More Goodies!

One of the drain pipes needs to be fixed and this giant icicle formed.

I had a real off week, last week.  Felt like crap, couldn't get warm, crying real easily and which culminated with a killer headache from hell on Sunday....just one of the lovely hormonal byproducts of middle age.  Like a beacon of light, I got that package from Tracy with the sugar cookie mix and the very next day I got another box full of flat backed glass blobbies from Kim!

PLUS chewsticks for my fuzzies!

Of course Sagan demolished his in no time, then sat on the couch, with his eyes flicking back and forth between Pepper still munching her chewie, and me, with a dejected look on his face.  I couldn't stop cracking up. 

I looked down at Bean and she looked up at me like this, which only made me laugh harder.

Eventually she tired of hers as it was rather large and Sagan left it alone for awhile which surprised me, but he finally finished it off later in the day.

So the day I had my headache, the only thing I managed to do was sew beads to this little doily bowl I made a few weeks back by spraying starch on it and letting it dry over an inflated balloon.  It didn't make the bowl as stiff as I wanted and it began to collapse under the weight of the beads.  So after they were sewn on, I tried spraying more starch on it but that still didn't work, so I coated the back with mod podge and let it dry.

Then I got up on Friday, checked my email, and was excited to see that I won another giveaway, on the Krafty Max Originals blog/Facebook page!!  I won a bracelet but I haven't gotten it yet. 

And then I got this from Michelle!

The Winter That Refused to End....

Or as I call it, 'Stuck Inside the House Craftapalooza 2014'.  I'm beginning to think it will never warm up again.  I got real spoiled that first winter here when it was so mild with just that one snowstorm in January.  I remember sitting out on the deck in shorts in March.  I also took the dogs to Scusset Beach that March too. I don't even remember the last time I went to the beach.  Probably in October when I went to E. Sandwich and also to Chatham!

Since I've been stuck inside, I've gotten exceptionally prolific with projects.

Now that I have finally become technologically advanced enough to figure out how to transfer pictures back and forth from my laptop to the 10 year old, modem-less, flashdrive-less, desktop computer in my craft room, it's now way easier for me to work on projects I've saved to my hard drive...stuff that doesn't require tutorials because they are pretty self-explanatory.

There were a couple of designs I wanted to try.  The top right is amber but it photographed red.

Somewhere online (probably Pinterest), I saw a necklace with a key pendant that I liked and this was my interpretation, using Czech glass.  Stringing goes much faster than this eyepin technique, but it came out nice.

Yes this is a Christmas card.  Don't judge.  I am planning on making my cards really soon anyway because I enjoy it and I have a lot of 'cardworthy friends'.  I loved this cute Rudolph cross stitch design.  Took a couple of hours to finish, mounted on blue cardstock and that was mounted on a pre-glittered card.

Since I had the red thread out, I made this stitched baseball card too.

This was a printable Grumpy Cat that you cut out and then assemble by sticking the tabs together.  Unfortunately the tabs are so narrow that it was really hard to get this thing to stick together using regular tape, glue and double stick tape.  It made me quite grumpy. Maybe that was the intent.

I can't draw at all, but I saw this on Pinterest a long time ago and thought yeah, I can totally do that! It's so easy!

Uh....not so much, no.  Think I'll just stick to beads papercrafts and needlework!  My poor Corgi has 3 peg legs.

Then later that day, this arrived from my dear friend Tracy, from the Pull Up a Toadstool blog!!  Sugar cookie mix in an adorable Bumbles oven mitt!!!!   With cutter!  The mitt's just way too cute to use though.

So after dinner, I made them, complete with homemade icing, a first for me.  And I used WAY too much vanilla extract...less than what the recipe called for, yet it was very strong.  That's why I dumped so many sprinkles on it.  The cookies taste good though!

What should I make next?!?!  How about more keys?

My bff Michelle said that the one on the right looked like an owl.  Now I can't unsee it!  This was completely unintentional.

I'm sure winter will end in time for me to be stuck inside the house for the hot, humid summer months!

Sunday, Sunday

March started off cold and icky.  I just cannot take much more of this crap.  It's gonna go from this to hot and humid with no spring at all, I just know it.  

I'd had the hubster home for a week, so my first day without him was really blah & lonely.  It was cloudy and grey.  I came home from dropping him off to find the bread bag on the floor.  It only had a couple slices in it, but I was careless and Sagan got it off the counter, but didn't get to eat anything because I got home so quickly. See how pleased he is with himself?  He tried to convince me that he had no idea how the bag got on the floor!  There's Pepper's little nose.  I'm sure she was in cahoots but of course played innocent too.

Then I was cornered against the counter by them till I bought my freedom with biscuits.  

This was a project I saw on Pinterest and I'd saved the picture quite awhile ago but never got around to making it.  Here is the Pinterest picture.  Whoever made this was able to draw their own TARDIS.  I, however, am not that talented.  Their canvas is also a bit bigger than mine was.  They used 32 crayons but I could only fit 23.

I first painted the canvas black, then hot glued blue, white & silver crayons to it for melting.  I'd printed a TARDIS picture off the internet and used thick foam double stick tape to attach it to the canvas, to give it a little 3D depth.  Not sure what I'll do with it....I wouldn't really call myself a Whovian, but I am enough 'in the know' of their fandom.  If Christopher Eccleston had remained on for a few seasons, I would definitely have gotten into it more, but he only did one season and I was gutted when he decided not to return.  His one season really left an impact on me, to the point where I will never be able to see a gas mask again without hearing that little boy's voice saying, 'Are you my mummy?'  *shudder*

Anyways, here's my version of it.  As they say in Pinterest-Land, "Nailed it."

I made the all important discovery that self adhesive rhinestones do not stick to metal at all well.  That meant removing nearly every single rhinestone in all the keys I already made, and re-adhere them with E6000.  It was time consuming and tedious, and so I only had time to make 3 new ones.  

I am wicked sick of eating cereal, cheese & crackers, sandwiches and canned soup.  So I made a couple quiches (one for freezing).  Spinach, onion, mushroom & feta.  

I'd also pinned a recipe for 'the perfect mac & cheese' from Picky Palate.  I'd never made a roux before and it came out pretty good.  I'll definitely make it again.  The recipe stopped after mixing the cheese sauce with the pasta, but I added panko and baked it for a bit, then turned on the broiler to brown it.

Overall, not a bad way to spend the day.

No....No I Can't.....

That was my answer to Russell's "You just can't leave anything alone, can you babe?" query.  I'd bought another bottle of Jones Cream Soda at the grocery store and I actually did walk over to the trash with the bottle.  Then I hesitated before tossing it in the bin and looked at it.  I just couldn't make myself throw it out. So I rinsed it and let it dry, dug out my bags of sequins and E6000 glue.

I forgot that I had a small baggie of sparklie circles that had no holes in the center like regular sequins and knew they'd be exactly what I needed for this project.  First I put a row of the larger flowers around the top and bottom of the label, then started adding the rows of circles.  Russell came out to the kitchen at one point and watched me working and said, 'looks tedious.'  It really wasn't.  It went fairly quickly.  I got the best results by putting a thin line of glue on the bottle, then I touched the tip of a toothpick to the glue and touched the circle and it worked perfectly to pick it up and set it into place, and didn't leave any residue on the sparkle.  Using that method, setting the circles into place went very quickly.  There is no way I could have done this using my fingers to pick up the circles.

But was I done yet?  Of course not!  I had to add rhinestones on the label too.

All the way around the bottle.

Bottled in Seattle, product of Canada.  

And some sparkles for the cap as well. 

Cuteness Overload

I just cannot get enough of this adorable series of silly pictures and text.  The snoring 'Honkshoo' really cracks me up.

String Egg on Balloon

Been meaning to try this for awhile, despite seeing so many attempts with bad results, esp. on Pinstrosity.  So I decided to give it a whirl one day.  I first used a smaller thread size because when I was a kid, I had one of these string eggs and it was made with fine string.  I decided to use Mod Podge for one and starch for the other.

First I was entertaining myself with the static electricity.

OK down to business.  I spread Mod Podge on the balloon and started winding the string.  This was exceedingly messy and a pain in the ass.

Then I used the string and sprayed the starch as I went along.  This, too, was extremely messy and by the time I was ready for them to dry, there was glue and starch everywhere.  

They took all day and night to dry and when I let the air out of the balloon, both 'eggs' were total fails.  The Mod Podge one on the left had clear, dried glue in all the spaces between the threads.  The starched one on the right was extremely fragile and just didn't hold up at all.

So then I tried it again, this time using Elmers glue mixed with a little water and placing the yarn bits in it before wrapping around the balloon.  This was also extremely messy.

Took all day to dry again, but it's much sturdier than the first ones I tried.  

Not a total fail, but I also wouldn't do this again.  It's just way too messy.