Keeping up the hard work

Despite my promise to myself about blogging once a week I've already sadly fallen down on the job, though not by too much and I have been very busy.
Plus to be honest had a bit of a family issue which turned out to be, thankfully, nothing more than a scare, so we can all breathe easily now.

Anyway less of the drama everyone's fine and I've got back to work.I managed to complete several more scrapbook pages and I went with my friend Stella to a machine embroidery beginners day, which was great fun. Katie Essam http://www.katie-essam.co.uk/workshops/  the teacher was very nice and we learnt a great deal. 

Here is what I managed to achieve plus a few of my scrapbook pages for you to have a peak at and please don't hesitate to comment. 

 

The above machine embroidery was from a photograph. It is far from complete but don't worry when its done I'll make another post. It still needs some added colours, stitches and possibly some beading but we will see. As I get more experienced hopefully my stitching with the machine will become neater.

Great sculptures in Naples museum what a butt.

No slacking here

I have been really good over the last few days and have managed not only to do a whole lot of cooking, but I have also done a felting course, which was great, and completed a whole lot more pages for my scrapbook.
So here we go with some examples of the scrapbook pages I have completed. 

And here are my wet felt picture backgrounds. I will now have to complete the details for each with needle felting and embroidery bead work etc.  I will post more pictures as the work progresses. If you want to know how to make wet felt look at my earlier blog posts that feature felting May 2012
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2877845627691610366#editor/target=post;postID=5575887333349123483;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=181;src=postname

I would also advise a quick look at Paula Watkins blog freckles and flowers
 http://frecklesandflowersgirl.blogspot.co.uk/

This picture will be of cow parsley in the foreground and fields in the background. 

This will be a sea/beach landscape, with rocks sea grass etc in the foreground
sea and sky in the background. 

sadly all the cooking I did didnt last long enough for photos hahahah

Some more pages

Along with the cooking I've been trying to get more of my scrapbooking done. Here are just some of the ones I have managed to get done.

Turkey and Vegetable Chilli

My family all love a good Chilli either with rice, baked potato or delicious crusty bread, but since we all started counting calories and trying to reduce our consumption of red meats I have been trying out some alternatives.  I tried straightforward veggie, chicken and turkey chillies but the favourite one appears to be a turkey vegetable chilli. 

I thought I'd share the recipe 

Ingredients 

1 large onion
1 large red sweet pepper 
1 yellow or green pepper
2 tomatoes chopped
2 cloves garlic (smoked garlic is great)
1 courgette
2 sticks celery chopped
2 tbsp chilli olive oil
400 g minced turkey
400 g tin chopped tomatoes
400 g tin borlotti beans
250 mls chicken stock 
2 tbls tomato puree or you can use passata
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp dried chillies
Salt & pepper

Method

1 Peel and chop onions  and garlic, 
2 Place onion and garlic plus salt and pepper in sauce pan with oil and gentle
   cook until slightly brown.

3 Add peppers, chopped tomatoes and courgette cook for until they begin to
   soften
4 Then add minced turkey chilli flakes and thyme brown meat slightly
5 Add stock, tomatoes and puree or passata.
6 Stir until boiling then cover and simmer for about 20 mins

7 Add beans and cook until bean are cooked through.

Can be served with crusty bread, baked potato, tortilla chips, or rice. But a little Parmesan cheese really enhances flavour so don't forget to grate some on the top before eating.  

Enjoy.

New Year New Pages

I have decided that I must be more productive in 2016, I have to  get all of my unfinished craft projects completed plus get my scrapbooking up to date. To this end I have completed the following pages.

  
I'm also going to try and do a blog post at least once a week.  Lets see how it goes.