Stuffed Mushrooms

Stuffed Mushrooms are perfect little mouth fulls of happiness! They are bite sized appetizers that are perfect for entertaining. They are quick and easy to make and are a very cheap choice for a large group.  

This is a very simple recipe that you can leave as is or add you own twist on things! 

What you'll need: 

Mushrooms

Cooked Bacon Bits (chunks or broken up pieces of cooked bacon)

Grated Cheese (we used Tex Mex Mix)

Garnishing/Toppings: 

Green Onion

Soup Cream

Step one: 

First wash and clean the mushrooms. Next pop the stems out of the mushrooms (this will leave a cavity). Next we peal back the top layer of skin on the mushroom, giving more room in the cavity (this is optional). 

In a small bowl, we dice up the stems of the mushrooms, add bacon bits (this will depend on how many mushrooms you're making), and cheese (this also depends on how much cheese you like). If you find there is not enough cheese, top each mushroom cap with cheese. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven, until mushrooms have cooked, and cheese has melted and become golden (about 10 - 12 minutes).

Apple Caramel Coffee Cake

Continuing this week, we are sharing posts on how to make that boring old cake mix a masterpiece. These recipes will be real simple recipes that take a cake mix and add one or two ingredients to transform it into something new. 

(Please note, we are not claiming these as our own recipes. These recipes have been floating around for a long time and are in most cases common knowledge.)

This week we are going to a simple alternative to the Apple Caramel Cake Mix.

What you'll Need: 

Apple Caramel Cake Mix 

Coffee (Left Over Coffee is fine)

This cake is super simple. You make the cake mix as you normally would, except you replace the water with coffee.

Freebie Friday! Sunrays Creations

Today we are talking about Sunrays Creations. They offer all kinds of great resources for Cross Stitching! Along with beautiful patterns they also offer free patterns that you can find right here. We saved three beautiful patterns from them, The Bald Eagle, The Puppy and a Pretty Flower! If cross stitch is your craft or you are looking to get into it please check them out! 

Movie Review: Jurassic World

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the second movie in the the Jurassic World Trilogy and the Fifth overall movie in Universal Picture's Jurassic Park Franchise.  Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly return as the Writers along with Executive Producer Steven Spielberg. It is directed by J. A. Bayona and stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, James Cromwell, B. D. Wong, Jeff Goldblum, and introduces Isabella Sermon. It hit theaters on June 22, 2018 in North America.

It takes place 3 years after the events of Jurassic World where the island Isla Nublar is set to explode by an active volcano. A team is sent in to save as many dinosaurs as possible but Owen and Claire are betrayed about the motives of the rescue op that was mastermind by scientist Dr. Henry Wu where he created a new dinosaur species, the Indoraptor. 

Personally I enjoyed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The action was good, the acting was great, especially from child star Isabella Sermon. While the writing could have been better at some points, the action made up for it. It has a mixture of action, suspense, and even horror. I found myself on an emotional rollercoaster during the whole movie. I give Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a rating of 8/10.

Soap Making Starter Kit

Today we are talking about a starter kit of sorts for soap making. This kit is available on Amazon, it is four pieces. It includes the mold (and the liner), two cutters and a cutter box. This is great for melt and pour of course and you can use it with cold process too. Of course with cold process you will need more safety items. But it is a great way to get your feet wet and it is slightly cheaper then buying all the items individually. 

Geometric Designs - CAL - Week 25

This next page made me think of flowers. Flowers and crosses. (Okay so maybe I am a little of a Knights Templar "enthusiast".) And so I decided to use soft colours for the "flowers" and red for the middle. I also decided to use read for the circles to make it to the crosses and to leave the background white.

This next page looks a little plain. It is just star busts and strips. It actually seems like it will be fun to colour, with bigger shapes there won't be as much stress to make it perfect like some of the other pages. 

Mario Monday! - Fire Power Mario

Today we are sharing the Fire Power Mario graph! As you'll notice the look is a little different from the Super Mario Bros.3 Fire Power Mario. This one turns a little paler and he looks more like a red Luigi than Mario!

This graph is 20 x 20. Most of the graphs that are just items will be 20 x 20. 

This graph requires: 

                                             - Light Orange / Skin Colour

                                             - Yellow

                                             - Light Red (Burnt Orange possibly)

                                             - White

                                             - Background Colour (Any Colour you Choose)

Book Club - Chapter 24 (Cinder)

The twenty-fourth Chapter of Cinder we find Cinder trying to understand the aftermath of seeing the Lunar Queen. She also realizes that something is not right. From what the doctor told her, she should be a shell and not affected by the Queen, but she was.  Before she can wrap her mind around the whole thing, a bot from the palace comes to find her. 

Cinder is lead to the Prince and they start to talk about Nainsi (the Prince's bot). Cinder goes into detail about what was wrong with her and with what she heard. This alarms the Prince because he trusted Nainsi with very secretive information and to know that someone else made have intercepted what she had to tell him is troubling. 

As they continue to talk, the Prince keeps flirting with Cinder and once again he asks her to go with him to the ball. Again, Cinder declines. As they continue to talk Cinder seems to have some kind of attack, and she gets hot and week. This is concerning and a reason for the two of them to travel together to the doctor. 

1) What similarities do you see between Cinder and Cinderella? 

2) What do you think is wrong with Cinder?

3) Who do you think put the chip in Nainsi?

4) What do you think the Prince is going to do?

Sudoku Puzzle!

Today we at Puzzle Time Games are sharing one of our Sudoku puzzles with you! We hope to be able to bring at least one free game or puzzle to you each month! To see any puzzles you may have missed check out the page dedicated to us on the Creative Arts website. We hope you enjoy! 

App Review: Exploding Kittens

Exploding Kittens is a card app based on the popular card game with the same name.  The game plays similar to the card game with a few card types taken out, it is easy to learn. It is easiest to learn as you play.

The gameplay is simple and you have one goal: don't explode. There is a predetermined amount of exploding kittens in the deck (one less than the number of players). Each player starts with one defuse card, which they use to save themselves from the exploding kitten. The player can then hide the kitten where they want into the deck. A players turn is completed by either playing an action card or drawing a card (which may include an exploding kitten).  Other cards include but are not limited to: shuffle, skip your turn, steal a card, and reverse order of play. 

There are 3 game modes: Play With Friends, Play With Strangers, and Play Alone. The first two are online where you either play with up to four friends or matched with strangers. In play alone, you will face a computer with either easy, medium, or hard difficulty. 

There are DLC two expansion packs for the app that add more cards in play. Party Expansion Pack and Betrayal Expansion Deck. They both can be purchased for roughly $2.00 each. The base game is available in the Apple iOS App Store and Android's Google Play Store for roughly $2.00.

For a more personal experience, the card game is available in Canada for $25 on Amazon.

Mambi Specialty Cardstock Pad (Me & My Big Ideas) 12 x 12

Today we are talking about Mambi Specialty Cardstock Pad! They are "wedding themed" and are very nice. Some are normal papers and some have interesting things about them (some are foiled, some are transparent). They are a very nice booklet to buy (they come with doubles of course). And they would work with most wedding scrapbooks. They sell for $22.39 (CAN)  and because they are sold through Amazon, with an order over $35 they shipped for free.

Wedding Scrapbook Pages

Geometric Designs - CAL - Week 24

This next page made me think of leaves. So I took all the colours of leaves (reds, oranges, yellows, browns and greens) and coloured them in and I used a few different blues for the background to act as the sky. 

This next page is odd also, they kind of look like atoms to me! I found the background was very busy so I decided not to colour it in. I think I am just going to go with colours that match an maybe leave the background simple. 

Mario Monday! - P-Wing

For the month of August we are going to release more graphs to help finish off blankets with a few more 20 x 20 graphs. This week, is the P-Wing. This is a power up given to Mario and it gives him the ability to fly and jump a little higher than normal.

This graph is 20 x 20. Most of the graphs that are just items will be 20 x 20. 

This graph requires: 

                                             - Red

                                             - White 

                                             - Black 

                                             - Background Colour (Any Colour you Choose)

Mario Monday! - Coin

Today we are going to release the coin from Super Mario 1. You will notice it is a little different from the one from Super Mario 3. This coin is always found in the game and on every level. 

This graph is 20 x 20. Most of the graphs that are just items will be 20 x 20. 

This graph requires: 

                                             - Orange

                                             - Pink (or very light orange)

                                             - Black 

                                             - Background Colour (Any Colour you Choose)

Book Club - Chapter 23 (Cinder)

The twenty-third Chapter of Cinder is starting to get very interesting. This chapter focuses on Prince Kai and Queen Levana. We saw the effect of her power in the last chapter on the crowd and now we are seeing Prince Kai's thought's on the matter. It is very clear that Kai is uncomfortable with the Queen being around and disagrees with her approach to most matters. 

We also see Nainsi being reunited with Kai. Seeing how happy Kai is to see his robot shows us just how important the information she holds is. We also get to see a bit more of Kai's feelings for Cinder. 

1) What similarities do you see between Cinder and Cinderella? 

2) Do you think Cinder is still waiting?

3) Why do you think Kai is so attracted to Cinder?

4) What do you think of the Lunar Queen?

Brilliant Play Room Ideas by Totallythebomb.com

Today we are highlighting a post from Totally The Bomb.com titled 20 brilliant Play Room Ideas. This list is full of great ideas for making your play room functional, tidy and yet still interesting for your children. These tips are amazing and well thought out and designed with kids in mind. So if you need ideas on how to make your Play Room Brilliant, check out these fine ideas! 

Suvi's Crochet

Today we are talking about Suvi's Crochet. Suvi is a biology teacher from California that loves crocheting. She has a wonderful blog filled with crocheted goodies including Botanicals, Celtic Knots, Wearables, Amigurumi, Afghan/Squares, Holidays and even more things! She has a lot of wonderful things to inspire. 

Game Review: Golf with your Friends

Golf With Your Friends is a multiplayer mini golf game published by Blacklight Interactive and is available as an Early Access on Steam for Windows PC and MacOX. While it does have a single player mode, the game is enjoyed more as the title says, with your friends.

Golf With Your Friends features four game modes:

Classic - where it's simple mini golf where the rules are simple.

Dunk - where you have to bounce the ball into a basket ball net.

Hockey - where you have to get a puck behind a hockey net with a goalie.

Custom - where you make the rules including weather or not you can bounce your ball or if you can collide into other balls.

As development continues, more game modes may be added including more single player modes.

Golf With Your Friends also currently has seven official 18 hole courses from the Forest to a Pirate Cove. More official levels will be added in the future. It also features Workshop levels created by users for an endless supply of courses. As of writing this post, I have 55 hours logged into this game..

Servers allow for you to 12 players into a single game and is available for less than $10.

Me and My Big Ideas Glitter Stickers

With August being such a big month for weddings, all month (minus the last week) we are going to be reviewing scrapbooking items. This week we will be talking about Me and My Big Ideas Glitter Stickers (Black and White Wedding). This package includes five pages of stickers, all Black and White themed so they will work for any wedding. They sell for $8.16 (CAN) but they ship for free. Eight dollars seems like a lot but when you think about it usually stickers cost about $2 a page so this is a pretty good deal, and they are good quality of stickers and very useful.

K & Company Borders (Black and White)

These borders are beautiful and they are 12 x 12 inches so they fit standard scrapbooking pages. They are great as decoration, but you can also easily cut them to fit or frame any picture. They sell for $6.00 (CAN) and there are 26 of them in an order. You can also get them in colour here. (Again, since they are shipped by Amazon, they will ship for free with orders over $35.)

Mystic Moments (UK)

Today we are talking about Mystic Moments. They are a UK company that specializes in Essential and Fragrance oils (amount other things). Unfortunately, being in Canada can make it hard to start any kind of Bath and Body company and it can be hard to just find oils even. Naturally, our first choice would be TKB or BrambleBerry but unfortunately shipping them up to Canada can cost a small fortune! What's great about Mystic Moments is even though they are stationed in the UK, they offer their scents on Amazon.ca and they ship for free.