Please Remember

I had not anticipated the lack in posts for the last few days. Nothing seemed appropriate to allow to post on my behalf. 

On Monday, February 27th, 2012 a kid came into my Alma Mater and opened fire in the High School Cafeteria. 6 were wounded, 5 needed immediate medical attention. 3 have now passed away due to their injuries. 

Not only does this touch home for me because I graduated from this school, I also have every intention of having my children graduate from this school as I felt I received a great education. But I also am close to a family whose son passed away. Please keep the King family as well as all the families affected by this tragedy in your prayers. 

I have over 500 friends on Facebook, many in which I met while attending Chardon schools - the pictures you see posted here today are what you see through my feed on Facebook - nearly 200 of those friends have all changed their profile picture to a photo such as these to show their support. The vigils are amazing and the support these students have received has been amazing. People all over the country have change their profile photos to show their support. 

 According to the prosecutor this was not planned, these children whom were injured were picked at random. This was not about bullying or drugs. Because of the internet and social media - there are many stories out there that at this point a speculative. Students whom witnessed the shooting said this kid what not just shooting randomly, but looked as if he had targets in mind. Many have said this was about some fake drugs sold to him, others say he may have been bullied or this was over a girl. Some say that the girl whom was also shot was also an ex of the shooter. Who really knows at this point? I can only by what is being stated by investigators. I do feel that this was premeditated, regardless if targets were in mind; this child planned how he was going to go to this school and just shoot people. He took a knife as well - I am glad we will never know how much worse this could have gotten if the staff at CHS had not responded in the manner in which they did. I do know that it is the intentions of the prosecution that they will charge this child as and adult for the crimes he committed.

Please keep the families of this tragedy in your prayers!

Rest in Peace Daniel Parmertor, Russell King Jr, and Demetrius Hewlin

You are most defiantly in my thoughts and prayers.

Zipper Pouches

Aren't these the coolest little bags! I made one some time back with the Skittles wrappers; now that I figured out the 'issues' with how I made it. I was able to alter the project to work for me.

Directions here

Big Time Rush - Grace's FAVORITE. So I took some images I found online, printed them onto iron transfers, transferred the images to some white fabric I had. Then I attached the iron on vinyl, sewed, lined etc to make her a custom pencil pouch - she was a very happy girl!

Front

Back

Front

Back

So, for Madelyn, she got her 'love' Taylor Lautner. I followed the same process as above. I now have to make another Taylor one and a Justin Bieber one for her friends. 

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2 Upcycled Jean Purses and a Fairy Door

Pin from Pinterest

My version.

I saw this denim purse on Pinterest and had to make it! I loved the concept - up-cycling - turning something old into something new. My sister in law's birthday was around the corner so I made one for her. I used stencils, some fabric paint and some fun stitching on my machine. She really liked the purse and uses it often! Then, for Christmas I thought each of the girls would love one. The pictures below are the front and back of Dakota's purse. It's a modified version of original. On her purse there are beads, buttons, Disney princess ribbon, stenciling etc. Time did get the best of me and I was unable to finish the purses of the other girls. Once they are complete I will be sure to post them too.

When I saw this fairy door on Pinterest I immediately thought of my sister in law Mary. She loves faries and other whimsical type things. I knew I had to also make this for her for her Birthday. Go to Pinterest and see all the things that come up for fairy doors. There are a lot of great idea out of there.

In the picture below is my own version of the fairy door. I went outside and pulled bark off some chopped wood, found some branches that I could cut to size and in half. I had the fake moss from a previous project. I got the hinges from Pat Catans. The door base is Popsicle sticks that I glued together and stained. The Fairy stone is a fake pearl that I glued to the center and used black stickles over some puffed liquid applique. I really like the outcome - so did Mary!!

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Poptab purse

This pop tab purse is what I made my niece for Christmas! It's a very unique and trendy gift for anyone. Madelyn has requested that I make her one and I have someone else wanting to pay me to make her one! These are a lot of fun and can test your patience at times. This particular purse is over 700 tabs. the front panel is 5 rows, the back panel and flap is 9 rows, the sides are 2 rows and then the shoulder strap.

You'll first want to start with a huge stash of washed pop tabs!! I stress this - WASH them before hand it will make it a much cleaner, smoother process.

Next your need some Sharn aka Shirt yarn - made from jersey knit t shirts in your preferred color. There are also many other things that can be made with sharn; check out pinterest to see all the things that are made with it.

Second you need to follow this basic weaving pattern for the pop tabs. I alternated two colors of sharn for this.

After all of your pieces are made then you sew them together. I used a thin yarn, I would not use it again. I would consider some sort of cording that would coordinate with the colors of the sharn.

Once you have completed putting the purse together, you are able to pick some sort of closure, I used a loop made of sharn and a black button.

For my first attempt - I was pleased, I can not wait to tackle another tab project!

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Pinterest ROCKS

 Yes this stain is GROSS - almost wanted to rearrange the furniture to cover it.

I saw this on Pinterest!

This is the gist: 

You take equal parts of Ammonia and Hot water (I used boiling). Spray stain liberally, place white towels over the spot and then iron the spot. I keep the iron there until it stops steaming. 

I started with the big stain pictures above:

After I sprayed and towel steamed - you can see that half of that big old thing was already gone!

Here's another spot

Well - la! Gone!

Here is a picture of the area I worked on after I filled a mop bucket with dirty white rags!

I am pretty impressed for my first pass through with this concoction. I see that certain areas need multiple passes but this is defiantly a secret I will make sure my daughters knows.

Spinning Leprechaun

I got another SCS challenge done! I am excited about finding the time to do these again!! For this card; which came together as I worked it out. I couldn't 'see' this in my head like I can with other cards - all in all - I Love it!
This card includes the following challenges:
Free for All F4A103 - use a rainbow in some way
Ways to Use it WT362 - Bountiful Borders
Inspirational Challenge IC323 - pick an image from the ones offered and let it inspire you.

In the IC323 one of the pictures were of some rainbow colored chairs (above) which caught my eye and it also worked with the F4A103 challenge.

In the photo below you'll see all the stuff used to create the card (minus the boarder scissors, cardstock, SU Craft White ink, and a stamp set by the Angel Company). It is hard to see - but in the lower right corner there are two sizes of pop dots. One is pretty thin and is out of pop dots - but I use the entire sheet anyway - I just cut what I need in strips. This works great when you want some height and because i use strips it does not collapse.

For this card I used a rainbow of Palette Inks: Noir, Violete, Iris, STarry Night, Giverney Green, Sunflower, Orangerie and L'Amore Red. I also used Tria Pantone and Prismacolor markers to color the leprechaun.

I first cut the black cardstock to size, stamped the white shamrock background, then trimmed with the boarder scissors. I used the CM cutting system to cut the black apart into two pieces; then mounted on the base.That is where the little clovers are. Then that is when I decided to make a penny slider card. I took the CM cutting system and cut the track for the penny. Because I had to cut thru the two layers of cardstock I placed a layer of black cardstock on the backside of the front. I used the foam sticky strips that I cut from the old pop dot adhesive.This gave room for the penny to be able to slide on its track. I used a wide popdot to hold the two pennies together then glued the leprechaun to the penny after he was colors and cut. 

Here is a little clip of the leprechaun spinning. 

 

Hair Bows

All little girls need bows for their hair. When you have 4 little girls like I do you start to wish you learned how to make these bows a lot sooner since they are so stinking expensive at the store, or poorly made and fall apart, or hurt their little heads. So I got a ton of inspiration from Pinterest, here is my board.

By following some pretty simple instructions found on the MANY blogs/websites/YouTube out there in the virtual world and burning my fingers with a lot of hot glue I was able to come up with some pretty cute bows that the girls, Brooke and Dakota especially LOVE.

Some things I have learned - Gator clips are great for all four of my girls hair and stay in well. They work great when I use the corkscrew pom poms with their ponytails. My girls range from having thick wavy hair, fine hair, or very little, 'newish' hair - Dakota does not have a lot of hair, but her hair is very short, fine and wavy.

Also, by covering the gator clips with ribbon (I'll post a pic when I make the next set of bows and link back here; I have a two more valentine's bows to finish up - even if its already past V-day) so that the metal gator clips do not just slip out of their hair.

Using the spring barrettes to make the loopy bows (St. Patties Day bow above) are harder to do when you are using a smaller barrette but still worth it if you have the patience.

The pink bow is using a fatter ribbon, I would not suggest this for the little gator clips as it looks to bulky.

The periwinkle bow is the twins favorite bow and can be worn with most any type of outfit - I need to make a lot more of these. Madelyn, who is 11, also finds these to be fun to put in her hair.

Lastly, hotglue is not my friend when it comes to make corker bows. The easiest way I found to make these were to take cut to size corker ribbons and run a needle and ribbon through the center of each, pull tight, wrap and knot. Cover the gator clip with a coordinating ribbon and hot clue to clip. These are a lot of fun - and less painful on my fingers!

On my list of projects is a hair ribbon holder - I love this one:

Found Here!

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DIY Crayons

Sorting and Peeling the crayons

The crayons chopped and separated

I LOVE Crayons! My girls had a gallon sized ice cream bucket full of crayons. Many were from when I used crayons - so nearly 15+ yrs old. We had all sorts of colors - mainly Crayola. As you can see in the above photos it was a process - shorting, peeling papers, chopping and bagging the individual colors. Then we put broken crayon pieces in the little compartments. Each of the girls picked color combos...it was fun. 

I did this project because they had a lot of crayons - many broken and I found 4-5 brand new boxes of crayons so I thought it was perfect to use the older crayons for a fun project. (*side note* Brooke had decided to break 90% of those new crayons - so I am looking for a good price on crayons....probably when the back to school sales start.

Melting Crayons in a silicon form

Bake at 265 degrees for about 6-8 minutes. Be careful with the silicon forms - or use a cookie sheet underneath. It is hard to remove the form from the oven without the possibility of spilling the crayon wax everywhere. I got the directions from here. (There are a lot of other fun things on there to make at home for your kiddos.)

Here are a few of our finished crayons that we made. Some of our color combos were red, white and blue, orange, purple and green, brown and cream, red, yellow and orange, white, red and gray and the last one is pinks and reds with a few spots of gold and gray...they slipped in there. I have a TON of crayon pieces left. So, I think I will make more - I have a cute snowflake mold that would make some fun shaped crayons! When I make those; I'll be sure to post them!Pin It

White Holiday Wreath

If you ever make wreaths for decoration you know that the foam green things are EXPENSIVE! While at Micheals I was trying to find a cheaper alternative. I made the wreath below using a MDF formed circle. I think they were only $2-3 and I knew I could make it look like a wreath. I took some quilt batting that I had on hand and wrapped the wreath until I got my desired shape. As you can see below I got a nice plump round wreath out of the deal.

 Then I took the stuff below to decorate my wreath. I started with some white outdoor type fabric ribbon and wrapped the wreath so that all of the batting was covered. I has some string pearls around the house and bought some iridescent type pearls and used the crafting beads to get the final results that I wanted.

Below is the final result - I topped it off with a spray of glitter and it made a wonderful addition to our door. 

I made a Valentine's day wreath out of the same MDF circle - I have  picture on my phone before Brooke decided to make it better and put a TON of pink paint all over it. 

Here it is before Brooke added her special touch!

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Sugar Cookie Recipes

There are a ton of GREAT blogs out there that will teach you the ins and outs of cookie making and decorating. I couldn't do nearly as good of a job with my blogging and picture taking ability. I found all of this information while on Pinterest. If you are interested in this site - you'll need an invite if you do not already have an account. I would be glad to do so. Just shoot me a message.

Image from Bakers Royale

To start I went to Bakers Royale; this post. This gave me the directions broken down on how to start decorating with the royal frosting. Great blog with tons of great images etc. It is also broken down in very basic terms so really anyone can do this!

Amazing work from Sugarbelle

Then I mosied over to The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle for some amazing inspiration. I also started with her recipes for Sugar Cookies and did the following for my own adaptation; because I double the recipe for enough cookies adjustments have been made to the original recipe:

• 2 c. of REAL unsalted BUTTER, softened
• 3 c. confectioner’s sugar
• 2 egg
• 3 tsp caramel flavoring
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 5-5.5 c. all-purpose flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. salt

Cream together softened butter and confectioner’s sugar.  Crack the eggs into a separate bowl, and add the flavoring. Add that to the butter sugar mixture and mix until the eggs are thoroughly incorporated.  In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add little by little to the mixture.

Next is her Royal Frosting icing - found here. This post has a lot of info, great pictures and my kids love the frosting...very candy like in flavor after it hardens. 

For information on coloring and preparing the frosting go here. Another great post by Sugarbelle that tells you about consistency of frosting etc. 

Lastly, this video is a great demonstration of how to color your frosting and  fill your bags that produce easy clean up! An awesome concept!

With all the information I provided above I was able to create the cute Halloween cookies that I also posted today!

Sugar Cookies

I love to make Sugar Cookies and decorate them with Royal frosting. The cookies below are one's that I made back in October for the girls class party and their halloween party that we hosted in our garage. These are time consuming, but I love the outcome and I got a lot of compliments. The cookie recipe I use holds up and bakes well, but they do not get hard as rocks. They are a caramel vanilla sugar cookie.

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Happy Valentine's Day

     I made 50 of these cute little Valentine's for Madelyn and Grace's class parties. For years I have wanted to make their Valentine's but time always got away from me. There is a fun paper store not too far from me: Hollos. They sell cardstock for about $1 a lb. GREAT place. The last time I was there I was looking at envelopes etc and saw stacks of precut cardstock. These originally are a little bigger than a card front size of 4.25x5.5. I used my new Martha Stewart score board and scored these in half. 

     Next, I used my Creative Memories cutting system to cut the white and red/pink circles. Followed by stamping the images and coloring them with the Tria Pantone and Prismacolor Markers. 

     Due to time and the fact that most people toss these cards, I wrote 3 of the 4 sayings on the cards as I did not have those sayings in stamp form. These were pretty easy to mass produce - the coloring was the hardest to do.

    Inside I cut two slits for the pencil to be secured and we added a packet of Fun Dip.

Also for the class party both Madelyn and Grace took in these yummy Betty Crocker treats in to celebrate Valentine's day with their friends!Pin It

Recipe found here!

Recipe found here!