Something out of Nothing-Cinema Blog Hop

Howdy blog hoppers!!  Welcome to the August Club Scrap Cinema Blog Hop...

Are you in the right place?  If you just came from Debby's Blog then you are following along perfectly.  If you hopped over from Facebook you might want to check out all of this month's projects over at Club Scrap Creates!

So today we are going to make a cute little card...

 

I know, can you believe I made something so crafty and cute??

After stressing about what I was going to make (for days) and not coming up with anything (as usual) I turned to Pinterest.  I knew I wanted to use the "Stars" quote from the unmounted stamp set so I just did a simple search of "star card" and ended up with this!  Here's a quick tutorial...

Start with 4 colors of paper (I picked from the POPs that came with my kit.)  Cut each piece to a 2.5" square.

Next up stamp one side of each square with the stamp of your choice, I think a pattern of some kind would work best.  I picked the Workbench wood mounted grid stamp.  I used the black india ink on the light paper and the white pigment ink on the dark paper.  Be sure to heat set if needed before moving onto the next step.

So flip one of your squares over and mark lightly with a pencil halfway down each side of it.

Grab either a Scor-Pal or just a bone folder and score each corner from the pencil mark to the next pencil mark.

Fold each corner up so that your pattern shows at the top.

It really helps if the cat sits on top of your finished product, trust me!  If you do not have a cat you can skip this step.  If the cat destroys your prototype you must start over.  Sigh.

So after you have created (or re-created) each of your 4 base squares you can cut 4 small white squares for the insides of each little "box".  Now any good crafty blogger would have this measurement but I don't have the card with me and I didn't write it down.  Probably because I was peeved at having to start over since AJ ate my first box.  Anyways.  4 little squares.  I decided to stamp the insides each with a star image (this one from Time and Space UM's) in coordinating colors from each piece of paper like this.

I added a little bling to each inside paper (a star brad from Bright Lights, Big City.)

Firmly attach each inside to the outside and then nest together on the front of your card.  (I just used a basic 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper cut in half, and folded in half.)  Try to position the "boxes" as high as you can on your card to leave space for your sentiment.

The Hydrangea Zig Zag UM was a perfect touch for the bottom of my card.  Add your sentiment and maybe a little more bling (large star brad is from Equestrian kit) and you have your finished card!!  Oops, don't forget the rest of your sentiment on the inside of the card!!

I especially like that the card has dimension but also folds flat for mailing.

I hope you enjoyed my little card today.  Your next stop on the Blog Hop is with Tiare over at http://www.tiaresmith.com/  Be sure to tune in next time for the Blog Hop and in the meantime I'll be blogging this Tuna Tartare in the next few days so come back by to check it out!!
 

A Different Sort of Pizza

It's been such a long time since I did any foodie blogging but I have been trying some new things in the kitchen and wanted to start posting them...

First up an excellent pizza with an unusual cast of characters...

My recipe was based on this one from Epicurious, I was searching for a savory recipe with fresh figs (which was more challenging than I thought.)  Around here you can only get good fresh figs from the regular grocery store for about 3 weeks of the year.  They happen to be 1/2 off at Publix this week in case you have a hankering to re-create my creation!

You'll need this cast of characters...(I was so psyched I actually remembered to take this photo for once!)

Not pictured are some caramelized onions (which was not in the original recipe but a couple of recipe comments suggested adding them and I'm glad I did.) 

So your first step is to caramelize your onion (this is just one large onion sliced and then cooked for approx. 45 mins on low in a little olive oil.)

The original recipe called for 2 cups of some kind of blue cheese but I only had about 3/4 a cup so I subbed in some other cheeses (goat and fontina) that I had on hand for the total of 2 cups.

So after your onions are done, go ahead and cut up your prosciutto and figs (which will marinate for about 15 mins in 1 Tablespoon of the balsamic.)

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out of the pizza dough to some random shape that fits on the pan you want to use (either round or this lovely rectangular/oval shape I have here.)

Sprinkle some cornmeal on your pizza pan and crank your oven to 450 degrees.

Carefully transfer the dough to the pan (note there is a reason there is no picture of this step, let's just say there was some re-rolling after the pizza was dropped on the stovetop.)

Once your pizza is on the pan brush the dough lightly with some olive oil and then add the cheeses and bake for between 12-15 mins.  It really depends on your oven.  You want your pizza to be about 90% done.

Pull out the cheese-y dough and add the onion, strips of prosciutto and the fig slices (this is what it looks like before you put it in for the second baking.)

Pop it back in for around 2 mins, you want to soften the figs and slightly crisp the prosciutto.  While it is cooking use the bowl that the figs and balsamic marinated in and add one more tablespoon of balsamic and about the same amount of olive oil and whisk.  Toss this dressing with your arugula in a large bowl (I'm not sure I used the full 8 cups the recipe called for-Leslie was pretty skeptical about the greens on the pizza.)

By now your pizza should be done, pull it out to rest and slice and top with the arugula salad on each plate.

This would be the perfect place in the blog to post a photo of a perfectly topped piece of the pizza on the plate...

oops.

Needless to say we both enjoyed it a lot!  So grab yourself some figs and make a pizza.  It really was pretty easy and very tasty!