Be Creative

The Perfect Hard Boiled Egg

I've tried lots of different recipes over the years for hard boiled eggs. And I've had a lot of great results. But, it's been a little while since I've made hard boiled eggs so I decided to do a quick Google search (seriously, what did we do without Google?) and one of the first "recipes" to pop up was from Martha Stewart.

The "recipe" for Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs calls for 12 eggs at room temp. I didn't want to use a huge pot, so I did about 9 eggs and mine were straight from the fridge. I think the key here is to bring the water to a boil over medium heat. In the past, I've always cranked the heat on high to boil quickly.

1. Place eggs in a large saucepan. Cover them with cool water by 1 inch. Slowly bring water to a boil over medium heat; when the water has reached a boil, cover and remove from heat. Let sit 12 minutes.
2. Transfer eggs to a colander; place under cool running water to stop the cooking. Eggs can be peeled and served immediately.

Of course my initial thought with this "recipe" was that with Martha Stewart you can't go wrong, but I was a little worried about letting them sit for only 12 minutes. I really didn't want under cooked eggs but I didn't want them overcooked either with that infamous greenish ring around the yolk and rubbery egg white.  Needless to say, the title of the "recipe" says it all. Every egg turned out to be the Perfect Hard Boilded Egg--fully cooked with a bright yellow yolk.

Happy Halloween Banner

I saw this banner back in September and was inspired to make one for myself this Halloween. It's a simple banner and I decided to emboss the letters which took longer but made the letters much bolder on the patterned paper.

Here's a quick little "how-to": To begin, I punched out tags with with a tag punch, and scored lines on the top of the tags to make a flap that will hang over the twine. I then cut a "v" into the bottom of the tags to make them look more like the banner shape I wanted.

After cutting:

I stamped the letters onto the banner in black pigment ink and sprinkled them with clear embossing powder:

The banners are small, so I held them with a pair of plyers to keep from burning my fingers while embossing. Here's the embossed image:

After all the letters were stamped & embossed, the "flap" was glued down, over the twine:

And there you have it:  A simple Happy Halloween banner!

And another look at the finished banner:

Supplies used:

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