A Little Computer Frustration

Aaaaarghhhh!  My computer was dragging all week.  It was taking me an unbelievable amount of time just to make a comment on some one's awesome project, which made Linky Party's almost impossible. This is how I feel when my computer is sad:

(Isn't that a funny picture??...it's my grandson Jacob, and he was so unhappy that I told him "No!" when he wanted to touch an electrical outlet.*  The reason I think it's funny is that he never shed a single tear!! But, he would look at me and try to cry.  We did this like 10 times before he gave up.)

 I love linking up my projects and sharing them, but even more than that, I love seeing everyone elses stuff and visiting their blogs.  I get so much inspiration from other people out there in blog land and I love to leave them a comment and let them know!  But......when your computer is slooooooooow...it's almost impossible to enjoy the blog world.  It went into the shop and I got it back last night.  Now I'm playing catch up.  If I missed a reply or comment, I'm really sorry and I'm hoping to get back to everyone today. 
My computer seems to be better, but I'm nervous about it!!  We're about to find out as I go off to see what every one's up to today.  Maybe this afternoon I'll do another St. Patrick's Day project.  Anyway, I'm a happier girl today.  I feel like this:

Hope you find something special in your day today!

* Please don't email me and tell me I should buy those child-proof plug things.....I watch my Grandchildren like a hawk when they are over and I'm a believer in telling them "No" when they need to hear it! And just so ya know.....he never tried to touch an outlet again.  He survived that whole ordeal of sadness of Grandma telling him "No" and the above picture is him about 2 minutes later.

One Minute St. Patrick's Day Project

I'm in a hurry this morning and I want to write about my vacation in Arizona still, but I'm not ready to do it yet, so I thought I would share one of my favorite quick holiday decorations with you.

Seriously, this is a no brainer.  I have this little glass picture frame, you know, the kind where you just insert the picture, and it had been sitting around in my closet forever.  I finally used during my Valentines decorating and as I was putting it away last week, I thought maybe I could use it for St. Patrick's Day. 
I used to love those weird little gel clings. I'm kind of over it now that I have like a million of them! (But I can't throw them out because I saw something cool a lady did with a bunch of them and I really plan to try it one of these days.) In the meantime, they keep turning up every time I bring out a box of seasonal decor,so I keep using them.  All I did was stick three of those little clover gel gems onto the back of the glass frame.

It's kind of cute don't ya think?  Less than a minute really.  It took you way longer to read this than it took me to do it!
Before I sign off, I want to let you know about my friend and blogger sister, Mary's blog Sure As Eggs.  She is an awesome photographer and crafter.  Her Valentine's Day Banner just blew me away!  The photos she takes just makes me want to be there.  So please, check her blog out and show her some blog love.
Have a wonderful day!

Burlap and Clover Wreath

I made this awesome Burlap and Clover Wreath.....

....and I'm going to share how I did it on this post, but first, let me just show you this photo:

It's the 25th of February and that's my husband Sam on the tractor doing the first work of the season on our farm.  For those of you who don't know, we have a pumpkin patch and corn maze every fall.  It's a ton of fun and a lot of work.  Most people think it's pretty easy when they visit.  They have no idea the work starts in February and continues right up to opening day in September.  Here's some proof.  Sam is brush hogging last years corn stalks now that the deer have eaten all they want.  But, me?  I'm inside blogging.  Hmmmmm.
Anyway, everyone has been doing burlap projects and I found a piece of burlap in my fabric drawer.  I figured I'd better do something with it before that fad runs it's course.  So...I had this really ugly clover candle ring.  It's all glittery and I'm not a real glitter kind of girl, but a few years ago, I thought I needed something for St. Patrick's Day and I came home with this:

It was so cheesy looking and I just kind of put it away and ignored it.  Today, I spiced it up a little.  It's still glittery, but I toned it down a bit.  Here's what I did:

I found this styrofoam wreath in my  never-ending craft supply stuff.  I got out my cutting mat and wheel cutter and I cut that burlap into 1 1/2" strips.  Burlap is really messy stuff and I would advise you not to wear a black shirt when you are working with it.  I'm just sayin. 

So I wrapped those strips around the wreath and pinned them with sewing pins.  (I figured I might not want this to be a permanent project since I don't love that cheesy clover thing.)  The pins worked really well .

Now here comes the awesomeness of this project.......I figured I'd have to cut up that candle ring, but it totally slipped right into the back of the burlap covered styrofoam wreath.  Seriously, I didn't even have to fasten it in.  How lucky is that??!! 

A little ribbon at the top to hang it by and I added a little Shamrock pin at the top (something I usually wear on St. Patrick's Day so I don't get pinched) and this project is all done.

Doesn't it look all cute hanging on that little gate on my "pretend mantel" (which is really just a shelf)???  I feel all trendy now that I've done a burlap project.  If burlap is soooooo over....don't tell me for a few weeks!  And just so ya know......Sam is still on the tractor.  Enjoy your day!

Linking Up:
White Lights On Wednesday

Wee Wall Art

Well, if you know me, you know I love a wall hanging.  I just do.  I don't generally go crazy for St. Patrick's Day, but I might this year.  I have a lot of projects in mind as you can see from the looks of my craft table.

Since my favorite color is green......I seem to have a lot of supplies that would fit the theme.  I'm starting out with a this little wall hanging because I found a piece of painted molding that I just couldn't throw away.  Shock.  Seriously, I'm not a hoarder or anything, but if it looks like it could be a craft project, it goes in the craft room! Apparently, at one time, this little piece of molding looked like a project to me, so yesterday I made it into this wee little wall hanging:

Isn't that cute?  Now how could I have thrown that piece of molding away!  This was a super fast project since it was already painted.  Here's what I did:
I needed to cover the ends and I didn't want to drag all of my paint stuff out for such a small project, so I traced the end shapes on to a paint chip, cut them out and glued them on. (I know, lazy, right?!)

Then I got out some stickers, ribbon, etc., to see how I wanted to decorate it.

After messing around with it all for a few minutes I made my decisions.  I decided to use some small eye hooks for hangers because I have like a million of them!

Anyway, it all went together in less than an hour and now I have finished my first St. Patrick's Day project.  Well, that's not exactly true...I finished several of them while I was on vacation visiting a friend who also likes to craft.  But....I had to mail them all back to myself because they wouldn't fit in my carry-on. (Isn't that a good problem to have??!)  They'll be here next week and you'll be seeing those too!

Magnetic Quote Frame

So this is the last of my posts about the magnetic frames that I found in my kitchen drawer. (Well, I have one frame left, but as my cute little niece, Jessica used to say, "I'm bored of that now.")  But, before that happened I made this one: 

I made it for my sister, she's a travel agent.  I wanted something with a travel theme so I decided on a map.  Again, I used a piece of a manila folder instead of card stock.  I covered it with a few layers of blue tissue paper.  I like the ripple effect of the tissue, it reminds me of water.  Then I mounted my map on some card stock of a different shade of blue with some double stick tape.  I seriously love double stick tape, but I'm sure I've said that a hundred times!!  I found a quote I liked about travel and typed it in, printed it out and fastened it to the top of the piece.  It's a little hard to read here, but it says, "Traveling is like falling in love; the world is made anew."  She's a romantic, I know she'll love that!  She also loves a little sparkle, so I found this beaded ribbon that matched and glued it to the back with tacky glue so that just the beads hang down.
Those little frames sure gave me a lot of fun craft projects.  Maybe I should check the backs of my other drawers and see what might be hiding there!  Enjoy your day.....and oh....April....thank you again for all the wonderful places you have taken me......Hawaii was still my favorite and I'm available anytime to go again!

Monkey Bread for Two

I keep seeing recipes for Monkey Bread and Individual Monkey Bread.  They all look yummy, but for just Sam and I, a smaller recipe was needed.  So, I decided to make one. This recipe makes just 6 mini monkey breads in a muffin pan.
Here's what you need:

1 can (10 count) of buttermilk biscuits
1 C. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Cinnamon (I only use Penzeys Vietnamese Cinnamon...it's the best!)
1 Stick of butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 C. brown sugar

Here's what you do:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a muffin pan with PAM. (If you don't, you'll be sorry.)  Open the biscuits and cut them into 4 pieces each. I use scissors.

Put the sugar in a food storage bag with the cinnamon and shake it up a little.  Melt the butter in the microwave and add the brown sugar and vanilla.  Stir it until the brown sugar is dissolved and it's not separated.  (You may have to reheat it a little and stir it again right before you use it because it wants to separate.)  Put the biscuit pieces in the sugar cinnamon mixture and shake that bag up.  (I did about 6 pieces at a time.) 

You can see that I labeled my storage bag, because I always have enough leftover to make these again. Take them out of the bag and put them in the muffin pan.  Repeat until all 6 cups are full.  Pour the butter mixture over the biscuit pieces.  (You'll probably have to stir again here.) I will tell you that I only pour until they are a little less than 1/2 full, which means I save the rest. (It's just enough to do them again...put it in the fridge.)  The reason I do this is I found that if I filled them any more than  just under halfway, it made a huge mess in my oven.  (I still put a sheet of aluminum foil under my muffin pan because I can't get over that first mess!)

 Bake about 22 minutes.  Pull them out of the oven and immediately turn them out onto a platter. 

Now don't those look yummy?  Just enough for two and none leftover to tempt you tomorrow, because there is nothing healthy about these and you shouldn't have too many! (Besides, you have that sugar mixture leftover and the butter/brown sugar blend that you put in your fridge, so you can make them again next weekend.  Just get biscuits.)  Enjoy!

An Elegant Frame

I'm back with another magnetic frame project.  This one is a little more elegant looking as opposed to the more whimsical ones.  I sure am having a lot of fun with those magnetic frames I found in that drawer.  I still don't know what I bought them for originally, but I'm glad I never did anything with them...they've provided me with several fun craft projects.
Once again, I gathered up some complementary colors that went along with a taupe theme I had in mind.

I had this leftover scrap of beautiful taupe wrapping paper from forever ago and this seemed like the perfect use for a small piece.  I cut it to fit inside the frame of this magnetic photo holder.  I had some taupe ribbon, a taupe button and this little metal leaf that was tied around a candle someone gave me once. (I can never throw away anything that I think I might use for a craft later!)  And, of course, I had to drag out a few sparkles.  Because I knew I would be fastening metal to plastic, I got out my E-6000 adhesive.
Now, it's just a matter of playing around with it all to see how it looks best.  I probably spent more time on the bow than anything.  I have a folder full of bow tutorials I'd clipped from various magazines over the years and I love trying different ones out.  Once I was happy with everything, I attached it all to the frame.

It's really hard to get a picture of crafts with shiny surfaces.  If anyone knows a trick to it, I'm happy to hear it!  I put a  wallet size picture of one of my grandsons in just so you could see what it looks like with a photo in it.

 I was really happy with how elegant a $1.00 photo frame could turn out using just stuff I already had in my craft room.  I hope you like it too.
I'm linking this project up here:
a href="http://randeesorganizedchaos.blogspot.com">
Check out Randee's Organized Chaos!

Check out this very cool blog hop:

A Few Gifts From My Friend Kim

This is my good friend Kim:

I've told you about her before here in my story In Awe of a Friend.  She's still awesome.  I have a hunch she always has been.  Anyway, she stopped by one day a couple of weeks ago and brought me a couple of things.  She brought me this:

It's a huge roll of twisted craft paper!  She got it for a song at an auction or a junk shop.  She finds the most interesting things! She thought it just screamed "FALL" and because she knows I have a Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze, she gave it to me.  I can think of about a million things I'm going to do with that stuff and I can hardly wait until it gets closer to fall.  For one thing, I think it will make some awesome fall wreaths.  I'm pretty sure it will be cool as scarecrow hair too.  I love it!  If you have any other cool ideas for it, please let me know.  I'm sure you'll be seeing some of it in upcoming blog crafts.

The other thing she brought me was this shabby shelf:

I think it must have been an old dresser. But the drawers are long gone and its upside down in this picture.  I cleaned it up and had my husband put some wheels on the bottom of it and that's all I've done to it right now.  It's sitting in my laundry area where I can see it, so I can figure out just exactly how I'm going to transform it.  I'm thinking I'll start with some paint!!  I'm a lover of all things green so it will probably be green.  The shabby look is not so great in my farm style house, but I am thinking of breaking out of my comfort zone and doing something really whimsical like putting polka dots on it or maybe a stencil or some decoupaged birds!  I'm open to suggestions on this project too!  Like the bale of twisted craft paper, you'll be seeing this again soon! (I'm waiting for a little better weather so I can paint it outside.)

Don't you wish Kim was your friend?  She has some amazing stuff at Junk N Pretties.  You can find it on facebook.  I love her enthusiasm.  She inspires me on a regular basis.

7 Steps to Forgiveness

This is a copy of something I found several years ago that I thought was worth saving, and now I think it's worth sharing.  I don't remember what magazine it came from and if anyone does, let me know and I'll be happy to give credit where credit is due.  I'm just sayin the credit is not due me! (Sorry for the roughness here but it's old and it's been taped together.)
Forgiveness is not easy.  It's one of the hardest things to do in my book, I don't know why.  I remember at a family get together a while back we had quite a discussion on the "Forgive and Forget" saying and whether it could actually be done.  I'm undecided on that myself.  I certainly believe in forgiveness, I'm just not so sure you can always forget.  I'm not sure in some cases that you should forget.  Anyway, here are some very sensible steps to forgiveness if you're interested and immediately following this article is another one worth reading if you happen to be the one that needs to be forgiven.  Good heavens, I know I've been there and it's the hardest thing to admit.

Wasn't that interesting?  Now....here's some news you can use if you are on the other end of the stick:

I wish I could tell you that I haven't had to read this over and over, but that would be a lie, I'm human.  I wish I could tell you that I always use the above information every time I'm the bad guy, but that would be a lie too.  But, I'm getting better at all of it!  Hope you find something useful here.

Wicked Good Devilled Eggs

I'm a fan of devilled eggs.  I like them to taste good and look good.  Here is one of my favorite recipes for devilled eggs.

Start with some hard boiled eggs. I love my weird red egg thing that goes in the pan before you boil the eggs.  It tells you when the eggs are done in the middle. I got it at one of those kitchen stores.  It's reliable.  I learned a trick about peeling hard boiled eggs.  If you crack one end of them (just rap it on the side of the sink) before you run cold water over them, it releases that membrane that really wants to stick to your eggs, making them hard to peel.  I usually peel them under cold running water as well.  Seems to work. 

Here's the thing about the filling in devilled eggs; you don't want it to be lumpy.  They're just never gonna be pretty that way.  Here's what I do......I smash them through a small sieve with a fork or the back of a spoon.  Takes about 2 minutes and makes a huge difference in the outcome.

 

They turn out all powdery and fine like this picture on the right here.  Makes your filling all smooth and not lumpy.  I'm all for pretty eggs.

Now I add some mayo, mustard, a little horseradish (for zing) and get this.......about a tablespoon of sugar.  The sugar can be left out if you are so inclined, but it goes great with the zing of the horseradish and the bite of the mustard. 

I never measure the rest of the stuff, it's just to taste and consistency.  You don't want them too runny because you are going to pipe that filling into the eggs. (We're going for pretty and tasty, right?) 

I got my cake decorating kit at a dollar bin in the grocery store a hundred years ago.  The bag has long since torn and gone into the trash, but the tips are still good.  I just use a plastic food bag and I can throw it away when I'm done.  I like the wider tip for this filling.

Cut a corner in your plastic bag just big enough for the tip to fit into. I also like to stick the bag (with tip inserted) into a glass before filling.  Just makes it easier and keeps all the stuff from running out the tip end.

Pipe the filling in kind of a circular motion into the egg.  If you want to, you can sprinkle something on top of the finished eggs.  I like chives, but I have been know to put crumbled bacon on them too.  Today it's just chives, and I wish I had fresh ones, but it's winter in Missouri.  Now, aren't these pretty?  They're wicked good too! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

"ALL, EVERYTHING THAT I UNDERSTAND, I UNDERSTAND ONLY BECAUSE I LOVE."

- Leo Tolstoy

Isn't that a beautiful quote for this special day?

Here are a few Valentine's Day facts to ponder:

"Wearing your heart on your sleeve" is more than just a phrase.  In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names to see who their Valentine would be.  They would wear the name pinned to their sleeve for one week so that everyone would know their supposed true feelings.

True love is apparently not that hard to find.  Over two million marriages take place in the United States every year.  That means there are more than 6,000 a day!

It's not the most popular holiday for greeting cards.  According to the Greeting Card Association, 190 million Valentine's Day cards are exchanged annually, making Valentine's Day the second most popular greeting card-giving occasion, after Christmas.

 So there ya go!  Now, since it is finally Valentine's Day, I'm doing a wrap-up of all of my Valentines crafts and a few recipes that I made in preparation for the arrival of February 14th.

 

I made this fun bracelet. 

I made this Valentine frame  project that was my first "feature".

I made this Pearled Heart wall hanging that was featured more than once!

I made this Map Art Wall Hanging.  My first "Map" project.

I made this Western Wall Hanging with some leather out of my son's first cowboy boots.

I got hungry and made this Sweet Valentine Party Mix 

I was inspired by a kid project and made this Valentine Votive Holder 

I got bored one day and did a Candle Makeover with pretty beads and pearls.

I had some fun making these cute Matchbox Candy Holders .

 I had a most enjoyable afternoon making different kinds of Valentine Containers to put treats in. 

 

That was a really fun and relaxing day!

I spent one really pleasant morning just decorating my house for Valentines Day.

Well, that's my Valentine's Day wrap-up and I sure had a lot of fun and I may have had my fill of red and pink for a while!

Until next year.....