Unintended Hiatus?

I slacked off over the last few months. There are things on the way, though.

Music to slack off to: Mesita – The Coyote

Sew Crafty: Holiday Bunting

A few months ago I came across this bunting tutorial on Youtube:

And decided that this month was the perfect time to try it myself.

I found some sample sizes of 4 different wintery materials and decided to use a bone colored fabric for the back and a natural ribbon instead of the white tape suggested by Hannah.

I may have taken me over a week to do this, but I had problems sitting at my sewing machine for more than 30 minutes at a time. It's a fairly easy craft, but somewhat time consuming. At least, for me.

Happy Holidays!

Music to craft to: My Christmas Favorites

Random Recipe: Semi-homemade Soup

It's the time of year when everyone shows up to work with the sniffles. Kids come to class to share their colds. We all need relief.
And chicken noodle soup is here to help. This is a recipe I got from my grandma, who got it from someone else in the grand tradition of recipe sharing. So, now I share it with you. It's a chicken noodle soup that is, for the most part, made entirely by you. There's just a little help from Mrs. Grass.

Grandma's Chicken Noodle Soup
1 package Mrs. Grass homestyle chicken noodle soup mix
1 chicken, whole
5 cups water
1 cup white wine
8 oz. Velveeta
curry powder, to taste

Skin and trim the fat on the chicken. Tuck the wings under and place breast down in a large pot. Pour in the soup mix, water, and wine. Bring to a boil then let simmer for an hour or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked.
Remove chicken and cut meat into small pieces. Put chicken, Velveeta, and curry powder in the broth and stir.

That's all!

This is great to make for a big group of friends or a good week's worth of lunches! And remember- don't be as impatient as I tend to be. Let the chicken cool before carving it up.

Music to cook by- The Lumineers – The Lumineers

A Warm Welcome- Salt Dough Tiles

After finally taking down my Halloween wreath, my bare door screamed for adornment. I decided to forgo another wreath until December so after pulling out the salt and AP flour, I made tiles out of salt dough.

I used the recipe from Allrecipes.com:
4 cups AP flour
1 cup Salt
1.5 cups warm water

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Mix flour and salt well. Gradually add water, stirring with a large spoon. Finish mixing with hands. Knead until soft and pliable.
3. Roll out on floured surface about 1/8 inch thick. Cut shapes with cookie cutters. Place on cookie sheets.

And that was where I stopped following directions. Instead of poking holes, I stuck paperclips into opposing sides. The instructions say to make these around an hour, but I started them at 200 degrees for an hour and then bumped up the heat to keep them from getting too puffy. Overall, I ended up baking them around 2 hours. Suffice it to say, one side of the tiles got a bit brown, but I actually love that look. That's why I chose the brown side for the lettering (that's not brown paint!). Letters where hand written with pencil and painted over with acrylic. Tiles were attached with small loops of twine and red ribbon is at the top.
You may be looking at this lovely decor and thinking "That's awfully long. It has to swing all over the place." You'd be right. For the first half hour, it did. After that I grabbed 2 small picture nails and tacked them above the C and last E and now the swinging and non-existent.

Music to craft to- Tristan Prettyman radio

My sincerest...

Apology. I'm sorry for the lack of anything here. My laptop has decided it doesn't need to utilize its screen to function, which has left me in an unappreciative and laptop-less position. I'm currently using the work computer, which means I don't have the files I need (currently on my personal computer). So, please accept this instragram-ed picture of the jack-o-lantern I carved this past Saturday.

No Spotify playlist this week... but how about the Sleepy Hallow Soundtrack for "Music to Craft to"?

Thrifty Halloween: Black and Orange Wreath

With the majority of my Autumn and Halloween decorations in storage at my parents' house right now, I decided I needed a way to start decorating- on the cheap. I found a plastic black and orange striped table cloth at Target for $3 (and ultimately used one and 1/5ish) and an old wire hanger in the deepest depths of my closet. After a few hours of tying strips to the now circular hanger, I had the wreath. Then, after a few days of looking at the plain wreath, I decided to add a jack-o-lantern, which I made with a scrap of orange craft foam and Martha Stewart glitter in the color "Fire Opal".

Happy Hallowen!

Music to craft to- Spooky

From the Vault: Tissue Paper Stained Glass

A few years ago I decided to make my own window treatments. I lieu of the usual curtains or blinds, I utilized a technique I worked on for a sculpture a few years prior- a stained glass effect made by layering different colors of tissue paper. To be honest, it took a while. But, unlike now, I had the NHL to keep me entertained while I was working.

When I was working on this I had no intentions of ever posting it to a blog so there are no pictures of early steps. But, trust me, there's some prep work that should not be skipped. Make sure the window are measured and that your sketches are the right proportion. I happened to have large rolls of thick paper, so I used those to created a full scale drawing that would help me keep pieces organized and provide something for me to trace if I had a tricky shape to do. When it was all over, I had these:

Taken from outside

Not too shabby, right? Here's the nitty gritty on how to do it.
You'll need: several sheets of tissue paper in the color families you intend to use
Mod Podge ( I went through about 3 or 4 large jars)
Parchment paper
Scissors
Black electrical tape
**I worked on cookie sheets so I could move them to different locations for working or drying**

For the color sheets, tear tissue paper into smaller square-ish shapes, a few inches in size, and tack them to the parchment paper with the Mod Podge. After a layer of color I coated the whole thing with Mod Podge and then added another layer. I didn't stick with a single shade- when I made green "stained glass" I used every shade of green that came in the pack. I was also fairly haphazard with the layering so that I wouldn't end up a grid look. After I finished around 4 layers of tissue paper, generously coated with Mod Podge, I set the cookie sheet aside for a few hours of drying. Once dry, it's fairly easy to peel the color sheet off the parchment, though a few rogue squares may need to be reattached.

Using the full scale drawing as a guide, I cut the various colors into the correct shapes and then set them on the drawing... mostly so I could see what the picture was looking like as I made progress. The "lead" in the project is black electrical tape. Easy to find and fairly cheap, it also happens to be pretty flexible, so I could use it in curves without much hassle. It's important to remember, though, to do both sides of the design with tape. This is what it all looked like complete-

(I attached these to my windows with magnets because the muntins are made of metal)

Music to craft to- Of Monsters And Men – My Head Is An Animal