Hey everyone, it’s Lu! On Monday’s we try to bring you something to start off your week from the world of beauty or fashion. This week, I thought we’d get a little personal. Okay, not too personal, lol… but I thought it would be inspirational and fun to create a layout all about our favorite thing(s). I did try to limit myself to just one, but if you’re like me, you’re likely to have many things that would round out a top 100 list! Seriously, I considered all kinds of differents things that I just love… and truly, some of my dearest loved items are my most well~worn (i.e. ratty looking) belongings. However, I decided against scrapping those… wasn’t quite so sure how inspirational they would be to anyone else! But I do have one particular item that I have loved from the moment I saw it. It was one of those spontaneous purchases… and that, these days, is a rare event for me. A few years ago, I was strolling along in a quaint little town, basically just window shopping. I walked into a vintage~style boutique and spotted this adorable little hat. The truth is, when I bought this hat, I had intended it for a gift… but I could just never part with it, as selfish as that may sound (I did find a replacement gift, if that redeems me in any way). I could just visualize myself in this hat on Easter Sundays, tea parties, brunches… and I actually did wear it at a baby shower. It was for my little Chick-to-be & that hat will always be a part of that sweet memory. So, I thought this would be a very special belonging to scrap as a “Favorite Thing”.

If there is that one particular dearly loved item that you feel needs to be documented, why don’t you show us? Think of it as a little “getting to know you” exercise!

Don’t miss SP’s new desktop for AUGUST (below), and tomorrow, Denise will be back with a new product spotlight :o)

LuBeauty & Fashion, Inspiration, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Hey guys…SP here :o)  This is just a quick post to share our new (and free) AUGUST desktop with you!  It’s probably no surprise that I chose to work with the HOPSCOTCH kit, lol!  It is truly my favorite and I think it is perfect for the hot (well, for many of us anyway, lol) month of August!  There are three photos spots on this one…but I decided to have some fun and just add one large photo under all three frames (it just worked out with the composition of the photo).  As always, the text (except for the calendar dates and the august title) is on my example only – yours will be blank :o)  That way – you can add your own names/sayings/message/etc.  Have fun working with this one…here ya go:

CLICK HERE to download the 1024×768 desktop

CLICK HERE to download the 1280×800 desktop

And remember that you can always find our latest free desktop by clicking the FREE DESKTOPS category located on the right side of the blog!

I also wanted to mention that if you are interested in our free desktops, but have no idea how to insert your own photos – please visit our TUTORIALS page and refer to the USING THE PIECE-A-CAKE .PNG FILES TO CREATE AN ALBUM titles :o)  We offer this tutorial in both screen shot and video format, for both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.  And, while the tutorial is not specifically for the desktops – the concepts are very much the same…and should help out a lot :-)

THANKS SO MUCH for stopping by the blog :o)  Have a great day/night…we’ll see ya back here tomorrow :o)

Shabby PrincessFree Desktops, Uncategorized 20 Comments

Good morning!! :)

Trish here, and I am super-to the-duper excited to bring y’all this week’s LOTW! I’ve literally been waiting all week so I could do this. Each day I picked my favorite page added and then on late late Friday night (ok truthfully, early this morning) I picked my favorite one out of all those choices. Let me tell you, there wasn’t anything easy about that. I stared, I grumbled, I banged my head, and was generally frustrated with the injustice of being forced to pick ONE. But…the one I picked, and I’m fairly positive I’ve known since I saw it that, if forced to pick just one, this would be it.

So my friends take a gander at this oh-so-cute layout “Keys to my heart” by mikelinz:

Now, with how precious it is, I know you must all know the reason I chose it. Right?! Well, just in case you aren’t a mind reader, or have my superb tastes, let me tell you. The first thing I noticed were the colors of this page. To me those colors SCREAM fall (even though the date thingy says May lol) and after a week of the heat index being over 100 I’m so ready for fall. Next I just loved the diagonal design, the way the swirl pulls your eye from the top corner down to the heart and word in the bottom. After that is the too sweet and too funny journaling about her son loving to steal her car keys. Then there is that sweet and  simple photo. The colors go superbly with the rest of her page, and I love how plain the background is next to her son’s colorful sweater. Lastly, and most importantly (and hugely biased lol), look at that sweet curly red hair!!! As a mom of a curly headed, red haired boy – I love me some layouts featuring boys rocking the red curls. They always make my heart melt just a tiny bit.

Congratulations mikelinz, and thanks for sharing your awesome page (and sweet boy) with us!  You should have already received a $10 gift card to the Shabby Shoppe.

Everyone else, y’all are seriously putting out some spectacular pages, and please keep them coming!  Who knows maybe next week you’ll get the LOTW. ;o)

Be sure to stop back by tomorrow as SP will be sharing the free AUGUST desktop…

TrishLayout of the Week, Uncategorized 9 Comments

Hello everyone…Kylie here!

It’s Food Friday! YAY!! A yummy recipe and a freebie to download – just in time for the weekend – what more could anyone want!!? :o) 

Today I’m sharing a favorite childhood recipe with you. Something that my mum (yes – I know, to most of you this spelling sticks out like a sore thumb, sorry! – but this is what I grew up with and it’s my mum after all so I can’t possibly change to ‘mom’! It looks funny! Plus those in the UK, Canada, New Zealand etc should feel right at home!) Anyway enough of the international vocab lesson, let’s finish the sentence I started…LOL! Something that my mum would often make us for dessert – a Passionfruit Cake.

We called it a cake but it’s more like a pudding. One of those magical puddings – that separates while cooking so you get a spongy cake layer on top and a creamy, almost gooey, layer of passionfruit goodness on the bottom. 

My mum would make it usually after some major prompting by her four “adorable” children and only on the proviso that we go and collect the passionfruit.  In our rather large (2.5 acres), mostly untouched backyard was a couple of passionfruit vines that started growing all by themselves. (the mysteries of nature?!) We would take a couple of empty plastic ice-cream containers and hunt around for as many little passionfruits as we could find. Our theory was the more we found the more mum would make. Not always the case but we tried anyway! 

So here is the recipe for this deliciously simple dessert: 

Ingredients

2/3 cup self raising flour (I will explain about this after the recipe)

1 cup castor (superfine) sugar

3 eggs – separated

1/3 cup butter – melted

½ cup passionfruit pulp

½ of a lemon – juiced

1 ½ cups of milk 

Directions

Place flour and sugar into mixing bowl.

Make a well in the middle and add egg yolks, melted butter, passionfruit pulp, lemon juice.

Beat well with a wooden spoon, then gradually add milk to make a smooth batter.

Beat egg whites to form stiff peaks.

Gradually add the passionfruit batter into the egg whites and fold through.

Lightly pour into a well buttered 7 cup oven-proof dish.

Stand dish in deep baking tray filled with water. Level of water to be halfway up side of pudding dish.

Bake in a moderate oven 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit) for 1 and ¼ hours.

Cover the top of the pudding dish with greased aluminium foil for the last 20 minutes to stop over browning.

Ok…now onto “Kylie’s international food translator!!” :o)… and some other bits and pieces.

Self raising flour is normal flour that has a leavening agent and salt added to it. It is standardised and readily available in Australia and, I’ve also heard, in the UK. In the United States it is referred to as self rising flour and not so common plus the levels of salt and leavening agent vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.  So here is a quick and easy substitute that you can make yourself for any recipe that calls for “self raising/rising flour”.

• For each cup of plain flour (or if in United States, ‘plain’ = all-purpose flour), add 1 and a ½ teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix well to combine.
• So for my recipe use 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a small pinch of salt and that will basically equate to the 2/3 of a cup of self raising flour. (This recipe is not at all temperamental and will be just fine with the extra 1 teaspoon of dry ingredient!) 
• Castor, or sometimes Caster, sugar is known as ‘superfine’ in the US. It is normal white sugar that is much finer in texture and mainly used in cakes, biscuits/cookies etc.  But you can use normal, everyday sugar for this recipe.
• I used four medium sized passionfruit to get a half cup of pulp. So depending on the size and the type this may vary.
• You can serve this dessert hot or cold!
• I like to eat it with vanilla ice-cream and add some fresh strawberries and blueberries to the plate for extra fruitiness.
• Last but not least – ENJOY! 

Here is the 4×6 recipe card I crafted especially for this much-loved family recipe. Just click on the image to download! :o)

Thanks so much for spending a bit of time here at the Shabby Shoppe blog!  Check in tomorrow to see another gorgeous LOTW pick!  Wishing you all a FUN-filled weekend!! :o)

KylieFood Stuff, Free (not desktops), Uncategorized 18 Comments

Hey everyone, it’s Lu! I am super excited to be “revealing” our Thursday Thievery scraplift layout! This truly was a challenge for me to select, as there are literally dozens of layouts I’d like to lift! But this layout is one that I’ve remember from the first time I saw it… and it’s just stuck with me, you know? To be honest, I feel my style is one that evolves constantly, as I love to experiment. So when considering a layout to lift, I thought about “stretching” myself to try a style different from my own (whatever that may be, lol!) I chose Trish’s May 20 for this week’s inspiration.

Gosh, what’s not to love, right? But I have to tell you what caught my attention right away… it was the scrolly, doodle border that she scaled down to draw the eye into her picture. And yep, that’s what I saw right afterwards… the photo itself! I love how she did something a bit unpredictable here  and showed the back of her little girl. Don’t you just love shots from unexpected angles or perspectives?  It makes me wonder, “what was she looking for”?  Trish didn’t way a word about the moment, other than the date, to leave you to your own imagination. And boy, do I have a vivid one…but that’s neither here nor there. Maybe it was just a very wonderful, typical moment that needed no explanation. Or perhaps it was a case of it’s what you don’t say, rather than what you do? Very intriquing, you know? I also really liked how she used the damask stamp under all those layers, to provide a central “anchor”.  Then at the perimeter of the layout, she used just a whisper of a border technique, a glitter border overlay from the Sprout kit. I am just entirely inspired by this beautiful layout & am sure you all will be, too. But for a bit more inspiration, here are some layouts from some of the Shabby Artists.

from SP

from Beckie

from Kylie

from Mariquita

And here’s my take on it

Well, that wraps it up for me today! Sure hope you’ll be inspired to lift this layout in the very near future… we’ll be looking for all the thieves in the gallery! Happy Scrappin’!

PLEASE SEE BELOW for the ANNOUNCEMENT of our TEMPLATE CHALLENGE (three) WINNER :o)  We do not generally have two posts in the same day – but it’s a special day – so don’t miss the post below!

LuInspiration, Uncategorized 11 Comments