Recipes, A Different Type of Composition for the Book

Altered Composition Book

This is one of my favorite altered composition books. The scrapbook paper is perfect for a recipe book. Curls and I featured our Altered Composition Book tutorial on our Aug 6, 2012 blog.

Because I often change recipes into different sizes, since there is just two of us at home now, I used one of my large recipe cards to add handy measurements to the front.

What’s inside you ask? A lot of different recipes I find online to try. This is an eco-friendly way to collect recipes. I’ve done away with all of the printing, saving both paper and ink. If I find that we don’t like a recipe, I just write a big “YUCK” and draw a “x” through it. I’ll also paste another recipe on top which I’ve cut from a magazine. I do have two arrow tags marking my much used Everything Granola and Cheesy Garlic Biscuits recipes. The biscuits are an American biscuit, so don’t think sweet treat.

Thanks for stopping by. Go be crafty and alter a composition book.

These Elephants Are Not Afraid Of A Mouse

Emily’s mouse on it’s new pad.

Daughter Emily loves elephants. When she was two, her paternal grandma gave to her a pink, long-sleeved, t-shirt with an appliqué of an elephant on it AND a big appliqué letter E! What’s not to love? Wonder why she loves both pink and elephants? When she became pregnant two years ago, before the sonogram let us know that Little Man (LM) was growing, I bought two yards of this Timeless Treasures Funky Elephant (Mod-C8127) fabric. I was getting ready for a new granddaughter. OK, wishful thinking on my part? I love LM to pieces and could not be more delighted with him, but I did still have two yards of “girly” elephant fabric. What to do? Em has her degree in Finance and, smart woman that she is, has developed a business which allows her to work from the comfort of her home most of the time. Items for her office, the perfect use for the fabric. Surrounded by both pink and elephants, happy world! A search on Pinterest lead me to the Fabric Mouse Pad Tutorial which was found on Gen X Quilters. It is advertised as a 10 Minute project which is right on. That is as long as you don’t have to stop to take pictures of each step, which I actually forgot to do a few times.

Mousepad materials

Materials:

• 9″ x 7 1/2″ piece of fabric
• 9″ x 7 1/2″ piece of Heat n’ Bond (you need “glue” on both sides of the bonding material)
• 9″ x 7 1/2″ piece of thin cork – I bought a 18″ x 24″ roll at Joann’s which yields 8 mousepads.
• Leather sewing needle for sewing machine.

Steps: 

1. Cut out the fabric, Heat n’ Bond, and cork.

2. Using the directions on Heat n’ Bond, fuse the Heat n’ Bond onto the wrong side of the fabric. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step.)

3. Pull the paper off of the backside of the Heat n’ Bond, place the fabric-Heat n’ Bond piece on top of the cork. Follow the directions on the Heat n’ Bond to fuse it to the cork. This is what the three layers fused together looks like:

Iron on

4. Using a rotary cutter, trim up all sides cutting away extra cork and/or fabric overhanging the sides. I have a beat-up, large blade I used.

5. Using a round object for a template, trace a rounded edge on each corner. Use a scissors to cut along the traced lines to get a nicely, rounded edge. Bad blogger, I forgot to take a picture.

6. Using the leather needle, sew an edging about 1/8th inch around the entire mousepad. I did not want to chance breaking a thin needle, so I used a leather needle.

7. Done! Sit back and admire your cleverness.

Happy Tutorial Thursday, thanks for stopping by. Have a fun, crafty day.

Painting With Bubbles

MG’s Bubble Painting

Isn’t it fabulous when the younger generation teaches us a new “painting” technique. My favorite granddaughter MG, 11 years old, loves to craft. BTW when I tell her she’s my favorite granddaughter she quickly points out that she’s my only granddaughter. She is totally in love with my new “craft room” and is always doing something crafty when she visits. This last visit, we went to the Dollar Store so she could pick out craft supplies. One idea she had was to add watercolor to bubbles and then blow the bubbles on paper to “paint”. So bubbles went into the cart. The above picture was her finished product.

Materials:

• Bubbles with wand
• Small plastic containers – one for each color
• Selection of watercolor tubes
• Paper for “canvas”

Steps to product a great bubble picture:

Add some bubbles

1. Add a small amount of bubble solution into a container.

 

Add watercolor

2. Add a small drop of watercolor to the bubbles.

Gently stir

3. Gently stir the paint into the bubbles with a popsicle stick. If you stir too vigorously then bubbles will form making it hard to use the wand.

Gently blow bubbles

4. Gently blow the bubbles onto the paper.

Wreck This Journal background

Of course, I had to try out MG’s painting technique. I used it for the background on the Collect The Stamps Off Of All Your Mail page in my Wreck This Journal. I used two different blues, 1 green, and 1 orange and totally love the effect. My glasses were so splattered with bubbles that I had to laugh.

Best easel ever

This is the best easel! Ikea sells it as a “laptop support” under the name BRÄDA. For $3.99 it’s a steal! A few years ago I purchased two, one for Curls and one for me. It’s thin enough that the clips work perfectly for holding paper in place.

Thanks for visiting us. Now go have a crafty day.

Cover These Pages With White Things

Q’s pages

Curls’s pages

Happy day! Since Curls is a mail carrier, I don’t get to see her from Oct through Dec since she works 10 – 12 hour days, including Saturdays and Sundays. So when she called last week saying she was coming to visit last Thursday I was overjoyed. Of course, we met at our local “Office” first (Starbucks) then paid a visit to Tuesday Morning.

We’d already decided that my new crafting “room” had to be tested by us. Luckily we live in San Diego and the weather was in the 70’s so we had a fabulous time sitting in the garage with the door opened so we could watch the world pass by. Time to get serious about our Wreck This Journal which has been totally neglected. Curls remembered a “Cover This Page With White Things” so we happily dug in. I busily ran around gathering all of the white stuff I could think of.

On this page we have:

• White paper punched out with various punches
• White star brad
• White tissue paper
• White toilet paper
• White heart doily
• White cheesecloth
• White curling ribbon
• White painted background – Q’s page
• White crayon
• White colored pencil
• White chalk
• White paper towel
• White string
• White “hairy stuff”
• White sequins
• White bow
• White fake pearl
• White fabric strip
• White thread stitching down the fabric strip – Q’s page
• White staple
• White glue to attach the items

Whew! I think that’s everything. Looks as if it could be “Bridal Ideas From Hell” doesn’t it? And as extra bonus, there is a page that tells us to hide a secret message somewhere in the book guess where we hid ours?

Bird Feeder x 2

– Look what the cat dragged in two grandchildren! Oh my! Oh my! What to do. I’ve got it! A bird feeder.

I had  bought a bird feeder kit from Joann’s last year. It had two kits in it. When Taylor and Mason showed up last week, I remembered about the feeders. Next time I will remember that the bottles will hang up side down. I thought of this about half way through decorating.

So here is Taylor’s finished feeder. Please do not notice that the name is upside down. Oh well, the birds can’t read. Taylor left her feeder at Grandma’ s house. Mason took his home.  The birds love it. 🙂

Beautify Those Magazine Holders

~Today was an “Oh-my-gosh-I’d-better-finish-my-Christmas-sewing” type of day.  My sewing machine faces the book shelves in my studio so I had plenty of time to stare at the magazine holders that I covered a while back. I purchased the white magazine, cardboard holders as a pack of 6 at Ikea. I used spray glue to attach the scrapbook paper to the holder and cut off the excess paper. I downloaded the tag from the Internet and added the magazine title for each tag. The tag was attached with a brad, which was then taped on the inside so I wouldn’t be cut by sharp edges. Here is an example of a final magazine holder taken tonight so the lighting is awful. I did finish two of the items I needed to sew, and most amazingly, I didn’t even have to use the seam ripper to fix any mistakes! Woo Hoo!

Clever Christmas Wreath

~Have I mentioned how creative daughter Sarah is? She posted this on Facebook saying, “Because the world doesn’t have enough over-the-top, gaudy Christmas wreaths, my girl and I made this.”

I immediately posted that she was to send it to her beloved mom! I don’t think that’s going to happen. Now if I could only get her to knit and spin…… Then I’d have the PERFECT daughter. 😎 She’s a fabulous cook! See what Sarah and her sisters are up to at Serving Up The Skinny.

 

Scarlet Ribbons For Her Hair

~On September 2, I blogged about a neat idea for ribbon storage. I’ve finished my mindless wrapping-ribbon-around-craft-sticks activity. From my rough calculations there is about 100 yards of mostly grosgrain ribbon in this storage jar from my great-grandfather G. A. Saetre’s general store. That freed up a couple of shoe boxes I was using to store the ribbon in. If any of you are looking for a good deal on grosgrain ribbon, Curls and I just got a bunch of 5 yard rolls at the Dollar Tree. We have a specific project in mind, so stay tuned.

 

Off to spinning class today. Last week we did different types of plying, I wonder what today will bring?

Attack By The Yellow Angry Bird Hat

~For those of you who checked out the Angry Bird Hat patterns after our June 4 “Angry Bird Attack At My House” post you may have notice that there was not a pattern for the Yellow Angry Bird. How can that be? I decided to rectify the problem. Knowing that the Yellow Angry Bird looks as if it is pyramid shaped, I had to make a pointy-top-of-the-head. Now, I’m really a knitter so it took me a jillion tries to get the point just right! Without further ado, here is the Yellow Angry Bird Hat.

Yellow Angry Bird Hat*

Materials:

Hook size US I – larger for adult, smaller for toddler

Yarn – Caron Soft in Sunshine, Red, White and Black. Beak – Red Heart Soft in Orange (Caron Soft does not have a bright orange).

Stitch Marker

Large Needle

Hat (Yellow)
Worked in the round, top down. NOTE: to make the cone top, do not join the rounds with a slip stitch, you will be using the first stitch from the previous round to add the first sc for the next round.

Ch 4 and form a ring with 1 sl st in 1st ch.

RND 1: Chain 1, 6 sc in chain ring.
RND 2: 2 sc in every sc = 12 sc.
RND 3: * 1 sc in next sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 18 sc.
RND 4: * 1 sc in the next 2 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 24 sc.
RND 5: * 1 sc in the next 3 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 30 sc.
RND 6: * 1 sc in the next 4 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 36 sc.
RND 7: * 1 sc in the next 5 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 42 sc.
RND 8: * 1 sc in the next 6 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 48 sc.
RND 9: Work 1 sc in every sc = 48 sc.
RND 10: * 1 sc in the next 7 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 54 sc.
RND 11: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 12: * 1 sc in the next 8 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 60 sc.
RND 13: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 14: * 1 sc in the next 9 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 66 sc.
RND 15: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 16: * 1 sc in the next 10 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 72 sc.
RND 17: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 18: * 1 sc in the next 11 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 66 sc.
RND 19: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 20: * 1 sc in the next 12 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd = 72 sc.
RND 21: Work 1 sc in every sc
RND 22: *8 sc in the next 8 sc, 2 sc in next sc *, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd, Sl to 1st sc made, Ch 1, turn.
RND 23: *29 sc in the next 29 sc, 2 sc in next sc, repeat from *-* the entire Rnd, Sl to 1st sc made, Ch 1, turn.
RND 24: 15 sc in the next 15 sc, 2 sc in next sc, 29 sc in next 29 sc, 2 sc in next sc, 15 sc in the next 15 sc, 2 sc in the next sc, Sl to 1^st sc made, Ch 1, turn.
RND 25: * 15 sc in the next 15 sc, 2 SC in next sc, rep from *-* the entire Rnd, Sl to 1st sc made, Ch 1, turn.
RND 26: *33 sc in the next 33 sc, 2 sc in next sc, Rep from *-* the entire Rnd, Sl to 1st sc made, Ch 1, turn.
RND 26-46: sc around, Sl to 1st Sc made, Ch 1, tie off

Ear Flap

Count left from where you tied of on rnd 46.

Skip 10 sps, connect yarn and do the following:

Row 1-4: 11 SC, Ch 1, turn.

Row 5: SC2tog, 7 SC, SC2tog, Ch 1, turn.

Row 6: 9 SC, Ch 1, turn.

Row 7: SC2tog, 5 SC, SC2tog, Ch 1 turn.

Row 8: 7 SC, tie off and hide string.

NOTE: I did not tie off. I slip stitched the 10 stitches and then followed the pattern for rows 1-8. For the other ear flap, I counted 21 stitches from the back and placed a marker. When done with the first ear flap, I slipped stitched down the front and across the hat to the marker. I then continued to follow Rows 1-8. When finished with row 8, I slipped stitched to the back of the hat and tied off.

Edging – White

Using White yarn, start and back and sl st around entire hat including the edges of the ear flap.

Braids – White

Cut white yarn into 24 36” strips, 12 for each side. Take 12 and fold in half and place onto the ends of one of the ear flaps. Take these strings and braid into wanted length. Repeat using the other 12 on the other ear flap.

Beak- (Orange, make 1)

Base: Ch 26, sl to 1st ch made to form a ring

Rnd 1-2: 26 SC, sl to 1st sc made, Ch 1, turn.

Rnd3: * 3 SC, Sc2tog, rep from * around, SL to 1st SC made, Ch 1 turn.

Rnd 4: Sc around, SL to 1st SC made, Ch 1 turn.

Rnd 5: *SC2tog, 3 SC, Rep from * around end with 1 sc, Sl to 1st SC made, Ch 1 turn.

Rnd 5: SC around, SL to 1st SC made, Ch 1, turn.

Rnd 7: * 2 SC, Sc2tog, Rep from * around, SL to 1st SC made, Ch 1, turn.

Rnd 8: Sc around, Sl to 1st Sc made, Ch 1 turn.

Rnd9: *SC2tog, 2 SC, Rep from * around end with SC2tog, Sl to 1st SC made, Ch 1, turn.

Rnd 10: Sc around, Sl to 1st Sc made, tie off hide string.

Take Tail and weave the tail through rnd 10 pull tight to close hole, tie off and hide string.

Top Feathers (Black, make 1)

1. Ch 10, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc to end
2. Ch 1, turn, sc in next 3 sts, ch 8
3. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc across
4. Ch 1, turn, sc across
5. Ch 1, turn, ss across to last 3 sts, sc in last 3 sts
6. Ch 1, turn, sc across, ch 6
7. Sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc across
8. Ch 1, turn, sc across, BO

Attach to top of head

Eyebrows (Red, make 2)

ch 12, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc across

ch 1, turn, sc across

ch 1, turn, 6 sc, 5 sl st. Bind off.

Attach to body

Sew pieces onto hat as shown in picture.

*Parts of this pattern were based on the Black Angry Birds Hat by Designed by Crafts by Starlight. They did not have a Yellow Angry Bird Hat which is a pyramid shape, so I designed the pyramid top, the eyebrows, and the head feathers.

If you make the pattern please share! Remember, this site is copyrighted so if anyone wants to translate and post this pattern permission is required. 😎

Magnetic Personalities

~ Saw this great idea on Pinterest from Tonya’s Sewing Room! Making magnets using fabric. I decided I wanted to make my magnets using photographs. This is such an inexpensive craft, but absolutely marvelous when finished. The total cost per magnet is about 5 cents! You can use fabric or paper instead of photographs. How about alphabet magnets spelling out your child’s or grandchild’s name?

Supplies:

• scissors
• photograph
• a bag of small accent glass gems (got mine at the Dollar Store)
• pencil
• mod podge
• paint brush
• super glue – or any other type of glue
• magnets

Step 1: Find the perfect picture. Test by placing an accent glass gem on the face to make sure it fits.

If it fits, scan the picture and print at 100% so the size remains the same.

Step 2: Using the glass gems, use a pencil to outline each face. I have 5 faces to outline.

Since the gems are differing sizes, I made sure I outlined by age, keeping the gems in order from left to right.

Step 3: Cut the pictures out just inside of the tracing line. Place the gems on top to make sure they fit.

Step 4: Apply Mod Podge to the gem and place on appropriate picture. Press down with finger or folding tool to remove all of the air pockets.

Put another coat of Mod Podge on the back of the picture. It will dry clear. After it drys, add one more coat of Mod Podge so there are a total of three layers.

Step 5: After the Mod Podge is totally dry, I left over night, use super glue (or any other glue) to attach the magnet.

 

Make sure you keep the magnets far apart while gluing and drying. 😎 Allow at least 24 hours to dry thoroughly! Do a finishing trim.

Now they are all ready to use. Perfect on the refrigerator to hold up a drawing by the person in the photograph. Or, on the magnetic white board in the craft room. What fun!