Pinterest Inspired Project

I found a crochet project on Pinterest and wanted to make it asap for the teacher we know who is going to have a baby in January. I’m very happy at how it came out and the teacher loved it. Yay!

 

Didn’t it come out cute? I know I’ve seen these types of hats around, but I hadn’t researched how to get the pattern. When I clicked to the blog where this pattern was shared and it was free, well, I just had to use it! The blog is Repeat Crafter Me and here is where you can find the pattern.  You should check out the blog. Sarah is very talented and shares great ideas. In fact, I started following her blog in Reader, I liked it so much.

This hat didn’t take long at all to make either. I was almost done in one session sitting in the van waiting to pick up Jessica. I didn’t finish only because I took just the brown and blue yarn and couldn’t crochet the other pieces because I didn’t have the yarn with me. LOL

I don’t know how long the baby might even be able to wear this, but part of the appeal of this hat is its smaller size. Sarah has larger sizes posted, too, so I will try some of those as well.  Thanks for the inspiration, Sarah!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great night!

Happy Halloween!

Well, goodness, I’ve wanted to share this  for days and for one reason or another didn’t get to do so. Guess today is better late than never, right?

My friend, Barb, over at The Buzz has been charming me with her cards featuring Meljens digital images. (You can find her shop here). Barb does a fantastic job coloring with her Copic markers and recently posted how she adds glitter to her cards in this post. This card is completely inspired by Barb’s excellent work. Thanks for sharing and inspiring, Barb!

I used that super cute Haunted Manor paper from Doodlebug. Now, you all know I don’t have many markers and am much more comfortable with colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits. That’s what I used to color in this card. It was a fun image to color. I added the background using chalk and a small pom-pom.  I have to admit though, I think Barb’s skills in creating backgrounds way exceed mine. *Ü*

Next up is a little project Jessica and I worked on together for her class.  

Jessica did a great job stamping the “happy, happy, happy” and “halloween” from CTMH’s Seasonal Thoughts stamp set. She had to practice a little though to get the right touch. As you can see, witches were a part of the project. I found that stamp, a wooden one (gasp) at Michaels last Halloween in their dollar bin. Didn’t use it last year, but it sure came in handy this year. 

Here’s what we (okay, I mostly) made. 

Are these not super cute? I got the idea from Diana Gibbs blog here.  And I happened to have a brown Sharpie marker in my stash. You can see a bit of the Tootsie Pop peeking through. Very fun.

And here’s a funny shot of Amy pulling out pumpkin guts last night.  LOL

Happy Halloween to you and yours. Hope you have a fun and safe time trick or treating or celebrating in your own special way. Thanks for stopping by!

Halloween Printer’s Tray

Oh my, did I have fun this afternoon! I’m probably the last person to pay attention to this idea, but better late than never. I decorated a 7 Gypsies Printer’s Tray with Doodlebug’s Haunted Manor paper and a bunch of fun embellishments. Check it out!

I’m very happy with the final result. I bought the tray a month or so ago, but haven’t been able to play. I knew for sure I wanted to use Doodlebug papers and today, everything kind of just fell into place. In addition to the 6x6 pad of Haunted Manor paper and Doodle Twine, I bought a sheet of die cuts and added them here and there. Some have pop dots and others don’t. I also found some goodies at Michaels, the sequin kitty, the owl (these two are ornaments), the bat and the “bottles” of scary stuff. The buttons were in my stash and the blingy spiderweb/spider is from Michaels last year. I  thought it would be fun to try to make a very small rosette. I cut three 6 inch strips 3/4 of an inch wide  and scored them at 1/2 inch intervals. I tried with two strips, but I couldn’t get it to lay flat. The brad on the rosette and the candy corn brad are from Hobby Lobby. I was tickled to add the googly eyes as well. All in all, this is the type of Halloween I like, cute and fun! Thanks, Doodlebug for the great paper that inspired me!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you are getting into the festive spirit and are having a great week.

Happy Birthday, Jessica…the Big 1-0

And now I can reveal why I haven’t had much crafty stuff to share the past week or so…I’ve been getting ready for Miss Jessica’s 10th birthday party. Screeech…what? There is no way that she is 10 years old. In fact, Steve kept telling her that we weren’t going to have a party after all so she would stay nine. She was on to that idea. She knew that wouldn’t stop her turning 10. Darn.

Warning…picture heavy post coming up…click on pictures to enlarge

Here’s the birthday girl this morning.

  

She’s wearing a necklace my friend made and sent to her for her birthday.

And this is the main reason I haven’t posted. I know I said I wasn’t much of a knitter, but when Jessica found this book in Michaels several weeks ago, she pleaded ever so prettily about my getting it. Of course I told her no, we weren’t there to get that in my mean mom voice.

Obviously, I knew I was going back without her to pick it up and to work on a project for either her birthday or Christmas, depending on if I could actually create a project. It is knitting after all and I’m not much of one.

So…I’ve spent several school hours working on the purple dress you see on the cover and I managed to finish on Friday.  Ta-da! Oh and a time or two I left a piece out and had to finagle a way to hide it so she wouldn’t notice.

 

I had one happy 10 year old when I came out with Jessica Anne wearing the dress. Yay, mom says with a fist pump. Guess maybe smaller projects are okay.

The theme of our party was Pirate, inspired by the tv show, Jake and the Never Land Pirates. Jess enjoys watching it in the morning before school.

 

Here is the cake table. Thanks so much to my friend, Susi, who graciously loaned us the candelabra, chest AND jewels to set the mood.

 

 

The girl pirate on the show is Izzy and we made these little bottles of pixie dust for the girls who attended. Izzy wears a pouch full of pixie dust to help the fellow pirates out on occasion.

 

The cake is my take of the idea shown on the Family Fun website here. Thanks to Susi’s kids for loaning us the mini figure pirates and cannon.

 

I knew the cake wouldn’t feed everyone, so we made some simple cupcakes, too .

A couple of more shots of the cake. It is reminiscent of Bucky, the ship in the Jake and the Never Land Pirates show. Jessica colored the sails and Amy added the Rolo candy for the Crow’s Nest. I personally liked the plank on the back end. LOL Anyone remember rootbeer candy? Or am I totally aging myself? We added some to the cake because they make great barrels. I ate one and was instantly transported back to when I was growing up.

 

Our pirate girl ready to par-tay. I found that shirt at the thrift store yesterday by a totally serendipitous fluke. The hat, too only we added the skull to it.

  

Some of the decor. I found some great pirate themed party supplies at Hobby Lobby and took full advantage of their 40% off coupons. The die cuts on the window are cut from my Cricut using Life’s a Party. My friend, Felicia graciously loaned me that cartridge. Thanks, sweetie! I need to take a picture of the front door where we had a map and the phrase pirate party.

 

Playing a game where you drop a penny into the water. At the bottom is a small bowl or shot glass that you are trying to get the penny into. The kids seemed to like it.

 

Birthday girl looking pretty happy.

 

We also played the same dice game that we played at Amy’s party and the Cookie game as well.  This  young man sure likes this game! He’s pretty good, too.

 

And after the party, Jessica had a great time putting together one of the gifts she received.

Oh and the cake…

Destroyed…but in the best way. Yay!

Whew, I’m pooped, but happy to have another party under the belt and a happy 10 year old.

Thanks for stopping by and reading this, if you even got this far!

Hope you had a fun weekend and are ready for a brand new week.

Pinterest Leads to Dinner Inspiration

I posted several months ago about something that happened to a friend via Pinterest and I got nervous about having a Pinterest account and worried that by pinning, I’d be violating copyrights. Well, I’ve been emailing my good friend, Barb, who blogs at The Buzz (which is a fabulous blog. If you haven’t been there, you should stop by and see some of her fantastic cards). Anyway, Pinterest came up and she told me she’d been pinning for years without any problem. Another friend talked about pinning and I brought up my nervousness and she thought they’d fixed the issues. So, armed with Barb’s help and tips I have reactivated my Pinterest account and am dipping my toes into the Pinterest ocean. I’m still learning and haven’t pinned too much, but if you are interested at all in what I might pin, I’ve added a link on the sidebar ---->.

All that to lead up to today’s post. I was meandering around on Pinterest yesterday, while Jessica was doing homework and saw a pin that had something in muffin tins. I’m so green at this, that I didn’t immediately pin what I saw, but it took me to the Betty Crocker website for Bisquick and Impossibly Easy Mini Chicken n Broccoli Pies.  I decided to make them for dinner last night. I’ve made Impossible Pie before,  years and years ago, but these mini pies were new to me and I thought I’d share how it turned out.

You put about a tablespoon of the Bisquick mixture in the bottom of the tins, then the meat/veggie/cheese mixture. I don’t profess to be a food blogger and you can see I oversprayed the cooking spray and got some of the mixture outside the tin area. Oh well.

 

Then you put another tablespoon of the Bisquick mixture on top and put them in the oven for about 30 minutes.

 

Here’s what they looked like after baking. To me they look delicious. I decided that we needed something gravy like on top to offset any dryness of the mini pies, but I didn’t have any gravy, let alone chicken gravy. So, I made chicken condensed soup and added the leftover broccoli I had. It was the perfect accompaniment to the little pies. 

 

Yum! The girls were quite happy with the taste and would like me to make this again. Yay!

I’ve been busy with life in general and haven’t finished any crafty projects to share, so I thought I’d pop in, share this and let you know I will post more crafty things soon.

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you are on Pinterest, I’d love to check out your boards. Have a great day!

Scary Muffins (??)

Okay, so how in the heck can muffins be scary? I guess if you think about the muffin top you can develop by eating too many, that can be pretty darn scary. But that’s not what I mean.

I’ve been a crocheting fool over the past few weeks and on Sunday, while watching the Broncos lose the game (darn), I finished up this scary muffins project.

TA-DA!!!

Can you believe this? I came across this pattern at the Red Heart yarn website. I can’t remember why I was even there, but how fun is this find?

Jessica, who is very afraid of spiders thought this one was cute and she even suggested the red eyes. Wow!

 

Not a very scary skull, but more ookey maybe?

It’s not Halloween unless you have a pumpkin, right? I got some felt that had adhesive in it, so it would, in theory, stay put while I hand sewed the piece on. It’s a little wonky, but who cares, right?

I think this eyeball one is the spookiest.

And each muffin comes out of its holder! You can mix and match them if you want. Hey, want a little memory game with your Halloween decor??

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you are having a great week so far.

Fall Basket

I really like the paper projects you can find at SVG Cuts.  I wish I was as creative as the gal who comes up with the ideas. When I saw this Fall Harvest SVG kit, I oohed and ahhhed over the basket and the card, and that pie and bought the file. LOL And then I sat down to make said basket. It went together rather quickly and has sat for a few weeks while I tried something that I liked to put into the basket.  I bought some filler, put it in and didn’t like it. But, I wanted to show you the basket, so I just threw in a fall themed kitchen towel and took some pictures. I used DCWV’s Autumn Melody paper bought at Joann’s. 

Aren’t the flowers pretty? The Close to My Heart brads were a perfect match for some solid DCWV paper (not from the Autumn Melody stack).  The button is from my stash.

 

Love the colors, and the look of the project. Am happy I made it, but sure wish I could find something I liked to put inside it.

Here’s what I decided to put in the witch’s shoe from my previous post…(just in case you were in the least bit wondering…)

Yummy butterscotch candies! *Ü*

Thanks so much for stopping by. Come back very soon because I’ve got another post to share in just a bit…