Pinterest Inspired Fancy Envelopes

I pinned this project, knowing I had lots of scrap paper and maps and sheet music which would be perfect for these cute envelopes.

I love the map envelopes!

My loyal assistant helped of course…can’t do much without Frosty close!

The original post is here at The Creative Place.  I used her template and enlarged it so I had several sizes, I glued the paper template to an old atlas cover so it is easy to trace around.  And then I even got more creative and added some embellishments to the envelopes.

The petals/leaves were left over from this project, so I have quite a few of them!

I am linking to these great parties!

I saw, I pinned, I made!

I saw this on Pinterest and just had to pin it!  I needed a little something for a gift, so I thought I would give the pattern a shot. 

The pattern is adapted from an 1893 circle motif pattern.  Very simple!  I did make some adjustments to the pattern of course…the middle one is exactly the same as the directions. 

On the littlest one I only did three rows, on the largest one I added a row to the pattern.

The yarn I used was Cream and Sugar cotton yarn….it is actually a pretty purple color. Not sure what was going on with the camera and/or lighting, but they are definitely not blue!

Another successful Pinterest project!!

I am linking to these great parties!

Flower Wall Art

I have been having physical therapy for tendonitis in my shoulder…last week my therapist was talking about a craft party she had been to and she showed me a really cute wall hanging that one of her friends made. I hadn’t seen this project before, but I found this on Pinterest which led me here and I made my own version!

I added lots of shades of blues, some green and a splash of pink all on a brown background. I used scrapbook paper, but I think it would look great too with fabric (great destashing project!).   I tried to Mod Podge the petals onto the canvas but it didn’t stick too well, so I used craft glue.  I did use the Mod Podge to coat it all when I was done...there were spots of craft glue which were obvious.

Anyway, I only have one problem now…where to hang it!

I am linking to these great parties!

Microwave Caramels

I tried another of my Pinterest pins this weekend and it was a big hit!

Microwave caramels…who would have thunk you could make something this scrumptious in the microwave???

I made two batches…the first was rock hard and could not be chewed or cut with any knife I had in my kitchen…I didn’t want to get the chain saw out, so I ended up tossing it into the trash!  I couldn’t even melt it!

I scooped the caramel out with a melon baller before it set up.  And these caramels also boiled over in the microwave and created a ginormous mess, but yet they turned out perfect!  And the taste is so smooth and wonderful!

Click on the picture to get the Jenn’s recipe on Eat Cake for Dinner!

I am linking to these great parties!

Randomness

Aren’t these owl zip cases so cute?  Sarah sent them in this month’s “present box”. Love them, I had seen some others she had made and admired them avidly…perhaps that is where she got the idea that I wanted some like this!

Today is my son’s 18th birthday!  I can’t believe he is now officially an adult!  He is planning to go to Mizzou to school this fall…I am so proud of him.  Boy they sure do grow up fast!  Just yesterday he was a baby…and in a few months he will be graduating from high school!

This is my first and only attempt at upholstering…I am getting rid of this chair and I am totally done with it!  Definitely a FAIL!!!  Things just didn’t go very well and truthfully I don’t even like the chair anymore!

I am so pleased with how many hits my blog is getting these days…seems to be Pinterest related, although I am not entirely sure.  Let’s get a close-up of those numbers!  Yesterday was a record number of daily pageviews, today beat that number by 500+ more!  I am OK with that!  (Screenshots taken on my new iPhone 4—it really does so much more than old iPhone 3!)

Tomorrow morning I get my stitches taken out from my shoulder surgery…they have been there for 11 days and are driving me crazy!  I had surgery because I had 3 tears in my rotator cuff, but the good news was that they didn’t have to do the big surgery to repair it, just some smaller cleaning up of scar tissue, so recovery time is limited!  So tomorrow I get to go back to work!  Yay, that’s great because I do love my job!

Just one more tidbit…in addition to a new phone, last week I got new glasses!  The old ones were five years old at least and oh yeah, I couldn’t see out of them!!  So here are a very bad few pics of my new glasses…I got two pair since the second pair was only $60 more…good to have a spare pair in case a pair breaks!  I love them both, they are both retro looking…

Have a great week, everybody!  I plan to!

Pinterest-inspired Toffee

My take on the cracker toffee bars

I layered butterscotch chips and milk chocolate chips onto a bottom layer of Club Crackers, then covered it all with caramel sauce.  I repeated the process with another layer of crackers, chips, and caramel, then topped it with chocolate chips.  I popped it in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes until the caramel bubbled and the chocolate chips on top melted. 

I must say it is pretty tasty!  Now I am off to clean the oven—the caramel bubbled over in the bottom of the oven!  Lovely!

I am linking to these great parties!

Crazy about Cloches (aka Bell Jars)

I just love cloches…when my mom was at my home over Christmas, she got tired of me talking about cloches…she calls them bell jars.  I was so excited when I made my first cloche.

I found all these cloches in one antique mall today here in Columbia. 

Lots of different shapes and sizes!  I now have five cloches, Sarah gave me this one…I paired it with a white ironstone footed dessert plate. 

It has been fun to create little vignettes to go under the cloches.

I crocheted a tiny birds nest to go with some sea shells…

This cloche without a knob on top was $3 at the Goodwill store.  It came over an atrocious wind up plastic clock, but the cloche is glass.  I re-donated the clock! :)

This little guy is a votive holder upside down.  I glued on an interesting pinkish glass knob from Hobby Lobby ($1 on sale and some more off because it was broken--there was no screw to attach it to a drawer). 

So, this is what I have done today…played with cloches!

I even have a Pinterest board that is full of cloches!

This little dude is now sitting on my kitchen window sill…love it there. 

I am linking to these wonderful parties!