DIY Thanksgiving Placemats

Thanksgiving is on its way and we’re going to do a post today about getting your table ready. We’ve done napkin ring holders, place cards, and how to set the table before, so we’re going to create some place mats with a Fall – Thanksgiving theme. 

These are really easy to make and the kids can get involved. You can make them as creative as you want to or as simple as you want to. I have made them before for birthdays (one was a circus theme and one was a tea party). 

For our placemats we bought a pad of newsprint from the dollar store. They are quite thin, so you can get a thicker type of paper if you prefer and in the colour of your choosing. Our paper measures 11x15 inches which is a good size for a placemat; that way you can fit the dishes and cutlery all on it.

We created two different ones with different techniques.

 Nicole made one using cut out cardstock shapes. She used her silhouette and made a “Give Thanks” pie. She cut an orange pie top, a tan coloured crust, and rusty coloured hearts for the top of the pie and corners of the placemat and glued them all on. She also printed “Give Thanks” on the crust part of the pie with her glittery brown pen. It’s very cute and sweet.

I made a very Fall earthy themed placemat. I used coloured pencils and a felt pen to outline after I traced my shapes down. First of all I traced a simple little square boarder around the edges using  stencil that I had from a craft stencilling book. Then I simply found a big maple leaf, cut it out and traced it in the centre of the placemat two times and coloured it in. 

Countdown to Thanksgiving - Thankful Card

It’s a new season, Fall is here, so we are starting a new theme for our a blog. Canadian Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away and we are going to do a few posts to prepare for that. First of all we are going to create a card because that’s what we do best. You can give this away to someone who you care about as a “Just Because” card and tell them what you are thankful for them or you can put it with a favour or place setting at your Thanksgiving dinner.   

It’s a real simple card to create. We’ve done it with the Silhouette but you can cut everything out on your own and add some stamping to it.

We’ve cut a 5x5 card from Kraft paper and rounded the corners. Then we’ve done an olive green 3x3 layer and glued it on the card like a diamond. 

On top of the green layer we’ve punched a dark rust coloured heart and a cut out four inch long light rust coloured words (thankful). If you don’t have a Silhouette or cutting device you can stamp/print words on the middle of the green layer in black ink. You might want to do a smaller heart if you print or stamp the words.

Manitoba - Picture Road Trip

Manitoba is the final stop on our summer road trip of the provinces. Today we will share with you some popular sights and stops to see if you take a visit there so sit back and enjoy the tour of Manitoba.

Photos in order from top to bottom: Assiniboine Park Zoo, Gimili Viking Statue, Stella's Cafe and Bakery, The Forks, Riding Mountain National Park, Thermea by Nordik Spa-Nature, The Forks, New Iceland Heritage Museum, Minnedosa, Red River, Mere Hotel, The Park Theatre, Exchange District, Churchill, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Gorge Creek Trail

Quebec - Poutine

This is going to be a yummy post. We’re gonna make poutine for our Friday night game night snack.

Poutine originated in Quebec in the 1950’s. A traditional poutine consists of medium thick French fries, fresh bite sized room temperature, curds, and brown thin gravy (usually a combination of chicken and beef).

There are so many poutine variations nowadays . Some people will add chives and bacon bits, pulled pork, sausage, chicken, and in some places, even caviar and truffles are put on top. 

We are going to make the classic poutine for you tonight and one with a little twist.

We’re keeping things simple and we have some straight cut frozen French fries that we are going to crisp up in the oven so that the outsides are nice and crunchy, but the inside will still be soft inside.

Next, we have some beef gravy that we are warming up and getting all of the lumps out of. For a quick poutine just defrost some leftover gravy like we are doing. You can also make your gravy from scratch; take a look at the links at the bottom of the page that we found with some poutine how tos.

Make sure to take your curds out of the fridge so that they can get to room temperature. Apparently room temperature is the ideal temperature to be adding your curds to your poutine. The warmth of the gravy and fries will soften them without melting them completely or leaving them too hard.

Layer your fries first on the plate/bowl, then add the curds, and then pour on the gravy. That’s a classic poutine.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/03/ultimate-perfect-poutine-fries-cheese-curds-gravy-recipe.html

https://www.seasonsandsuppers.ca/authentic-canadian-poutine-recipe/