Words Can Come Back to Bite You.....

Yesterday I mentioned that we're going back to Mexico this winter.

You know how a character in a movie will promise to be a good person or become a nun if she can just live to see another day?  Well, I have to refer you back to a post I wrote earlier this year, where I made a statement about the idea of going on vacation and what I would give if we could just make it happen again this winter.  Do you see it?

Yea. Words can come back to bite you......

So, it's time to go on my own little scrap shopping hiatus for a few months.  I'll be scrapping with just what I have in my stash while eating oodles of noodles, with the heat set on 62 degrees, but the reward is oh so worth it! 

I am often the first to roll my eyes when I see people proclaim a scrap-diet, usually because one of the next messages is something like, "I just got this little thing today," or, "it was on sale so it doesn't count, who could pass it up!"  I don't want to be one of those people.  So I mean it - no shopping, none, until the end of March when I go to the Memories Expo.

Fortunately, I know I can count on all of you Counterfeiters to keep me inspired and on track with the stash busting!

Counterfeit Kit Guest Post and Completed Mexico Album

My second guest post on the Counterfeit Kit blog is up today, and I talk about how I make kits work for my scrapping process. 

I'm really excited to say that I've completed the project I talked about in yesterday and today's posts.  My Mexico album is finished, and you can see all the pages here.

Between my Fresh Starts page kit and other items in my stash I was able to finish the few remaining pages in the pile.


 



 

I've decided to move this group of pages to its own 8 1/2 x 11 album. I was going to add them to my 12x12 2012 album, but it just seemed like too many smaller pages to stay stable in that larger album. 

I've completed this 2012 album just in time.  We just booked our next trip for later this winter, and we can hardly think of anything else right now. I wish there was a way to bottle the high that comes with these happy moments! 

Hope you all enjoy this month's posts on the Counterfeit Kit blog and have a great month!

Using My Fresh Starts Page Kit

Today I'm kicking off December's guest posts on the Counterfeit Kit blog.  All the Master Forgers and friends will be posting page kits and inspiration to help you wrap up your own 2012 projects.

Today's post shows my Fresh Starts page kit.  I just wanted to show a page today that I completed with that kit and a sketch from Valerie Salmon's Sketch 104 at Got Sketch (posted on December 3, 2011).  It's a sketch that used a 5x7 photo, and I played with it to make it work for my own 8x10 page that did not include a photo:

I printed several 8x10 photos for this album, and I didn't always have something to put on the other side of the page protector.  This was just a chance to play with pretty paper and add some fun journaling on an empty space.

Tomorrow I'll post the rest of my completed pages and my full vacation album.  I'm so happy to have this project finished!


I'd like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy December! I'll be following along with everyone else's posts this month and look forward to all the Fresh Starts that January 2013 will bring.

Season's Greetings to You

To start the season, I want to pass along a holiday message to all of you......

To see other greetings from the Master Forgers, check today's Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November Challenge #3: Sharing a Tradition

Today's challenge for the Counterfeit Kit is to do a project that includes a tradition.

Since I'm working on my December Daily, all my work is for events and thoughts that are yet to happen.  So I decided to pre-make a page for a tradition I'm sure to document, so I can just add pictures later.

This page will be a place to put pictures of our Christmas trees.  I love to decorate, so it's pretty safe to say that we'll have trees. I usually put up two big ones and then a bunch of smaller trees throughout the house. I've scaled back over the past couple of years since Junior was a puppy, but last year he proved to be 100% not interested in the test tree, so I know for sure that the tree tradition will continue.

I'll use these two pages for one day in my book.  I'll use one 8 1/2 x 6 page and one 2-up page for each day.

I used several pieces from Basic Grey Aspen Frost and cut them with a Fiskars tree border punch. Then I layered the cuts and added some Stickles to make them sparkle. The letters on the title sticker are from one of the BG Serendipity and Shine lines and were the perfect color.

The red block is for a tree picture. I punched a tree border across the top to match the rest of the page.

I didn't do much for the second page, so it can be flexible depending on the pictures I get.  I did lightly tack on a couple of my faux wood veneers, and I'm glad I decided to keep them flat. It will help to keep the bulk of the book down a bit. I want to have something blue and a reindeer on each spread, so this cut was my reindeer choice for these pages.

I'm excited for the month of December to get started, so I can start picturing how my book will come together.  To be honest, I probably won't do a lot of it as I go along, because I have so many other things I want to accomplish before the end of the year.  But I'll try to keep good notes and take lots of pictures, and then it will all come together in early 2013 - at least that's what we all hope for our projects, right?!

There's still time to add your own challenge and kit submissions to the November Mr. Linky.  Add your links so we can all take a look and get some inspiration!  And watch the Counterfeit Kit blog next month - I can't spill the beans about what December holds, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun. 

A Fun Surprise

A couple of weeks ago, I exchanged messages with someone on 2Peas, and then last week this happened.

It was such a great surprise, and I am adding all these items to my December Daily kit. 

I plan to add this exchange one day in my December Daily, too - it's just the kind of nice moment I'd like to remember about the season.

December Daily Progress

Hi Everyone -

While I haven't been posting much this month, I have done some work for my December Daily project.  I thought I'd take a few pictures to show some of the progress.

I got my binder and started punching new holes in all the pages I plan to use.

I love this binder because of the big d-rings. Lots of room for a month of pages.

My pages will be 8 1/2 x 6, using 12x6 page protectors cut down to size. I cut page bases from the Frosty Cabin stack. The facing page will be a 2- 4x6 pocket page. I've pre-cut some 4x6 pieces for journaling, pictures or decorating; If I get really lazy, I can just print 4x6 photos and slide them right into the protector.  I found these 3-up protectors at Target on clearance for $1/pack. I just cut off the top slot so they would fit.

My inspiration collection includes some really cool page inserts.  I decided to cut my Webster's Pages paper to that insert-size, rather than making them page bases.  I'll use those pieces as needed in the book, too.

 

The binder comes with these plastic envelopes.  Instead of buying inserts, I just covered the plastic with more Frosty Cabin papers.  These inserts are handy for holding cards and other ephemera, and I'll place them where they're needed throughout the book.

Another plastic envelope.  I can also use the outside of each folder as an extra page for pictures, journaling or decorating, depending on what I need.

I have pre-made a couple of base pages, too, but I'm not worried about doing many more.  I'll put them together as my daily events and thoughts come together.  I'll post one of those pages later this week when we post some challenge work. 

Until then, enjoy your family time and turkey hangovers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating today!

I'm trying to get back to the land of the living after a no good, dirty rotten cold took me down this month. But I've turned a corner and feel much better this week, just in time for a long weekend to catch up on kit projects and other fun stuff.

Speaking of projects, many of you probably spent the day putting together big feasts. Not knowing how I was going to feel, and since it was just the two of us, I arranged our fancy feast from Cracker Barrel. Clean up was a breeze!

So with all my extra time I decided to start a different sort of project and tackle my scrap space. I had a lot of work to do to get it ready for a productive weekend. While it doesn't look as delicious as all the turkeys I've seen on Facebook today, I am still pretty proud of my own Thanksgiving Miracle:

November Kit - Wood Veneers

Just a quick post today to show you how I did some counterfeited wood veneer shapes.

I first did some veneer counterfeiting back in my July kit.  Today I just wanted to give you a link to a source for the veneer paper I used in this month's kit.

The Real Wood sheets are from Creative Imaginations.  Just do an internet search, and it looks like you can find different pieces from different retailers.  I got lucky and found my birch sheet on clearance at Michaels for $1 earlier this summer.

For your cutting reference, I used a Cricut to cut this month's shapes, and it worked really well.  I set the pressure to Max, speed to Max, and had the blade depth set to 5.  I used just one cut.  At first I worried because you can barely see the cut on the wood, and I thought it wasn't working.  But no worries - most places popped right out.  The exception was long passes that went against the grain.  I used a craft knife along the cut line to help pop those cuts off the page.  I was really happy with the cuts I made.

The sheets work really well with punches and hand cutting, too.

Just wanted to pass along this great item.  The packaged veneer shapes are very nice, but this veneer paper gives you the chance to make a custom shape and to cut only the quantity you want for any one shape. Cut 2 or 3 more copies of the same image, and you can stack and adhere the layers to make a faux chipboard with a veneer top.

I call it a good counterfeit!

November Counterfeit Kit

Well, today's Counterfeit Kit proved to be more difficult that I first imagined, but I'm so happy with the results!

When we first got the news about this month's kit challenge, to counterfeit a current collection, I immediately decided to pick a holiday collection and use my kit for my December Daily pages. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to pick a collection and decide how to use it.

Last year I used all one collection for my DD.  I liked that method, but I knew I wanted to try a more mixed style this year.  So as new collections were released over the past couple of months,  I bought pieces I like from all sorts of collections, thinking, "it will all come together in the end."

And that time has come.  I decided to pull it all together and figure out a way to move from "random and hodge-podge" to "eclectic," and I decided to use Studio Calico Wonderland as my inspiration.  It was one collection I hadn't purchased any pieces (although I wanted to), so I thought it would be a good, neutral place to start.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm just providing this one picture of the inspiration collection.  To see all the pieces, click here for the stock of these items at 2Peas, or here to see the stock at Studio Calico.

Each month Bethany posts a list of ways you might interpret the counterfeiting challenge.  This month I went with the second method on the list:

"Use the "kit contents" as inspiration, and recreate your own kit with the same types of supplies, but in a different color or style that corresponds better with your preferences/photographs/scrapbook style/tastes."  

I hope that by counterfeiting these embellishments with all the different collections of papers, I will be able to tie them all together within this one project.

I needed this push to actually start cutting into all these papers. Otherwise I think I would have been stalled in the these-papers-are-too-pretty-to-use phase and may never have gotten my album off the ground!  It's a random group of papers, isn't it?

The SC collection uses trees, houses and snowflakes throughout the range. I did the same and added reindeer. My goal is to place a reindeer somewhere on each page of my book. Pictured here are all the little bits and baubles I could find in my stash that feature those four items.

The collection's sheet of hexagon stickers is great, but I don't have a hexagon punch or easy way to duplicate a lot of hex's at once. But what I do have is an elongated octagon - the perk of working in "Block O" country, we have a custom Block O Ellison die. So I kept cutting and went crazy punching octagons! Now I have that shape, plus the outer "O" to use as a frame. I kept some of the negative shapes in case they come in handy for journaling blocks or photo frames, too.

Veneers - I love these little wooden shapes! I decided to make a few of my own, using the wood veneer paper I used in my July kit. I had about 3/4 of a sheet remaining, and I never got around to using it in the Cricut at that time, so I decided it was a good time to experiment. I cut extras copies in regular cardstock so I can turn the veneer into faux-chipboard, but I've left them alone for now.  I love my reindeer wood frame, too!

I made my own flair! Until recently I didn't know that we have a button maker in our office, and it's just .10 to make a button. I just left out the pin on the back, and now I have oodles of flair in designs from several collections' papers.

I'm not a big stamper, but since SC is known for its stamps, I thought I should at least throw in a few stamps for this kit. So I pulled everything I could find in my stash that had trees, houses, etc. And I don't have a good alpha set like the SC collection, but I do have this monogram set and thought it might be useful, even just for the numbers.

Later this week I'll show more details on my individual pieces, along with a couple of additional counterfeits - some album inserts and more ephemera based on the Wonderland collection.  Then I'll get busy making a few base pages for the book.  Like last year, my goal is to have my book all set up and ready for pictures by Thanksgiving, so I'll be busy for the next couple of weekends.

Alright, that's it for me. Now click through to Susanne's blog to see her inspiring kit!  And here's the full Master Forger Hop order, in case you need some direction along the way:

Start: Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com

Guest Designer: Julie http://hisglorygirl.blogspot.com/

Crystalhttp://crystalscraftycreations.blogspot.com/

Jemma http://just-jimjams.blogspot.com/

Lisa http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com/

Libeeti http://creationswithlove-li-bee-ti.blogspot.com/

Margie http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com/

Milissa http://millermall.blogspot.com/

YOU ARE HERE:  Rebecca http://howiburb.blogspot.com/

NEXT STOP:  Susanne http://www.snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com/

Bethany http://inspiredscrapper-bethany.blogspot.com/

Counterfeit Kit Challenge 3: Two Cards

The third challenge of the month for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is to make two cards (masculine and feminine versions of the same card).

CKC highlighted this sketch (Unscripted Sketches #169) earlier this month, and I decided to use it for my take on the challenge:

Unscripted Sketched #169

I used two card bases from my stash, along with these two polaroid shapes to make the two cards look similar. Everything else was from my kit.

I really didn't have much to call "masculine" in my kit, so I looked to a scrap of wood plank paper to use as the background and embellishment. I knew I wanted to use stars for the 3 boxes on the sketch, but couldn't find anything in my kit or stash that worked here. After staring at the page for far too long, it finally occurred to me, duh, I could just hand cut some stars. I get so focused on punches and diecut machines that I don't always remember that a piece of paper and some scissors is really all I need.

The red paper had a sheen to it, so I used Staz-On ink for the stamp. The colors didn't come out great in my photo, but the stamp actually turned out really nice on this satin-like paper, and I was glad to have a use for one of the....well, let's not put a number on it.....MANY $1 stamps I've accumulated. 

The feminine card uses the last bit of a long-saved piece of Cosmo Cricket paper. The "hey sugar" was from the title strip of the paper.

Now what? Well, you could:

• Check the Counterfeit Kit page today for links to other Master Forger projects.
• Be a Master Forger! There's still time to apply! Click here for all the details.
• Take the challenge and link your projects here.

Enjoy the end of your own weekend!

Finally Friday!

Happy Friday!

It's going to be a long weekend at our house, but anywhere is better than work for a couple of days, right?

Junior's Rally competition is Saturday and Sunday.  Practice has been limited these past few weeks, so it's a bit like taking a test without studying.  You know you won't do as well as if you had studied, but if you can just pass it you'll be happy :).

We will move to our first Level 2 trials, which means OFF LEASH courses. I had a nervous stomach pang just writing that sentence. It's a big move in this world of dog stuff.  I vow to keep a good attitude about it as it's happening, though - even if we don't qualify, it will be good experience for any "next time" we might decide to try.

My only other goal for the weekend is to have Crystal get to watch us in the ring. Poor Crystal hasn't been able to watch a single trial, because Junior spends his whole time trying to find her in the crowd if she's there.  He doesn't get distracted if she's not in the venue, so she has to leave.  This time we're going to find a way for her to watch, even if that means setting up a video camera or dressing her up as a potted plant.

Remind me of all this pep-talk when I come back on Monday and complain about how tired I am!

But today I'm thinking of more relaxed times and showing the rest of my completed Finger Lakes vacation pages. It was fun to relive vacation for a few days this week!  I am not done with the week's pages, but this is the end of my work so far.  I used my October Counterfeit Kit for these pages, too.



Our rental house is a bed and breakfast during the off season, so there was a lot of furniture on the porch. That made it a great hangout spot for reading, spontaneous wine and nosh plates and the occasional nap.

Everything came from my kit except the title letters.

I decided to journal right on the pictures on this page. I just wanted to put all the pictures of the house on this two page layout so I could tell that story all at once.  And I am in love with MME Enamel Dots. Such a simple little embellishment, but the pack I purchased worked perfectly with the colors in my kit papers this month.  I went through the whole pack.

Since I posted all these vacation pages out of order, I loaded them all into Flickr here. If you'd like to see them in order, that's the place to do it.  I will keep adding pages until I'm done with the whole week's stories.

Have a great weekend!

Thursday Tried and True Pin: A 1-Page Sketch

My tried-and-true pin for this week is a sketch.  It was perfect for some pictures from our vacation, another page using my Counterfeit Kit.

This sketch came from Scrap That Baby. I was surprised to see the content of that blog (all about scrapping kids under 4-years old), since the 3 pictures I had used for my page were actually baby pictures, too.  That might not be quite as much of a coincidence if you usually do kid pages, but I rarely have pictures or stories of babies. Just a happy coincidence, I guess.

And here's my page. Sorry for the white box faces - need to keep baby private, since he's not mine :). We took this vacation with my friends from college, and baby is the newest, cutest addition to the group. We just haven't had a lot of kids within our group, so the baby was passed around and squeezed and cuddled quite a bit.

Finally used the stars and buttons from my September kit, along with some other Jillibean circles and letters.  The woodgrain paper is from my kit, and the other Simple Stories and Jillibean papers are scraps from previous kit months. I inked the edges of the circles with red, yellow and blue inks but then topped those colors with a brown ink so they weren't so bright.  The red dots are Want2Scrap, and I've been using them like Frank's Red Hot Sauce lately.

So, another Pinterest success story for me! Want to follow?

More Kit Pages - Summer Vacation Pages

I mentioned yesterday that there may be some new eyes here in the audience. So in case any of you haven't heard, the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is looking for new Master Forgers! 

If you're interested in learning more, click here to see the announcement.  It is a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the inspiration that comes when new people, new projects and new ideas are added to the team!

Today I have more pages made with this month's Counterfeit Kit.  These are all from our summer trip to the Finger Lakes in New York:

I mentioned yesterday that I ran out of paper for my kit this month.  So I added in some scraps from previous kits to do this quick page. I made the "hit the road" tag with an unuse stamp I have had forever. Glad I thought to finally use it!

The end of my one sheet of paper that inspired my kit this month - that striped paper is an older American Crafts paper, and I love how it has so many colors I wouldn't normally tie together.  That allowed me to get away with pink buttons, red hearts, yellow/green enamel dots and turquoise cardstock. I think :). It's a real hodge podge of colors, not my usual style, but I loved this picture (I know it doesn't look like much here - I cut out a friends face and it looks pretty dark, but the actual picture is much nicer), and didn't need much journaling.

Another page that didn't need much journaling. Used some scraps from my kit for the flags and added in the Amy Tangerine stuff like I mentioned yesterday. When I was done with the page, I didn't like all that wide-open black space on the page. Since it was a Coordinations cardstock with a pink core, I decided I should let some pink show through. So I scored random lines around the page from the back and then lightly sanded the lines to let the pink appear.  It's easier to see the pink in person. I liked that it just sort of filled the space without having to add more papers or embellishments.

That's it for today.  I have several more pages to show this week, so stay tuned!

October Counterfeit Kit Challenge #2

First, I'd like to welcome any new readers and followers!  We had a 2Peas thread last week for people looking for new blogs to follow, and I posted a link to this blog.  And then I didn't update for 5 days - oops!  That's not very inviting, is it? But I found some other great blogs to follow and still need to go back to the thread and check out a few more. 

Yesterday I did not post my Challenge #2 (to take a photo of a project in a new or unique way) with the rest of the Master Forgers, because my entry is a bit of a stretch for the guidelines.  Rather than taking a picture, I scanned several pages to post this week. 
 

Does anyone remember my "Romney the dog" comment?  This is the picture that sparked that little family joke.  Junior's crate was wedged pretty tightly into the car for our summer vacation. He barely fit and was nearly relegated to the roof (no we would never really do that). We are not - I should say CRYSTAL is not - what could be called "light packers."

                          
I posted these two pages earlier this month.  Just wanted to show the scanned-version.

It's not a new or unique idea to scan pages, but I haven't done it for awhile. I do not claim to be a great photographer, but the time of year really gets in the way of taking layout photos at all.  The summer is firmly planted in the past around here, which means I now leave for work in the dark, and soon it will be completely dark by the time I get home, too.  That doesn't leave many options for nice, bright project pictures.  So I thought it might be a good time to talk about how I scan projects to get better page pictures on the blog.

Last year I read this article about using Paint to stitch scans together.  I do not have any fancy software to stitch scans or edit photos, so the Paint option was right up my alley.  Paint is a free program that comes on most desktop computers, which met my minimal-technology capabilities.  I used the instructions in the article, combined with some trial and error for the version on my own computers, and ended up with a method that works well for me.  In case it helps anyone else, here's what I do:

• I scan my layouts on a copier and can scan up to 11x17. If you only have access to 8 1/2 x 11, that's fine, you'll just need to scan your page in more sections in order to get it all on the glass.  With 11x17, I am able to do just 2 scans and stitch in one place.
• Consult your own scanner's instructions to determine how to access your scans.  In my case, my scans are sent to my email as a pdf.  I open that pdf, save as, change the file type to jpeg, and then save.  I then end up with each page saved as its own jpeg image.
• I open the first image to work with.  I have a general order I use for editing. 
  (1) I flip/rotate the image as needed.
  (2) Then I select Stretch/Skew and reduce the image by 50%. That step may not be necessary for you; When I do this process on my laptop, that version of Paint allows me to View, Zoom, and then select a smaller size like 25% to view my whole mat.  My work computer doesn't give me that option, so I have to reduce the image size in order to easily work with the image.  It also makes the image a manageable size to upload to my blog and other sites.
  (3) I select (ctrl+A) the full image and then move it as needed to remove space from the left and top of the image I want to keep. Once it's in a good place, then
  (4) I make sure there is some white mat space below and to the right of my image, so when I paste the second scan onto this image, it will have some space on the mat.
  (5) Now I save the image but leave it open. 
  (6) And then open my second scan. Usually I'm just trying to use this piece to obtain the bottom inch or two of my page, but I look for a good place to make that cut - maybe the top of an element or something with a line that helps me mask the stitch location.
  (7) Repeat steps 1-3 with the second scanned image.  Then I either select all (ctrl+A) or use the select tool and grab the piece I want, and copy the selection.
  (8) Go back to the original image and paste the second image.
  (9) Drag the image into place so it blends with your first image. Once you have it in place, click elsewhere on the mat to set your new image. (Note: Don't click off of the image until you are happy with its placement. If you do it by accident, go to the menu and click Edit, Undo, and try to paste again).
  (10) Go to the leftover white mat space on the right and bottom of your image and reduce it.  If you don't do this step, the white space will be saved with your image.
  (11) Save your new image!
  (12) Sometimes I stitch a two-page layout into one image. In that case, I just repeat the process until I'm happy with the final image.

I know it's not fancy, but it works for me! And now that I have the hang of it, it really only takes a couple of extra minutes while I'm putting a post together.  I won't use it all the time, but it's a good option to have for the next few, very dark months to come. 

One last page for today.  My kit for October is running on fumes, with just enough for our Challenge #3 later this month.  I had to add in some paper and looked for more options with pink.  I happened to find the Michael's Recollections brand of an Amy Tangerine line when it was on clearance for $5. I decided to pick it up just for the vellum and cut-outs included in the stack, but the paper ended up being perfect to mix with some of my kit for some additional vacation pages like this one:

See where I stitched it? About half way down the page. I should have just stitched the bottom couple of inches to avoid the dark spot, but I was in a hurry and didn't notice how dark that section was.  I'll live with it :).

I'll pick up the pace around here and be back every day this week with more pages for this month.  Thanks for visiting!

Thursday - Tried and True Pins

This post has nothing to do with scrapbooking, so if you're a usual scrapbooking reader, I'm giving fair warning to turn back now!

I have discovered a couple of truths about me right now:

1 -   I spend lots of time on Pinterest but rarely follow through on all the pin-ably good ideas I find there.
2 - I never meant for my blog to be all about one topic and planned to include "life, home and fun in the suburbs."  My life, home and fun are usually all wrapped up in scrapbooking, but there are definitely more things going on around here!
3 - "What do you want for dinner" is among the most anxiety-inducing, arguement-starting, avoidance-worthy question of most any day at our house. We have fallen deep into the pit of meal lethargy which leads to eating out all. the. time.  And not good eating out - I mean fast, drive-thru, I'll-pay-for-this-later kind of eating out. Yuck.

In case you can relate to any of those issues, I'm passing along three pins that are now tried and true and have helped me this week.

I went through my Recipies to Try board and tried two recipies that have been hits for us:

Meatball Sub Casserole from thecountrycook.net

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole from Six Sisters' Stuff

Lest you think we only eat casseroles, I have to say we hardly EVER eat casseroles.  Crystal is not usually a fan of the casserole.  But times are desperate, and I needed to find something different.  She got up after dinner and served herself an extra spoonful of the chicken (right off of the serving spatula in the pan), so I knew that one was a winner.

These dinners also gave us lots of leftovers for lunches, which made the time and effort worth it to me.

And the third pin is just a tip, but it worked just like it said it would:

(Picture from simplyhealthyfam.blogspot.com) My thoughts:  I can't believe how easy this cooking tip was. It's one of those "why didn't I ever think of this idea on my own" kind of ideas.  But I went from cooked  to shredded and cooled within 45 minutes (including boiling the water).  And I have oodles of chicken for meals now and in the freezer.  That's my kind of cooking :).

Hope one of those pins helps someone else! I'm on Pinterest here if you'd like to follow along.  Leave a comment with your Pinterest address if you would like another follower, too!