Happy Valentines Day...from the burn ward...

ok so I'm not really IN the burn ward, I just feel like it. Today is a Tuesday. Just another day before a big test for my hubby so that means after a full day at school, he has to come home and study too. We weren't doing anything fancy for dinner and in fact now are probably eating out bc I don't trust the stove anymore.

I figured I'd make a sweet treat for desert tonight and thought these Rice Krispie Treats were easy enough. (Meanwhile, I have made her cupcakes with NO problems; they are awesome and easy!)

WRONG-O!

While attempting to melt the marshmallows, I made the caramel for the ganache. THAT came out fine. (go figure) but as Im whisking it together, I set the pot down and the stupid whisk flips out of the caramel, splashing scalding hot caramel on my fingers.

Super*

*(small font = sarcasm) 

Luckily it hardened instantly so I could pick it right off, and I ran my hand under cool water. I knew I had some burn cream so I ran to the bathroom cabinet and applied that. This isn't my first rodeo. I knew not to use butter or oil. (Does anyone still think thats a good idea?)

Meanwhile the marshmallows continue to NOT melt. What the heck are these things made of?!?! And eww, do I want to eat them now knowing they won't melt???

So I pull the burnt marshmallows off the stove and use Siri to text my neighbors who (thankgod) were home and who's husband is a Physical Therapist so he brought over his med kit and patched me up. I had the supplies, its just really hard to do one handed!!!

So after I'm all mummified, I thought I'd bypass the stove and just melt the marshmallows in a microwave safe bowl.

WRONG-O!

(Seriously?!?! What are these things made from!?!?!?)

I 'nuke them on defrost about 2 minutes at a time so they wouldn't burn. (*snort*) THIS is what I end up with at the end of this attempt:

TWO burnt piles of Marshmallows. At this point, the remainders are all going in the garbage. I don't know what kind of post-apocolyptic food they think they are but EWW!

Here's my yummy caramel and my sad hand together again:

But on the upside to today...my granola came out PERFECT!!! (I was low on honey so I added syrup!- YUM!) I also crushed up some cocoa almonds and sprinkled in it. Can't wait to have my yogurt tomorrow morning with homemade granola!

Pinterest strikes again!

 I

SO I've become royally addicted to Pinterest. (if you're not on yet, GET THERE ASAP!)

And here are a few of my latest creations inspired by things I've found on Pinterest.

This is still a work in progress for me. I haven't sewn it down yet bc I haven't committed to the tie color so much. Here was the Pin-spiration.

I loooove my little wreath! I'll have to update the photo though, I have added a BAT to the top and a black tulle hanger. It's a little small for the front door so it's hanging on the laundry room door now. Here is it's Pin-spiration.













I am also super proud of this painting. Mostly because I think thats the neatest my handwriting has ever been! haha And here is the Pin-spiration.

 These are the YUMMIEST cupcakes!!! I have never made "real cupcakes" (read: not from a box of cupcake mix) and these turned out P.E.R.F.E.C.T!  I even pipped in the ganache and made my own icing. They were easy even for a 1st timer like myself! HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE IMMEDIATELY!!! These came from Your Cup of Cakes and her blog instructions are awesome. GO. MAKE. THESE. NOW!

 These are just the cutest :) I have been collecting my wine corks for the longest time but I just don't drink a lot of wine, as I am the only one who drinks it in my house. Luckily, I had a friend bring me a GALLON zipplock baggie of corks! Sweeeeeeet! So with a few jewlery pieces and some ingenuity, I have made Wine Cork Key Chains. Here is the orgininal blog they came from.

 And ooooooh boy...I'm getting carried away with THESE bad boys!!! The idea is simple and now I'm making "adjustments" and "upgrades" to the original idea :) But I've found another blog that has great tips which I will use for my next batch. These are kinda wide at the opening so I made sure to include ribbon to tie them with.

 A little bit of spray painted gold lace (which stiffens lace very nicely!), trimmed and hot glued.

A bit of vintage lace with MOD PODGE (ps this links to MAKE YOUR OWN!!!)










WHEW! Okay  I think that's all for now...there's SO much more I need to post so I can include these on the "Pinspirations" board on my Pinterest account but...for now this will do :-)

HAPPY PINNING!

Pinterest inspirations

Unlike this photo, I can finally say I've created some things that have been Pinterest inspired!

The melted crayons turned out pretty neat. I used some old cheap-o's that I had, which (the ones on the left) turned out cool ... however the "randomly glued w/glue gun" one's on the right...well they promptly melted right off into a mess! lol But I still kinda like it! I did buy some Crayola's with all the Back to School sales so I'll try it again, on a large canvas with the heat gun next time. These were melted in the oven, at around 250 I think, for around 5 minutes. Here is the blog where I found out that I could do this in the oven! (ps I really like her style!)

Here's what else I've been up to. We've had a fish photo in the bathroom for awhile now, a fave of mine and hubby's, and short of turning it into wallpaper, I didn't know how to make it into the design I wanted. Then I found THIS blog idea from a nursery design. It TOTALLY fit what I wanted to do in the guest bathroom. Annnnnnnnnnnd ... It was A LOT easier than repainting the whole stupid room!!! And, my inspirational photo is almost identical to hers!

Then came my framed mirror design...great way to cover up the ugly builders mirror that came with the house!

Well, i'd love to upload more photos to show you but apparently I've angered the Blog-Gods, bc I can't get another thing to load! Ah well, I'll give it a break for now and post more later!

Bargains galore!

Just a few snapshots of some of my recent "steals!"

Ugly mirrors after a quick spritz of silver spray paint!

$1 each ugly gold mirrors at "Quirky Things" in Ocala

Some one wanted in a photo!

I think I spent a total of like $8 here. Again, stuff from Quirky Things.

I love my ancient tape measure! its actually CLOTH!!!

bc you can never have too many googly eyes

For my place mat purse thats now almost complete thanks to these pieces:)

mmm threads! makes me happy :)

close up of my spice rack (before the spray paint attacked it). will be using this for glitter.

my deals of today!

someone sneaking into the photo again...

picture frame: $.25, same for the tray
$1 oops paint at lowes for my chalk board paint, brackets for my valance that hubby will HOPEFULLY measure for me soon!
the candle holder was $.50

books ($2 ea) are for the "side tables" in the guest room (as soon as the bed gets here I can install them!)
the silver plate was $.25! and so were each of the glass candle holders
the flower pots were on sale at Lowes for $1.39 ea

FREE PALLET at lowes.brackets were a couple bucks each and the plant is for the new neighbors.

All in all I spent $2 at the thrift store and like $28 at Lowes, but thats because I had to get a new florescent bulb for the pantry and that thing was not cheap! I'll be posting some more this week of finished projects as they come up :)

My art studio

Oh my art studio...my lovely lovely art studio!

I am so happy to have finished it...er...well, "finished" is a relative term! I have a feeling it will always be a work in progress, especially since I still don't have a table/chair to actually craft at, hence the sore knees from all the kneeling and sitting on the floor to glue/sew/paint etc. But it is finished for now and I am SO PROUD of it!!!

OH and before you see the product...here are a few INJURIES I incurred while making this happen! ENJOY!

umm...this is a wear mark through my skin while trying to scrub off the white KILZ paint

This would be where I slipped with the flat head screw driver while trying to pry furniture staples out of my footstool to recover it...it could have been MUCH worse but I reacted quickly and moved my leg before I stabbed myself viciously.

yea I am not sure where that bruise came from. I just found it while researching my body to take these photos.

there's a red spot in my head there where I hit my head on the bracket arm holding my IKEA shelves on the wall. I leaned down to the side of it, and just misjudged the distance. *bending over FAIL*

LOL so now that you've seen some of the injuries I suffered for my art, here is some more about why I chose what I chose.

My inspiration came from a few sources:
1) I knew I wanted to do a blue/turquoise/sea green-ish color, as if that room is EVER a nursery (I'm not holding my breath anymore), then I wanted a color that would translate to the "Ocean Wonder" theme I want to do in there.
2) After seeing Design Star's second episode and the "white box challenge" done by contestant Leslie. I fell in love with her word wall and immediately set out to make a list of words for myself.
3) And finally I thought that with all the light colored (ie: industrial white) furniture I had to use for my craft organization stuff, I wanted to do all white furniture.

So here are some picts of a few pieces I've got in the room...then I'll show ya the picts of the room itself.

an old frame painted KILZ white, to display my ATC's

a once ugly bronze footstool lost the battle against the $.92 can of spray paint from Walmart! (material from Joanns)

 

 

So to actually write words on my wall I measured, left a little space and drew lines with chalk. I had better photos of each step in the process, but every time I tried to rotate them on my computer, it would eat the photo. Its disappeared into never never computer land so, here's all that's left!

My lines were approximately 6" apart. I have 9'4" walls so I had a HUGE canvas to work with.

Then, using a small can of black paint from Lowes, I started writing words and phrases, lyrics, names and dates that meant something to me. My favorite lyric starts it off, then there's my birthday and from there I just went in whatever felt right to go next. I did decide to put a . in between phrases/words so you would know when one lyric ended and a single word picked up next.

I am BEYOND happy with the result. Its not as loose as Leslie's was on DS, but that's okay. Its very ME!

I have more furniture in there now, and more things on the walls so I'll be taking photos of those soon to post too. Stay tuned and watch for more installments of "As the Art Studio Congeals"! haha (Oh "As the World Turns" how I miss you!)

ATC display frame

Ive been a member of Milliande's art community for a couple years now and I love it! I found it while on a hunt for a painting "how to" and got stuck! My favorite thing there are the ATC swaps. ATC's are Artist Trading Cards. They are 2.5"x3" and I tend to use playing cards as my base for my cards, since I have like 11 decks of cards laying around that no one plays with.

I've hosted a few swaps and participated in even more. Problem is now I have all these ATC's laying around that I LOVE looking at, but no where to display them.

Cue old frame from the yard sale pile. Getting it a date with white paint was easy (I used Kilz primer paint) and then I dug around in the sacred tool box in the garage until I found the picture hanger wire. A few minutes later and after an attack with my new staple gun (electric...omg I love it!) I had a place to hang a few of my fave cards! I'll be making more with some other frames I rescued from the yard sale pile too, and then coming up with some other way to display the rest. I love it. Hope you do too!

Flash Bounce Tool Review

http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/pop-up-flash-bounce/

Now, I love PhotoJoJo with a passion rivaled only to my love of my Canon T1i. It's become my go-to place for all birthday/holiday/just because and I have a few extra dollars this month that I want to spend, place to shop. However I have to say that I wasn't all too thrilled with the Pop Up Flash Bounce tool I just bought. It's en-route to PhotoJoJo now for return so I will let you know how that goes, but as for the actual tool, here are some of the photos.

These would have been great shots that Mom would have loved but the flash bounce was essentially just covering the flash. I was in mid shoot so I didn't have a lot of time to go back on PhotoJoJo's website and read the Setting Tips, which may have helped but while doing an indoor shoot with no external lighting, and of an energetic ten-month old to boot, I didn't have a lot of time to mess with settings. I was disappointed in their turn out, but was able to get some great shots outdoors later on and a few worthwhile ones inside as well, thanks to a large glass door that let in lots of light.

Anyway, thats just my 2cents, and opinion. Thought someone should have a review of it before they buy it themselves. Can't wait to start getting my studio lighting so I won't have to worry about this anymore!