Another Holiday, Another Project...

I came across this project on Pinterest that was originally posted on Delightfully Noted. I spent a while looking at Lowe's, Menard's and Home Depot for the exact tile back splash to use. I finally found it at Home Depot. It has browns, creams, and copper. I think it is lovely.

I found the frame at Michael's for 50% off and got the small letters & numbers there as well. What took the longest for me to find was the "G." Every cut letter was a font that was boring or the wrong size. Last week, I ventured over to the craft store in Mattoon - I hadn't been there before. They had this G and it was perfect!

So, I spent the afternoon of Christmas eve getting the letters and numbers painted. I used the Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. The frame has both blacks and browns in it so this paint looks really nice with it.

I glued it all together today. I added a small embellishment on the G - I just thought it added something, but I didn't want to use a silk flower as she did on hers. Anyhow, here it is:

Here is is sitting on the mantle:

I like it a lot. A nice reminder of the big 20th anniversary coming up!

And the hubby who says he doesn't like "crafts" ???
He likes this. Score! :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lemon Bars? Hmmm...Maybe Not.

When I was visiting family for the weekend, my sister made some lemon bars from a mix. They turned out more like lemon gummy candies on top and the crust was impossible to remove from the pan. I remembered that there was a recipe I pinned on Pinterest that claimed to use only 2 ingredients to make lemon bars (not including the powdered sugar on top!). The recipe can be found at Practically Living.

Tonight, I was at the store buying stuff for tomorrow's office Christmas party (yum!) and I decided to give these bars a try. So, I bought an angel food cake mix (Betty Crocker) and a can of lemon pie filling. I was at Wal-Mart, and the only thing the had was Lemon Creme filling. I came home, mixed it up and baked.

The result is definitely NOT a bar cookie, but they taste really good! I am thinking that the problem may lie with the lemon filling so I will try again. I also think it is important to just stir together the two ingredients by hand and not use a mixer. I will let you know how they turn out!

Meanwhile, I hope folks want some lemon cake tomorrow...

Another Pinterest Recipe Success!

Last night, I put together the Crustless Sausage Quiche I found on Plain Chicken. I know what you are thinking...quiche without a crust? I decided to try it because my hubby is a diabetic. Any way we can cut carbs from a meal, we SHOULD try. (Truthfully, he probably should try more than he does!) So, I chose this quiche recipe.

I mixed up everything and just put it in the fridge. Then, when I got home from work tonight, it was ready to pop in the oven.

It was pretty good. I didn't have an 8X8 dish so I used a deep round dish. I think it was too small, so the quiche was too deep. That made it a bit uneven in baking. The flavor was good, but a bit salty. I would recommend cutting the salt by at least half, or even holding off and just adding salt after it cooks. I also used mild breakfast sausage, and now think I will try the spicy sausage next time. Still, I plan to include this on our rotation list now. :-)

Mexican Stuffed Shells - Yummy!

Tonight, I decided to try a recipe I pinned. It is Mexican Stuffed Shells and it can be found at The Way to His Heart.

I followed the recipe almost exactly, except I used light cream cheese and a shredded Co-Jack mix for the cheese. I also only used 12 of the giant shells.

Here is the dish once it was finished in all its cheesy deliciousness:

We also topped this with a few chopped green onions and a little bit of light sour cream.

Verdict: It was great!! It is a nice break from a traditional pasta dish. If you like tacos, I think you will really enjoy it. The best part is that you can easily alter the spiciness of this dish by adjusting the salsa and taco sauce you use. I also think you could cut back on the cheese a bit without hurting the flavor. (But when I do, I am not going to tell my hubby).

By the way, the hubby really enjoyed it too, which is good because there were plenty of leftovers.

A No-Sew Fleece Blanket

I have always wanted to try to make a no-sew blanket. It looks so easy and everybody and their brothers (or sisters) have done it. So I should be able to, right??? RIGHT!

One of my colleagues is pregnant with a little girl. So, I figured this would be a great opportunity for me to make one. And, since she isn't on Facebook, and doesn't know yet about my blog, I am pretty sure she won't be seeing this here!

I bought 1.5 yards of a fleece with a design and the same amount of a solid-color fleece. Once I got them home, I had to trim some of the edges to make them perfectly fit on another.

Then, I cut a square out of each corner of the two layers. These squares were basically 4" x 4". After that, I grabbed a piece of long masking tape and ran it down a side of the blanket from corner to corner. I used this as my guage for how deep I was going to cut the strips along the side. I wanted the strips to be 4".

I cut strips that were 4" deep in the material and about 1" apart. If you do not have sharp scissors, your hand will hurt before you get the whole way around the blanket.

Here you can see where the corner has been cut out.

The line of tape helps to ensure that your cuts will be the desired length.








Once all four sides are cut, you will need to start tying the ends. I wanted to work on this blanket in the car the next day, so I needed to tie down enough of the fabric so the two layers would stay together. I started in the corners and tied every other pair. I also made sure to use a double knot. Once I had gone a few inches from the corners I knew it would be safe to fix in the car.

Here is the finished project with a close-up on the knots. Remember that you don't want these to come undone, so make sure you tie the second one tight. I haven't washed it yet, but from everything I have read, these blankets have no trouble standing up to washing.

 Well, I am glad that I got to make one of these and now I have plans to make another for my great-nephew Ty for Christmas! But, SHHHH! It's a secret!

Second Project: A Collage for My Great-Nephew

My great-nephew Tyden is such a joy to me. He is extremely photogenic and all of our family LOVES taking pictures of him. Thank goodness everyone posts these pictures to Facebook. Last year, my sister (his grandmother) made a collage of all of the pictures taken during his first year of life.

I wanted to do something like that, but with a twist. When I came across this post from Life, Family, Crafts & a Little Moore, I knew this was just what I wanted to do.

The first thing I did was order a paper-mache T from joann.com. Then, I spent a lot of time on Facebook, downloading everyone's pictures of Ty. I ended up with about 110 photos that I thought were cute and would show how he has changed since he was born 20 months ago. Using Photoshop, I made the photos all black & white so I could print them on the laser printer. I also resized the photos to approximately 2 to 2.5 " tall (or wide) depending on whether the orientation of the photo was portrait or landscape.

Let me start by saying that it was hard to turn Ty's pictures into black and white. Not technically, but it made me a bit sad. He has the most beautiful blue eyes and, of course, that gets a little lost when his pictures aren't in color. You can see what I mean here:

Oh yeah, that's me with him!

Anyway, after I printed all the pages of pictures (I put several pictures on each page), I cut them out using a metal ruler and an exacto knife. I did find that it helped to print the pages of pictures at 100% of the size I had chosen, and then again at 90% and 80% so that I would have some options for covering different sized places.

I then used Mod Podge to attach the pictures to the T. Really, it is just like a giant jigsaw puzzle trying to put together all the pictures and cover the whole letter (except for the back of course). After I was done, I let the whole thing dry for an hour and then covered it in two coats of Mod Podge (with drying time in between). Then a placed a hanger on the back.

 

I couldn't even wait until Christmas to give it to my nephew and his wife!! Let me know if you like it. Do you think color pictures would have been better?

My Debut Project: Stenciled Wall Hanging

I have been wanting to redo my living room walls for awhile now. I have grown bored with the stuff we have hanging up and I am ready to move on. Unfortunately, I can never find any large pieces that I like and I really need something for the wall behind my sofa. Then, on Pinterest, I came upon this Lemon Tree Creations post.

So, I bought 1 piece of 12" x 1" poplar board that was 12 feet long at Home Depot. The nice man at Home Depot cut it into half for me so I could get it into the car. At Lowe's, we purchased a rubber door mat that was almost 2' x 3'. The rubber mat will serve as a stencil.

The first thing my wonderful husband did was cut the boards into lengths if 34.25". This length matched the inside rim of the rubber welcome mat. Then he used his sander to smooth them down. (I am so glad I said "yes" to buying all of those tools!!)

Once the sanding was done, I used a tack cloth to get all the dust and then began staining the boards. I used MinWax Dark Walnut. The front of the board and all of edges are the only parts that need to be sanded and stained, and you will end up with something like this (this picture only shows 2 boards at a time; we bought only 1 welcome mat so we could only finish half the project at one time):

Once the stain was dry, we taped the edges of the boards on all four sides and then carefully centered the welcome mat on top of the boards.

I then sprayed off-white paint (I used Rustoleum 2X Ultra Heirloom White) over the boards. I used short, light sprays, making sure to get all angles. I then let it dry for a couple of hours. This is what it looked like:

After pulling off the stencil (mat), we sprayed the boards with a couple of coats of polyurethene. They are now ready for hanging!

I think they look really nice! Let me know how you think it all turned out! I will post another pic once they get on the walls.

Here they are on the walls!!