Tie, Tuck, and Twist Your Way to a Great Fall Look!

In the fall I love pulling my scarves out of storage and thinking about which cooler weather clothes to pair them with.  Each year I've worn them in pretty similar ways, but this year I wanted to try out some new cute styles.  

The first style that I found and really liked is called the Four in Hand:

It's a just a little bit different than the classic slip knot that I usually do with this scarf:

Another style that I think looks sweet is the half bow:

It adds a little bit of drama, but still looks very stylish.

Scarves.net offers over 37 different ways to tie scarves.  You can peruse all of them by viewing their short video clips.

Check it out and try a new, clever style for yourself today! :)  

• Four in Hand: http://www.scarves.net/how-to-tie-a-scarf/four-in-hand.htm
• Slip Knot: http://www.scarves.net/how-to-tie-a-scarf/slip-knot.htm
• Half Bow: http://www.scarves.net/how-to-tie-a-scarf/half-bow.htm

Cute and Easy Halloween Craft

Halloween is my favorite holiday :)  It's during my favorite season and it just seems like the world is a little more creative and fun this time of year.  

 Lately I've been checking out all of the awesome Halloween projects on Craft Gwaker and Dollar Store Crafts and have been inspired to create my own spooky craft ;)

I was able to purchase the items needed for this craft from my local dollar store:

Glass votive holders
Battery operated votives
Halloween ribbons
Googly eyes

 In addition to the items above I used double sided tape and thinner Halloween ribbon to create my spooky candle holder.
This is the Halloween ribbon I found. It was a little wider than the votive holder was tall so I cut it down to fit.

I used double sided tape to secure the ribbon to the votive holder.  

Then I attached (double sided tape again) the thinner ribbon to hide the seams...

And to hide the fringe that came off the wider ribbon after I cut it.

I dropped in my battery operated votive and thought I was done...

But then I saw my googly eyes and thought, 'hmm, this could be a little cuter!'  So I covered the jack-o-lanterns' eyes with the googly eyes (using little bits of double sided tape).

I have to say that it turned out pretty good!  Clever even ;)

I hope you try this project out for yourself :)  

Note: I made these for a battery operated votive candle so I don't know how the tape and googly eyes will react with the heat from a real candle.  

Perfect Party Drink for True Blood's Season 4 Finale or Your Halloween Party!

My friends and I love the HBO series True Blood based off of the infinitely better book series by Charlaine Harris, The Sookie Stackhouse novels.  Each Sunday night we excitedly wait for an episode to air (like vamps wait in their coffins for the sun to set!)


Recently we created the most temping drink to sate our thirsts before the show started.  ;)  (I'm really getting into this vampire theme)!  We call it V (it's what Vampire Blood is called on True blood).  


V would be great for your own True Blood party/marathon or upcoming Halloween party!


Start by making 1 large box of your favorite flavor of any red jello (cherry, strawberry, even raspberry can work great!).  Strawberry was our favorite flavor to use.  


Let the jello set up until it's jello and then deposit spoonfuls of it onto a flat plate (we found that making the jello in a casserole dish cuts out this step).  

Use a fork to go through and make 'vampire guts' (what True Blood's director Alan Ball thinks vampires look like when they meet their demise).

Spoon the vamp guts into clear cups.

Then fill the cups up with your favorite fizzy red drink (half jello, half fizzy drink).  In our trials we tried sparkling blood orange and sparkling cranberry and then Faygo red pop.  Faygo won!  It tasted the best with our strawberry 'guts'.  

Mmmmm, bloody!  

This taboo drink was easy to make and waaay fun to drink; probably a good one to make with kids as well :)  If you wanted to add a little adult into the mix you could probably follow a jello shot recipe for when you prepare the drink's innards!

Until next time, enjoy your V and the season finale of True Blood season 4!


Note: Me (left in the black and coral) and Arika (mid-right in the white and blue) worked together to perfect this recipe. Our men happily volunteered to be 'scary' in this photo ;).  Check out Arika's blog, Happy Home!  

You know you make me want to Grout!

My mosaic pieces have been grouted!  The whole process was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  Basically you make brownie mix consistency grout by adding whatever color dry grout you want and water:

Then you cover the piece with the mix:

I used a popsicle stick to spread the grout on:

let it sit for 5-10 minutes and then wipe off the excess with a dry cloth:

Sometimes you want to make your glass underneath stand out more so you can go through after it's dried & you've wiped it to define the shapes better with a sharp tool:

Fun fun!  Looks like some moms I know are getting some nice Mother's Day gifts....

Some pretty eggs! :)

This year I decided to try 'marbling' my eggs and I think that they turned out great!  

I started with a plan old egg dyeing kit and dyed almost all of my eggs a lighter color

Then I dumped about a table spoon of vegetable oil into the dye and mixed it up.  

I re-dyed the eggs in different colors and the oil spots made some cool effects!

I hope this post inspires you to try this too!  When is eating fun colored eggs not in season? ;)

Cookie Adventure! :)

I had an amazingly good cookie about 5 years ago.  It was a chocolate dough cookie with what tasted like oreo filling inside in little chunks.  I was in love with the taste, but not with the price.  

Since I tasted this delicious cookie, I've been on a mission to find out what it was and how to make it myself.  I finally figured it out!  

It's a chocolate, white chocolate chip cookie.  If you've never had it (or even if you have) here's the recipe below.  Enjoy :)

Chocolate, White Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Ingredients: 

·         1/2 cup salted butter, at room temperature (important!)

·         3/4 cup white granulated sugar

·         1 large egg

·         1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

·         1 cup all purpose flour

·         1/4 cup cocoa powder

·         1/2 teaspoon baking soda

·         1/8 teaspoon salt
 1 and 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until fully incorporated. Add the egg and vanilla extract and blend.

In a smaller bowl add the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, and salt and whisk until the dry ingredients are well mixed. 

Add about half of the flour mixture to the butter and egg mixture, incorporate, and then add the rest until all ingredients are blended well.  Now add the white chocolate chips until they're all throughout the dough.

Using a small ice cream scoop or two spoons, place about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the cookie mix recipe onto a foil covered cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.  Press the cookies down until about half the height.

Bake for approximately 8 minutes or until the cookies are still soft in the center but are firm around the edges. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

This recipe makes about 24, 3 inch round chocolate, white chocolate chip cookies.

The cookie recipe listed on this post was adapted from Home Life Weekly's recipe

Mosaics! A Beginner's Adventure!

The past few weeks in art class we've been working on creating mosaics!  This is a project that I've always wanted to try!!!


My art teacher described this form of art as "gluing sh*t down!"  And that's exactly what we did ;)

I picked out pieces of glass in the same color family and started gluing it down with mosaic glue (you should be able to find this at your local craft store).  

I used a paint brush to apply the glue to the textured side of the piece of glass and stuck it on-smooth side up.  When I asked why we do texture side down, I was told that when we grout these babies the grout will be harder to get out of the textures pieces.

Here's some other pieces: (I'm excited to show you!)

(A bloom for spring!)

(The brown is the beach and the blue is the water & sky)

(A fellow classmate did these 2 with shaped ceramic tile pieces)

Well, stay tuned!  We're supposed to grout our pieces on Wednesday night so I will post the finished products soon after that :)

What We Made in Art Class Tonight! (UPDATE!)

I tried using squares of news print to make these flowers and I think I like using the news print even better than the printed paper!

I made one for my Grama out of the crosswords section because I know she likes those ;)  I like that I can personalize my flowers for who I'm going to give them to with by using magazines or news papers; more so than with generic printed paper.

----


Tonight we made paper flowers to try and encourage more spring timey weather!  Our teacher showed us this cool origami pattern...

Though my pic's are pretty, I'll admit that they are not the easiest to follow.  Here's a link to an Wiki How article with more specific instructions on how to make this Kusudama flower.


We used patterned, square-shaped paper in 3 inch and and 1.5 inch squares.  Our teacher got these papers from online, but you can probably find them a your local craft store.  I also think cutting out newspaper squares would be pretty neat looking too!


Tip: I noticed that when I used the smaller paper I needed 6 petals instead of the 5 I used in making the larger petals.

I made these two beauties by sticking pipe cleaners through the middle and curling the stem :)

I hope this encourages you to try this project.  When I first started I was worried, but after my first petal I got the hang of it pretty well!  Give it a try ;)