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Flower Bouquet for My Sisters Wedding

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Flower bouquetMy sister married in October of 2012. It was a small but beautiful ceremony.  Originally someone else was going to make her a bouquet but there ended up not being enough time for the person to do that, so my mom and I decided to try to make some for her.

I think they turned out pretty well, the photos really don’t show that too well, but the flowers are a dark purple with white pearl accents.

To figure out how to make the bouquets I found a youtube video about how to wrap them and arrange them.
We made two of them. The other bouquet was for her friend that was going to stand up at the wedding.   Her’s was cream with lavender accents.

The wedding ended up being pushed back a couple weeks so there was enough time to have her fresh flower bouquet made but these ended up being nice keepsakes. :)

2nd bouquet

flower bouquets

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Handmade Dangle Earrings Now on Etsy

Monday, October 1, 2012

Toby and I have been busy house hunting so I haven’t had as much time to craft, left alone update my blog.  We are currently trying to find a house with a nice bit of land that is in our price range and that has become an interesting task.

I have at least had time to update my etsy shop a little bit. I’ve added an earrings section and I have 3 different dangle earrings listed, you can check them out below.

First set is an amber drop earring set wrapped with gold colored wire.

Amber Drop Earrings

They are about 1/2 inch long and 1/4 inch wide and would be fun for the fall!

The next set is a robin’s egg blue set of dangle earrings. These were made from some vintage beads I had from a necklace I believe.

Robin's Egg Blue Earrings

They are 2 inches long and a little over 1/4 inch wide.

The last set is a Rose pink colored drop earring set with silver colored wire wrapped around it.  The earring part is a dangle post.

Rose Pink Dangle Earrings

These earrings are 1 inch long and 1/4 inch wide.

I still have more earrings to add to the new category, so hopefully I will be able to get the rest added this week while I add in more knit/crochet items to the store.

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Loom Knitted Cowl Scarves

Friday, September 14, 2012

For a while I was really into making crocheted and loom knitted cowl scarves. I get the feeling it will continue now that it’s getting colder since I prefer to do yarn crafts in the colder months (anyone else seem to be a seasonal crafter?). I also think some of it might of stemmed from the fact that I noticed my yarn stash was becoming a tiny bit overgrown with a size of 3 10 gallon totes (eek!) and scarves, cowls and hats are projects that can be worked on easily while watching a movie.  Since then I have thankfully got my stash down to a manageable 1 tot, which is good since we moved and I no longer have a craft room. I really miss having a craft room but it seems to make Toby happy that I’m in the living room more instead of working in my craftroom.  I even have taken over a corner of the living room.  Maybe once I tidy of the work space

I did post some of them on my etsy store, here are some of my favorites:

This is made out of a really nice blue and brown bouclé style yarn. The yarn is a acrylic and wool blend. It’s surprisingly soft even if it does have wool in it.   I also get itchy from wool but have not had that problem from this yarn! I made this cowl a little longer so you can raise it up to your easy when it’s colder out.

Very much like the one above just in green and gold (wooo! packers colors!) Yarn is also a wool and acrylic blend with the bouclé style. Also like the first one it can be raised to cover your ears when it’s colder out.

This one isn’t as warm as the first too but it is nice for when it’s just getting cooler (50 – 40 degrees-ish).  I still really like this one, due to the two yarns I used in it.  One yarn is a pretty red and black ribbon yarn while the other is a super soft red yarn. The ribbon yarn actually shimmers a bit when the light hits it.

I really do like all the ones I made but these are honestly the ones I’d have no problem keeping for myself if they don’t sell lol.

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How to Make a Store Bought Cake Mix Special

Thursday, August 23, 2012

I love to make a lot of my cookies, cakes and muffins from scratch but sometimes I don’t have the time (poor planning on my part) or motivating to make them from scratch. So even though it’s coming from a pre-made mix I’ll still try to make it special or seem a little closer to homemade.

A few things I have done in the past are:

  • Add different extracts
  • Add fruits, nuts or candies
  • Make frosting from scratch

Adding extracts to the batter has to be the easiest way to change the flavor and make it special.  I have different extracts that have been very useful. A few of them are Lemon, Orange, Rum, Vanilla(clear too), Cinnamon, Peppermint and Anise.  I would have to say the favorite in the batters around my house has to be the orange.  When it’s mixed with a chocolate batter is like the chocolate oranges you have to smack on a hard surface to break apart.

cupcakes from box cake mix

I used an orange extract in the batter

Dried fruits, nut or candies is another way to make it your own.  I would also add into here using fruit puree in place of the oil into this.  I know a lot of people have heard of putting applesauce into the batter instead of oil but pumpkin puree, banana and even the flavored apple sauce have worked well for me.  Try taking a yellow cake mix, add in the eggs, banana puree to replace the oil and some walnuts to make some really tasty muffins.

Making frosting is amazingly easy, I learned about it when I took my cake decorating class. Below is the recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup vegetable shortening (I use Crisco, but store brand works too)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use to clear vanilla if you want a white
4 cups confectioner’s sugar (about 1lb)
3 tablespoons milk or water

  • Cream the shortening in a bowl, add in vanilla.
  • Slowly add in the sugar with your mixer at medium speed.
  • Add in the water/milk and continue to mix at a medium speed until it’s light and fluffy.

If you remove one tablespoon of the milk or water you can make a decorating frosting recipe. If you add one tablespoon of the milk or water you can make a frosting for writing on a cake.  The recipe can even be altered to allow for different flavors such as, replacing the extract flavor or adding in cocoa powder.

I hope these simple tips come in handy for making a unique bake good!

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Crock Dill Pickles

Friday, August 10, 2012

I’m currently experimenting with making homemade crock dill pickles. These pickles use fermentation to create the flavor and texture of them.  The fermentation is uses a good bacteria that is healthy for you.

I’ve had them in the crock for a few days now and I’m really hoping they turn out okay.  They have the little bubbles forming just like the instructions said it would, so I hope all continues to be well.

The recipe I used for these are:

  • 1/2 cup pickling salt
  • 1 gallon of filter water (bottle water works too, no tap water)
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 bundle of dill (it’s like a handful and a half.)

Combine salt and water. stir to dissolve then set aside.

Clean your pickle cucumbers, if they are too large to manage it is okay to slice into spears. Put down half of the dill in the bottom of the crock along with the garlic. Place you cucumbers on top then put the rest of the dill on top.  Fill with the salt water solution till the pickles are covered and it’s about two inches from the top.  Cover and place in a cool dark place.  For the cover you can use a clean plate, a clean baggy with the salt water solution inside or the stone that covers the crock if you have one (looks like this) the main thing is to keep the pickles submerged in the solution.

Keep an eye on the crock, every couple days skim off scum that might form.  This is a normal part of the process and does not cause harm to the pickles.  After a few days to a week you should have the pickles.

Please use common sense when dealing with fermented food.  It is submerged in a giant bath of salt water with garlic so honestly it should take a lot to make it go bad but it does still have the possibility of going bad.  If it doesn’t smell right (like garlic and dill and any other spices you might of added) throw it out.

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Thrift Store Find! – White 534 Superlock Serger

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

I had to share this. I finally have a serger!

My sweety and I were running errands and other random stuff. We decided to stop at a couple different thrift stores since we were looking for an old oil lamp.

Well, no luck with the oil lamp so I was just wandering through the shelves when I looked at the end of the aisle and notice what looked like a glowing halo of joy, the thread feeder of a serger. I hurried my pace praying I’d make it before someone else noticed a possible diamond in the rough. Once I reached the end of the aisle I literally went “EEEE!”. Seriously, the employee that was cleaning up the aisle next to mine asked if I was okay.

After calming myself down I quickly inspected the serger. It was a White 534 Superlock and found that other than being really dirty it seemed to be in good shape. Then I looked at the price, OMG $30 dollars! WOOO!

I picked up the box and ran over to my sweety to have him look at my find and make sure I wasn’t looking at it through rose tinted glasses. I get the feeling I looked like a kid that just found a super cool toy they want their parents to get them. He seemed a little more suspicious of the machine then I did. It really did look like a mess, the little serger seemed to have been in someone’s basement or garage for years. It was covered in dirt, the thread that was still on it was tangled up.

My new serger needs a good cleaning.

 

We both decided at $30 dollars there wasn’t much to lose, plus I could return it for store credit if it didn’t work.  So we went to the checkout, I was congratulated by the customer in front of me on my awesome find (yay!), paid for it and went home to test it out.

He likes his new home

I took it out of the box, found a toy Indian in the box, put said toy in my cupboard, went back to looking at my serger.  After cleaning up the serger I looked up the manual online, thankfully the Singer website has the manuals for the White brand on their site. From there I oiled it and threaded it then hoped for the best.

Happy serger

I tested it on some scrap jersey I had laying around and thankfully it worked.  I’m still working on it tweaking the settings on it but so far the stitches are looking great!

This seriously has to be one of the best finds I’ve ever had.  What is the best thrift store find you had?

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Craft Forums to Check out

Monday, August 6, 2012

I’m sure many of you are aware crafting alone is not enough to satisfy our addictions.  We want to know what other people are crafting and talk with crafty people about crafting.  The lucky ones have friends and co-worker they can talk with, while others may unknowingly be driving their un-crafty love ones insane.  If you’re of the later or you’re looking for more places to talk about crafting, maybe I can recommend a Craft Forum?

For many of you these will already be places you are aware of but I still wanted to write about them anyways since I do seem to continue to run into people that are unaware of such communities.

Here are the forums I enjoy going on:

  • http://www.craftster.org/
    • Craftster is hands down my favorite crafting community.  I have NEVER read mean comments in all the years I’ve been posting/lurking on the forums.  The craft variety is also amazing, if a craft exists they probably have some forum for you to post on.  The crafters will come up with some very amazing ideas using just normal stuff that might of been tossed otherwise.
  • http://www.craftforum.com/
    • Another very nice community.  This one I have only lurked at but everyone seems to always be very nice and helpful. They also have many boards of different types of crafts.
  • http://www.instructables.com/
    • Very fun website, I don’t know if I would consider everything “crafty” but it’s definitely inventive and creative.  They have a paid version which offers less advertising, downloaded ebooks or PDF’s of projects but the free account still offers a lot.

As I check out more forums I’ll update this list but these are the ones I will normally checkout.

 

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How to Make String Art from Patterns

Sunday, August 5, 2012

String art as decorative crafts was started in the late 1960′s.  Origins are in the curve stitch invented by Mary Everest Boole at the end of the 19th Century. The curve stitch was invented to make mathematical ideas more accessible to children.

As you’ve seen in my previous post about my string art pieces on the hexagon looms I made a very simple circle design.  Since I was limited with pegs and shape I kept it simple but you could in fact make a very intricate design.

For your first design I recommend using a simple string art pattern like I did. These patterns can get very complicated and it really is better to start with a simple design to avoid getting overwhelmed.

To watch how something makes this artwork, I recommend the video below. This video from Meg at Decor it Yourself does a great job of explaining how to do a simple circle design start to finish.

I also recommend this tutorial from StringArtFun.com they give a simple step by step too which might be easier for you to go back to for reference.

This is also a fairly inexpensive craft to take up. Supplies mainly consist of wood, nails and string!

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How to make an oil lamp from a wine bottle

Monday, July 30, 2012

Toby and I were out shopping for gifts when we stopped in a local store that sells wine and wine accessories.  While looking around I noticed they had a metal cork that has a wick running through it. This converts a normal wine bottle into an oil lamp. I thought it was a really neat idea, I just wasn’t comfortable spending the amount it was price at.

A few days later I was in a hobby store when I wandered into the candle and oil lamp section only to find a wick set. Remembering the wine bottle oil lamp I decided to pick one up and try it out.

 

Here is my end result I think it turned out pretty well.

How to make a wine bottle oil lamp

Supplies:

  • Wick kit (mine is from a craft store)
  • Paraffin Oil
  • Wine bottle (the shorter the neck the better)
  • Small clean rocks (I had some dollar store river rock baggies)
  • funnel
  1. Make sure your bottle is clean and DRY. If the wick comes in contact with moisture it can cause a sputtering of the flame.
  2. Fill the bottle section 2/3 full of the rocks.  This will add some weight to the bottle along with allow you to use less oil.
  3. Using the funnel fill the wine bottle with the oil up into the neck about less than halfway up. Do not overfill.
  4. Adjust the amount of exposed wick to about what you would have for a normal candle. Then guide the end into the bottle resting the ceramic part hold the wick on top of the bottle.
  5. Let bottle sit for at least an hour to let the wick soak up the oil.
  6. Enjoy!

A couple things I’ve learned from making a few different oil lamps are:

  • The wider and shorter the wine bottle neck is the better the flame will be.
  • The stones work great in the bottles.  I found people recommending filling the bottle halfway with water than the rest with oil.  Stick with the stones, they are cheap(dollar store purchase or just find some outside and clean them up) you don’t have to worry about trimming the bottom of your wick since it will never touch water and no safety issues with the flame sputtering since the wick stays dry.
  • Makes an affordable gift!

Have you ever made an oil lamp?  Let me know in the comments below.

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Dinosaur Sandwich Cutter

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Wal-Mart had a strip of these hanging by the bread a few weeks ago.

I of course had to buy one.  I took it home and tested it out on a turkey sandwich I had for lunch that day.

Neat!

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