Craft Hour at the Beach

I went to the beach this weekend with a few friends and I decided it would be nice to have a good wholesome girl bonding activity to do.  So I came up with craft hour.  It was actually supposed to be 'craft 20 minutes' where I showed everyone how to make an easy pair of earring.  For some people, making stuff was fun, while for others making stuff was hard.  Apparently not everyone is in to crafting.  I won't name names.

Beezus5 gets the gold star in crafting as she finished hers first and with the least help.  Plus they were pretty cute.  Hers are the big ones in the front.  (Everyone else did great too, for the most part.)

Even though some people had a little trouble (mostly with selecting the beads they wanted to use), everyone did end up with a pair of nice fashion earrings to wear out to dinner.  (Although B5 didn't put hers on until after the photo.)

The boys did not participate.

Would you be mad if your friend made you have craft time at the beach?

My Homemade Birthday Present Streak Continues...

Curly J was back from her honeymoon just in time to celebrate her 30th birthday this weekend.  Of course I had to attempt to make her present since I made that goal of making all birthday presents this year.  Plus I wrote about that goal on my blog and she reads my blog. 

I kind of took the easy way out and made some earrings.  It's just too hot for any more t-shirt scarves at this time and I was drawing blanks on everything else.  I also gave her a bunch of photos from her wedding shower, bachelorette party and wedding and an album.  I had big plans to make an album but they fell through.  So, earrings it is.

Plus I made her a birthday cake.  It's my go-to chocolate chip poundcake which I have finally mastered over the years.  And by mastered, I mean it actually came all the way out of the pan instead of getting stuck in there and ripping apart.  Yay me!

The evening started with dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant followed by game night at her house.  B and I were victorious at a game of LCR and scored $7 in prize money.  Have you ever played LCR (left, center, right)?  I was pretty skeptical at first but it ended up being pretty fun.

So in conclusion, Mexican food and cake are good, LCR is fun, and I'm still doing ok on my handmade presents. 

T-Shirt Scarf...

T-shirts are neat, awesome and apparently versatile.  For example did you know that you can make many different varieties of fashion scarves out of t-shirts?  Well I recently learned that fun fact.  I first noticed the t-shirt scarf on this blog which lead me to watch a couple videos featuring many different ways to make t-shirt scarves.  I chose the one that looked easiest.

1-Get a t-shirt.  This is one of my leftover t-shirts from Halloween when I was a pumpkin (purchased from Michaels for probably $2.50 on sale)
2-Get some scissors.
3-Cut off the bottom hem of the shirt and then cut strips from the bottom until you have a handful

4-Stretch the strips so that they curl up on the edges.  The strips will already just go around your neck because of how you cut them from the bottom (you don't have to close the ends or anything to make a loop, they are already a loop).  Cut a little piece of fabric from somewhere else on the t-shirt and use it to tie the strips together so they stay together once they are around your neck.  I feel like this doesn't make sense the way I wrote it so you should probably watch the video.
5-Wrap it around your neck (I doubled mine up) in a fashionable manner (I'm still trying to figure that part out).  Then take a bunch of photos of yourself.

Check out my cool nose bump.

Check out my cool socks.

I thought this was a pretty cute idea that is really cheap and easy.  I'm not 100 percent sure how to wear this.  I'm fashion challenged.  I am also considering adding some kind of flower or button to the side.  It also probably doesn't look that great with the Bayside High T-shirt I'm wearing (although the t-shirt is amazing and magical).  I wore the scarf to trivia last night and got a couple of compliments so we'll see.  I look forward to making more of these in different styles and colors. 

Have you ever made anything out of a t-shirt?  Apparently you can make all sorts of stuff from gloves to headbands.

***Fun Fact-Once you are done cutting the strips for the scarf you have an awesome belly shirt left.****

The B Mug!

Remember when I tried to make Martha Stewart's supposedly very easy etched snowflake glasses?  Yeah? Remember how it was a total failure?  I do not like total craft failures so I plugged along with a different method that day that worked out a lot better.  So I present to you the B Mug...

I made this wonderful etched glass Beer mug for B for his birthday.  As you can see from the beer residue on the bottom, he used it. 

Making this was not as hard as I thought it would be.

Etched Glass Mug

Supplies-Contact paper (I found this in the home improvement section of Wal-Mart), Beer Mug (or any glass), Exacto Knife, Etching Cream (from Michael's), Computer/Printer

-I typed up a big 'B' in Microsoft word and then picked a font I liked and printed it out.

-Then I took a small piece of contact paper and traced over it with a marker.

-Then I peeled the back off the contact paper and stuck it to the mug (where I wanted the 'B' to be)

-I then carved out the 'B' with the Exacto knife (be careful because of the two holes in the B that you have to keep on the glass in order for the 'B' to look right)

-Then I painted a THICK layer of the Exacto cream on and left it on for about 2 minutes.

-Then I washed it all off.

It came out a lot better than the snowflake glasses.  Be careful with the etching cream.  You are supposed to wear gloves (I guess, so you don't accidentally etch your hand).  I would follow the directions on whatever cream you get.  We found that it was important to use a thick layer in order for it to work.

I also made my family some etched juice glasses for Christmas morning breakfast.  Those came out pretty good too. 

Are you happy that I turned my Martha Stewart Craft fail day in to a success?

Did you hand make any Christmas gifts?

Making Stuff Is Hard-The Martha Stewart Edition

On Saturday I decided to have craft day with Beezus5.  So I looked up this wonderful snowflake etched glass video by Martha Stewart.  The video made it look so easy.  So I bought all the supplies and had Beezus5 watch the video also.  Then we basically did everything the video said but our glasses did not look like these......

pic from marthastewart.com


They look like this.  Basically they just looked like dirty glasses.

I think we may not have used right kind of stickers and maybe we were not putting enough etching cream on the glass.  We're not really sure.  We did end up making a few monogrammed glasses that looked decent but I'll show you those at a later time.  I was pretty sad about the snowflake glasses but I just have to remember that all (most?) my craft projects are not going to be a success.  Ahhhh, the joys of crafting.

Has anyone else ever used etching cream to etch glasses?
Are you doing any holiday crafting?

Just in Time for Thanksgiving...How to Make Your Own Easy Centerpieces

I made these centerpieces for my recent birthday dinner party.  Here is how I did it.

1-Drink a lot of beer and wine (not at one time) and eat a bunch of spaghetti sauce and mayonnaise (also not at one time or even at the same meal).  Ok really you just need some bottles.  For some reason my husband had been stacking empty wine bottles beside the sink so I decided to go ahead and make something out of them.  Then I realized it had been awhile since I had cleaned the fridge so I went ahead and threw away some old mayo and salad dressing and pasta sauce and cleaned out those jars. 

2-Peel off the labels of the jars.  I used a tip that I learned here, and with some assistance from B, I removed the labels from the jars and bottles.

3-Buy some flowers.  I bought a mix of 4 different bunches from Harris Teeter.  I picked Fall colors since that was my theme.  I have heard great things about buying flowers at Trader Joes and Costco as well. 

4-Arrange the flowers and the jars so that they look amazing on your table/tables.  I decided to use green and brown jars on one table and clear jars on the other.  Then I had to arrange the flowers.  That was probably the hardest part.  Sometimes I'm not good at figuring out what looks good together but I think I did a decent job.  I went with single flowers in the tall glasses and groups of smaller flowers in the smaller mason jars.

And there you have it.  Lovely table centerpieces that are easy to make and not too costly.  (PS-I got more complements on the flowers than the giant pot roast I made.)

Halloween Costumes

I pretty much always make my own Halloween costumes.   Here are some of the most recent. 

This is one of my best costumes.  It wasn't actually for Halloween though.  (It was for a Murder Mystery Party.)

Then there was last year.  I was a witch.  I'd say I've been a witch about 50% of Halloweens.  I like wearing all black without people thinking I'm all dark and goth.

I typically try to go un-sexy for Halloween.  Someone asked me if I was dressed as Sara Palin's pregnant teen in this picture below.  Um, no, I was dressed as a soccer player.

Ok, well this might have had something to do with it.  But still.

And you know I had to have dressed as a character from the Office at least one time; Pam and Michael (circa season 2).  I had white Keds and everything.

Anyways.  This year I decided to go as un-sexy as possible, again.  I purchased an XL orange T-shirt from Michaels and sewed on the Jack-O-Lantern Face.  (It was slightly more difficult than I thought it would be.)  That green thing on my head is supposed to be the top of the pumpkin.  I'm not a "French" pumpkin as my husband kept telling people.  And that pumpkin was my purse for the night.

My husband went as Harry Potter, the college years.  We assumed Harry had cooler glasses once he was in college and didn't wear his robes around all the time.  I drew that scar.

Did you dress up this year for Halloween?

PS-I was going to put up cute pictures of me as a kid in my Halloween costumes but I was too lazy to go get the pics.  My mom made me a wonderful Dorothy costume as well as a nice Minnie Mouse.

Sewing Attempt #2-Zipper Pouch

Some people seemed pretty impressed with my bag that I made last week on my new sewing machine.  It definitely has a few issues with it and it took me foreves just so you know (I'm not quit an expert sewer).  I really think it's good that I signed up for a sewing class so I can learn how to do things the right way.  That doesn't start until November though.  So in the mean time I tried to make something easier.  I remember seeing how to make a small zipper bag on this blog awhile back and thought it would be great to try.  The zipper kind of scared me but I figured I would attempt it anyways.  Plus I accidentally bought about twice as much fabric as I needed for that first bag so I had a bunch left over.

I seriously could not figure out how to pin this correctly on the last sewing step to make it so the zipper looked perfect but I just kind of made it up as I went.  It didn't end up perfect but it's acceptable (to me).  I will do better next time.  These little bag are cool and I could use about 20 of them with all the junk I keep in my purse so I should get a lot of practice.  I'm currently using this one for coupons.

What do you think?

Anyone taken up sewing yet?

Is your purse a mess?

Sewing Machine Review and My Greatest Crafting Achievement To Date

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to review another product from CSN Stores.  This time I decided to review a sewing machine.  I have wanted to learn to sew for a long time.  I feel like not knowing how to sew is really holding me back in my crafting and making stuff (you know, the title of this blog).  So I sorted all the sewing machines available on CSN by price and bought one of the cheapest ones which was this Brother Free-Arm Sewing Machine with 10 Stitches.

So far I am loving this machine.  You should know, I don't actually really know anything about sewing so I don't have anything to compare it to.  I was able to thread the bobbin and the needle and actually get started sewing in about 45 minutes.  I think that was pretty good because I'm not the best at following directions (hence why I like cooking better than baking-less important that you follow recipes exactly in cooking).  The instructions have pictures and are pretty easy to follow.

In comparison to every other machine, this machine was cheap.  I was not expecting anything amazing, just a basic beginner sewing machine.  I think this machine is going to work for me and help me achieve my dream of one day being able to sew my own apron.  I have actually signed up for a month long sewing class.  We'll see how that goes.  Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Since I didn't really know anything about sewing, I decided to just jump in head first.  I bought this pattern I found online (it said it was a good bag for beginners).  It took me most of last week, but I finally finished my bag.  There were a few mishaps but overall I was extremely proud of myself (just don't look at the straps or top too closely).  It even has pockets.  Hopefully my sewing class will give me some tips on how to do things better and what some of these sewing words mean (I had to google a bunch while making this bag).

In other, unrelated news, the dining room table is back to craftland.

Who knows how to sew?
Who wants to know how to sew?

My New Favorite Earrings...

I have tried making earring wires several times on my own.  I'm not good at it.  Usually I get the wrong type of wire.  I tried beating it with a hammer.  Usually it would just end up breaking.  So I figure if you can't make something, buy it from someone who can.  So I found these ear wires on Etsy (at Shel's Jewelry Supplies) a couple weeks ago and bought some.  I also bought the mini version cause I love mini stuff.

This weekend Beezus5 attempted to take me to her favorite beads store downtown but it was closed.  Fortunately there was another bead store across the street.  So after checking out every bead they had I ended up buying a few.  I made these earrings for myself with the mini hoops.

I like them.  I think the ear wires really "make" the earring.

And here are some more I made for my Etsy shop with the bigger hoops.

What do you think?

Making Stuff is Fun....Old School Edition

And by Old School, I mean the tenth grade.  The other day when I went to visit L-Fab after her toe surgery at my parent's house, something dreadful happened.  My mom forced me to take a bunch of stuff from my old bedroom to my house.  I have been avoiding this for years.  But she wouldn't let me leave without taking several boxes of stuff and my two guitars.  (That's right, I have 2 guitars and know approximately 2 chords on the guitar.  I really tried to learn multiple times in college, it just didn't take.)  However, I found some wonderful stuff in these boxes...photo collages, books and of course the best find....my tenth grade art work.

So here we have two wonderful pieces from Art 2, aka tenth grade art circa 1996...

Ok so this is a picture of my parent's house.  Why is it blue and purple?  My parent's house is not blue and purple.  I guess we were supposed to use some weird color scheme and I picked the one that involved blue, green and purple (cool colors??? IDK).  I mean I do love purple but this is just a little strange looking.  But look up there above the garage...that's my old bedroom. 

This next picture is a real winner.  It is my version of a butterfly........

...featuring an actual stick of butter with butterfly wings.  Deep right?  Yeah I'm not so sure.  But I do remember thinking this picture was super cool.  I like the wings and the amazing background that gets darker and darker as you go up.

So those were pretty much  my two masterpieces of the year.  I didn't take any formal art classes after that in school.  There was no time with yearbook, typing and calculus and stuff.

So what do you think of my wonderful tenth grade art work?

Should I have gone on to Art 3 instead of being on the yearbook staff?

Does anyone think my mom should want to keep these precious gems at her house?

Is it really that hard to learn the guitar?