Happy Valentine's Day!

I've had chocolate and roses, or chocolate and berries on my mind for weeks, along with Valentine's Day.

They certainly have been on my mind.   I've noticed that when I go into Quilt Shops I've been drawn to fabrics that remind me of Chocolate and Roses.

There are a few Bloggers with AccuQuilt products that will be sharing insights with you today on how they use their AccuQuilt to create fun projects.  You can also visit various "Team" members, who are listed in the right hand column of my blog, under the Team of Bloggers with AccuQuilt products, where you can also see their latest posts on seeing their insights on using AccuQuilt products.

Today, I wanted to share insights with you on a few easy projects for Valentine's Day.  I bet you can guess what was on my mind as I picked fabric for these projects.  These "quicky" projects are definitely different for what I might typically do, but also fun and easy projects that are perfect for Valentine's Day and easy to adapt to other occasions, as well.    

I had fun making placemats using the AccuQuilt GO! and GO! heart die.  But, to make things even faster I used ModPodge and Roc-lon multipurpose cloth.  These were very easy placemats that were fast to make.

Update:  These placemats were fast & easy to make.  But the ModPodge approach to seal these placemats, looks great, but not effective with hot dishes.  Recommend against this approach, for anything that you want to use with heat.

I also wanted to make some  Valentine's Day gifts, and came up with several easy projects using my AccuQuilt GO!  First, I had fun embellishing  Pasmina Shawls using the GO! heart die.  I made several of these to give to friends for Valentine's Day.

I had fun embellishing tea towels that I like to use in my kitchen, and I also have fun using these as hostess gifts.  I wanted to share this one with you, as an example of how I love to also manually cut around the scrap part of the GO! Heart die, to create a secondary applique design.  This manual approach works on the majority of the the GO! applique designs.

I also had fun decorating a composition book, with a Valentine's Day theme.  I used my favorite tutorial on this type of project, from Char (Crap I've Made) and I used the AccuQuilt GO! Hearts die to decorate several composition books.  Very easy project with Char's tutorial, the AccuQuilt GO! and Mod Podge!

I also want to increase awareness how much fun it is, and how easy it is, to create secondary applique designs with your AccuQuilt GO!   For the GO! Heart Die, I simply manualy cut around the outer cut to create fun silhouette type designs.  And I loved interlacing two different fabrics with two hearts.  I find this to be a great way to use scraps.

On a personal note, I'm looking forward to a fun Valentine's Day.  I will be celebrating a birthday with a friend, at lunch.  While I'm not a great cook, I'm cooking dinner for my DH.  I'll be able to use my Valentine's theme placemats & dishtowels for decorations on the dinner I'm preparing.  I'm making Beef Burgundy, using a recipe from Carol Kaplan.  This is a yummy recipe that smells and tastes wonderful, and it is so easy that I can even create a yummy dinner.  I asked Carol, and she approved me to share this recipe with you today.

Carol's Beef Burgundy Recipe

1 1/2 pounds round steak, cut into bite-sized strips
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 tablespoons butter or margarine
6 tablespoons flour
6 teaspoons instant beef bouillon granules
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 cups Burgundy wine
1 package fresh mushrooms, sliced

In a large, heavy sauce-pan brown meat, onion and garlic in butter over medium-high heat. Add flour, bouillon and salt. Stir in water, wine and mushrooms. Cover and cook until sauce thickens and begins to bubble. Reduce heat and simmer until mushrooms are cooked and meat is tender, about 30 minutes.

Serve over cooked rice, noodles, or baked/mashed potatoes,. Top with sour cream, if desired.

MAKES ABOUT 4 SERVINGS.

 
I hope you have a very Happy Valentine's Day.


 
And, I do hope you'll take time to visit the Team of Bloggers with AccuQuilt products to see which ones are sharing insights on Valentine's Day. 

Kim (Chatterbox Quilts) has a very cute post with an excellent video that I hope you'll pop over to see, if you haven't already. 
Katrina (Sunshower Quilts) also has an lovely Valentine's post with a brilliant tutorial that I love.

And, if you are also a Blogger with an AccuQuilt product and posted an AccuQuilt post with a Valentine's theme today, let me know if you want me to include a link here.  {or if any of you see such a post, let me know}.

My apologies, as I informally tried to compile a list, but with various challenges this week, I'm not able to provide you a complete summary of which blogs I know are sharing insights with a Valentine's theme. This was an informal activity, totally optional for Bloggers with AccuQuilts to blog about today.  But, the links to blogs of team members are on the right column of my blog and I think you'll have fun visiting them too!