Turkey Canning 101

Hey My Friends...Had to share a couple pictures of what Jessi, Matt, Kit, and I did on Saturday.  Matt deep fried the turkey for Pink and did two more...one for us and one for them to can.  Saturday we let the birdies simmer for quite awhile till the meat just came off the bones really easy.  We got the jars all washed and ready to go, removed all the bones from the turkey and stuffed the jars...leaving 1/2" at the top.  We pressure canned them for a little over an hour and had to let the canner cool down in between.  So...to make things more fun, we played games in between the work.  It really was a great day and we came out with about 72 1/2 pints of turkey to use later...soups, sandwiches, tacos...whatever you choose.

Treat box idea

Hello, since we didn't get together this week due to Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share this project I have been working on.  I got the idea from the magazine Stampers Sampler, the current edition, page 64.  I will explain how I made them.  The photo above shows several stages at once in the process. 

1. take an empty toilet paper roll, paint the inside with your color choice, I used red.  I also painted an inch or so of the outside top and bottom so no plain cardboard shows after the decorative paper is
applied. 

2. Glue decorative paper around the outside of the roll, then glue one end closed.  

3. Glue a holiday scene on the front, over the decorative paper, making sure they are in the correct position, with the closed end at the bottom.  (I found free Christmas scene downloads from Lisa Brawner's blog, http://www.alteredartfun.blogspot.com/ .  (mouse over the link, I see it doesn't show on our blog because of the dark background)  She is very generously allowing free downloads of the images she has gathered.  Thanks Lisa!  Your images are great!)

4. Glue other ephemera of your choice to the holder.  I used old lace and stamps and bows.

5. I used a hole punch to make holes on each side of the top of the roll to attach a hanging string.  I might use ribbon or wire in my next ones.  I will fill these with candy or some small gift and give them away.  They could be used as tree ornaments or hung from a door knob or anywhere. 

I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial.  Now I better get back to decorating my rolls.  I knew I was saving those rolls for something!!
Hope you all had a thankful Thanksgiving and are buying handmade gifts for Christmas, if you aren't making your own. 

Pinky's Birthday Bash...

We started the Birthday Bash at Stephanie's Cabin in Astoria.

We all made it and ordered our breakfast.  Of course, we do a lot of yacking while eating, so it takes us awhile to get through it.

 Jan must have said something pretty funny...We're probably talking about men's underwear again...

 It's getting serious now...time to open Pinky's presents.  Here, she is opening Jan's present to her.  I am hoping Jan will have taken a picture of it.  It was a beautiful wall hanging...one of her "doolybobbers"...not sure if I spelled that right.  Pinky was thrilled.  There was a little bag that was filled with goodies for card making and a huge pack of glue.

 Here Pinky is opening a card from Karen.  Karen gave her the neatest stamp that had a heart and a "P" on it.  It would be perfect for the back of her cards as Pinky usually puts a "p" on the back of each one.  Karen found her lots of card making supplies too.  I think she won't have to buy anything for quite awhile.  Karen brought Lyla's present, too.  Lyla loves to cut out tiny things from the computer, magazines and where ever she finds them.  She gave Pinky several envelopes of those and some beautiful hand made post cards.

Below is one of the post cards that Lyla made for Pinky.,,very cool.

Next is the sisters, Pinky and Mary, with Pinky holding one of the gifts Mary gave her.

We started our shopping in Dots and Doodles in Astoria.  It is a great art store and non of us got out of there without spending a goodly amount.  It seems like there is always something new to spend money on.

From Dots and Doodles, we headed to Joannes and again...no one came out empty handed...Our last stop was at the Goodwill in Warrenton.  It just seemed to be everyone's day as we all found great things.  We had to step it up a bit at this point as April had to go get her student and return to Jewell.  We had left our cars at Stephanie's Cabin.  April dropped us off there, we all exchanged hugs, wished the birthday girl one more Happy Birthday, and headed for home.  I think that was one of the fastest days I can ever remember!

It is always fun to celebrate birthdays in this group.

We drew names for Christmas earlier at Stephanie's and stashed those away in our memories...good luck with that...

We won't meet next week as it is Thanksgiving, so by the way...Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

See you in two weeks.

Switching To Thursdays...

With our switch to Thursdays, we get to have time with April during her work week.  We are all so happy about that.

We met at April's this week and did our first trade on our calendars.  I hope I can keep these straight as I tell you who did what...

Karen couldn't be with us today as she had a previous appointment, but looking forward on Pinky's Birthday Bash to have everyone together again.  We are thinking the Thursdays will work out great unless April has her schedule changed.

Below are the pages we all did for each other.

April did the following two for Lyla in Redmond, Oregon.  In the first one, she used some of the lettering skills she has learned in some of her online art classes.  April...you might have to do one of these for each of us...Her second is a fun Christmas page.

 These two pages are the ones Karen did for Pinky.  We were sorry she couldn't join us on Thursday.  It's always fun to see the results of our calendar trades.  These two pages were so neat to see in person.  Take a close look at all the goodies Karen puts into her work.

 Jan did the next two for Karen's calendar.  The top one she used alcohol inks.  They coming in amazingly bright colors.  I think we all have fun working with them.  The Raven was so neat.  I'm thinking we are all partial to ravens...

 The next two are the ones that Mary did for April's calendar.  April loves purple.  The beach scene for August is a vintage look at coastal life.

 Pinky and I won't see you next Thursday.  S and B will be at Karen's house.  Have fun!