I have 5 graduations coming up this year. I wanted to make some cards for them, rather than spend so much money on something the Grad will take a glance at then throw away. I looked at different web sites to see what I would like to make. I found one that looked quick and easy to make. I didn’t want to spend to much time making them either. I quit for the night and then when I came back the next day, I couldn’t find the site. So I remembered some of the saying and what the card looked like. I looked up the saying and found it was from Ralph Waldo Emerson. I remembered that there were stars across the card with a grad. cap and diploma also on it. So I did what looked right. I used my cricut machine to cut out the cap, tassel, diploma and the star. Then I used a star punch to make the strip across it. I also used the cricut to cut out WAY TO GO and another star to put inside. If I could find the site, I would give credit to the original maker but I”m sorry I looked and cann’t find it. Here is the one I made. I used the school colors on 2 of them but not sure of the colors of the other schools. I used black on those cards.
I have been making some of the ruffle scarves that are in fashion now. I got started because I ws looking at a scarf of a friends at churh. She said that she wanted another one in a different color. She knew that I crafted so she asked if I would make her one. A few days before that another friend had asked me to stop by and show her how to make one , she had gone to a class but was still confused. I looked on youtube to see what I could find out. I found several videos on the subject. I liked the one to crochet a ruffle scarf. I have made several since and sold them to friends but I have more so I am putting them on my etsy site. etsy.
sew57sew. or see the side bar for a direct link.
I need to make a mouse puppet for my preschool class. I looked online for a free pattern. I didn’t find what I wanted but I got some ideas on how to make one.
Y0u need a 1/3 of a yard of fleece. That will make two. Cut the fleece into 10″ by 12″. Fold in half lenghtwise so you have a 5″ by 12″ piece. Mark a dot 4″ from one short end on the open side. Mark a line one half inch from the same short end on the fold. Draw a line from the two dots. This will be your stitching line. . Sew along the bottom edge 1/2 ” in and then sew on the diagonal line.Trim the seam. Turn right side out and Add some ears by cutting 4 ovals about 3″ long. Trim the bottom of the oval so it is flat. Sew and turn right side out. Hand sew to the top where you think the ears should go. For the eyes, you can hand sew on some felt ovals or if the child is older you could glue on wiggle eyes.
Short grain Arborio Rice is needed for the texture and taste of this recipe
2/3 cup of Italian Arboria Rice
4 cups milk
4 Tablespoons of butter
optional is sweetener and cinnamon
Pour the rice milk and butter into the crock pot turn on to low and check after 4 hours. It should be thicken but not stiff. It will finish thickening as it cools. Add cinnamon and sweetener to taste. Serve hot or cold. Refrigerate leftovers.
I finished my zoo album. I will tell you how I made a few of the pages in this post. My then 9 month old grandson was facinated with the animals in the Children’s Petting Zoo at Brookfield Zoo near Chicago. I had to include that in my album. I included pictures of all 4 of my grandchildren acting silly with the picture props that the zoo provides.
As I stated in the previous post, I gathered zoo colored and themed paper to make this album.
On this first page, I used a cream colored background, then added a rusty colored ( like the horse’s mane) on the sides. I rough torn it about 2 inches. I made 1 -1/4 and 1-1/2 circles using a burnt orange and golden color( like the goat fur) inner circle to journal on. The lower picture in mounted on the burnt orange paper as it blended into the other photo.Very simple.
The next page was made using a green turtle shell like paper for the back ground and an brown striped 6 x 6 from the Bo Bunny collection. I turned the brown striped paper so that the points would be sticking off the page. I added the photo and a gorilla made from the Noahs ABC Animals Cricut cartridge and the words GRR.
The 3rd page was my granddaughter’s idea. We had brought along trail mix to snack on. It had raisins in it. Alexis grabbed a raisin and got up on the frog and said “Grandma , get a picture of this”. We also saw a board (where you put head in the hole) with a frog on it. We did the same thing there. For the background, I used a beige( to match the frog’s belly) with lt. brown dots on it and then a cream color 6 x 6 with ferns on it. I turned the 6 x 6 paper so that it would match up with the paper from page 2. This will make the paper sturdier. Added the pictures and a tiny frog in the corner and done. I went back later and decided to add the words from the book “Five Green and Speckled Frogs Sitting on A Log”.
More in a later post.
My current
scrapbooking project is making a mini album about our zoo trip. My daughter had bought the Zoo Family Pass last year. We wanted to go again before it expired. The Family Pass is a great saving for families plus it helps support the Zoo.
I have been very busy so I only have the front cover done so far. I have hemmed 11 pairs of pants, wrote and got ready the lesson plans for preschool . It was my turn this week. That takes at least 6 hours to do plus work full time. Made 8 toddler bibs and made time to take the oldest granddaughter swimming and to an outdoor amusement park. For the lesson plans, I use my cricut to make some of the projects. I’ll have to write a post about those.
On to what I have done so far, on the zoo album. I decide which pictures I wanted to use (that was hard as I was only going to make an 8 page album). I may make it bigger. I am making this for the two families and one for myself so I am making 3. I am using 6 x 9 envelopes for the foundation paper. I gathered all the patterned paper ( animal themed) that I have collected over the years. I had a package of Provo Craft 6 x 12 animal themed pages. I had some 6 x 6 Bobunny Zoology collection and few 12 x 12 pieces from the same collection. I also bought a pack of 12 x 12 Safari paper from The Paper Studio. This collection is in the beige and brown family.
I chose the papers that I wanted to use for the backgrounds. I cut the papers for backgrounds 6 x 9 and ran them through
my 9″ Xyron adhesive machine. I then glued one paper to each side of the envelope. I used the Cricut cartridge Noah’s ark to cut out the letters for Zoo Trip. I cut them in a 2 ” size.using some of the animal print paper. I used different paper for each of the letters. Since I was making 3, I cut 3 random letters in each paper and then I mixed them up. If you are making just one you could cut the Z and then the I out of the same, so you would have to change the paper so many times. I ran them through a smaller adhesive machine then I glue them(in a angled pattern) on a 2 1/2″ x 6″ piece of paper, on which I used a zigzag edging scissors. I then ran that strip through the adhesive machine and glued it to the background at angles. For the edge, where the holes will be punched, I glued a 1 x 5 ” piece . It is also zigzagged around the edges. I plan on using several ribbons to hold this together when I am done. I added a penguin cut from the same Cricut cartridge. The penguin was cut at 2 1/2 “. I also have made several more animals for use on later pages. I have made sure everything is glued down securely as preschool children will be looking at it.
I needed a evening bag to take to a wedding but didn’t want to spend a lot of money or time making one. I came up with this idea. You will need a 1/4 of a yard of your outside fabric, I used satin that I found in the remnants bin at Joann Fabrics. I had a piece of the lining at home so I didn’t have to buy that. You can choose any color for the lining as you will be tha only one to see it. You also need a 12″ zipper in the color you want. I always prewash my fabrics but it is up to you.
1/4 yd. satin
1/4 yard lining fabric
12″ zipper
1. Square up your satin fabric into 9″ x 45″ piece. Cut into 2 9″x 22″ pieces
2. Cut your lining into 2- 10″ x 10″ piece
4. Sew gathering stitches on both pieces of the satin at 1/2″ from top and bottom edges and at 2 and 1/2 and at 5 and a half. Gather these stitches down to 10″ and lay Right Side UP on top of the wrong side of the lining fabric. Adjust the gathers to fit lining. Serge or sew with a wide zig-zag stitch around the edges. Then sew a straight stitch or if you like a decorative stitch across the two gathering stitches in the middle. Remove the gathering stitches if they show( mine didn’t so I left them.)
5. Put the zipper in across the 2 tops of the purse. (If you need help putting in a zipper you can goggle it)
6. Sew the 3 sides closed. Leave the zipper open a little when you do this, so you can open the purse to turn right side out.
7.Turn the purse right side out. Add a ribbon into the zipper pull tab for a handle and you are done.
It took me more time to right out these directions than it did to make the purse so you can see how quick and easy it is.
We live in the country and have quite a few fruit trees, which attract the bugs. A few years ago, I read this recipe in Country Woman magazine. One of the readers submitted it. My husband and I have made a few improvements on it. We hang the bottles in the fruit trees, over the compost bin and other place around the yard. We catch flies, the orange beetles, ants and various other bugs in them.
You need 8-9 clear water bottles for this size batch.
2 cups of white sugar
2 cups of white vinegar
water
a 2 quart pitcher
I fill the pitcher about a third full of hot water.Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. I then leave it for a while to finish dissolving. I prepare the bottles at this time.
For the bottles, take off the labels and using a box knife, I cut a quarter inch hole on the side of the bottle near the top(not too close to the top as the bugs can fly right back out of the bottle). the hole only needs to be cut on the two sides and the bottom- leaving a flap. The bugs can find their way in but not out. Press up on the flap so it is open a little.
I then go back and pour in the vinegar and fill the pitcher up to the top with cold water.
Fill each bottle a third of the way, with the solution. Hang in your trees using a slip knot around the tree(not tooo tight as you don’t want to strangle the branches. then use another slip knot on the other end for the bottle and when you need to replace the solution or bottle , you can re-use the string. we use a shepard hook by the compost to hang the bottle on.
I left the pitcher of this solution on my kitchen counter overnight and in the morning ,I had hundreds of ants in it. So we used that as an opportunity to kill the ants the had been coming in the house this spring. We sprinkled some PIC orthoboric acid Roach and Ant Killer powder on a piece of paper on the counter as we don’t have any CHILDREN OR PETS in the house. DO NOT DO IF THIS IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN OR PETS IN THE HOUSE. Then we put a few drops of the solution in the middle of the powder so the ants would carry it back to their nest. The ants loved it. So far we haven’t had the ants come back in.
With Earth Day reminding us that we should all help out, here are a few idesa that I use in my Craft/Sewing room.
I have re-used a empty Pepsi case as my scrap paper collection bin. As I make a scrapbooking project, I toss the scraps (the ones not big enough to use in other projects, as that would be re-using them.)into the box. Also, I toss in my old notes that I when I have finished a project. I then take it to the local recycling box.
Instead of printing out all of the directions for projects,I think I may which to do, I save them in a file on my computer. They are handy if I decide to make them but I didn’t waste paper If I never get around to making them.
I have a cardboard box sitting by my sewing table, I toss in scraps of thread and fabric that I have leftover from cutting out patterns. When the box is full, I make a 12″ x 22 ” pillow using that for stuffing. I donate these to the local animal shelter for the small animals to lay on instead of the cold floor. Any color or pattern of cotton fabric will do as the animals don’t care.
I first got the idea for these pages, by looking in a Idea Book at my local (if you call 45 minutes away local) Archivers Store. They have a book, listing ideas to make with their products. I took a copy of the idea paper home with me. I let it sit there in my to do pile. I thought about doing it for a while but I wanted the perfect pictures for it. Then one day when I was ordering some photo prints, I saw the perfect photos that I wanted to use.
I ordered the prints and got them back. Then when I went to find the instruction sheet, I found that I didn’t have a enough of the paper that they called for in the directions. So I took some of their ideas and used my own. Archivers called for 1 sheet of Core’dinations Paper (one color on the outside and another color on the inside) per page that you wanted to make. I wanted to make 4 pages but only had 2 sheets of Core’dinations paper (if you watch Joann Fabrics ads they have the paper – 6 for $1.) in the color I wanted to use, dark blue.
First step -tear around all the edges to reveal the inner color for a border. I took and tore my 2 sheets into 16 – 1 and 1/2″ strips.
2- I then layed out my strips as a border around black paper.
3-I measured the inside space minus a 1/2 ” and cut light blue paper squares to use inside the border ( I didn’t have any dark blue that matched).
4-I double bordered my pictures with light gray and black.
5-Using my Cricut, I cut words out for each page.
6-Also, using my Cricut, I cut out different size snowflakes on glittery cardstock. I like using cardstock in my Cricut because it cuts the cardstock better than plain paper.
7- Don’t forget journaling as you may know the story but others don’t. I used a blue gel pen on the light gray cardstock and double bordered it with black and dark blue.
8- When I added the snowflakes, I used double stick foam to give a raised affect. Also layering them on top of each other.
I hope you enjoy this version of a snow scrapbook page and how you can adapt others’ ideas to your own depending on your supplies on hand.
