Happy Friday, everyone! Vivian here today to encourage you to bring out your inner foodie this summer. Today’s post is designed to motivate you to do any or all of the following: cook, eat, take photographs of what you cook and/or eat, and then use those photographs on layouts.
Scrap A Food Tradition
Do you have an annual summer food tradition? Maybe a food festival you attend? An ice cream treat that’s a regular part of your summer ritual? A no-fail summer recipe? For our family it’s the lobster roll on our annual trek to New Hampshire:
What can I say? I grew up in New England. My mother is from Maine and my father is from Massachusetts. They split the difference so I grew up in New Hampshire. Lobster is part of my heritage.
On this layout, I used a lobster dingbat as the main design element. I downloaded a free set of dingbats (if you want this lobster, go here: GE Out to Sea), changed the font size in Word to get the lobster the size I wanted (450 pt), layered a text box over the lobster and typed in my title, and then printed the whole thing out on white cardstock. I cut the bottom of the lobster claw loose so that it would overlap my photo. I added a white strip to the bottom of the layout and printed a second lobster so that I could add another claw at the bottom. Now that I’ve done this I’m ready to go out and find lots more dingbats and see what I can do with them!
Scrap a New Food Experience
There are so many foods to enjoy in the summer that I find a lot of my new food experiences take place during this season. Maybe you’ll encounter a new fruit or vegetable at the farmer’s market. Maybe a friend will introduce you to a new hot dining spot. Maybe you’ll try a new recipe. Maybe you’ll taste a new ice cream flavor (wished I thought to take a picture of the brown butter sage ice cream I tried last month – sounds bizarre, but I promise you it was delicious!). Maybe, as was the case with my kids, you’ll be introduced to a new treat by a family member:
Yup. Banner flags on steroids. No tiny toothpicks here! I glued these babies onto skewers that I trimmed down. Want this look? Use sharp scissors to cut skewers at staggered lengths. Cut a 1” X 2.5” piece of patterned paper for each flag. On the reverse side of the paper, mark a dot ½” away from the short edge, centered at the ½” mark along the 1” side. Snip from the corners to the dot, add adhesive to the non-pointy end, and wrap around one of the skewers. Voila! Banner flag on steroids. Adhere them to your layout with pop dots on the backs of the flags; secure the flag bouquet by tying baker’s twine around the flags and use a small pop dot on the underside of the skewers to hold the whole thing down (the bow hides the pop dot). Another fun trick on this layout: mist white cardstock, let dry, and print journaling on the misted paper.
Try Some of My Favorite Recipes
I’m going to hook you up here with some of my summer favorites:
Mango Salad with Grilled Shrimp: Even if you don’t make the mango salad, make the shrimp. Trust me.
Mojo Chicken:
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tsp salt
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
Put above ingredients in a blender and combine. Pour over two pounds of boneless chicken breasts and marinate for at least 4 hours. Remove chicken from marinade and grill.
Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches:
Toss red bell peppers (or orange or yellow), zucchini, and asparagus with olive oil and salt. Grill. Brush ciabatta bread slices with olive oil. Grill. Mix mayonnaise and pesto. Spread the pesto mayonnaise on the grilled bread and layer on the grilled veggies. Top with a second slice of bread.
Happy cooking, eating, food photographing, and food scrapping!
