Super Sunday!!

We are very excited about the Super Bowl! So much so, we kept out our Patriots Christmas ornaments as well as our Pats pom-poms and light up Patriots hat which doesn’t really show in this picture. To start out, we thought we would remind you of the snacks and decorations we suggested the last couple of weeks. Time to get busy!!

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of blog posts. These are snacks we sometimes make for Super Bowl. The No-Tell Queso Dip (in the post “A Superbowl dip…), the Creamy Pantry Dip and the Easy Pita Chips. (Both in the post titled “Gametime“.)

Decorations!!! Here are a couple of our decorations – the Easy Napkin Banner (also in Gametime!) and the Tomato Cage Trees shown above (original directions featured in “Christmas Blog 2 …” switched to blue and red lights).

OUR SUPER BOWL MENU

Red, White and Blue Dip: We buy blue tortilla chips and serve with salsa which we jazz up by adding a 1/2 can of drained black beans and a 1/2 cup of corn. In addition to the salsa, we make a delicious white bean dip. These represent the 3 Pats colors – red, white and blue.

To check out Mark Bittmans rosemary and lemon white bean dip, click the link. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/01/rosemary-lemon-white-bean-dip-recipe.html

Gronk Sandwich:

A grilled kielbasa sandwich topped with warm sauerkraut, mustard and mayo mixture, and melted swiss cheese, served on a whole wheat roll.

Buffalo Shrimp: Grilled shrimp with Buffalo Sauce (Use your favorite recipe – our’s includes hot sauce, margarine, white wine vinegar and chili powder) served with bleu cheese dressing and celery sticks.

Patriots Super Bowl Sundae : Vanilla ice cream topped with fresh blueberries, dried cranberries and whipped cream. Delicious!

For Seahawks fans (if you must): pistachio ice cream topped with blueberries and chocolate covered coffee beans.

Have a fun and safe Super Bowl Sunday!!!

Roy and Kevin

A Super Bowl dip, lights and a recycling tip. (Now that’s poetry!)

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This week, we have a couple of Super Bowl related ideas and a recycling suggestion.

“NO TELL” QUESO DIP RECIPE: We love the Rotel Queso Dip you see on TV with the canned tomatoes with chiles and Velveeta. We decided to make it healthier. Our version uses light cream cheese and cheddar. It’s great to bring to parties because it can be made in advance and reheated in a microwave.

Ingredients: 2 tablespoons of light margarine; 2 tablespoons of fine flour such as Wondra; 1 1/2 cups milk; one 8-oz. package of room-temperature light cream cheese; 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese; one 10-oz. can diced tomatoes with mild chiles, drained; 1/2 teaspoon chili powder; chopped tomato; hot sauce (if desired).

How to make:

In a medium sauce pan, melt margarine and whisk in flour to create a roux
Add milk and stir until mixture begins to thicken
Stir in cream cheese until melted and smooth
Add cheddar cheese, mix to combine
Add chili powder
Add drained tomatoes to cheese mixture
Lower heat and allow to thicken – about one-two minutes
Spoon into serving dish, sprinkle with hot sauce and garnish with chopped tomatoes
Serve with tortilla chips or the pita chips from last weeks blog (shown with dip in picture above). This also is delicious with a small French baguette. (Kevin likes this dip with mini-pumpernickel bread from the deli department at the grocery store.)

PUT A LITTLE LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT: In our home, we use festive party lights year round. We have lights for St. Valentines Day, St. Patricks Day and Easter and, of course, Christmas. During non-holiday times, we love the warm glow the lights give our home and patio. (Think Tavern on the Green!) For the Super Bowl, we’ve decorated our patio with our tomato cage trees emblazoned in blue and red Patriots colors! Go Pats!!!

RANDOM THOUGHT:

RECYCLING AND ORGANIZING IDEA: We often buy pre-packaged cold cuts from the grocery store. They come in small plastic containers similar to Tupperware. We recycle these tubs by using them to store our sewing and craft supplies. (Love our glue sticks!) They stack easily and are transparent, so we can easily find the items we need. These work out great!

Have a wonderful week!

Roy & Kevin

Game Time!!!

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This week, NFL football has reached the conference championships, with four teams playing to see who will go to the Super Bowl on February 1st. We thought we would share our simple napkin banner, and our tasty and healthy chip and dip recipes. Once the food and decorations are set, its up to the teams to do their jobs. I think you can guess who we’re rooting for. (See banner picture above!)

SIMPLE NAPKIN BANNER

Kevin came up with this idea a few years ago while looking for a birthday banner. He couldn’t find a one at the store, so he bought some napkins, placed them fold side down over a ribbon and created a great banner. We bought napkins for our favorite team this year and used this idea again. Easy way to celebrate any event or occasion that’s printed on a napkin!

You will need: 7 napkins with the design of your choice, one 5-foot piece of ribbon or string, tacks or clothespins.

How to create: Attach string to wall with tack or to curtain with clothespins approx. 4.5 feet apart, creating a slope for the banner. Place napkins fold side down on string. Space napkins evenly on string. These are directions for the banner shown above. Make larger or smaller banners to suit your needs using the basic method shown here. Fun, inexpensive and quick!

EASY PITA CHIPS

These pita chips are a tasty, healthy alternative to potato chips, and they are easy to make!

You will need: one package of whole wheat pita pockets, cooking spray, parchment paper.

How to prepare:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
With a small knife, split the pitas into 2 pieces. (The 11 oz. pkg has 4 pitas.)
Put the sides back together and cut into 8 wedges. This will result in 64 chips. (Want smaller chips? Cut more wedges. Can also cut into strips if you prefer.)
Place pieces in a single layer on 2 baking sheets covered with parchment paper.
Spray the pieces with cooking spray.
Bake the pita pieces for 7-8 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 2 minutes and put in a bowl. Variation: before baking, sprinkle chips with parm and/or hot sauce. Tasty!

CREAMY PANTRY DIP

We created this dip from items we found in our pantry and refrigerator. We serve this with the pita chips shown above. Low fat and delicious!

Combine: 1 cup light mayo, 1 cup non fat sour cream, 1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash garlic herb seasoning, 2 tablespoons fat free zesty Italian salad dressing, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon hot sauce to taste. Top with chopped scallions or chives. (Hmm, maybe turkey bacon?)

Next week: A light cheesy dip and more!

GO PATRIOTS!!!

Roy and Kevin

Winter Warmups and thinking of Summer

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Happy New Year 2015! Now that the holidays are over, winter seems to have gotten more severe and colder. We thought this week, we would share a couple of simple and helpful ideas, including directions for what has to be the easiest handmade scarf ever. We also have shared our tip for a ridiculously quick warm-you-up cup of soup, and a simple idea for storing Christmas decorations. But, before we deal with winter (in a good way), we invite you to take a look at some of the pretty flowers we grew last summer (shown above). It’s nice to remind ourselves that summer is not too far away. (That’s our story and we are sticking to it!) OK, now for the winter stuff:

THE SIMPLEST HANDMADE SCARF EVER

Years ago, when Roy was on tour as an actor, he thought of the basic idea for this scarf. He bought a piece of fleece fabric, and used it as a scarf and mini blanket to keep warm during the many long rides in the touring van. The thing that makes this scarf so simple is fleece doesn’t fray, so no sewing in necessary. For this project you will need: A piece of fleece fabric, scissors. For the basic, simple scarf: Cut fleece 5 feet long X 8 inches wide. That is the basic scarf! Add decorative fringe: Measure and cut 2 inches into each end of the fabric, 1/4-inch apart and tie each fringe piece at the base.

The scarf shown above on the blue teddy bear is one we made for an avid basketball fan from a fabric remnant with a basketball print. Fabric stores have a huge variety of fleece fabrics with many colors and prints, as well as your favorite sports team logos. Be creative, design your own scarf any length, width and print you like! They make great Super Bowl favors using team colors or logos. (Beware! If you sell crafts, you should look into the legal aspects of selling any items with team logos or other licensed logos.)

WARM UP!

For a quick, tasty and warming low-calorie snack, try a cup of low sodium chicken broth with a dash of red pepper flakes. Microwave on high for 2 minutes.

Enjoy!

HOLIDAY STORAGE TIP

We store our Christmas decorations in plastic storage bins. We have lots of these bins in our storage unit and that sometimes makes organizing difficult. It can be confusing knowing which bin contains what. One thing we do is label all the bins with a piece of masking tape describing what is inside. To differentiate the holiday bins, we also put another small piece of red tape on the ends of each bin with the letter C for Christmas (shown). This helps us identify the right bins when we are trying to bring in our many Christmas decorations. We use same idea for other bins (H for Halloween, E or Easter, etc.).

No, we aren’t done taking down the decorations. What’s the problem? It’s not Valentines Day!

Stay Warm Everyone!

Roy and Kevin

Happy New Year!!

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Wow! 2014 is almost over! This is our 12th blog post. It’s been fun! Today we thought we would share our Happy New Year! Banner, as well as our creative resolutions for 2015 (and beyond!).

HAPPY NEW YEAR! BANNER:

We made this banner using cardstock, stickers and curling ribbon. See previous blog posts for banner instructions. For this one, we threaded ribbon through the cards, rather than using clothespins. Fun and easy to make!

OUR CREATIVE RESOLUTIONS:

Each New Year’s Eve, we like to come up with creativity-based resolutions for the upcoming year. Here are a few of our resolutions for 2015:

Paint and draw
Organize craft supplies
Keep better notes about craft ideas
Read more
Learn to sew better
Get a better camera
Finish ongoing projects
Listen to more music
Visit more art galleries and museums
See more movies, plays and concerts
Take classes
Look for inspiration in unusual places
Improve blog posts

DELICIOUS SANDWICH SUGGESTION:

A great way to enjoy leftover pot roast (Leftover pot roast? What is that?) is to put it on a grilled cheese sandwich. Take a slice of your warmed leftover pot roast (recipes for pot roast are easily found online), open up your grilled cheese sandwich, freshly made on large bread slices with your favorite cheese. Place the beef inside. Close the sandwich and put the whole thing back in the pan. Heat for 30 seconds or so on each side. Enjoy! We are having this New Years Day!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“In the new year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.” From an Irish Toast – source: Quote Ocean

Finally, as we close out 2014, we wish you all

and

in the coming year! Happy 2015!

Roy & Kevin!

Merry Christmas!!!

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We’ve really enjoyed creating these blog posts. Funny how writing a blog about creativity actually inspires the creative process and provides a great outlet for expression. It’s definitely been a positive experience.

Today, we are posting some photos from our previous Christmas blog entries. We’ve enjoyed sharing these with you this season. We also are including another one of the decorations we put up every year. And finally, we’re sharing a picture taken by Roy’s great niece Thalia of a festive craft project she did recently with her 4 and 1/2-year old son Taegan – very cute! Enjoy!

PICTURES FROM PREVIOUS POSTS

THE TREES: the angel tree, the tree with homemade wooden ornaments, the sports tree, the nutcracker tree, and our tomato cage tree craft project.

THE TIPS Gift Bags and painted clothespins

THE VIGNETTES: Stuffed animals and hat shelf, animatronics, snowmen, desktop and bulletin board.

A FEW MORE THINGS

PHOTO CARD WREATH

It’s great receiving annual photo Christmas cards from our family and friends. Each year, we clip them to this moose card wreath using the painted clothespins we featured earlier this month.

REINDEER FOOTPRINT DECORATIONS

We love these decorations Roy’s great niece Thalia made with her son, Taegan. Thalia saw them online (not sure which website) and created her own version. Her son enjoyed making them and putting paint on his feet. After she took this photo, she punched a hole at the top of each reindeer and hung the ornaments on her tree. They look great! Kudos to Thalia and Taegan!

Thanks so much for all the positive feedback we have received about our blog posts since we started it just before Halloween of this year.

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a creative New Year!

Roy & Kevin

A Little More Christmas…

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Christmas approaches! Here are a few things we hope you find of interest. Enjoy!

TREE OF THE WEEK This blogs tree of the week (shown above) is very special. We inherited the tree from Kevin’s mom, Irene, who we passed in April. When we were helping to clean out her condo, prepping it for sale, we had put the tree in the pile of items to be discarded. She had owned it for a long time and she and others had found it to be quite difficult to assemble. We were taking it to the dumpster when we did an about face and brought it back to our car. We had decided to keep it. That was in June, and as the months went by, we thought about how we should decorate the tree – if we could manage to put it together. We decided an angel tree would be a fitting tribute to Irene, who had a special devotion to angels. When the time came to put up the tree, we happily found it relatively easy to assemble. We decorated it with angel ornaments collected through the years, some by Irene and others by us. A few hand-made angels we made years ago also made the cut. Irene’s manger is on the table to the left of the tree. Various angel decor, including a decoupaged plate we made for Irene, are displayed at the base of the tree. Keepsake angel Christmas cards attached to the curtain frame the tree. This tree brings back great memories and we are pleased to share it with you.

ADD SOME EXTRA STYLE TO YOUR GIFT BAG!

Make a gift bag more special by replacing the original handle. Here’s how:

Choose a bag you like that is the right size for your gift.
Pick a bag that has handles that are tied on from the inside of the bag.
Remove the original cord by untying the knots.
Replace the cord with something more fancy or interesting, such as ribbon, rickrack or garland cut to the same size as the original cord.
Embellish with bows, gift tags, or whatever you like.

In our example (above right), we used a mesh gold ribbon. We added a matching bow for extra flair. An easy and inexpensive fix!

SHOW & TELL: OUR BULLETIN BOARD AND DESK SHELF

We don’t have a large tree this year (although we do have 9 smaller trees!!!), so we decided to decorate the bulletin board over our computer desk with some our of special ornaments. This works as long as the decorations have flat backs. We adorned the shelf with some of our character ornaments, along with a few other miscellaneous festive items. Books are staggered, suggesting a Christmas tree. Hectic, but fun!

JOKE OF THE WEEK Why was Santa’s little helper depressed? Because he had low elf esteem! source: boyslife.com

HOLIDAYFACT Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was actually conceived by Montgomery Ward department store as a sales gimmick to get kids to buy coloring books. The advertising folks almost didn’t give Rudolph a red nose because they were worried he would be perceived as a drunkard. No drinking and flying Rudy! source: ETonline

Thanks everyone – hope your holidays are Scrooge-free!

Roy and Kevin

Christmas Blog 2, The Celebration Continues!

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We have been decorating on and off all week. Today, we thought we would share a craft idea for our lighted indoor/outdoor trees made from tomato cages. We also present a couple of our holiday vignettes. And, of course, our Trees of the Week!

TREES OF THE WEEK Here are a couple fun trees. On the left is the nutcracker tree which is filled with nutcracker ornaments, a couple of metal nutcrackers and of course, nuts! The tree on the right is our sports tree with various sports ornaments we have collected through the years. GO Red Sox, Go Patriots, Go UCONN!

VIGNETTES

Create a vignette by grouping like items together, or by creating little scenes with a variety of items that tell a story, or promote a theme. The photos on the left show our snowman vignette and our hat and stuffed animal vignette.

The animatronic vignette at the top of the page is one of our most special and definitely our most musical collection. We inherited many of these figures from Kevin’s mom, Irene, who passed away in April. She collected animatronics for every holiday and loved to play them for all her guests and the neighborhood children. They brought her a lot of joy. We gave her many of these and we are happy to share them with you.

TOMATO CAGE CHRISTMAS TREES

DIRECTIONS FOR TOMATO CAGE CHRISTMAS TREES

We grew tomatoes in buckets on our patio for the first time this summer. These christmas trees are made from the tomato cages we used. They add a fun sparkle on our patio, but would work either indoors or outdoors.

You will need: a cone-shaped tomato cage (ours measure about 3-feet tall), a set of 100-count indoor/outdoor holiday lights, twist ties, real or artificial greenery, tree decorations, indoor/outdoor extension cord length determined by your accessibilty to an outlet.

Clean tomato cage it if it has been used for gardening
Flip cage upside down and tie the tips of the cage with a twist tie (shown) to create the top of the tree.
Using the end opposite of the plug, start from the top and attach the lights to the cage.
Twist lights around the cage, trying to spread the lights evenly, and leave enough room at the end to reach the plug or the extension cord.
Fill the inside of the cage with greenery and adorn with ornaments, pinecones, tinsle or whatever you find festive!

GIFT TIP: Don’t forget the pets! During the holidays, it’s nice to remember our 4-legged friends. Toys and treats can get the cats purring and the dog’s tails wagging. It also makes their owners happy!

JOKE OF THE WEEK: Why does Santa have 3 gardens? So he can Hoe Hoe Hoe! source: xmasfun.com

CHRISTMAS FACT: All the gifts mentioned in the song, “The 12 Days of Christmas”, would equal 364 presents! source: randomhistory.com

Thanks for following and sharing these blog posts. We appreciate your support.

Feliz Navidad!

Roy and Kevin

The Christmas season is here!!!

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Wow! The Christmas season is here! Seems like it was just summer and now Christmas is less then three weeks away. We’ve started decorating and working on our shopping lists. Here are some ideas we thought we would share with everyone.

TREE OF THE WEEK:

We often have themes for the many trees which we decorate every year. This weeks tree (above) is an old prelit artificial tree my father, Bill Drew, had in his home for the last 10 years of his life. When he bought this tree and announced that this 3-foot tree was going to be the family Christmas tree, I wasn’t thrilled. Too small, not real, but it was my father’s home and he could do what he wanted. Time and circumstances have a way of changing things. Now that he’s gone, this tree is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. This year, the tree is trimmed with some of the wooden ornaments I made in my father’s workshop when I was in high school, many moons ago!

PAINTED CLOTHESPINS:

We use clothespins for a lot of our holiday decorating. We painted a package of 60 using green and red acrylic paints. We use them to hang stockings, hats, lights, cards and other decorative items throughout our home.

GIFT TIPS!

When choosing a gift, it is important to know something about your recipient. The more you know about them, the more you listen, the more equipped you will be to give them the perfect gift!

Here are some ideas on HOW TO KNOW YOUR GIFTEE:

Listen to them; if they say they like or want something, use that information when selecting a gift.
Know their favorite sports teams.
Find out what their hobbies are.
Use the internet to find out what they LIKE on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
What do they need? Is there something you can help them get?
Do they have new a computer, car or something else for which you can buy an accessory or fun item?
What are their dreams? Can you buy them something to help them achieve those goals?
What are their causes? Can you donate to that cause or buy something for them that helps them support it?
What is special to them? Perhaps a photo of a loved one, a special piece of jewelry, a special book.
Who are their favorite authors?
What music do they love? Who are their favorite bands?

JOKE OF THE WEEK: What do you sing at a snowman’s birthday party? Freeze a jolly good fellow! (Source: Santa World )

HOLIDAY FACT: Christmas wasn’t declared an official holiday in the U.S. until June 26, 1870. (Source: randomhistory.com)

Thanks for following, liking and sharing these blog entries!

Enjoy!

Roy & Kevin

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Happy Thanksgiving! This is the time to focus on those things for which we are thankful. One of the things we are thankful for is the interest people have shown in these blog posts and the nice comments we have received about the craft projects we have presented in the blog entries we have posted here.

We were trying to come up with a craft for this week but we came to the conclusion that it’s a little late to make Thanksgiving crafts. People are busy cooking and they have their decorations up already. We decided to post pictures (above and below) of the three Thanksgiving crafts we shared in previous weeks. If anyone gets some last minute inspiration to create, you can find the Thanksgiving Banner in “Thanksgiving Post Number One” and the Centerpiece in “Thanksgiving – The Third Blog Post”.

Also check out the previous posts for recipes for cranberry sauce variations and sweet potatoes with bananas.

Our favorite craft project for this holiday is the Thanksgiving Tree. The directions are in the blog: “Thanksgiving Continued”. (Past posts are listed in the right hand column of this page – check them out!)

Here is our Thanksgiving Tree.

Some of the things we put on our Thanksgiving Tree are listed below. We’ve added quite a few since the picture was taken.

Wonderful memories
Family
Friends
Good Food
Roof over our heads
Employment
The Arts
Creativity
New Car
New England Patriots
Boston Red Sox
UConn
Health
Healthcare
Gay Marriage
Our Summer Garden
Desserts
Reading mysteries
Vacation
Kevin
Roy
Our readers and followers

As we mentioned above, we are grateful for good food and for our health. We’ve improved our eating habits a lot in recent years. We’ve both lost a few pounds since the Turkey heads picture at the top of the page was taken of us in 2007. Here are a few healthy ideas for Thanksgiving and everyday.

A FEW HEALTHY TIPS:

In our stuffing we use a combo of half white bread and half whole wheat bread.
For mashed potatoes sometimes we use half potatoes and 1/2 cauliflower to lower the carb amounts and raise the fiber and nutrition factor.
Nonfat sour cream adds creaminess and no fat to mashed potatoes.
Buttermilk is low in fat and delicious in mashed potatoes. (Can you tell we love mashed potatoes?) Buttermilk is also great as a base for salad dressings.
We substitute low fat versions of mayo, margarine, cream cheese and sour cream in all of our recipes. We save lots of calories and have lost weight by doing so. Non-fat sour cream is pretty good, but otherwise we go low fat.
In recipes where teaspoons or tablespoons of salt are called for, we only use a pinch if any at all.

JOKE OF THE WEEK: “Knock Knock” “Who’s there?” “Phillip” ” Phillip Who?” “Phillip a plate and dig in!” (Source: hubpages)

(Hmmm, maybe they should read the healthy tips first!)

THANKSGIVING FACT: In 1941, Congress passed an official proclamation and made Thanksgiving a national holiday which would be observed on the fourth Thursday of November every year. (Source: Buzzle)

We wish you, your families and friends a happy, healthy and safe Thankgiving and a wonderful holiday season to come.

Next week – Christmas is coming!

Roy and Kevin

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Funclesarts

Because creativity can be simple, affordable, and it makes life more fun!

Super Sunday!!

A Super Bowl dip, lights and a recycling tip. (Now that’s poetry!)

Game Time!!!

Winter Warmups and thinking of Summer

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!!!

A Little More Christmas…

Christmas Blog 2, The Celebration Continues!

The Christmas season is here!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!