a fantastic mess

Day one at the CREATE Retreat in Chicago- a FANTASTIC, beautiful mess was made!

Updates From the Studio

I am in the midst of packing up and heading to Chicago for the Cloth Paper Scissors CREATE Retreat this week and this time I am taking my partner in crime- my husband! We are making the trip into a mini get away since we need a little fun time together. I will be blogging from the road but before we head out I wanted to share a few updates-

Online Class Update

After this post I went to work trying to figure out how to change the way that I offer my online classes and thanks to lots time spent researching my options and lots of feedback from all of you, I figured out a solution to keep offering my online classes as unlimited access classes! I am in the midst of pulling all of the online classes over to a private blogs! This means that those of you who have taken an online class from me will continue to have access once they go live again- which is looking like the end of September or maybe even before. I will make the announcement on my blog when they are all ready and those who have paid for a class will be getting an invitation to join the new classroom!

Quilting Arts if offering a FREE download of Innovative Techniques for Making Memory Quilts and one of my all time favorite articles that I created and wrote for Quilting Arts last year is a part of this download! All you need to do is click on the link below to download the FREE PDF article.

You can download here

Look for my article on creating jewelry from toilet paper rolls in the latest issue of Green Craft. I LOVE this publication and this particular issue is full of so much fabulous inspiration!

crispy baked chicken strips

Oh how I love (and need) comfort food and honestly anything that is crispy and fried seems to bring me delicious comfort- my favorite- chicken strips. I know it sounds terrible but sometimes you just really want something fried! Thanks to creative and healthy cooking I can get my chicken strip fix without the calories or the grease or the salt or the frying!

I start by making a flavorful breading.

Breading Ingredients-

Bread crumbs- Panko bread crumbs make THE BEST crispy breading- they are a crispy, VERY crispy Japanese version of bread crumbs.

All purpose seasoning that has dried garlic, onion powder,oregano, sage and parsley

Lots of thyme (because I LOVE it)

A dash of salt

and lots of pepper

Mix together.

Next I use a spicy dijon mustard to coat the chicken tenders.

Coat both sides of boneless skinless chicken breast tenderloins with the mustard.

Coat each side of the tenders in the breading mixture.

Place the chicken tenders on a baking sheet.

I coated the sheet with a little olive oil to get the chicken even more crispy when they bake.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the coating starts turn

crispy and brown.

Serve as an appetizer with dipping sauce,

or with a salad and potatoes for dinner. And most importantly ENJOY that fact that they were NOT fried!

thursday in the studio

watercolor tunic tutorial

I am super excited to be blogging for I Love to Create and once a month I will be sharing a tutorial that makes use of my FAVORITE products. IMPORTANT side note- I don't promote just anything- in fact I MUST use and believe in the things that I share with all of you. ALL of the products that come from I Love to Create are simple, easy to use and affordable. I have been using so many of their products for YEARS so it is really exciting to join their blog team!

Ok, lets get started!

I see watercolor inspired dresses everywhere and I decided it was time to put my twist on this trend!

Because I love of tunics I had to transform a white tunic.

(this tunic is from the clearance rack at Target- yes, I love Target!)

I used the Tulip dye from a Dye Technique Kit.

The Tulip dyes are one step dyes and are SOOO easy to use- just add water to the applicator bottles, shake up and use!

I took it a step further and mixed up different shades of dye in spare jars.

(For example I mixed turquoise and lime dye to make a new shade of green, fuschia and turquoise for a dark shade of purple.)

I prefer to use dye like I use paint- with a brush.

I started by wetting down areas of the surface- this causes some of the dye to bleed and you get that nice watery look.

I began to paint splotches of color all over the tunic.

I varied the size, shape and color of the splotches.

I let them bleed into each other.

I went back and added details with a darker shade of dye.

I covered the entire surface but held on to some areas of the white tunic for variation and contrast.

At this point the tunic could have been finished but I wanted to add a little more detail so I let everything dry overnight- yep that is all you have to do- just let the fabric dry 4-6 hrs and then wash...SO EASY!!

Once it was washed and dried I use fabric markers to go back into the dress to add details.

I outlined the flowers with different colors and added small details.

The end result is a SUPER colorful, watercolor inspired tunic perfect for the last few days of summer!