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If you are a rubber stamper, you may be aware of the fact that The Rubber Stamper magazine was sold to Amos Craft Publishing last year. Rather than publish it as it was, Amos opted to merge it with one of their existing craft publications, Crafts N Things. This began with the January/February 2008 issue.

I was not too thrilled when I first heard this, because I was never much of a fan of Crafts N Things. I had bought an issue at the store now and then, but they were never much on the paper crafting angle. So, of course, I wondered what they would do with Rubber Stamper.

I saw the premier issue of the newly refurbished Crafts N Things at a Barnes & Noble bookstore a couple of weeks ago, and I picked it up. It was only fair, I felt, to give it a chance.

The original Crafts N Things was more into other crafts, a catchall of stuff like quilting, sewing, cross-stitch, jewelry making, with some paper crafting. My interests are more for scrapbooking, card making, and other paper crafts. But this new magazine not only looked better, and was thicker, but the blurb about 75+ rubber stamping ideas, and EXPANDED PAPER CRAFT SECTION appealed to me.

I have to say that if this is the sort of thing that Amos will be putting out six times a year, I’m impressed. The stamping projects are still the sophisticated style that we’ve come to expect from Rubber Stamper, but with new, easier-to-follow instructions and material lists. There’s also a section at the back of each issue that lists sources for all products used, as well as descriptions of basic tools and techniques.

If you are new to stamping, you might well find the new Crafts N Things a bit less intimidating than the old Rubber Stamper.

Other crafts are still very much present, and some of the projects are sort of crossovers…for instance, jewelry that uses stamping. Rubber Stamper had some of those, too. But this new magazine may well introduce stamping to a whole new audience, and show how it can be used for many things other than paper crafting/card making.

If you want to see an issue for yourself, before committing to a subscription, you should be able to pick one up at any of the craft book or craft stores.  Check out their website, as well; there are plenty of bonus projects, patterns, and more there.

I highly recommend this magazine!

I do! And I was just reading this post over on Annette’s blog about the Stampin’ Up! Sale-A-Bration. From February 1-March 17, for every $50 you spend on Stampin’ Up! products, you can pick a FREE stamp set from the special Mini-Catalog.

Since I’m in one of her Stamper’s 10 Clubs, I order from her every month anyway…worth it to spend a bit more to get a few freebies. If you are interested in ordering anything from SU, but don’t have a demonstrator, go on over and visit Annette. She lives in New Jersey, but she has no sales territory limits, she will sell to anyone nationwide and ship to you (you will have to pay for shipping, as well as whatever the sales tax is in your state).

Annette does an excellent job…orders are shipped promptly, and her email newsletters are very informative. They are always filled with ideas for projects, as well as news about the latest Stampin’ Up! promotions, new releases, and such.

I need to start thinking about what to get in February, and I can’t wait for my Sale-A-Bration mini-catalog to get here!

This policy is valid from now until the end of time.

You see, this is the way it goes around here. I’m too damned lazy to go out and work at a real job. Most bosses are flaming idiots, and I’m sick of dealing with them. By staying out of the regular working world, I’m doing the world a favor. That way, I won’t have to cause serious bodily harm on these bosses who make me go to work when I’m sick, or won’t give me time off to get married (yes, this really happened, I quit that stupid job). And don’t get me going about the guy who wouldn’t give me time off to go to Red Sox playoff games, and then tried to get my hard-earned tickets from me. No, he didn’t get them, I went to the games, and I eventually quit that stupid job, too.

So, yeah…people sometimes pay me to review products and/or insert links on this and other blogs in My Vast Blog Empire. This is what pays for the essentials in my life…baseball tickets, beer, craft supplies, and other cool stuff. It’s easy and fun, and I can work whenever I please. And I don’t have to get dressed or anything to do it…I can sit here and do it in my skivvies if I so choose. Also, I don’t have to deal with idiots on the MBTA or the roads…nice to have NO COMMUTE!

I am always honest in all of my posts, be they paid or not.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out which posts are paid and which aren’t. If you even care, that is.

Any questions, concerns, gripes, here’s my email addy:

…after all of the food I made over the weekend, it’s a wonder I don’t need to get the hoodia patch to lose some of those pounds!

Well, at least Mike is okay in that department. We got close to a foot of snow today, and he worked off a lot of those excess calories from shoveling it. I can’t shovel now, because of my bad arm…for once I’m glad for that! But Mike didn’t mind shoveling, as he got out of having to go to work today due to the storm. He was supposed to go to boring meetings and stuff in Rhode Island, which is always a pain. But he got out of it…thank you, snow!
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So I was spending some time deciding what to get from Stampin’ Up! this month.  My SU demonstrator, Annette, has a “Stamper’s 10 Club” where members commit to ordering at least $15 per month at her workshops.  Each members gets a turn at being the hostess and gets the freebies for that month.  This was my month, so I had to decide what I wanted.  So much stuff to pick from…sigh…

Since I’m a long-distance member (Annette is in New Jersey and I’m in Massachusetts), I don’t have to actually host a workshop, it’s a catalog party.  Annette does hot a workshop in her own home, and she sends out the materials needed to make the featured project along with the orders for the long-distance members.  Not as good as being there, but very cool.

If you are looking for a good SU demonstrator, check out Annette’s links above…they go to her SU site and her blog.  She’s great, and I wouldn’t trade her even if another SU demonstrator moved next door!

…okay, not quite, but sorta! The “secret ingredient” is…MUSTARD!

I was asked to try a couple of varieties of Grey Poupon mustard, and then give you my honest opinion of them. Well, since I’ve been a fan of their original Dijon mustard for years now, I was all over this one…very interested in trying some of the new mustards that they’ve recently come out with.
So, this past Friday, Mister Mailman came a-knockin’, and this was what was in the box…two full-sized jars of Grey Poupon mustards…”Harvest Coarse Ground” and “Hearty Spicy Brown”. That’s them, right over there… <—–

Now, when someone asks me to undertake such a project, I take it very seriously. All I really had to do was maybe slap the stuff on a sammich, a hot dog, and write about how I liked it.

But since I often use mustard in cooking, I decided to have a lot of fun with this, and see how many things I could make, in one weekend, using these mustards.

I began with deviled eggs. Mike and I both love ‘em, and it’s a nice little snack / appetizer thing to have around. I don’t have an exact recipe for this…I just made up a bunch of hard-boiled eggs, and when they chilled down, I peeled the. Hard-boiled eggs are WAY easier to peel when completely chilled. Then I cut them in half lengthwise, and scooped the yolks out into a bowl, and mashed them up with a fork.

I then added some mayonnaise…not too much, just barely enough to hold the mixture together. Add a little at a time until you reach this point. Then I put in a couple of spoonfuls of the Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground mustard. After that, I just spooned the mixture back into the egg whites, and it was time to chow down.

Most deviled egg recipes call for mostly mayo and that mustard powder stuff…the Grey Poupon gave it much more of a bite, and a little crunch, as well. Definitely a hit around here!
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Next up was trying the Hearty Spicy Brown Mustard. My original plan was to bake up a regular loaf or rye bread in my bread machine, and try this with ham sammiches for lunch today.

But then, I thought…why don’t I try to find a recipe where the mustard is actually baked into the rye bread? I looked through my vast collection of cookbooks, and I finally found one, in “Bread Machine Baking: Perfect Every Time” by Lora Brody & Millie Apter. The original recipe called for Dijon mustard, but I used the Hearty Spicy Brown instead.

I almost went nuts towards the end of the baking time for this bread…the aroma of the mustard and caraway seeds was just too wonderful! The resulting bread lived up to its scent…very yummie, and, when used for ham sammiches with more of the same mustard…wicked awesome! I’m a rye bread junkie, and this was by far the best I have EVER had!
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But I wasn’t done yet! We had a MUSTARD dinner tonight!

I slightly adapted a recipe from “Julia & Jacques: Cooking At Home”…Julia Child’s leg of lamb with a mustard-rosemary rub. Once again, she called for regular Dijon mustard, but I thought it would be good with the Harvest Coarse Grain mustard.

I decided to roast the lamb in a cast-iron skillet…my favorite type of cookware. Also, I had an ulterior motive…I wanted to use the pan juices from the lamb in which to cook the side dish of Rosemary Potato Wedges (from “Cooking in Cast Iron” by Mara Reid Rogers). That recipe called for the potatoes to be cooked in bacon fat. I had no bacon on hand, and since lamb is kind of fatty, why not make use of the lamb fat? Waste not, want not!

Some of the mustard rub ended up in the lamb cooking juices, so the potatoes came out kind of mustardy, as well.

But I couldn’t leave the mustard thing alone. When Mike and I were at the store yesterday, I let him pick a fresh veggie to have with the lamb. He picked broccoli. And I, of course, found a creamy mustard sauce to cook it in, from “The New Basics Cookbook” by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins. The original recipe was for green beans, but hey, broccoli is green, too…at least it was last I checked!

Anyhoo, pictured here now is the final result…lamb, potatoes, and broccoli.

The mustard flavoring was not overpowering, but it gave everything a nice bite; it complemented the strong flavors of the lamb and broccoli. The lamb came out nice and tender, the mustard rub kept it nice and juicy inside.

And that was my “Iron Chef” weekend, with the secret ingredient of mustard. I didn’t do it all in an hour, and no, there’s no mustard dessert here! But I had a good time giving these new Grey Poupon mustards quite the workout, and they passed with flying colors! Mike and I were both more than happy with everything I made with them, and we’d most definitely buy these mustards at the store and use them for these, and other great recipes!

Some of the recipes used here are in the *read more* part of this post. Enjoy!

Read more