Mummy Head #1...done?!

Here is the first guy finished. I think?! OK, I'll admit it...I am a constant "tweaker". It truly is a curse, but I tend to play with things FOREVER. I constantly have to say to myself, "Walk away Tracy, just walk away."
Now moving on to my second "two eyed" mummy head and continuing to work on a million other projects.

Blessings, Tracy

Mummy Head...in progress!

       Mannequin head with a 26mm doll eye.

To make this guy -

1. I purchased Styrofoam head and carved out a hole where his eye was.  I then pushed a 26mm doll eye in the hole snuggly.
2. I tea stained strips of cheese cloth and let them dry.  
3. I distressed cheese cloth strips as I layered them on.  Every few layers, I painted on/dripped/misted face with watered down craft paints, to accent areas like eye, mouth, etc.

Waiting for him to dry (after some aging), so I can add additional gauze.  He is not turning out exactly how I hoped, so let's see if I can pull a rabbit out of my hat make him look a little better. Worried!

***Update - See our finished Mummy Head HERE!***

Blessings, Tracy

5:20am....Mom WTF?!

Here is Stella giving me the, "Mom, what are we doing up this early" look.  She cracks me up!

Blessings, Tracy

Anticipation!!!

Oh, how I love me some Dexter!  It's taken me all summer to recover from the season finale, which I'm still not sure I am completely over.  Now...I can't wait for the new season, which is starting next week!  Gasp!

Blessings, Tracy

Come One Come All!

Blessings, Tracy

Starting a new Halloween project!

1. Buy Styrofoam skull - CHECK!

2. Prime skull - CHECK!

I'm keeping the technique I plan to use under wraps, for now, but it's a little intimidating for me.  Not sure why, because I have used this technique on a million other projects, but (for some unknown reason) this one kind of scares me.  Trying to work up some courage to start.
Blessings, Tracy

Yes, we are entering...Chicken Nacho NIRVANA!!!

nirvana |nərˈvänə; nir-|

 Dictionary

   • a state of perfect happiness; an ideal or idyllic place.

  Thesaurus

   • PARADISE, heaven; bliss, ecstasy, joy, peace,serenity,      tranquility; enlightenment.

12 x 17 inches of Chicken Nacho goodness!

This is a recipe that I came up with several years ago and it has become one of our favorite "weekend sins". The recipe has evolved over the years, but here is the version we are currently using. Some may feel these are a little spicy or they may like more or less cheese on their Nachos, but it is an easy recipe to adapt to your taste level. When we make these, we split the chicken mixture and remaining cheese in half and make Nachos twice over a week OR...shhhh, don't tell...sometimes two nights in a row.

Awesome Chicken Nachos

• 2 tsp. - Chili Powder 
• 2 tsp. - Ground Cumin 
• 1 ½ tsp. - Oregano Leaves 
• 1 tsp. - Crushed Red Pepper 
• 1 tsp. - Garlic Powder 
• 1 pk. - Boneless Chicken Breast (20 oz. package) 
• 1 - 14 ½ oz can undrained “Red Gold (brand) Diced Tomatoes, Chili Ready" **see note 
• 1 - 15 oz. can undrained "Kuner's Black Beans, with Cumin & Chili Spices" (usually located in Mexican food isle) **see note 
• 6-8 c. - mix of shredded Monterey Jack & Mexican Cheeses - divided (we eyeball the amount of cheese we use, so don't know the exact amount) 
• 1 - “Super Size” bag of “Tostitos” Corn Chips (large chips) 
• Sliced fresh or jarred Jalapenos 
• Garnish – sliced Green Onions, chopped fresh Tomatoes, shredded Lettuce, med/hot Red Taco Sauce or Salsa & Sour Cream (or lean), Guacamole, etc.

Cut chicken into small chunks/pieces. Mix seasonings; sprinkle over chicken. Heat oil in skillet over medium high heat; add chicken. Saute chicken 5-8 minutes, until done. Add undrained tomatoes and black beans, cook until well heated; about 5 minutes. Add 1 to 1 1/2 cups of cheese & cook until mixture thickens; remove from heat (sauce will continue to thicken some while sitting). 
Heat oven to 450 degrees on the broiler setting. Cover large jelly roll pan or baking sheet with heavy duty tin foil; lay out one tight layer of chips. Add desired amount of sliced Jalapeno (*optional - you can add chopped white/yellow onion to chips), then drop pieces of chicken mixture onto chips (there will be extra). Sprinkle with desired amount of cheeses. If you would like, add additional 1/4 to 1/2 layer of chips, jalapenos, chicken mixture & cheese (we do this). Cook Nachos until cheese is melted, watching closely (in the first picture, notice the tips of a few of my chips were starting to burn). Add garnishes.

While eating, if we still feel we need more chips to balance it out, we will use additional chips from the bag. 

Depending on the amount of Nachos you make or the amount of chicken you add to your Nachos, you will most likely have enough chicken mix left over for a second batch. Everyone has different tastes preferences, so you may need to make these a few times, before you find your perfect balance of spices, chicken mixture & cheese. 

**Note - If you want to reduce spice level, you can either drain the liquid from the Kuner's Cumin & Chili spiced Black Beans or use regular Kuner's Black Beans; rinse before you add to pan. You can also drain some of the liquid from the Chili Ready Tomatoes or use regular Red Gold diced Tomatoes. I suggest keeping the Chili Ready version & instead reducing some of the spices a bit. 

My husband isn't a big lettuce or fresh tomato person, so you will notice our Nachos have no lettuce & only light tomatoes on one side.  We also forgot to put the sour cream and Guacamole on our Nachos before we took these pictures. Oops!

Happy Anniversary....Sweetie?!

Our Anniversary started off this morning, with me dropping my darling husband off at the airport at 5 (frickin') AM.  I gave him a quick kiss goodbye, then he promptly flew off to Atlanta on a business trip.  
THE END!

Love you!

Dead Kitty!

Squeal!!!

Just received this new book, "How to Haunt Your House"!  It looks awesome!  Hoping to find some renewed Halloween inspiration!

Anxiously awaiting "How to Haunt Your House, Book 2" to arrive late today or tomorrow.

Blessings, Tracy

DOCTOR NEEDED....STAT!!!

One of my skeletons had a little mishap in the basement; which resulted in the poor guy suffering a severely broken leg.  What happened buddy?  Hope you are feeling better before Halloween.

Blessings, Tracy

The Big Galoot!

Henry, at about 2 1/2 months old, lying in my arms while I was on the computer.

At about 4 1/2 months old.

Today - The big galoot attempting to lay in my arms like he did when he was a kitten.  I had to move the computer across the island, just to fit him in the picture.  He finally gave up & went to a more comfortable spot.  

He is 7 1/2 months old & weighs a whopping 12 1/2 pounds.  He's a BIG BOY!

Blessings, Tracy

Vacation, continued

The Palace of Fine Arts, in San Francisco.  Beautiful!

Blessings, Tracy

Vacation, part 2

And here.....

The beautiful Muir Woods!  It's a must see if you are ever in the San Francisco area.

Blessings, Tracy

Vacation

We are physically back from our vacation...but our minds & hearts are still lingering in places like this.

Blessings, Tracy

So pretty!

Just returned home from work late this evening, to see this out our front window.  Not the best picture, but it really shows how stunning our Prairie Fire Crap tree is each spring!  We up light our front trees, columns and the architectural peaks of our house with landscape lighting.  This lighting really accents our home and landscaping, but for about a week each spring...all anyone can focus on is the beauty of this crab tree's spring blossoms.

Blessing, Tracy

I guess we had a storm last night?

I woke up to find small piles of hail all over our yard.  When I called my husband at work this morning, he informed me that we had a storm while I was working last evening.  Hello...I guess we had a storm!  I couldn't believe all of the hail that was still unmelted 15+ hours later.

We are lucky, since over the past three years (each time in May), we have been hit by damaging hail storms TWICE!  We're talking serious hail...the size of baseballs!  We have had to replace our siding & shakes, our roof (twice), our screens on our screened in porch, window screens, air conditioning repairs, garage doors repairs, chipped cedar columns, damaged plants, etc.  We can pretty much tell you from experience, not much is left undamaged when you have hail that size.
We have also been very fortunate in the weather department.  In the past 8 years, there have been two tornados that hit within 2-3 miles of our house.  Both were serious storms that caused a lot of damage, but the most recent tornado (5 yrs. ago) destroyed many homes and ended up killing one person.  Because of this, I know that we are lucky just to wake up every morning and still have our health and home (hail damaged or not)!

I know you must be thinking, "What kind of Bermuda Triangle of weather did you people move into?!"  I think the same thing every time a storm is in our forecast.
Just so you know....I will be holding my breath and keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of this month!

Blessings, Tracy

How does our garden grow?

Spring is definitely here!  Our plant beds are coming to life and our crab tree is starting to bloom.  Everything looks so fresh, healthy and new!

Blessing, Tracy

Martha told me....

One of my favorite (and simple) Martha Stewart ideas is this decorative dish soap dispenser.  I saw this somewhere about 5 years ago and thought it was a great idea to disguise my ugly dish soap bottle.   I found a cheap decorative bottle at Pier 1 and the topper I found at Williams-Sonoma.  If memory serves me correctly, I think the whole thing cost around $12.  I did have to make one modification.  I ended up using a metal nut pick to ease the ball bearing, that regulates the liquid flow, out of the topper.  Because the dish soap is so thick, the ball bearing really slowed the flow of the liquid.  

Now our dish soap sits in a sunny kitchen window and looks so pretty.  Everyone who sees it thinks it is a great idea and comments on how nice it looks.  

Blessings, Tracy

Target Field

Last Friday, we were lucky enough to attend the first evening Twins game at Target Field. My husband's coworker had two tickets he couldn't use, so he gave them to us. Whoo Hoo! It was a little chilly, but so fun! The Twins won this game 10-3 against the Kansas City Royals. 

There were good and bad things about the new stadium. Not sure why I was surprised that the new stadium would be configured so differently than the old Metrodome, but I guess I assumed they would be similar in layout. So, this being our first time in the new stadium, we found the new layout somewhat confusing. One of the biggest flaws we found in the stadium design was that you can not see the massive (main) video board when seated in certain areas. We were seated in deep left field (ahem….section V) and couldn't see this screen. Because of this, we missed a lot of replays and the general (between play & inning) entertainment that is shown on this screen. They do have another large screen across the right field, but this showed current baseball scores from around the country for the majority of the game. I noted maybe 3 replays being shown on this screen. Unless I’m missing something.....COME ON Target Field!!  I think you could break away from the “up to the minute” scores in right field to share with EVERYONE what is being shown on the main video board.  Last but not least, the seating seemed a little tighter than it was at the dome.  I have also heard from friends that the rake (slope) of some seats is not as severe as it was at the dome.  Because of this, it is important the people in front of you not have big hair, not wear big hats & are nice enough to stay seated in order for you to enjoy the game. ;-)

The food....well, my husband bought the hotdog, which turned out to be about 10 inches long and generally huge all over. After I saw this monstrosity, I decided to get the chicken breast sandwich. Um, warning to others....I do not suggest the chicken breast sandwich. No good! We also tried the fries which were pretty good. 

I know some of this stuff (like the layout) we'll just have to get used to.  We’ll also have to do some serious taste testing, to determine the good and bad snack and food items.  Please don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of wonderful things about our beautiful new stadium, I was just surprised at the few issues we ran into. I guess we'll have to go to a few more games and get familiar with the stadium before we have a final verdict.

Blessings, Tracy

New Family Member

I know that I have been MIA, but life has been so busy.  I've had a hard time dragging myself back to the computer to update.  We are having an unbelievably warm February & March up here in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.  It was 64 degrees yesterday, which is pretty much unheard of for this time of year.

Last Tuesday we adopted a new 8 week old kitten from the Humane Society.  We have not gotten around to naming the little fella yet, but we are close.  This little guy is super sweet, although our two existing kitties are not feeling so happy about our "new addition" as of yet.

We thought about this long and hard, but decided to get another kitty since one of our other cats, Stella, has been really struggling since her pal/sleeping buddy died last summer.  We thought as time went by she would start to come around, but she really has changed.  She initially lost weight & has taken to hiding/spending hours under the bed since he died.  She really is a sweet kitty that needs a friend & she and her sister, Lily, don't see eye to eye. Stella would have liked to be friends with Lily at one time, but Lily (whom I also adore) is just a moody little crab & wasn't having it.  Stella was always close to her brothers & especially close to our sweet Kitty Kat (we use his image as our profile picture). This is why we picked a black and white kitty, hoping it would ease the transition.  Our fingers are crossed that things will turn around.

This is him peeking at us from his Humane Society carrier.  

I think it is cute that it says, "Family Member Enclosed".

The poor little guys looks so scared when we first opened the box.

A (rare) calm and still moment...he doesn't have many.  

He is enjoying the sun on our screened in porch!

Most of his moments (& my pictures) are like this!  Running, playing, running! Man, if you could only bottle that energy...

We adore him.  Now if the girls would only come around. Again....fingers crossed.

Blessings, Tracy

Merry Christmas!

WANTED!! Dangerous fugitive!

ATTENTION : We are looking for this dangerous lawbreaking fugitive!

Have you seen this cat?

WANTED! 

Name - Stella

   DOB - 6/16/04

   Height - 15 inch
   Weight - 8.2 lbs

a.k.a - Stella Bean, Bean, Nella, Nell, Nellevator, Nelly Belly 
Known to have many aliases.

Wanted for brutally attacking (on several occasions) this crow.

A witness reported seeing a medium haired tabby fleeing from the scene of the latest atack, leaving the victim badly injured. The victim lost an eye in earlier attacks and several tail feathers in the most recent attack.

If you see this fugitive, call police immediately.  Do not approach this fugitive, as she is known to be armed and dangerous....oh yes, and naughty.  If I didn't adore her so much, she would be in a heap of trouble.

Blessings, Tracy

Assorted Halloween Candles and Votives

Blessings, Tracy

Somebody up there doesn't like me!

Today, I sadly started taking down and packing away our Halloween decor.  While taking a little break, I saw my darn broken down camera sitting on the counter....taunting me (I say).  I picked it up, turned it on and found it was "kind of" working again.  It was having brief breakdowns still, but I was able to snap a few pictures.  I am annoyed that I missed so many photos in the last 2 days and now that I have packed away or dismantled about a 1/2 of our Halloween decor, it decides to work again.  Here is a few of the pictures I was able to snap between breakdowns. 

Tall jar of bones. 

You can buy these jars really cheap at Marshalls & TJ Max.

Short jar of skulls

Our Guest Bath

Close up of framed quote in bath. 

This quote is from the Metallica song, Enter Sandman.  Not a Metallica fan, but thought this quote was priceless for Halloween.  It took me 10-15 minutes to put together - Printed out quote, burned edges of the paper and backed with a piece of black construction paper, framed in a Goodwill $1.99 frame.  I would have liked to age the paper, but this was done just before my dinner guest arrived.  Our guests really got a kick out of it.

Guest bath 2

Missing a shot of framed vintage (creepy) photo that I had already packed.  It was sitting next to this folk art skeleton figurine, in our guest bath.

Living room skulls

Living room - skull in a basket

Skull & owl on top of Fridge

Bat silhouette hanging in spare bedroom window (shot from inside).

See this post for a brief "How To" on making these silhouettes.

Man silhouette hanging in guest bedroom (again shot from inside).

Missing our last silhouette.  I already removed and stored our "Witch and Caldron" silhouettes that hang in a double window in our master bedroom.  Maybe I'll get a shot next year.

Bought these 3 vintage ghost figures at an Estate Sale.

Two (of many) lit pumpkins

Owl hanging out on a curtain rod in dining room

Pumpkin figurine.

Vintage looking treat bucket

Halloween Cake Server

Cake server with skull and mouse. 

Skull in fruit dish

Living room table skull

Crow (with pearls) on mantel

Owl on antique mantel clock

Mesh covered pumpkins

Large owl on top of kitchen cupboards

Crow and twig pumpkins on top of kitchen cupboards

Crows, twig pumpkins and flying pig....oh my!

On top of kitchen cabinet.  Fall colored dishes.

I wanted to get some update porch and outdoor decor pictures this year, but sadly we already packed it up late last night.

If I find other things as I pack I will try to snap some additional photos.

Blessings, Tracy