's probably not a style I will use often, but as it's hubby's birthday this week, I thought I may as well give it a bash.

The sentiment is a bit maudlin for a birthday card perhaps, but that's kind of how things are in the house at the moment - Hubby's BFF died suddenly two weeks ago at age 51, and Hubby is still reeling from the shock of it.

Anyhow, here's the card - the pocket watch, sentiment and hot air balloon stamps are all by Clarity Stamps, and they really are lovely to stamp with. Random ribbon, brads and paper from who knows where.....

Pink or Blue revisited....

Pink or Blue returns to my cardmaking shenanigans. So many baby cards, so little time.... This one just so happens to be a "Blue", and once again I'm late! Baby William was born on June 6th, but I figure his parents will be so delirious from lack of sleep and near poisoned from noxious nappies, that they won't notice.
I made another new baby card very similar to this a few months ago (didn't reach the old blog though) for a Grandma, and liked it so much I made another! The digi is definitely from Bugaboo  and he's been coloured in Promarkers. Background papers were magazine freebies from a Nitwits collection of papers, as were the hearts, one of which got stamped with "New Baby". All in all, very simple :)

Satisfied now, Pammie Lou? Two posts in 12 hours, I hope you noticed.....

Better late than never....

Sadly, this seems to be a phrase occurring more and more in my life when it comes to sending out birthday cards. I seem to spend far too much time playing Words with Friends and not enough time making cards (and blogging, for that matter!).
Tonight's card (or should I say "this month's card") was made (late) for my friend's daughter - her first birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Oh ok, I confess, it was 31st May, so it's really late. She's one year old, she's not going to know! She'll probably just eat the card anyway.
Anyway, back to reality - the digi was a freebie and it escapes me as to who drew it, I'm tempted to say it's bu Dustin Pike, but really it could be from anywhere so don't quote me on that!
Coloured in with my incredibly large collection of Promarkers (I really didn't buy all those markers, Dear, honestly.....) and mounted up with some freebie papers from one the the craft magazines from last year, the bunting included - it was a background paper so I just cut it out, and mounted it on 3D foam.

Just the one challenge today, and that's OSAAT - Use a Digi

See you in August! :D

Pink or Blue?

Oddly (and I find a lot of things odd), it seems that nowadays when people speak about new babies they ask whether it's pink or blue, rather than whether it's a boy or girl, surely all new babies are kind of bright red and slimy? Or was that just mine?
One of the ladies I work with became a first-time Grannie last week, and then promptly went on holiday for two weeks (was it that stressful?), and the new baby is apparently "pink".
I took my time making a card for Grannie (well, she is sunning herself in Spain) and here's what I came up with:

The digi is from the nice lady at Pollycraft, who sadly, has decided to shut up shop on June 8th. I've used this digi before for a "blue" and it works marvellously well for either. She's coloured with Promarkers (which for some reason look a little orange in the photo, but they really were pink) and the star has been covered in Flitterglu and then gilded with flakes so it's lovely and shiny and very tactile. Other than that, very clean and simple, with just a piece of stripey paper behind.

A couple of challenges today:
Less is More - for a baby or child
Cute Card Thursday - a touch of sparkle
Pollycraft Monday Challenge - pinks, reds or creams

Awwwww, shucks!

Despite being a notoriously bad blogger (everyone has to be notorious for something I think) the lovely Hotchpotch decided (for whatever reason) I am deserving of a block award! Go me!

I should point out that the rather large truck filled with different varieties of hot chocolate, tea and ice cream which is heading straight for Anne's house has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with me.

Liebster is a German word that translates to; dearest, beloved or in this case favorite. The idea of the Liebster Award is to give it to an up and coming blog with fewer than 200 followers. – in order to create new connections, and bring attention to their wonderful blogs.

Here are the conditions that go along with accepting the award;

1. Thank the Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented you the award.
3. Copy and paste the Liebster Blog Award on your blog.
4. Present the award to 5 bloggers who have a following 200 or less, who you feel deserve it.
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog
   
   

ahhh, of course I am completely unprepared for the last two, so we'll just call that a work in progress, and come back soon to see who gets the award!

Hair She Goes….

Ok, so who remembers The Laa’s? Great song, unfortunately it will be stuck in my head for the rest of the week now! The reason for the slightly obscure title (other than my titles generally are rather obscure. No wait, my whole blog is rather obscure. I digress.) is I am trying to get the hang of colouring hair.
I have immersed myself in many a blog post and YouTube video over the last few months, and everyone seems to do hair so differently! I have tried to do the thing where you leave a strip of white showing, but I really can’t get to grips with that, it just looks odd when I try it. This lovely lady was supposed to be a red head. Not quite happening, is it?

The image is one of the recent release by A Day for Daisies, called Poppies in My Hair. She's coloured with Promarkers and then die cut using a Nellie Snellen die I bought ages ago and seldom used. Not sure about the bling-thing going on in the corner, but it’s stuck down real well so I have no further choice in the matter!
The sentiment is stamped using another new purchase – someone had been using Flitter Glu on one of the Papercraft Planet forums, so I had to get me some. It’s a very tacky glue you can apply to rubber and clear stamps instead of ink, and then cover with glitter or gilding flakes (which come in the Starter Kit). Quite a few online craft stores in the UK are stocking the starter kit now, and it’s also available directly from IndigoBlu.
As far as challenges go just the one today and that is Passion for Promarkers - die cuts

All About the Boy

So, small odd man finally turned three recently - he'd had enough of being two. I thought perhaps a birthday card was in order, along with copious amounts of cake, and set to with a lovely Mo.

Thar she blows.....

Coloured with Promarkers (of course) with the stripey paper being a magazine freebie by We R Memory Keepers.

Challenges for today:

Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - Spots or Stripes
Totally Gorjuss - Boys Toys

Thank you and Goodnight ;)

Time flies.....

Ok, so I'm a terrible blogger, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now tell me something I don't know...... Did you know you're 30% more likely to lose weight by dieting, if you eat porridge for breakfast? Talk about random.

Down to business - contrary to popular belief I have not been wandering lost and alone in a crafting wilderness, just a blogging wilderness. Not surprising then that I have a few cards up my sleeves (not literally, they are a bit pointy to keep up sleeves) ready for blogging over the next few ......(insert days/weeks/months/years as you feel appropriate).

Tonight's offering is a birthday card made for one of my small man's little friends, who had a birthday recently. The digi is adorable and is called "Noah plays Pirate in the Bath" by Sassy Cheryl, who is having a big clearout with many a bargain to be had, by the way.

Who could resist him? Also notice the frog eyeing up the ladybug! He's been coloured in with Promarkers, and I've inked the edges with some Wild Honey Distress Ink, papers are Basic Grey (Out of Print) and Websters Pages (either Western Romance or All About Me, not sure which.....).

Challenges for this one are:

Sassy Cheryl's Challenge #110 - Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesdays #63 - Water (well, it is a bath.....)

The trials and tribulations of recycling

I am so good at making a drama out of an everyday occurrance and today was no different -  I deserve a posh frock and an Oscar I'm sure.
My good friend Anne aka Legs is always creating marvellous things from bits of paper and string, amongst other things, and when she posted a challenge on Papercraft Planet to recycle a newspaper or magazine into something that wasn't a card, I knew I wanted to join in but hadn't a clue what to make!
I set about the task of creating something this morning still with no idea what I would end up with - surely that's what creating is about?  Extreme Carfting......
Here's what I started with:

Some interesting looking pictures from a coffee magazine (I didn't even know you could get magazines about coffee until one come through the letterbox a few weeks ago), some double sided sticky tape and a pencil.
At this stage I had a vague plan which involved rolling the pages around the pencil to make long thin tubes. That's about as far as I got.

All very pretty, huh? Must also point out that when making the first tube, I didn't take out my pencil before I finished rolling. Could I get the darn thing out? Nope. Had to unroll it all again, retrieve said pencil and start again. After a had a bundle of tubes I sat and looked at them for a while. Then a bit longer. Finally I went and rummaged in the rubbish bin.

I'd finished off a roll of sticky tape a couple of days ago and decided this could be used too. After a few head scratching moments, and a bit of faffing with a stapler, here's the finished result:

To cut a long story short, I covered the empty tape roll to make a base, which I then stuck the flattened and halved tubes to. One of the long tubes I used to neaten the base and another I put along the top of the pot on the inside, then folded and stapled the tubes over the top. I rather like the shabbiness of the staples being visible, but I guess I could cover it with ribbon or more paper if I felt so inclined.
A surprisingly sturdy pen holder, made from a few pages of a magazine and an empty tape roll. Bargain!

TTTC

“TTTC?” I hear you cry! In my little world it means Take Time To Carft (I always spell “craft” wrong, so carft has become a verb in it’s own right). Evenings for me are “my time”, after the small odd one goes to bed, I like to settle down to a spot of carfting. Unfortunately, because slightly older, and taller (though definitely not wiser) odd person has his exams coming up in May, my time is no longer my own. Instead it is filled with chemical equations and moles. And not the small, blind rodent kind either. Nor the hairy monstrosity often seen on the faces of old witchy people, come to think of it.

Did I get sidetracked? Maybe a little.

Tonight I had to battle through the chemical formulae to come out carfting at the other end – Mother’s 70th birthday on Friday and as we’re off to the cinema tomorrow  evening to see “War Horse”, I figured I had to get her birthday card made today.

I hadn’t coloured this image by House Mouse before, and the apples are a bit hit and miss – any hints on how to colour a nice shiny red and green apple would be gratefully received! Hoping it’ll pass muster with the old dear, though ;)



The sentiment is also from a HM un-mounted rubber stamp set along with the one I stamped inside the card which says “On your birthday”. Very un-blinged. Just the way I like it :)