Patio Shade Solution

We've lived in our home for almost 20 years.  Every summer I try to come up with something to provide shade for the patio in the late afternoon and early evening.  Over the years we've tried bamboo roller shades, shade cloth on a frame and vines.  Because we have such a problem here with winds, the shades and shade cloth didn't work well.

Every spring I plant Moonflowers in the long bed that sits on the west side of the patio.  DH runs lightweight rope from hooks on the edge of the bed to a rod suspended just under the edge of the patio cover.  This has been the best solution for shading the patio.

Putting up the ropes and removing them once the vines die off in the fall is a hassle.  I went online looking for a permanent solution and spent quite a bit of time researching different types of trellises before finding one that I liked.

I wanted one that would fit the size of the bed and each one I found online that could be customized was way out of my price range!

The plans for this trellis were found on an online home improvement site.  I emailed the photo of the finished trellis to DH and he drew up the plans and materials list to build it.

If you include his labor in the cost of the finished trellis, the ones online were priced just about right.  DH is a stickler for getting everything just so and he's spent about 3 full days to complete the project.

I planted my Moonflower seeds a few days ago and they're starting to come up.  I'm anxious for them to spread onto the trellis and see if it looks as I imagined.

 

Dragonfly Card

The die and stamp for the dragonfly came attached to issue 134 of Simply Cards and Papercrafts magazine.

I used the die and cut the shape from white cardstock, then again from vellum.  I trimmed the body portion off of the vellum image and then glued the wings onto the white base.

The stamped image was colored with a SU marker and I used just the body portion. The faux stitching was done with the same SU marker.

The wings looked too plain so I embossed them with a Swiss Dot folder and colored them with a clear star jelly roll pen to add some sparkle and bent them slightly up for dimension.

The tiny stars came from the Dollar Tree. 

Spring Flowers

The first flowers of spring 2015 at our house.

I can never remember the name of this flower.  Pretty sure it's not a Columbine though.

****Thanks to some online friends, I now know that these are Clematis plants.  Thanks for the help! ****

Garden Collection Stamps Card

The bird image is from a set of stamps by Spellbinder that came with Card Making And Papercraft magazine as a bonus.  They were designed to go with Spellbinder's Lacy Circles dies.

I do not own the dies so I used my Cameo and Make The Cut software to size and cut the scalloped circle to fit the stamped image.  The bird was stamped onto a 2 3/4" circle of white cardstock and colored with Promarkers.

This is my version of a card suggestion in the Card Making magazine.

Sriracha - Beef Macaroni and Cheese

DH really enjoys Sriracha sauce -- macaroni and cheese, not so much.  Today was one of those days when I neither wanted to cook or go out to eat dinner so I was looking for something quick and easy to make that DH would like.

A while back I posted a simple recipe using Shurfine macaroni and cheese with chicken.  Today I took that idea and changed it up to include ground beef.  It turned out well and I've added it to my favorite recipes.  

Since I keep all the ingredients on hand, and it can be on the table in less than 30 minutes, I consider it a keeper!


Sriracha Beef Mac and Cheese

1 box Shurfine macaroni and cheese
2 T. Sriracha mayonnaise
1 can mild tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
¾ lb. ground beef, browned

Prepare macaroni and cheese according to box instructions.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Makes 4-5 generous servings

You Rock! Card

I cannot believe how long it took me to get this card designed, cut and assembled.  The first hurdle was doing a print and cut on my Cameo of the rocking chair.  When the images were printed, the color was totally off.  That lead to replacing the color ink cartridge in my printer and spending time getting the printer aligned.

The Cameo did a super quick job of printing and cutting out the chairs once the printer ink was adjusted.

Then I decided I wanted to print "You rock!" onto a star shape and do a print and cut on it also.  There has to be a secret process to print text and cut a shape using Silhouette software---one that I'm not privy to since I could never accomplish that task!

Thinking I'd be able to accomplish it in Make The Cut, I switched software programs and tried one more time.  How hard can it be to cut a star with two words printed inside the shape?  Evidently,  pretty hard since I couldn't figure out how to do it in MTC either.

That lead me back to Hallmark Card Studio software where I was able to load a jpg image of the colored stars and add the text.  Knowing I was only going to make four cards, I just gave up and cut them out by hand.

The stars and rocking chair are pop dotted on the card front for dimension.  The acrylic dots in the corner came from the Dollar Tree.

It's simple projects like this that make me wish there was a decent manual for Silhouette software or a hands on class nearby!

Just Relax Card

The chillin' out chick is a digital image colored with Promarkers.  The acrylic bubbles were found at the Dollar Tree in their craft section.

Design-A-Flower Card

This card was done using an embossing folder and stamp set that came with Papercraft magazine.

I embossed the card front then stamped and cut out the large flower and leaves by hand.  They are pop dotted onto the matching embossed area.

The smaller embossed flowers were tinted with Memento Ladybug Red ink and a dauber. 

I added the sentiment and two small coordinating flower stamps in the upper corner and was done!