Sparky's Scratches Real friends don't care if you're a little different…

One of the things I love to do is browse the Internet. You know… start at a site, click a link, see where it takes you, click another link from there etc. I have found GEMS that way.

Today I wanted to share two of them with you.

The first is Judy at A Touch of Class. And Class it is, with a capital C. Her Digital Scrapbooking kits are so elegant. Looking at some of her layouts I can feel that she puts her heart and soul into her creations and respects her subjects.

I’ve downloaded several kits, but I have to admit, I’d love to download them all. Common sense stopped me from doing this. I just know I wouldn’t use them all and they would only take up space. I’ve bookmarked her site though and when I need something special, I stop by again to see if I can use one of her freebies for the project I had in mind.

A special note for her Heritage Kits. If you want to create layouts about your family history, A Touch of Class is the place to be! Absolutely Gorgeous!

Thanks Judy!

The second one is a site I only found just a few days ago. I was desperately looking for something that would make my muse come to live. I’m working on my annual Christmas Freebies and although I create something each day, it’s a slow process (and there’s still so much left to do!)

I googled for PSP tutorials and ended up at Shawna’s Scrap Stuff with PSP. WOW is all I can say. I think my first visit took me 2 hours and I haven’t seen everything yet. On the one hand, this wasn’t the distraction I was looking for, lol, but on the other hand, the things I saw woke up my muse and that’s just what I needed.

Apart from wonderful Digital Scrapbooking freebies, you’ll find lots of tutorials (PSP ánd Photoshop), info about Plugins (been downloading like crazy, lol) and useful links.  I can highly recommend a visit!

Thanks Shawna!

I’m so very pleased that Shawna accepted my invitation for the upcoming Worldwide Christmas Scrapbooking Freebies… which reminds me… I have to get back to PSP again!

Received an email from The Leaky Cauldron… another Half-Blood Prince Trailer

Love the look on Ron’s face “I’m in love with her!” – LOL

Quite dark and exciting… heavy stuff. Can’t wait, too bad about the delay, but I bet it’ll be worth the wait.

“Fight back you coward!” Awesome… just awesome…

Karen from Scraps of Mind tagged me with this meaningful meme.

I’ve lost several friends through Breast Cancer. We can only hope that there will always be funds enough to keep the research going. Some illnesses can never be cured, but there’s been so much progress in Cancer Research that many people have been saved.
One of the most important things is Early Detection. Read more about that here.

* One in eight women or 12.6% of all women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.

* Breast cancer risk increases with age and every woman is at risk.

* Every 13 minutes a woman dies of breast cancer.

* Seventy-seven percent of women with breast cancer are over 50.

* Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women between the ages of 15 and 54, and the second cause of cancer death in women 55 to 74.

* Risks for breast cancer include a family history, atypical hyperplasia, early menstruation (before age 12), late menopause (after age 55), current use or use in the last ten years of oral contraceptives, and daily consumption of alcohol.

* Early detection of breast cancer, through monthly breast self-exam and particularly yearly mammography after age 40, offers the best chance for survival.

Facts taken from Women’s Health

And now here is the tag and the rules:

1. Put the logo in your blog.

2. Add a link to the person who shared it with you.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4. Add your link to the list of participants below

5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

PINK Sisterhood

1- Fara 2- Massy 3- N.O.Y 4- Mariuca 5- A Great Pleasure 6- LadyJava 7- Kim 8- Pink Thoughts 9- Turn-u-Off 10- Roxiticus Desperate Housewives 11- STAY AT HOME MOM 12- Fida Abbott 13- Also Mommy 14- Janice Ng 15- Juliana’s Site 16- The Painted Veil 17- Heart of Rachel 18- Mga Muni-muni 19-Picture Clusters 20- Scraps of Mind 21- Antoinette 22 – YOU

I’d like to tag:

Caroline from Cosmic Handmade

Kia from Italian Cozy Corner

Anni from Hootin’ Anni

Dru from Dru’s Dippity Do Da’s

I participated in this event, hosted by Overwhelmed with Joy, last year. But due to the unexpected move of my blog to another host, many of my blog posts were lost, including the recipes. So I’m happy to participate this year (eventhough I’m a day late!)

In Holland we make a big deal out of New Year’s Eve. Like the rest of the world there’s always a lot of fireworks at midnight, but we spend the hours before le moment suprème at home with family and friends, eating, drinking, playing boardgames perhaps, watching tv or we just chat.
Most important thing is to have fun!

A Dutch custom is to bake ‘oliebollen’ and ‘appelflappen’.

~ Oliebollen ~

Ingredients
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2 packages dry active yeast
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup currants
3/4 cup raisins
oil for deep frying
powdered sugar for dusting

Directions
In cup stir 1 teaspoon of sugar into warm water. Sprinkle dry yeast on top and let sit for 10 minutes.
The yeast should begin to foam or bubble if active, then stir.
Place flour in a large bowl and create a well in the middle of the flour.
Add eggs, sugar and yeast mixture. Heat milk in a small pan until lukewarm, add half of milk to well.
Begin folding mixture until just moist. Add the remaining warm milk and blend until smooth.
Keep stirring until you reach an elastic batter which will fall from your spoon.
Cover bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm area to rise for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled.
Wash the currants and raisins, let all the water go. After mixture has doubled, stir in salt, currants and raisins.

Heat the oil in a deep-fryer, or heavy deep pan to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Use two metal spoons to shape scoops of dough into balls.
Take one tablespoon in each hand. Dip each spoon into the hot oil quickly.
With one tablespoon, scoop one spoonful of dough from the bowl. With the other spoon, scrap or slide the oliebollen mix off the first spoon into the pan of oil. You should be able fit 6-8 Oliebollen at a time.
The Oliebollen should sink down to the bottom and pop back up. Once the bottom of the Oliebollen is golden brown, flip over to cook the top. As long as your pan is not too crowded, you should find that the Oliebollen will begin to flip themselves.

The Oliebollen should be soft and not greasy. If the oil is not hot enough, the outside will be tough and the insides greasy. Drain finished Oliebollen on paper towels and dust with powdered sugar. Serve them piled on a dish with more powdered sugar dusted over them. Eat them hot if possible.

~ Appelflappen ~

Ingredients
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2 packages dry active yeast
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
oil for deep frying

Directions
In cup stir 1 teaspoon of sugar into warm water. Sprinkle dry yeast on top and let sit for 10 minutes.
The yeast should begin to foam or bubble if active, then stir.
Place flour in a large bowl and create a well in the middle of the flour.
Add eggs, sugar and yeast mixture. Heat milk in a small pan until lukewarm, add half of milk to well.
Begin folding mixture until just moist. Add the remaining warm milk and blend until smooth.
Cover bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm area to rise for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled.

Heat oil in a deep fryer or a deep pan to 375°F.
After mixture has doubled stir in salt.
Peel and core apples and slice into thick rounds.
Dip each apple slice into the batter so that it is well-covered and careful place in oil.
You should be able to do 4 to 5 apple slices at a time.
When the bottom becomes golden brown, flip over to cook the top.
Remove from oil and drain on paper towel lined plate.
When cooled enough to touch, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Enjoy! And Happy Holidays 🙂

(. . . from Pat)  According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list.

The instructions:
Look at the list and bold those you have read.
Italicize those you intend to read.
Underline the books you LOVE.
Reprint this list in your own LJ/Blog.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brönte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brönte
8. 1984 – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo