New stamps! (and a fab recipe too)

I got some new rubber this week and have been waiting for a chance to play with it. I got this stamp set from my LSS (Heather's Stamping Haven) and I've been waiting for it for a while. The owner told me she had these stamps in progress and I thought they were a wonderful idea. This butterfly is one of several different stamps, and the outline is stamped separately from the insides, of which there are a bunch of choices. The butterfly has different seasonal inserts, and each is cuter than the last. I *love* these new stamps and it was hard to choose just one. Somehow I think I'll be back for more ;-) BTW, Heather does mail-order if this stamp makes it to your must-have list. Just give her a call and mention that Karen sent you :-)

I stamped the butterfly with black Palette ink on watercolour paper and used Tombow markers to colour it, blending with a wet paintbrush. I accented the antennae with my sakura glitter pen and coated the butterfly with crystal effects so it almost looks like enamel. The scan didn't do the colours justice. The purples are more purpley and pinks are pinkier on the butterfly in real life. I trimmed the corners with my tag corner punch (mostly because I stamped too close to a cut-off bit on my watercolour paper and I would have had to trim too closely to get rid of the lopped corner.)

It's mounted on some tempting turquoise and white paper, and mounted on a background of three different papers. At the top is soft sky, stamped with the pussywillow stamp in a pale blue chalk ink. Next is a piece of glossy paper treated with alcohol inks and at the bottom is some magenta lava paper (also from Heather's) stamped with the sentiment in Versafine ink. I heat set that with the iron several times because the lava paper is coated and the versafine wouldn't dry. A dye ink might have been a better choice. A few finishing touches with Stream acrylic paint and this card was done.

Supplies: Stamps: Butterfly - Heather's Stamping Haven, Pussywillow and sentiment: Sunshine Designs - The Stamp Barn; Ink: Palette black noir, Versafine deep lagoon, Versamagic chalk aspen blue; Paper: watercolour, tempting turquoise, soft sky, white, glossy, magenta lava paper; Other: alcohol inks in wild plum and stream - Ranger, Stream acrylic paint - Ranger, SU tag corner punch, SU Crystal Effects, Sakura glitter pen

Yummy Recipe Follows:

Now if you're only here for the stamping, then you're done! If you want a great recipe idea, keep reading. I found this recipe in my big Harrowsmith cookbook, which is comprised of recipes from readers. This recipe is called Lemon Maple Chicken and it was wonderful and so, so easy.

Preheat oven to 375F. Mix together 1/2 cup maple syrup (you must use the real thing), 1/2 cup Dijon mustard, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 tbsp fresh lemon zest (I used the zest and juice from the half-lemon we had around and this worked fine), 1 tsp cinnamon. Place 4 chicken legs in a casserole dish (I used about 10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs because that's what we had) and pour sauce over top. Bake for 30 minutes then baste chicken with sauce and bake for another 20 minutes or until chicken is done.

This was delicious and everyone liked it. It would be good with couscous or rice because there was a nice bit of sauce, but we had it with baked potatoes because the oven was on and I like to bake more than one thing if I have it on. The potatoes baked in the same amount of time but I did use potato nails. Smallish potatoes would bake in the 50 minutes without nails I would imagine. You'd also have time to do a quick apple crisp after the chicken goes in and it would be cooked in time for dessert. (Efficient oven usage should always include dessert!)

We also had veggies sauteed with butter and garlic. These weren't as big a hit with The Smalls, despite the fact that I included Nature's Cutest Vegetable (baby bok choy). I love suppers like these that use up what I've got in the pantry/crisper and are tasty to boot. Yum yum! Last night's curried haddock was also based on a recipe from this cookbook (but adapted to use up some languishing cauliflower). It was delicious too and DH even made supper while I was out stamping. He's a keeper :-)