Addy tude loves her 'tinis

I made this card for my friends birthday a couple of weeks ago but have got behind on this whole blogging mallarky...... This is a tiddly inks stamp from Stamping Bella and I just love Addy Tude - this is the first of many purchases from this range I'm sure. It's coloured with copics and the glasses are glazed with glossy accents and the fur trim is sparkling with ranger rock candy spangles.

To go with her present (a saute pan) I made her a little something more personal, a jewellery set made with the gorgeous Elzybels floral stamps and shrink plastic. I've never had much sucess with shrink plastic in the past, but these worked beautifully.

I just love the dandilion clock in this set, so started with that, and used a brayer and rainbow big and juicy ink pad to get the soft graduated colour effect. Here's the before and after effect on the earrings.

This is the before shrinking shot for the bracelet, a mix of three of the oblong stamps from the set, with holes larger than required, pre-punched with my trusty crop-a-dile. The colours look really soft on frosted shrink plastic but they darken when shrunk as you can see in the second image of the finished bracelet. I used a thin coat of glossy accents on the inked side of the plastic once shrunk to ensure it didn't smudge when worn.

If you like these gorgeous floral stamps - and who wouldn't right? Then stop by Elzybells store over the Easter Weekend (2nd - 5th April) for some great Easter discounts http://elzybells.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/03/easter-special-offers-limited-time.html

Leftover Moroccan Chicken Soup

On Saturday we had a lovely roast chicken, smothered inside and out in Lemon Chicken Spice Mix from the Spice Shop, stuffed with lemons and parsley, an often repeated recipe in our house which is rich and earthy, spicy and zesty from the roasted lemons. We were starving and made a good go of it but we had plenty of leftovers, which I normally turn into risotto, my hubbies favourite. Today though I wanted something lighter and restorative so I came up what I think is best described as a middle eastern take on minestrone. I'm thinking he wasn't so upset by the lack of risotto once he'd started eating....

Moroccan Soup with Leftover Chicken

1 roast chicken carcass, leftover flesh removed.

1 carrot, sliced in half

1 stick celery

2 bay leaves

1 onion diced

1 carrot diced

½ small butter not squash diced

1 corgette diced

1 red pepper diced

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 can chick peas

1 quarter of a chorizo sausage, diced

1 teaspoon lemon chicken mix (optional)

1 teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon corriander

1 glove garlic finely chopped

1 inch piece of garlic finely chopped

1 tablespoon honey

handfull of fresh parsley
grated carrot (optional)

Cover the carcass in water, add the halved carrot, celery and bay leaves, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 - 40 mins until you have a light stock, rich with the flavour from the spices you roasted the chicken in.

In the meantime, prepare your other vegetables.

Fry the chorizo cubes in a large saute pan in olive oil, remove when browned but retain the oil.

Add the onion, garlic, ginger and dry spices and fry.

Add the diced squash, carrot, corgette and brown.

Add the diced pepper, tomatoes, honey and chicken stock. Cook for 5 mins on gentle heat. Add the diced left over chicken, cook for a couple of minutes until the chicken is warmed through, add the chorizo and parsley, season to taste and serve with crusty bread of pittas.

I came across a recipe for moroccan carrot soup, which cooked carrot in the broth but then finished the dish with raw carrot for a light fresh lift and added crunch. I loved it so much I tried it in this dish and it worked here too - so add a handful of grated carrot at the end of cooking just prior to serving and see what you think.

Lots of new stamps

I've been a bit carried away with rubber stamping recently, mainly due to following a great card makers blog from America - Paula Tracey - her cards are amazing and her colouring techniques from copic markers or prisma colour pencils and blending tools are hard to beat. I don't really have any of her artistic skills but I'm practicing hard.



The first card is a sugar nellie stamp coloured with copics, the background is pencil coloured and blended with sansoder with a star and swirl backgorund stamp.

My second card was a mothers's day card for my aunt and god mother. A cute magnolia girl coloured with copics and gently glittered with fairy dust, sitting on a nestabilities lable frame, with a martha stewart border punch and one of the gorgeous new flower stamps from elzybels a her circular happy mothers day sentiment.

New Elzybels Stamps

With mother's day approaching fast, my delivery of the new Elzybels "floral flourish" stamps could not arrive quick enough. It came yesterday and I didn't have much time to play last night but this is my first card made with them.
Can't wait for a bit of time this weekend to make some more - and if I concentrate, they might even not all turn out pink.........