xoxo

This card literally took less than 10 minutes!  I LOVED working with the Love Notes kit for January from Scrapbook Circle.  My focus was to use the XOXO exclusive piece-when I pulled it from my bag I KNEW I had to use it on the card.
Plastic can be tricky to add to pages or cards-on this card you can see that I stapled one (it's a soft plastic) and I adhered the XOXO with 3M tacky adhesive and it's on there to STAY!

Pinterest Food Find. Chinese Orange Chicken

recently we were at my brother-in-law's picking oranges, we had a TON!  I was wondering what I would do with them all and THEN chicken came on sale, I knew exactly what I wanted to make, Orange Chicken-my son's favorite!

(photo/food credit: Damn Delicious)

Chinese Orange Chicken

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cornstarch, divided
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced

FOR THE MARINADE

• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1. To make the marinade, whisk together chicken broth, orange juice, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, orange zest, Sriracha, ginger and white pepper in a large bowl.
2. In a gallon size Ziploc bag or large bowl, combine chicken and 2/3 cup of the marinade; marinate for at least 30 minutes, turning the bag occasionally. Drain the chicken from the marinade, discarding the marinade.
3. Heat remaining marinade in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir in 2 tablespoons cornstarch combined with 2 tablespoons water. Cook, stirring frequently, until thickened about 1-2 minutes; keep warm.
4. Working one at a time, dip the chicken into the eggs, then dredge in remaining 1 cup cornstarch, pressing to coat.
5. Heat vegetable oil in a large saucepan. Working in batches, add chicken and fry until golden brown and cooked through, about 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate; discard excess oil.
6. Serve chicken immediately, tossed or drizzled with the marinade, garnished with sesame seeds and green onion, if desired.

LOVE

I LOVE this guy-we recently celebrated 20 years of marriage!  Love Notes kit from Scrapbook Circle was perfect for this picture my son took at Thanksgiving--(excuse the slight glare on my face) The textures and embellishments made it hard to choose--I'm pretty happy with the result.

closer up:

 Thanks for stopping by today--happy creating!

Friday Funny.

this honestly made me laugh OUT LOUD:

Totally me as a teenager!

January Kudos.

Kudos=deal of the month for Younique

I wanted to quickly share with you the monthly Kudos for Younique-(direct link!) for the month of January there is EXACTLY one week left to order.  It's a GREAT one:

What is REALLY great are that with this kudos there are 3 EXCLUSIVE lip stain colors for January to choose from.  Lip Stains are AWESOME and I really love them.

Here is what the lip stain colors look like:

My FAVORITES are: 

Shy

Savvy

Sleek

Serendipitous

You also get to choose your Mineral liquid foundation-there are 13 shades to choose from-this is lovingly referred to as "liquid gold" goes on liquid dries to a powder.  If you need help with color matching I can help you with that or you can take this quiz:

Your final choice in this month's Kudos is the Shadow Palette-these are BEAUTIFUL colors and they will last you a LONG time, I've used mine consistently since November and I've barely made a dent!  

My favorites are:

#1

#3

#4

There are several reasons why I LOVE Younique, but one is that my friends in other locations can order for themselves and have it shipped DIRECTLY to you!  It's very simple if you are out of country I may need to help you-Younique is currently available in these markets:

Australia

United Kingdom

Germany

Spain

Canada

New Zealand

Mexico

France

Hong Kong

If you have ANY questions please ask--I would love to help you!

Stitch Happy Multi Media Sewing Machine

Here is the video I made while I attended Creativation 2017 in the We R Memory Keeper's booth-I have not had the opportunity to play with the machine.  What I observed, it is lightweight which really surprised me.  I have a couple of friends who are purchasing this and I can't wait to hear what they say.  I have to budget my funds so I'll just keep using what I have for now.  But here ya go!  Enjoy!

Creativation 2017-CHA

So this year I was able to attend CHA, which is now called Creativation and also has a new set of letters (which I can't remember!)  Basically this is where all the new product from the Scrapbooking companies is released.  I was able to reconnect with old friends, visit with Genius ladies who inspire me, and see AWESOME new product and be inspired!  I was able to attend with some of the designers from Scrapbook Circle:

The Heidi Swapp booth was AMAZING of course!  Her hot item were these new planners, and white letter boards--cool thing she has made FULL words to be added to them--GENIUS!

I spy pretty planners!  Her large one was pretty nice--had wire rings but a spine as well with sheet protectors to add pictures.

Heidi is a sweetheart and just chatted and visited with us for about 20 minutes about planners--one of the things she said that really stuck with me is she wants to help "clear the blur" that we get sometimes when it comes to the memory part of memory keeping.  I'm hoping to implement that philosophy with my memory keeping owning it and making it my own.

 I really was impressed with the Make Your Mark line from Bella Blvd.  it is TOTALLY different design wise than anything they have ever done--it's refreshing and just beautiful!

I included this tissue paper wall because it was pretty amazing!  I was also pretty excited that the pen that they carry in the Illustrated Faith line does NOT bleed through your Bible page!  I'm excited to try it! ;)

Lisa Andrews owner of Scrapbook Circle, Tessa Buys, me, and Jenni Calma (Scrapbook Circle crew)

 Jillibean Soup had some beautiful new papers in their Bowl of Dreams line-this line is cute and I really love the colors!

 

Loved getting a shot with my friends in the Jillibean Soup booth Kimber McGray, Rebecca Keppel (fellow Scrabook Circle designer) and Summer Fullerton--LOVE these girls!

This little sewing machine was pretty sweet!  Coming tomorrow is a 2 minute video I filmed of Aly demonstrating it to us. 

 Webster's pages was very inspiring in the planner, traveler's journal department--I am really excited to get my hands on a traveler's journal-I plan on keeping the memories of my daughter's high school career.  These colors though:

 

The girls and I playing with new planner inserts--they are GORGEOUS! (both my girls and the paper!)

The American Crafts booth was the largest of the show--they are the parent company to many of our favorites which will be coming to future kits for Scrapbook Circle.

Maggie Holmes was a trooper--she was there with a broken ankle and still her sweet personably self, I have seen her once or twice she is local to me

Elizabeth Kartchner what a talent!

 LOVE this talented Kim Jeffress!  She is such a sweetheart-we both missed last years CHA so it was great to catch up--she inspires me SO much!

 I was super excited to see that Laura Vegas was coming-I totally hunted her down! ;)  She and I go way back in the bloggy/creative world, she has been an inspiration and mentor to me, I was SUPER excited that she was attending this year!

 Pink Fresh Studios--I can't even choose a favorite honestly everything they released I love and we will be seeing it here in upcoming kits--woohoo!  Such sweet TALENTED ladies!

I LOVE meeting new people and Eveline--she is an incredible designer and has some SUPER cute designs with Pinkfresh-she is hilarious!

Was so excited to see my friend Ashley Harris at the show even if it was for a brief moment!

I was literally SO super excited when I saw Wonder Woman--I made EVERYONE stop--she was a great sport! ;)

 okay--this was a SUPER LONG post but I wanted to share this last little pic (I also shared it on my Instagram post)  This is planning future kits for Scrapbook Circle!  I do know we are planning a future planner kit--I am finally on board and excited to switch from Project Life into something for me--I'll keep you in the loop with how I make it work for me!

 Thanks for the visit today!

First date.

Here we are these two BEAUTIFUL kiddos on their very first date!  They have been buddies since elementary and share the same birthday.  My daughter and I joked with my boy that he should take her out and be her first date--they went to homecoming with a LARGE group and had a GREAT time!

some closeup looks of the title:

 as you can see I used some pop dots to give the title some fun dimension.
Another closeup:

Loved the Love Notes kit from Scrapbook Circle this month--LOTS of fun embellishments and papers!

there's a new sheriff...

 That's right!  There IS a new sheriff in town--and it's ME!  I have a confession to make, I am 43 almost 44 years old and I STILL like to dress up, guess I'm like the lost boys or Peter Pan or even like the jingle from Toys R'us, I don't want to grow up! ;)

I took a selfie at my son's western BBQ choir fundraiser and knew I had to scrap it!  And this cactus paper in the January Love Notes Scrapbook Circle kit was PERFECT!

here's a bit of closeups:

 The weather is SO lovely here today--on the schedule: chopping of the HORRIBLE date palm in my backyard--it's going to make way for my plan of a budget friendly Oasis.  I'll share pictures soon!  Thanks for stopping by!

Do you ever get songs stuck in your head?

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? This is mine; it's on my running music list on Amazon prime; my 14 year old shared the video with me today--I am TOTALLY the lady in the kitchen!

Happy Martin Luther King day!