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/

Nova Scotia Lighthouse Card

I can’t believe that we only have a few more weeks of summer and province posts left. Summer flew by. We are focusing on Nova Scotia today and one of its most famous landmarks, Peggy’s Point Lighthouse in Peggy’s Cove. Nova Scotia is also known for its large arts scene so we are going to make a card in honour of that for this week’s post which features lighthouses!

Peggy’s Point Lighthouse:

Even though there are over 160 lighthouses in Nova Scotia, Peggy’s Point Lighthouse is one of the most recognized and photographed lighthouses of them all and in the world. It is your classic red and white lighthouse in a hexagonal shape. It is still an operational lighthouse, operated by the Coast Guard. It marks the entrance point of St. Margaret’s Bay on the eastern side. It even had a post office in it until 2009! How cool is that? You could’ve bought a postcard and wrote it in the lighthouse and sent it right away. 

The original lighthouse was built in 1868 and was made of wood and had a beacon on the roof. The current one was built in 1914 and is made of concrete and became automated in 1958. It’s had several different light colours. It started off red, then went white, then green, and now it’s red again. It’s said that the name comes from St. Margaret’s Bay because Peggy is the nickname for Margaret, but there are a couple of other stories from how the name came about. 

Card Tutorial:

We’ve made this lighthouse card as a Birthday card in past, but you can make it an any occasion card. In the past we added a cute little heart on the lighthouse, but you can keep it plain depending on who you are giving it to. 

We like to keep with the sea theme and make the card blue. We’ve chosen a primary blue card, sized at 6 ¾ x 4 ¾ inches. 

Then we cut light blue and white layers.

We cut a red and white lighthouse from Nicole’s Silhouette, but you can find a template online or use a stencil. 

I stamped and embossed the words in blue ink with clear embossing powder and heated that.

Then we glue on the larger blue layer and then the white layer on top of that and then place the lighthouse on top of that layer. After, we glued on the stamped layer.

Finally to finish off the card, we glued a thicker red strip of red ribbon near the layers and a thinner red strip of ribbon next to that near the edge of the card. 

 And now you have a lighthouse card!