Food: Broccoli Cheese Soup

We have a really good broccoli cheddar soup recipe that is my "go-to" recipe, but I recently found this recipe via Pinterest and decided to try it. Man am I glad I did. I adapted the recipe (because I was out of milk - a sweet friend let me borrow some ;), and also almost out of cheddar), and wow was it good. The recipe calls for using a food processor to puree the broccoli, but next time I think I will puree half of it and leave the other half chopped to add to the soup.

Broccoli Cheese Soup - adapted from Jodi Picoult's Broccoli Cheddar Soup
2-1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 cups broccoli, chopped (I used frozen)
Dash of garlic powder
1 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
4 Tbsp butter
4 Tbsp flour
½ tsp salt
1-3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 cup shredded gouda
Slices of crusty bread


In a large saucepan, combine the chicken stock, water, broccoli, onion, garlic, garlic powder, thyme and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and simmer about 8-10 minutes until vegetables are soft.


Remove the bay leaf. Using a food processor, process the mixture until smooth (about 30 seconds). Place in a bowl and set aside.


Using the large saucepan you just used, melt the butter, add the flour and whisk constantly until a paste forms. Add the milk and cream a little at a time, whisking constantly. Once combined, add the cheddar and gouda and stir until melted and combined.


Add the broccoli mixture and stir to combine. If the mixture is too thick, add a little bit of extra chicken stock to thin it out.


Top with shredded cheddar or gouda. Serve with warm crusty French bread. Enjoy! 

DIY :: Fabric Scrap Wrapped Frame

I have a bunch of old frames that I've received and found over time. Several of them were just the frame, missing the glass and backing. I knew I could use them for something and am glad to have come up with this idea, thanks to inspiration from this pin. These frames were super easy to make, and took less than 20 minutes start to finish - a perfect "while the babies are napping" project :)

Supplies:

+ old frame - glass and backing removed (I used 4"x6" and 5"x7" frames)

+ fabric scraps in long strips (the longer, the better) - I used 1/2" wide scraps from some fat quarters and a vintage sheet - I tore mine from the fat quarters and sheet - cut a 1/2" slit at one end and then tear - it leaves a great shabby chic edge on your fabric :)

+ 2 pieces of ribbon (1 piece long enough to stretch from one side of the frame to the other- this will be where you clip a picture to, and 1 piece long enough to use for hanging the frame)

+ hot glue gun and gluesticks

+ mini clothespins

Begin by gluing the ribbon to the back of the frame lip, about 1.5" from the top lip. Be sure to pull it and glue it taught. 

Next, put some hot glue in the corner and glue down the wrong side of the fabric (so the right side is showing as you wrap it around the frame).

Begin wrapping the fabric strip around the frame, pulling very taught. Wrap it overlapping each edge so that none of the frame is visible (the corners are kind of tricky, just be patient and keep adjusting as needed - you can also add dabs of hot glue in inconspicuous spots as needed).

If you run out of fabric before you are finished wrapping, hot glue the edge (on the back), cut off any excess and start over with the same fabric.

Continue with the fabric until you would like to switch fabrics (or use one fabric for the whole frame). I used a different fabric for each side of the frame.

Start the new fabric the way you started the first fabric. Be sure to overlap the previous fabric so no part of the frame is visible.

When you come to the part where the ribbon is glued, wrap the fabric right up next to one side and then over and next to the other side to cover up the frame.

Continue until you have wrapped the entire frame.

To hang the frame, hot glue an additional piece of ribbon to the top (on the back of the frame). You could also tie the ribbon to the frame before wrapping the fabric and use the same technique to cover the edges as mentioned above. 

Using the mini clothespins, attach a picture or handwritten thought, quote or Scripture and hang up :) Voila! A super cute scrap fabric covered frame. Great for using up the not-so-nice-looking old frames you have in the basement or attic :) These would also make great gifts :)

weekend wrap up and a new look for the blog

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend :) Ours was spent with friends, family and eachother. Lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of pictures, lots of family time and lots of snuggles. And we got our Christmas pictures taken by my sweet sis. We finally have a great family photo of the 4 of us :) I won't share it here until after we send our Christmas cards out, but she also took some of my hubby and I (see below), and some solo shots of me to use here (my new header and side bar). Great to have some current pictures of my family :)

I also (finally) was able to switch over to a new blog layout- a goal I have had for myself this year. Yay! After tons of sketches, brainstorming, and finding inspiration on some of my fave blogs, I'm super excited with how it turned out. My apologies if you visited this space last night, there were some crazy layout issues going on ;) Please bear with me as I have to resize photos in each post to fit in the now smaller blog post space. For now, most of them bleed into the right column. Working hard to fix as many as I can as fast as possible.

I am excited to announce that The Creative Place blog will begin having sponsors soon. More on this in the near future. I will also be sharing blog stats, sponsor info and a promotion related to sponsor space :)

Below are some pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the States :) And Happy Thursday to everyone :) Thankful for so many things God has blessed us with - especially my sweet little family, our amazing friends from our church, and so many other things :)

I hope you have a wonderful long weekend, enjoying relaxing, spending time with family and friends and eating :) Happy Thanksgiving :)

Discover Paper | 2011 Holiday Guide

I am super excited to share that Donaville over at Discover Paper has released her first ever Holiday Guide. This gorgeous guide is chocked full of gift ideas, round-ups of decorations, calendars, journals, notepads as well as other fun things - all related to paper. And as if that weren't enough, there are a couple Moleskines up for grabs - a fabulous giveaway :) Go here to see the guide and more details about the giveaway.

I am also super honored to have my shop featured as well as be a contributor to the guide - there is a tutorial for a 3D Paper Garland by yours truly :) Below are a few excerpts from the guide, make sure you go check it out in full :)

In Other News:

+ I have restocked the shop with a couple more Holiday Journals. These are basic journals, NOT a kit. They differ slightly from the kits that are sold out, but equally as fun if you are still looking for a journal to keep for December. These are ready to ship and will ship within 24 hours after purchase (weekends included!) 

+ Also now in the shop: Holiday Journal Paper Packs: a pack of unique papers and envelopes (and 3 journaling stickers!) to add to your holiday journal. If you purchased a Holiday Journal Kit from my shop, these papers are all different from what is already in your journal, the only duplicates are a sheet of vellum and kraft cardstock. This set is designed to not only work with the Holiday Journal, but to work well with any journal! :)

+ I have a few other old school Holiday Journals from a couple years ago I found as I was cleaning my workspace. I will probably be listing these in the shop soon. Super different from this year's journal, but fun to see what I put together a couple years ago :)

+And last but not least: Echo Park Holly Jolly Christmas Paper Rounds are also in the shop. These are great for holiday card making, adding to a journal or scrapbook. 

Now that I have shared all of this fabulous Christmas planning (it's good to plan ahead! :)), it's time to get back to enjoying Thanksgiving week :)

Thanksgiving Thankful Printables

I decided to make these Thankful pages to add to my Autumn Journal for Thanksgiving this week. They are 4"x6" and you can add them to your journal if you are keeping one. Or, you could print a bunch, and have everyone at your Thanksgiving gathering write what they are thankful for and then bind them into a book. I adhered the two pages back to back, and plan on adding in photos from Thanksgiving opposite of each page.

Below are the cards to print. Click to enlarge, save and print on 8.5"x11" cardstock and cut down to 4"x6" using the cut marks. Enjoy :)

As with all printables I share here, these are for personal use only. Please link back to give credit if you would like to share on your blog. Please contact me with any questions. thecreativeplace (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks :)

DIY:: Advent Envelope Mini Book

Remember this sneak peek post the other day? Thanks to all who guessed! It is, in fact, an Advent Mini Book :) I am in no way trying to rush on through Thanksgiving, more so, I am incorporating the planning into my thoughts. I want to be prepared for the Christmas season, that is, have my Holiday Journal ready to go. And now, have an Advent activity ready for the season. 

Our sweet son (he's 4!) is understanding and asking more and more about our beliefs as followers of Jesus Christ and we want to cultivate and encourage that! In Christmases past, we'd do things like sing Christmas songs, open up the Jesus Storybook Bible and read the Christmas story and talk about baby Jesus, set up the Nativity, etc. We are wanting to go deeper now- to read more into the Christmas story, to talk about what Christmas is about. We want it to be a celebration and to be fun as we anticipate the celebrating of Baby Jesus' birth. We want to celebrate together as a family, do fun things together, love on others, and continue talking about our beliefs with our son.

Usually with the way the calendar falls, Advent starts before December 1 (4 Sundays before Christmas). But for this project, we will be starting December 1. After much thoughts and talking with Rob, we decided to have a Bible verse or passage about the Christmas story as well as an activity each day in December, up to and ending on Christmas. So we came up with 24 activities, 1 for each day (and one that says Happy Birthday Jesus! for December 25). Some of the activities are simple, like reading a Christmas book together, or driving around to look at Christmas lights. And some are more involved like making, baking and decorating gingerbread men, creating ornaments, wrapping presents, etc. But more importantly, we wanted to include activities that relate to loving on others, such as baking cookies and taking them to our neighbor, making ornaments to give to a friend, picking an angel off the Angel Tree, or giving a toy to a friend. 

After looking around on pinterest, I was inspired by these Advent activities - here, here and here. I wanted to somehow put those all together. And since I love mini books/albums/journals (can you see where this is going?), what better way than to put them into a mini book :)

So what will each day look like as we do this? Since this is the first year we've done this, we'll kind of see how it goes. We are thinking of opening the envelope each morning, reading the activity for the day and either reading the Bible verse or passage in the Bible and talking about it then, or waiting until the evening at dinner time to do that. Not quite sure yet! :) This Advent activity will be building on and in addition to what we have been doing each year during the Christmas season.

I wanted to make envelopes, not just buy them, so I started out by going to my local craft store and finding a ton of Christmas-ish themed paper. I already had some ready-made envelopes on hand, so I needed about 20 sheets of scrapbooking paper (12"x12"). I did put some money into this project (about $10-$15), but could have done it a lot cheaper had I gathered up the paper over time, using 50% off-one-item coupons (I bought the paper all in one trip). Some of the paper was $1.99 (ouch) but I loved the velvet accents on some, the shiny glimmer on others, so I decided to just go for it. Other sheets were on sale for $.20/piece, so it evened out in my opinion ;)

I took apart 2 envelopes I had on hand to use as a template, like I did for this mini envelope tutorial (I also used that mini-envelope template for a few of the envelopes). I started tracing (onto the back of the scrapbook paper so you can't see the pencil lines once it's cut and folded!) and then cutting and putting together the envelopes. For some, I simply folded the paper on itself, sewed up two sides and made a "pocket" (And for one pocket, I just stapled up the side).

Once I made all of the envelopes, I punched two holes in each and put the binder rings on. I then worked on the cards for each day. I typed out each activity and each Bible verse and printed them on regular white paper and then adhered them to red, green, cream or Christmas-y paper. The final size of each was about 2"x3.5" (business card size).

As you can see, it was starting to rain while I was taking the pictures of these ;) Don't worry, all of the cards were ok :)

I went through my stash of stickers and put numbers for each day. I also cut out numbers from paper here and there (the giant green numbers are from vintage flashcards. Love.).

And since no mini book of mine is complete without some sort of confetti, I made a confetti window from extra pieces of ribbon and snowflake punches. This is the last pocket -- for Christmas day. The window is all sewn up and then an extra sheet sewn to the back to make the pocket.

All in all, Rob and I are so incredibly excited about this activity. We hope Jimmy will be too (and Joshua as he gets older :)). We are excited that we will be able to put it away with the Christmas decorations and pull it out each year. Not sure if we will keep the same activity cards or if we will make new ones each year. To be determined :)

* Below is a template for one of the envelopes I made. You can also go here to find a template for the mini envelopes. Click to enlarge, save and then print. 

As with all printables I share here, these are for personal use only. Thanks!

Everyday Jotter Journals in the Shop

A quick post to let you know there are now Everyday Jotter Journals in the shop. Also check out the Christmas Jotters, which I posted about yesterday. 

I will be sharing a tutorial on how to make these soon- they are easy to make and would make great stocking stuffers. I will also share some ideas of using the Jotter. If you'd rather purchase one, check them out here.