Scrap lovelies

Do you know what this is? It's reproduction Victorian scrap. In the early days, original scrap was first printed in black and white, sometimes embossed with relief, then hand-tinted with color. Victorians saved these beautiful bits of paper and cards, often pasting favorite pieces into scrap albums.

In more recent years, Victorian scrap has mostly been used in decoupage craft projects, holiday decor, and card-making.

I have my own collection of reproduction Victorian scrap, that I've secreted away, to pull out for special projects or gift cards. If my daughters got their hands on my scrap, there's no telling what would be left!!

You can buy books or sheets of scrap, or nowadays, with home printers, you can print images directly off your computer. The book in these pictures is titled Old-Time Romantic Vignettes (Dover Books). If you google it, you would find it still available for purchase.

With a book of scrap, you first, roughly cut around the image you wish to use, then with fine point scissors, cut carefully up against the image. (The piece on the far right has only been roughly cut, and next I shall carefully trim away all of the white background.) It can be glued with glue stick to paper (for cards or stationery), or Mod Podged onto painted surfaces for crafting.

I searched and searched, but could not turn up some collage-style Valentines that I made many years ago. (You'll just have to take my word for it, but they were charming.) I cut small cards out of white heavy stock paper, used scissors which make a scalloped edge to trim out the edge of the cards, then collaged pieces of scrap to the front of the cards.

I've also used some of the scrap for craft projects. This is a jacket/sweater rack, which shall be repurposed to the kitchen, shortly, to hold my apron and a few other hanging bits and bobs. The rack was painted with acrylic paints, then the scrap Mod Podge-d onto the front, and finally the entire front was "varnished" with more Mod Podge.

I retrieved my collection of scrap this afternoon, to work on a Valentine decor piece for this year. I'll show you my finished project soon.

Until then, happy scrapping! I'm off to find my good scissors. . . . .

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This week's lunch round-up with illness in the family

Italian turkey-noodle soup

One of my kids has been see-sawing with illness for several days. One day doing better, the next, sick as a dog. Yesterday was one of the "bad" days. You know how those go, right?

Anyway, my first thought, when one of us is sick, is a big pot of chicken soup. But what I had was turkey, so turkey soup it was/is.

On Friday, I had roasted a turkey. So I had the remains of that in the fridge. Yesterday morning I pulled the legs and wings off and simmered in water for a couple of hours. We're not huge turkey soup fans, so ours probably doesn't look like your standard turkey soup. I make mine Italian-style. I add lots of garlic, onions, herbs, tomato paste, leafy greens and pasta to the broth and meat. The leftovers were packaged up in screw-top containers for grab-and-go lunches today and tomorrow.

I also had 5 leftover baked potatoes in the fridge to work with this week. I halved them, scooped out the insides, mashed with butter, cream cheese and a some leafy greens, refilled the potato shells, then baked the halves once more. Quick, easy and yummy!

Here's what's on our lunch menu this week:

• Italian turkey-noodle soup
• twice-baked potatoes
• mixed fruit sauce, using frozen rhubarb, blackberries and leftover cranberry sauce
• pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins (I was craving chocolate, so the family gets these this week!)
• peanut butter sandwiches
• fresh oranges
• ham sandwiches

With Monday a holiday, its a short work and school week, so I didn't put a lot of effort into making these lunch items. Our oranges are beginning to run out, now, so I'm adding in some fruit sauces, made with frozen fruit from last summer. And I am very grateful to have the supply of ham lunchmeat, picked up on sale earlier this month -- makes for easy lunch prep.

(The "sick" one is on the mend, though still in bed today. We're trying to keep the rest of us healthy. I set the hand sanitizer out on the kitchen counter, and have been wiping down door knobs, light switches, cabinet pulls and fridge handles, obsessively. Hopefully, we can stop this illness in it's tracks.)

So, how about your household? Have viruses gotten the better of anyone in your family? Do you cook anything "special" when someone is sick? 

Wishing you a fabulous week!

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