Happy New Year and I scrapped!!

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

We had family and friends over for lunch on New Year's Day. That's usually what I do and I'll tell you why (I have more than enough reasons). Firstly, everyone else does their Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day gatherings with their family and we have quiet ones. Then everyone winds down from all the silly season rush and have quiet New Year Days, we will in turn have them over for a nice lunch. Secondly, being New Year's Day, I don't have to be bound by any food tradition. I can put anything on the menu. Lastly, I don't have to frantically make sure I have everything I need the day before unlike Christmas Day where if you forget something, it happens to me a lot, you are stuffed cos no shops are open!! So I'm usually doing New Year's Day. I guess that's MY tradition?

So... what was on the menu? Get ready for this.

Mains
Rendang
Nasi Kunyit (a savoury saffron rice)
Grilled leg of lamb
Sang Choy Bao
Fried Chicken Spare Ribs
Prawns with seafood dip (cold dish)

Salads
Potato, prawn and bacon salad
Mango salad
Coleslaw

Desserts
Chocolate Raspberry ice cream cake
Creme Caramel

Apart from the Creme Caramel that was made by my SIL (and really yummmmm), and the prawns that were bought, we made everything else. But don't get too excited, I didn't say from scratch. It was soooo satisfying, in that I had the menu planned down to a T, and I felt like Nigella Lawson using all these smart shortcuts to great food! Rendang was needless to say, a Prima Taste recipe that I cooked the day before. Leg of lamb was marinated by the butcher so all we did was grill it to perfection, chicken spare ribs were marinated with a packet seasoning and fried, prawns were bought, seafood dip was just a clever mix of a few pantry/fridge ingredients, potato salad dressing was a clever idea from Ruey - using Praise's Dijonnaise (although my potato salad had a few more tasty ingredients like bacon bits, spring onions, hardboiled eggs and prawns), coleslaw dressing was bought, so was the coleslaw mix. The only things I made from scratch were Nasi Kunyit, Mango Salad, Sang Choy Bao. Here, indulge in some salivating pics...

Sang Choy Bao



The rest of the spread.... same spread just from 2 different angles. It still looked like we have enough food for 2 army troops.



And of course, I didn't get around to taking photos of desserts. But just believe in me that they are yummy. ;)

The day was soooo hot though! We had a 40C day (104F)! Luckily the cool change came through late in the afternoon. We had friends that stayed and chat and we ended up eating the leftovers! LOL... It was an awesome day.

A few days later, we went to Mikaela's 2nd birthday celebration. I haven't scrapped for sooooo long, I had to use this pathetic excuse to claim that I did something scrapbookey ... gift wrapping and a card.


Then I joined a cybercrop organised by Scrap Therapy. It is Scrap Therapy's 1st birthday celebrations, so they will be having cybercrops every weekend for the month of January. It's a good opportunity for everyone to get back into their scrapping mode, isn't it?? I did a bag tag, a challenge layout and a blind scrapping layout. It was sooo fun! I have never blind-scrapped before but I had heaps of fun. So impromptu. I had my layout done in an hour.... that's because you are not required to think! If only I had a brain, I'll be dangerous! LOL...

Bag tag for Ellen's school bag - ST DT member, Julie's free class. It uses Heidi Swapp's clamshell packaging for her embellishments. How clever! Thanks, Julie! I had wanted to make a bag tag for Ellen's school bag but I have NO CLUE whatsoever where to begin. So this class came at the perfect timing.



A Challenge Layout - To use 3 or more of the following items ... Pink, Alphabet, Ribbon, Template, Your own handwriting (PARTY). I kinda liked what I did, the photos have been in my folder for ages, I just couldn't get them to work with the papers I've chosen. Never thought pink will work! :D


Blind Scrapping Layout - I didn't know what blind scrapping was until then. You are required to have a list of supplies ready. Then you are given the first piece of instructions, eg to cut a piece of the pp you have into X by Y size to stick onto one of the cs you have selected. You cannot add anymore products onto the list... just 'blindly' follow instructions. You'll be amazed at the decisions you make as to where to stick that sheet of pp, that embellishment ... etc etc But boy it was fun... not knowing what comes next! :D


I have another kiddy birthday party to go to on Friday & Saturday. Not to forget, my own birthday is on the 16th! I'm turning 38! Will see how many people actually READ this post and survive up to this point cos I know most people speed-read ..... and then see if anyone remembers .... tee hee.

Have a good week!