All About Family - Memory Mondays #5

By Vicky Nardone

Happy Memorial Day everyone!  I hope it's nice weather where you are and that you're getting to spend some time barbequing or maybe having a picnic.  Memorial day to me is all about spending time with your family.  That's why I decided to share my family layout that I recently completed for today's Memory Monday.

Raspberry Peach Smoothie

By Vicky Nardone

I'd been paging through my two smoothie recipe books and nothing was jumping out at me.  I was mulling over possibilities in my head to make with the fruit I had on hand and one combination jumped out at me - peach and raspberry.  Raspberries are my favorite fruit but they generally need a bit of sweetness added to make a good smoothie.  Peaches work perfectly for that.

Recycled Jean Purse - Whatever Wednesday #4

By Vicky Nardone

Every since I saw people pinning things that they had made with old pairs of jeans on pinterest, I knew I wanted to try sewing with denim.  I love sewing purses and I had seen all these cute purses that people had made out of the top of a pair of jeans and so I decided to give it a try!  I didn't see any that fit exactly what I wanted to try so I decided to try and make it up as I went along.  I actually ended up making this purse as a gift for my sister in law, Andrea for Christmas.

The Sticky on Adhesives: Memory Mondays #4

By Vicky Nardone

Today's post is all about adhesives.  When I first got started scrapbooking, I didn't really think much about what to use to stick my photos and other decorations to the page.  Glue is glue, right?  Wrong.

These were my early tools for scrapbook adhesives - Elmers glue and glue sticks.  And that's why I got results like the ones on the page in the right.  I went through a phase where I printed all my pics out on regular letter paper because I didn't want to spend the money to buy photo paper.  So between using letter paper and using elmers glue, the color from my background paper bled through and turned some of my photos green.  Also, I don't know if you can tell but my photos are a bit of a wrinkled mess because I had a difficult time getting things I used the Elmers glue on to lay flat.

Strawberry Mango Peach Pineapple Smoothie - Smoothie Saturday #3

By Vicky Nardone

I have to say that this smoothie is seriously good.  It's definitely a favorite of Matt and mine.  The recipe is based on a Jamba Juice copycat recipe that I found on pinterest.  I added some of my own special touches to it though and is both healthy and delicious!  I must admit that I have tried making smoothies in the past but they always came out just average.  I think my two  tips that I have for what you need to make a great frozen smoothie are the following.  First off, a good blender is key.  Matt and I got a Ninja blender for our wedding and it's just awesome!  Matt hates when there are ice chunks in his smoothie.  I usually alternate between chop and blend on our Ninja for 2-3 minutes and the smoothie is perfectly smooth.  My second tip is to use frozen fruit.  I think one of my biggest complaints about my past smoothies were that they were always too liquidy and not as refreshing as they should be.  Using frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit gives the smoothies some extra thickness and the smoothie stays colder longer.  Too other benefits are that the frozen fruit is a lot cheaper than fresh fruit and lasts longer too and it's already cut up for you so it's ready to go in the blender with minimum prep work.

Cherry Limeade - Whatever Wednesday #3

By Vicky Nardone

 

Did you have extra limeade after making these margarita flavored cupcakes last week?  I've got a solution!  Try making some cherry limeade.  It's a great bbq drink - it only takes about 5 minutes to prepare and it can even be made ahead of time.

Color Popping - Memory Monday #3

By Vicky Nardone

For this week's page I have a small tutorial. When I was in college for Digital Media Arts we learned about the history brush in photo shop.  The history brush allows you to take a copy of an image, do whatever you want to it, and then paint back to the copy.  One of my favorite techniques to do with the history brush is to make a photo black and white and then paint back some of the color as I did with the above page.