Showing posts with label Dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dogs. Show all posts

Friday, January 1, 2016

Happy New Year 2016! - Top Ten Posts of 2015




I know everyone says this on every New Years Day, but...this year has truly flown by.  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting in front of my computer wondering what my first post of 2015 should be.

As a celebration my 2015 blogging adventures and all the wonderful support and feedback that I've received from all of you who follow along, I'm re-capping the top ten Dancing Dog Cabin posts of 2015.


Starting with No. 10 and ending with No. 1, please click through the title of each post to read the entire article.


No. 10



No. 9




No. 8




No. 7



No. 6



No. 5





No. 4.









No. 3



















No. 1









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Why stop at ten?  Here are a couple of personal favorites that I'm including in no particular order.












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Editorial Update: Not sure if this is a blogging no-no or not, but I had intended to include this sneak peek at my next post, which involves transforming a tired old Ikea bookcase.




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For everyone who reads Dancing Dog Cabin, thank you so much for following along and leaving such kind and lovely comments!  Thank you to all the linky-hosts who have featured my various posts and projects and to anyone who has pinned and shared my posts.  This is what makes blogging so fun and rewarding.

Wishing everyone a wonderful and happy New Year!!

 ***

Linking to the following this week....
Roses of Inspiration Linkup at The Enchanting Rose
Bouquet of Talent at Life on Lakeshore Drive
Brag-Worthy at Bless'er House
Inspiration Thursday at In The New House Designs
Five Star Frou-Frou at a Tray of Bliss
Something to Talk About at Karen's Up On The Hill
Share It One More Time at DesignThusiasm










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Monday, December 21, 2015

Cheesy-Man Dog Treats- A Recipe and Tutorial







I think Rosie channels the spirit of our dear, departed dog Buster.  Buster would eat anything that didn’t eat him first, and was infamous for standing on his hind legs and exploring the kitchen counters, grabbing and gobbling up anything his little pointy snout could reach.  

Rosie pulled a similar stunt one Thanksgiving—we were clearing the table after we were done eating; the huge, ruined turkey on its big platter was the first thing removed to the kitchen counter. Next trip in from the dining room, laden down with dirty dishes, I discovered Rosie with one of the turkey legs on the kitchen floor…..

This is probably our fault; we allow the dogs to lurk under the dining table when we are eating and feed them tidbits from our plates.  Those of you who indulge this naughty canine behavior know what this is like.  You’re eating your nice [holiday] meal and suddenly you feel a nudge on your elbow or knee, you look down into a pair of pleading, shoe-button eyes…. and, well, you just can’t say no.


Hyena-like behavior notwithstanding, I like to make treats for my dogs around the holidays....because, I like to bake.  And because I like to see their eager faces looking up at me from the kitchen floor.  Somehow they always know when I'm making something for them.  

I decided to make these cheesy dog treats this year, because not only do the dogs love them, but so does my husband. Yes, these are actually people treats too.  Made with cheese, butter, flour, and little bit of half and half, these treats are essentially a savory cookie that appeal to everyone, canine or human. 
Because I used yellow cheddar here (the pre-packaged, already shredded variety), the treats came out rather orange and blobby.  If you want a more neutral-looking treat, use a white cheese like white cheddar, jack, mozzarella, etc.  
If making for strictly human consumption, you could use a really nice gruyere.  Of course dogs won't care what they look like or whether you used a really nice cheese or the run of the mill, pre-grated and pre-packaged variety.




Using a gingerbread man cookie cutter turns these doggy treats into cheesy-man doggy treats.  Since these little guys were destined for Christmas treat bags, I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter, as well as a snow man and teddy bear cutter.

The heart and star shapes in Purina cat chow are perfect for the eyes and buttons for these little cheesy creatures. Since these cookies are about 3 inches tall, I actually used kitten chow, since the pieces are tiny enough to work as decorations on small cookies.
Since my husband draws the line at eating cat food, I used cut up bits of bacon to decorate his treats. 

Wrapped up in little treat bags, they will make a festive addition to the pile of loot my dogs will get this Christmas. These also make great stocking-stuffers or gifts for anyone who has dogs, or for people who like to eat cheesy-man doggy treats ;-)






Creating custom labels like the ones I used here is super easy. I embellished plain plastic treat bags with Christmas-themed dog graphics from The Graphics Fairy (click here for that website).   

 Here's how to create multiple, custom labels that can be applied to plastic treat bags.

 1. After downloading a .jpg clipart graphic, open it in the PicMonkey 'Edit' page (click here for that website).  Create a 'To/From' tag from PicMonkey's selection of labels in their 'Overlay' section and then add text by clicking on the Text button (located above the butterfly/Overlay button).





2. Use a word processing program like Word to create a document into which you can insert multiple clipart graphics (this allows you to print to full sheet labels, see next step). In Word, click on the Insert tab at the top and select Pictures. From there you can open the label you created with PicMonkey and insert it into your document.

3. Print your document to full sheet labels such as the Avery Full Sheet Labels shown below.
4. Cut out around each label.
5. Remove the backing and apply the labels to plastic treat bags.... 





....and fill with doggy (or husband) treats. 
Here is the recipe...

4 oz. grated sharp cheddar cheese (or other cheese of your choice)
4 tablespoons butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of half-and-half

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

1. Combine cheese, butter, flour, and salt in a food processor and process until crumbly.  Alternatively, combine cheese and dry ingredients and cut in butter using a sturdy fork or pastry cutter.

2. Add half-and-half and process on low speed until the dough comes together in a ball. If mixing by hand, use a large spoon to mix until everything just comes together.

3. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to form an approximately 8 x 10 inch rectangle (it should be about 1/8 inch thick).

4. Cut treats with a cookie cutter and bake on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes, until edges are slighly brown.

5. Decorate with cat chow (for dogs) or bacon bits (for dogs and people).







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Thank you for visiting!


Linking to the following this week....
Roses of Inspiration Linkup at The Enchanting Rose
Bouquet of Talent at Life on Lakeshore Drive
Party in Your PJs at the Cookie Puzzle
Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home
Brag-Worthy at Bless'er House
Idea Box Thursday at Mila's Little Things
Share Your Cup Thursday at Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson








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Sunday, September 6, 2015

My First Anniversary


I just realized that my one-year anniversary was a couple weeks ago.  Wow! One year of blogging already.  In one sense it feels like yesterday that  I clicked on publish for the first time, in another, it seems like ages ago.  I've learned so much over the past year, and I think one of the most important lessons to date is that I have so much more to learn about this whole blogging thing. 

 Along with the steep learning curve, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many kind and supportive people there are in the home blogging world; I'm continually amazed and touched at how sweet and generous everyone is (although I expect I will get negative comments, it's inevitable). This is the perfect time to say thank you to all of you who have left such nice comments over the past year and to all you linky-party hosts who have featured my posts. There are so many talented and creative people out there, and it always feels like such an honor to have any project of mine featured alongside others that I admire so much. And there is nothing like coming home from an especially harsh work day and finding that I have received a lovely comment on one of my posts or to see that I have been featured.  That brings a smile to my face every time.

So I'm looking forward to continuing my blogging journey, continuing to meet new people, and continuing to grow and learn....but will be taking a little hiatus in the near future.  My husband and I will be launching full throttle into the final phases of our cabin project which means fewer posts over the next month or more. On the plus side, I will have lots of new, fun cabin-related material to share (and a finished cabin, I hope) when we are all done.

But, before I zoom off into the great southwest and get sucked into the cabin maelstrom, I thought I would share some of my favorite posts, as well as those that were the most popular, to document my progress over the past year in honor of the first anniversary of Dancing Dog Cabin.


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Three Most Popular Posts


The following three photos link to the top three most popular posts.  




Cabin Reveal Part 1

This first one received the most page views (thanks in part to being featured in a Hometalk Facebook post (click here for more on that).  I finally got to show some real progress on the cabin here.  

 To read this post, click here; for more on our cabin saga, click here for the Cabin Escape page.



The Quick-Changing Pillow

This post got the second highest number of page views, thanks to two features on The Graphics Fairy (click here for more information on that) as well as being featured on the The Scoop, which is hosted by Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, StoneGable, and
Worthing Court (click here to see that) and (editorial update) Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage (click here to see that).  

 The interesting thing about this post is that I thought it would go nowhere.  I hastily made the pillows and photographed them just a couple of months after I started blogging, thinking it would be a good one to have in my back pocket when I couldn't think of anything else to post about.  I threw the post together after the first of the year because I didn't have time to do anything else, telling myself it was a rather silly idea that no one would be very interested in.  

 To read this post, click here.





4 Reasons to Collect Vintage Silverware

This post that got the third highest page views, thanks to being featured on The Scoop (click here for more information on that).  By the time I started to photograph for this post, my house was starting to fill up with all sorts of supplies for our upcoming cabin project, so I had to keep all the photos to closeup shots so that no one saw how terrible my house looked.

 To read this post, click here.





Favorite Posts and Post Milestones

I've included favorite posts and posts that document milestones in my blogging journey over the past year below.

Heat and Dust...and Lots of Rocks

The post shown below was my very first post just a little over a year ago. The photos were taken with either an iPhone or a small, inexpensive digital camera that I had won at a raffle. 

 This was the exciting start of our cabin journey.  And, incidentally, where I learned how to operate a mini-bobcat.  The photo below is one of the views from our property at sunrise. Sublime.

 To read this post, click here.





Designing for Tranquility

Still using the freebie digital camera here in the post below; I hadn't yet heard about optimizing photos for Pinterest and all the photos are still landscape-oriented and small.  All the same, this is one of my favorites since this is where I feel like I really captured the essence of my and my husband's initial cabin design journey.  

 I'm no architect, and we've certainly discovered some amateur mistakes along the way, but it has been tremendously rewarding to see something that I designed (with the help of a pretty handy software program and lots of magazines and books) become a physical, on-the-ground structure.  So much fun!

 To read this post, click here.




Decorating With Brown Transferware

This is where I discovered how popular transferware is.  I had also just recently discovered linky parties, and this was the first post to be featured on a linky party (The Scoop, click here for more information on that, and  (editorial update) Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, click here for more information on that). This was back when I couldn't figure out why my photos looked so weird once I uploaded them onto my blog.  They looked fine in Photoshop, and then got an odd, surreal, over-enhanced quality once I uploaded them into my draft posts. I finally figured out that I had clicked on 'auto enhance' in Google Plus; what a relief it was to find that this was a  simple fix.  Un-clicking 'auto enhance' made all the difference.

To read this post, click here.





The Art of Displaying a Collection

My husband gave me a Nikon for Christmas, and I started to have some real photography fun with the start of the new year.   In this post I was starting to get comfortable with my new camera and its settings, and featured one of my favorite color combinations, soft green, teal, and pink. At this point, I was also starting to explore different font styles, colors, and collage options and designs (with the wonderful PicMonkey) for the opening photo for each post.

To read this post, click here.




Fireplace Reveal

Ah, the fireplace project.  Didn't we have enough on our plates already?  It was my bright idea to start tearing up the family room right before Thanksgiving so that I could have a pretty, new fireplace and mantle in time to decorate for Christmas. We got it done right before Easter.  

To read this post, click here.




Does Your Dog Love Peanut Butter?

I loved making these peanut butter treats for my darling furbabies!  This was so fun to photograph thanks to my little ham, Dolly, and my shy girl, Rosie (shy only in front of the camera; she's large and in charge with other dogs and when anyone comes knocking at the front door).  

It was right around this time that I started to use a more cohesive and consistent approach to the font style, colors and overall look for the opening photo in each post, as well as the banner for Dancing Dog Cabin.

To read this post, click here.





Inspiration for a Mother's Day Tea

This one was a pretty special post.  My mom was so touched that I put all this together for her; and since we had a double Mother's Day celebration, one at home and one at the Huntington Library Tea House, a favorite place for both of us, it was even more meaningful.

To read this post, click here.





It's in the Details 1

This is a bittersweet one for me.  My roses don't look like this anymore.  Now they turn brown and wither before the buds fully open thanks to the wretched drought (and water rationing) that has us in it's grip here in California. 

To read this post, click here.





Plastic-Fantastic Fourth of July

This one did not do very well page view-wise, but it's still one of my favorites.   It may not be elegant or fine, but I still love fun, pretty plastic and paper-ware for those occasions where I don't want to worry about stuff breaking and want to be able to toss everything into the trash (except the plastic-ware, of course) without having to worry about massive cleanup.  

And there really are so many cute plastic and paper plates and napkins-- how can anyone resist?

To read this post, click here.






Transitioning to an Autumn State of Mind


This is where I realized how much I liked the look of images and artwork decoupaged directly onto a hard surface and then stuck into a picture frame.  This is also probably going to be one of the few fall-themed posts I will have time for in the near future, so I'm making the most of it.

 To read this post, click here.


Thanks for joining me on my little trip down memory lane!

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Linking to the following this week....
Roses of Inspiration Linkup at The Enchanting Rose
Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life
Bouquet of Talent at Life on Lakeshore Drive
Idea Box Thursday at Mila's Little Things
Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home
Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest
Inspiration Thursday at In The New House Designs
Five Star Frugal at a Tray of Bliss
Something to Talk About at Karen's Up On The Hill

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