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Jessica Acs. Crazy Happy Chaos

Jessica Acs. Crazy Happy Chaos

A little bit of everything. Life, animals, family, crafts, recipes.

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Recipes

Day 9 of 50 Days of Journaling and awesome healthy snack recipes!

November 6, 2011 by Jess 1 Comment

Here are today’s journaling prompts, sorry for lack of photos for my pages, I have several in progress but they aren’t quite finished yet.

1. My life….

For this one, I thought a fun collage might work. Choose some random pictures (either your own photos or cut stuff out of magazines) that pertain to your life right now. And/or cut out some words and definitions from a dictionary or simply cut up random words that might describe your life. For example, I might use words such as: happy, busy, chaotic, thankful…. to put on my page. Don’t forget to date it!

2. Just for fun….

What fun things have you been doing in the last week or two? Life can’t be all about work – we need some play in there too! Did you see any movies, enjoy a nice date night with your sweetie, eat at a new restaurant, or even just hang out with your family and play a game. Journal about all the fun things you’ve done recently.

 

So I have a couple quick, easy, and healthy snack recipes to share!

I had read in the past about making kale chips but never tried it. However, while I was making breakfast for our troop of animals this morning, I pulled a big bag of kale out of the fridge for them – and thought why not try it! I’ve been buying kale for years because of its incredible health benefits – but I never once made it for us – I always feed it to the animals, haha. I overcooked the first tray and most of it was pretty brown but I tasted a piece anyway – and it was SO good, that I quickly ate up all the most salvageable pieces before throwing the rest in the garbage. Then I used all the remaining kale we had a made another huge tray of it. Steve walked into the kitchen while I was ripping the kale into bite sized pieces and asked what I was making. When I told him “kale chips”, he got a funny look on his face, the kind of look that says “ewww…” so then I said “they’re so good!!! so good that you aren’t allowed to have any! I want all of it for myself!” A little reverse psychology never hurts, especially when it will get him to try more healthy things! lol! So he thinks about it for a second and then says “I want to try them”. Sure enough after I pulled them out of the oven, properly cooked this time, I put them all into a big bowl and offered Steve one. He tried it and loved it!! So we polished off the bowl of chips in a couple minutes and were sad we didn’t have more.

Kale Chips: (sorry I totally forgot to take a photo – yep they were that good – didn’t last long enough!)

rip apart kale leaves into bite sized pieces and remove the stems, then put them into a large mixing bowl and spray with cooking spray. Toss so they all get evenly coated. (You really don’t have to add too much spray, they still taste delicious even when they aren’t saturated with oil). Sprinkle some sea salt on and toss them again. Spread out evenly on a cooking sheet and bake in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 minutes. The first time you make these, keep checking on them and pull them out just when the edges start to brown. All oven are different so timing will vary. Be prepared for these to disappear fast! 🙂

The oil I use is Coconut oil which I found at Whole Foods. It’s supposed to be really healthy and it’s good for high heat. (Apparently olive oil is not good for high heat….)

So after we finished off out kale chips, I went back into the kitchen to make another of our favorite healthy snacks: Baked zucchini. This recipe I got from my good friend Jodi, who is back in BC. Jodi, I miss you so much!

Slice a zucchini up and spread the slices on a baking tray (spray with oil first), then sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese on top. Bake at 350 for about 15 min (once again, keep an eye on them and pull them out when they start to brown a bit). Oh my goodness, these are so delicious, I could eat them all day long. These are also a favorite of Steve’s so I had to share them, haha. These didn’t even last a minute I don’t think, we were fighting over the bowl!

Filed Under: Journaling Prompts, Recipes

Let’s see those mini books!

September 15, 2009 by Jess 8 Comments

Who’s working on the challenge for this month? Just a reminder that they are due in by September 29, and please let me know if I can post pictures of them here. If you just want to enter for the giveaway, you can leave a comment under any post from August 25 until now.

I just wanted to share this awesome mini that Sabrina completed for the challenge:

sabrina1

sabrina2

I love love love that she did it on the San Diego Zoo/ Wildlife Park!!!!  Be sure to hop on over to Sabrina’s blog to see photos of all the other pages of this adorable mini!

October’s challenge will be up in 5 days – check back for it – it’s going to be a fun one and there will be a tutorial to follow along for it if you need it.

School is keeping me very busy as usual and I seriously cannot believe its half way through September already!! I’ve been learning how to do morning areas at the zoo in different parts – so far I’ve done Nutrition (making all the diets for the animals), and Wildlife Theatre/ Show/ Aviary which includes a wide variety of animals such as a few birds, a chinchilla, a beaver, a couple baboons (which I’m in love with), a couple capuchin monkeys, and some other various animals. That is probably my most favorite areas (because of the baboons!). This week I start in Primate Gardens. I still can’t touch or talk to any of the animals which is SO HARD. I did get to hold the bunny and the chinchilla though, and I had to go into the Beaver’s enclosure to get into his pool and clean it – he was asleep the whole time though. Fun times, fun times.

Oh, I did do some baking a couple days ago – yummy Lemon Squares! They are for a speech I have to do in one of my classes – a How -To Speech. So mine is how to make these and then there will be some for everyone in the class to eat.

lemonsquares

Lemon Squares Recipe

Crust:

1.5 cups flour

3/4 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)

3/4 cup butter

Lemon Filling:

6 large eggs

3 cups sugar

1 1/3 cup lemon juice

grated zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Sift the flour and powdered sugar for the crust and then add the butter. Mix it by hand – it should be a crumbly texture. Press it into the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan. Bake the crust for about 20-30 minutes – it will smell SO GOOD – like shortbread!

Filling: Whisk together the eggs and sugar. Add the zest and lemon juice. (I also squeezed the lemon into it after I used the zest). Sift the flour over the mixture and stir it until its mixed in. Pour over the baked crust and pop it back into the oven for another 35 minutes.  Let it cool completely before cutting, then store the bars in the fridge. Enjoy!!

One last thing to share today: here are a couple pictures of one of my newest mini’s – this one is in the current issue of Memory Makers Magazine. It’s a great idea to make as a gift for someone (Christmas is coming!!)

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Filed Under: Animal/ Zoo stuff, Daily Life, Recipes, Scrapbooking/ Mini Albums

Today’s Tutorial and some random stuff…

June 17, 2009 by Jess 6 Comments

Happy Wednesday!! It’s not even 11:00am here yet but it feels like it should be almost dinner time already! For whatever reason, I could NOT sleep last night. Well, I know the reason, but anyway. Too much on my mind, too much to think about, too much on my to-do list that hasn’t been crossed off yet… I fell asleep around 10 and was wide awake at 3:30am. As in, ready to get up and start doing stuff. Since it was pitch black outside still, I forced myself to stay in bed but by 5 I couldn’t stand it anymore and got up.

My scraproom is now almost all packed up. I have all the items I’m taking with me nicely organized and within an arms reach so if I need to find something I can do so quickly.

I greatly downsized my ribbon collection. It went from this:

ribbonbefore

to this:

ribbonbag

ribbonrolled

I rolled the thicker ribbons, and then made little spools to wrap the thin ribbons around.

I still have a bit more work to do in there today (like cleaning the closet out, yuck), so hopefully I’ll get that accomplished this afternoon.

sa

Some potentially really exciting news this week was that I was asked to teach at the upcoming SA Scrapbook Convention in SOUTH AFRICA!!!!! WOW!!!! I couldn’t believe it and was super excited! However, with my hectic upcoming school schedule, I am not going to be able to go : ( I would have needed to be away for 12 days at the end of September/ beginning of October, and there is no way I’d be able to do it with school. I’m still sad over it, it would have been such an amazing experience to go teach in South Africa.

Answers to a  couple questions I got from yesterday’s post:

Angus is a Westie (West Highland White Terrier) : ) and Zoey is a Scottie (Scottish Terrier). They are actually “cousin” breeds in the Scottish Terrier Trio along with the Cairn Terrier.

The Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes are simply whatever your favorite cupcake recipe is, poured into the cones and baked right in the cones. Just make sure you only fill them up to about 1/2 an inch from the rim of the cone and bake them on the higher rack in your oven or the bottoms of the cones will burn. (yes, found this out the hard way. Good thing we had lots of batter and cones to make another batch! ha!)

Now onto today’s tutorial! I actually have another tutorial almost finished as well, so watch for it this weekend sometime.

I got this idea last week when I was doing yet another load of dishes. It’s just something cute, and another way to use up some items in my stash : )

Dishwasher Magnet

cleanfinal

What you will need:

CD

2 pieces of coordinating patterned paper

1 piece of matching cardstock

Strong adhesive (such as zipdry glue)

Thickers letter stickers

Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas

Paint

Sanding tools

round flat magnet

round punch

clean1

1. Cover one side of your CD with the plain cardstock. Trim around the edges and sand until the edges are smooth.

clean2

clean3

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2. Glue your magnet right into the very center of the CD

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3. Glue one piece of patterned paper so it cover exactly half of the CD

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4. Glue the other piece on the other half of the CD. Let the adhesive dry completely.

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5. Trim all the excess paper off, then sand the edges smooth

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6. Using a punch (or if you don’t have the right size circle punch, trace something to the size that you want), punch out a circle from your cardstock and glue it into the very center of the CD

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7. Using some sticky back canvas, draw a cute sheep with a black pen. (or any animal or image that you’d like)

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8. With a fine paint brush, paint part of the sheep in with black acyrlic paint

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9. Once the paint has dried, cut the image out, then stick it to the cardstock circle in the middle of the CD. Add some letters stickers to spell “Clean” at the top and “dirty” at the bottom

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10. Now go and stick it to your dishwasher- simply flip it over so it reads “dirty” when the dishes are dirty and when they’re clean, flip it to “clean”. : )

cleanfinal2

Filed Under: Crafts, Daily Life, Recipes, Tutorials

Look who’s six!

June 16, 2009 by Jess 3 Comments

My baby turned 6 today.  When I look back at the last 6 years and how much I have gone through, good and bad, he has been there with me all along the way. My little sidekick, my best friend. Happy Birthday Angus! : )

angusjune15

He’s having a bit of wild hair day in this pic, which was taken yesterday

I have a couple pictures to share from the weekend. We had a garage sale here and my friend’s daughter came and set up a lemonade stand. We made cupcakes and cookies and she sold those and donated her profits to the local animal shelter. (what an awesome kid she is). When the garage sale was over and packed up, we drove her to the shelter and she gave them her money, it was so cute! Then we had to go visit the dogs there and it broke my heart. I wanted to bring them all home : (

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we made the cupcakes in ice cream cones – they turned out so cute!

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A couple nights ago we went and saw this movie:

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It was HILARIOUS!!! I would go see it again in a second. Totally LOVE Bradley Cooper!

Filed Under: Daily Life, Recipes

Monday Giveaway!

June 15, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

How did Monday possibly get here so fast? I feel like my life is in fast forward mode continously! In exactly one month I will already be in my new house in Southern California. Crazy….

Today’s giveaway is a few different things: a package of Scenic Route Rub On Labels, Making Memories Rub On “Journey” sayings, some Scenic Route chipboard arrows and 7 different templates by HOTP (Pockets & Tags, Mini File Folders & Library Card Holders, Mini Enevelops, Slide Mount Mania, Easy Stitches, Folder Tabs, and Thinga-ma-jigs).  (sorry for the crappy photo)

mondaygiveawy15

To be entered just leave a comment here by Thursday night at midnight and the winner will be announced on Friday.

My question for you today is: What was your most favorite vacation that you’ve ever been on?

I am working on a fun new tutorial – I should have it up on Wednesday : )

I have a new recipe for you! I was craving hummus today so I whipped up a batch using what I had on hand. It turned out really good!

Hummus

1 large can chick peas (590 ml)
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp plain yogurt
fresh garlic crushed
sea salt
onion powder
parmesan cheese (about 2 tsp)
(for the crushed garlic, onion powder and salt, add to taste)

I don’t like it too lemony so if you do like the more sour taste, add more lemon juice.

Mmmm, this turned out so yummy and perfectly the way I like it.

Crisp some tortillas in the oven and you have some quick and easy chips to go with it.  Enjoy!

hummus

I just wanted to answer a couple questions that I’ve been asked recently regarding my move to the states and our pets. The dogs are just fine (thank you so much for asking : ) ) and Zoey’s test results came back showing she does not have cancer (thank goodness) and nothing else showed up either. They said she is an abnormal normal dog…. hmm… but basically she just has to have her blood and liver enzymes tested every year.

I suppose I have only been taking photos of the cats lately as they are the ones that are staying behind with Brent when I leave : (  The dogs are coming with me to California, and so is Fro, the guinea pig. I took a few new photos of the furries today.

calitrio

The SoCal Trio

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snugglebuds

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A group shot – sorry it’s kinda blurry! and yes, it was a rather difficult photo to take! haha

(I just realized how well they all blend in with the couch….)

Filed Under: Animal/ Zoo stuff, Daily Life, Giveaways, Recipes

Day 3 – New Tutorial & a Sweet Treat idea

June 3, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

here is day 3’s tutorial, sorry I’m getting this posted so late, we’ve been painting in our house all day and I haven’t been on the computer at all today.

So here it is: a very quick and easy little gift project: Pillow box gift card holder. This would be perfect to give as a birthday gift or to that special teacher as a thank you gift. : ) It’s just the right size to slip a gift card into.

pillowbox1

You will need:

– 1 sheet patterened paper, cardstock weight

– bone folder

– adhesive

– pillowbox template. (there are lots of them online – do a google search under images) the one I used can be found here

pillowbox2

1. Cut out your pillowbox template and trace it onto your patterned paper

pillowbox3

2. Cut the pillowbox shape out of the patterned paper.

pillowbox4

3. Lay the template ontop of the patterned paper cut out and trace the lines with a bone folder. Press hard.

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4. Fold along all the lines, press with bone folder if needed

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5. Carfeully fold in the side flaps, this can be a little tricky

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6. Glue the small flap to the inside of the box

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7. Fold sides in on both sides and your box is complete!

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Add some ribbon, embellishments and a tag and it’s ready to give as a gift.

One more thing for tonight: it’s not a recipe but just a cool idea for a summer treat. It’s been SUPER HOT here this week (I’m not complaining, really I’m not, just stating a fact….haha) so I’ve been trying to find ways to keep cool. (It gets unbearably hot in our house too…I’m really looking forward to having air conditioning when I move down south). So here is a little something I did today and it turned out pretty good.

Frozen Pudding Popsicles

popsicle2

I took some of these little puddings by Kozy Shack – this package is the Apple Pie ones (mmmm…) and they are also the no sugar added ones! bonus!!

Simply open the pudding cup, mix it up, and insert a popsicle stick.

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Put them in the freezer. (I only had mine in there a couple hours and they were already frozen hard)

popsicle

Once frozen, run the cup under hot water until the popsicle slips right out. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Crafts, Recipes, Tutorials

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