Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs

Coming to you from Portland

I got this idea from Pinterest.  There are no directions so I just kind of guessed what was going on in the pictures.  I don't know what that mesh stuff is, but I went to the craft store and they sell rolls of tulle for $4 - I'm pretty sure that's what it is. 

I picked some small clovers and flower petals from the garden and placed them on the eggs and then wrapped them in the tulle.  I tied the tulle in a knot, becuase I was lazy and didn't feel like sewing the end together, which made it kind of loose around the egg.  This resulted in my plant stamps not leaving a super clear print on the eggs, because some of the dye was able to get underneath them. 

Then I dyed them using brown onion peels.  I have used these before for dying and I love the natural, warm brown color it makes.

And here is the final product!  Again, my designs don't have hard lines and aren't completely white, but for something you are going to crack and throw away, I think it is reasonable to take a couple of shortcuts. 



Hearts 'n Things

Coming to you from Portland

I was inspired to get crafty for Valentine's Day after reading the February issue of Better Homes & Gardens - That is where all of these ideas came from. Click here if you want to see more ideas from BHG and get templates for these crafts.

These are just single servings of different candies/snacks that have cute little messages on them like "I Love You to Pieces" on the Reese's Pieces or "We're Mint to Be" on the York Peppermint Patty.  It was actually kind of difficult tracking down all of this candy in the perfect size to fit the templates I printed off of the website.  In the end I made some adjustments on a couple of things anyway. 

This is my favorite one: "I'm Bursting With Happiness That You're My Friend."  I just bought some little 3x3 ziplock bags to put the Starbursts in, folded the message over the top and secured it with double stick tape.

These are just large Hershey's dark chocolate bars that I wrapped in Valentine paper, ribbon and cut-outs.  Craft Warehouse had a miscellaneous package of paper cut-outs that said things like "Made With Love" and "All Love is Sweet, Given or Received."  They just added a little something extra to the design.  (Side note: Ribbon is very expensive! In order to get a variety I had to buy most of it by the yard and even that added up.)  I also bought the paper in a variety pack along with a few 12x12 sheets.  Paper is also really expensive and variety packs are usually the most cost-effective. 

I also did a few miniature Hershey bars.  After I purchased them I realized that the small ones come in plastic packages instead of paper and foil, so I had to wrap them in foil myself, but it turned out to be really easy - just like wrapping a present. 

I like this website, because it gave a lot of good ideas for things to get men for Valentine's Day which is always difficult - it's not really a holiday designed for men.  This is a homemade scratch-it and it was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be (go here for directions).  You just print off the template and write something into each of the hearts like 30 min. back massage or home-cooked dinner.  Then you trace the heart shape four times onto some contact paper ($7 a roll and I only used about 1/1000th of it! But now I will have it for a lifetime) and paint over them with two coats of a mixture of dishwashing liquid and metallic paint.  Then you just cut out the heart shapes and pull the clear part from the paper like a sticker and stick it over each of the messages you wrote in the hearts.  Add a shiny penny and you have the perfect homemade gift.

This is another easy gift for a guy.  I just went to the store and bought a nice case of beer with a red label.  Then I wrapped it in Valentine paper and velvet ribbon and added a little tag with a message. I also covered the handle with some white paper so it matched.

These are sugar cookies I made using a recipe from the website that I wrapped in cellophane and sealed with paper and ribbon.  They are not frosted, but I added some pink food coloring to the dough to make them more interesting.  All I did was cut a piece of paper to slide in behind the cookie and another one to fold over the top.  Then, using a small craft hole punch, I made two holes through the paper and cellophane and then strung a ribbon through and knotted it in the front.

Unlike Michelle I was not bombarded with Valentine's (I think I just got one from my mom and someone from work), but it really doesn't matter, because I had so much fun making everything, and I got to spend my Valentine's Day with the Trail Blazers :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

coming to you from pullman

another Valentine's Day has come and gone.  i was very pleased with my valentine's day cards this year and happened to have a great Valentine's day myself. i haven't mailed out my valentine's day cards yet, so some of you reading this can expect a card in the mail soon.  this year  i had a valentine's day card making party with Liliana.  here was our set up

things were a little more organized this year with all the tupperware - but not much.  even though i have all my craft supplies in tupperware, it's not organized within the tupperware so it still got to be quite messy.

These are all of Liliana's cards

and all of my cards!  let's break them down...

this ended up being my favorite card.  quote of the night: "does this look magical like a butterfly made it?" Liliana thought that was funny, but I was being serious :)  Anyway, some crafty people may experience this or perhaps it's just me, but sometimes i will buy things to use in crafts without having a particular project in mind, but i think that they are so pretty that i never find a project worthy of them.  well, the butterfly stickers fall into that category.  I have had them for 5 years.  it was my goal to try to use some of these "forbidden" items and I was successful!  these little hearts are from my heart punch that cuts out a big heart with a little heart punched out of the middle - that way, with each punch your get two different hearts to be crafty with; it's a good deal.

these were my "3-D" cards.  I thought that this wouldn't work at all, but my Elmer's glue turned out to be way more reliable than i had given it credit for.

these are all the cards i used stickers for.  the black letters with the white background stickers, are the kind you get at hardware stores - like to put your house number on your mailbox.  I got this, and a larger set from ACE hardware and so far I love them. they are perfectly simple.  The plain black stickers are the ones that I bought from Staples for my "I can't do this but I'm doing it anyway" project.  And the red label sticker is from my awesome DYMO label maker.  it came with 2 black roles, 1 red role, and 1 green roll of labels.  I have already gone through a whole black role.  once you get a DYMO label maker, you will find a lot of uses for it.  I got mine at Staples.

this was my card for Liliana.  I used my dinosaur paper!  (one of the "forbidden" craft supplies) 

these were the cards that i started making near the end of the night when i realized that it was getting really late, and although i love my friends, i needed to put less thought into the cards i was making them so that i could go to bed.  i really liked how they turned out.  i free-styled the hearts, which i think gave a nice quality to the overall look.  i also used some "forbidden" paper (the teal with glossy embossing).  they were perfectly imperfect and i loved them!  I have already thought of a couple of classmates that i forgot to make cards for, but hopefully all my friends know that i love them without me putting a card in their mailbox on valentine's day :)  These are the valentine's that I got this year:

plus all the valentines I got from Julie in the mail.  plus a candy valentine from Becca and Stacie that i already ate...plus a valentines cookie from Teresa.  it was a good haul this year and the most eventful Valentine's Day I have had in a while. 

Love is in the air

Coming to you from Pullman

Valentine's Day is coming up.  I'm sure you can expect an awesome blog post from my sister since yesterday I received a package full of clever Valentines from her.  They were so punny.  :)  (punniness runs in the family).  I also have a couple of Valentine's "parties" coming up - making cards, baking things shaped like hearts, painting hearts on our nails...i also have a heart shaped egg ring if we want to get really crazy.  remember last year?

that was a cluster.  still fun...but my crafting has become much more organized since this time last year.  Valentine's Day is such a good opportunity to do crafts and to randomly give all your friends a cute little card.  Even though I love making Valentine's Day cards, I have only actually celebrated Valentine's Day conventionally once; most years it's just another day of the week or a night to go out to dinner or drinks with my friends (last year a guy from the Globe Trotters asked me out at Rico's...haha).  When I was little Dad would get us baskets with candy and sometimes a little gift like a movie.  One year I got the movie Happy Accidents, which has turned out to be one of my favorite movies.  Anyway, here's a little taste of what this weekend may entail...

Courtesy of Pinterest of course.  I think I'm supposed to link each individual item here, but it's late and that would take so long.  Sorry Internet etiquette.  That "pinterest" link is to my Valentine's Day board so you can access all these projects.  Anyway, so much to be excited for this weekend.  And maybe I'll do some homework too. Have fun crafting this weekend :)

Famiy Christmas Card

Coming to you from Portland

I know this is cruel, but she is so cute!  This is the picture we used for our Christmas cards.  She always runs away from me when I grab one of her outfits, but once I get it on her she stands completely still, which makes her easily maneuverable.  All we had to do was upload the picture onto the Walgreens website and choose from one of their Christmas borders.  It was $10 for each set of 20 - a very simple way to pump out your cards a week before Christmas. 

Sky High Apple Cranberry Pie...That totally rhymes

Coming to you from Portland

Martha's is the one above and mine is the one below

This is another one from Martha - a recipe from her Thanksgiving issue.  Nobody thought this would work because there was so much filling and the top of the pie was a good 6-8 inches tall, but Martha says to just keep piling on the filling even if it looks like too much, because the top crust is made extra wide to seal it up.  The recipe says to top the pie with sanding sugar, but I could not find such a thing at the grocery store.  I ended up sprinkling it with raw suger which is a large granule brown colored sugar.  It doesn' say to foil the crust, but this pie goes in the oven for almost two hours so I secured some strips of foil aroung the crust to keep it from burning and it turned out perfect.  Make sure to set the pie dish on a rimmed baking sheet!  This pie is designed so that it will inevitable overflow with juices (as you can see by the pictures).  Luckily my mom was finished with all of the Thanksgiving cooking by the time I lined the bottom of the oven with cranberry drippings.  I cut it right away because I was so excited, but the filling needs time to set.  It turned out great asthetically and tasted delicious too.  I served it hot with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream.

epic p-town sisters weekend

Julie came to Pullman!  We were in the same "P-town" for 4 days - Halloween weekend.  I didn't have an exam to worry about, and I was off of surgery block the following week, so we basically chilled, and cooked, and partied, and were crafty the whole time (well, Julie worked on the house when I was at school).

WSU vs. U of O

What are the chances that the weekend that Julie comes to visit, the cougs are playing the ducks?  I didn't have a lot of hope that we would win, but enough to watch the game at a local bar.  Julie insisted on wearing duck gear so I took her to my favorite bar where I knew there wouldn't be very many people - particularly, no drunk coug fans that were going to be drunk and disappointed.  See what a good sister I am, protecting my sister like that?

I think that the cougs did a good job of hanging in there in the first half.  And I think our 2 point conversion in the last 2 minutes of the game despite being behind by quite a bit really highlights our heart.  The coug fans never give up, so I really appreciate when the coug football team doesn't give up either.  I had the fish and chips as usual with extra cole slaw and Julie had a very unique southern style burger with a vegetarian patty made of black beans and corn.  Delicious! 

Halloween Festivities

Costumes were Julie: cheerleader night one and girl from future night two.  the cheerleader costume that she wore was my mom's when she was in high school.  and michelle (me) in the ghost costume.  i've been planning that one for a while.  I have decided i'm going to be a minimalist, on halloween anyway.  and i'm not going to flaunt my sexuality and use halloween as an excuse to be half naked in public.  nothing against that...just seems like a lot of work, and since we were on the verge of "no shave november", I thought I would just start my support of prostate health awareness early.  a lot of people actually asked me if i was a man or a woman.  before halloween people made fun of my "lame" and "unoriginal" costume idea, but when was the last time you saw someone dressed as a sheet ghost on halloween?  nobody had the same costume as me, and i had a lot of fun when they played the ghostbusters theme song at the bar :) 

 Food

Starbucks: This is the only way to eat breakfast when you've stayed up until 3am the night before.  We did that three of the four nights.

Ice Cream Sandwiches: These ice cream sandwiches were a serious FAIL!  For one thing, the freezer wasn't very cold to begin with, but we were also supposed to leave the ice cream in the freezer for four hours before cutting out each sandwich.  I waited 30 minutes and the cookie part was so hard that, while attempting to cut it, I just squished it down and all of the ice cream bulged out of the sides.  The decorating was fun, but only a very small part of the project.  In the future I would just buy ice cream sandwiches from the store and dip them in melted chocolate and decorate them with candies.   (from Michelle - my roommate Jill ate one a couple days after we made them and they had had time to harden up, and she said even though they look weird, they tasted good!)

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans?  When I saw all that extra melted chocolate laying around, I thought, this would be a good opportunity to make chocolate covered coffee beans.  Well, there must be more to it than just having coffee beans and melted chocolate because the chocolate was so runny that I could keep it on just one bean and ended up making coffee bean chocolate bars. they are yummy, and deliver a lot of caffein, but I would like to look into making actual chocolate covered coffee beans in the future.

Pulled pork BBQ Sandwiches with Slaw and salad: Sadly we did not get a picture of this one even though we had it two of the four nights I was there.  The slaw is a great fresh side for the pork sandwiches.  Another product of Bon Appetit.  Here is the recipe.

New York Steak with Boursin and Merlot sauce, fried green beans and roasted potatoes: This was absolutely delicious, but a lot of food for one person.  Sadly I also forgot to put the Boursin cheese on top of the steak after removing them from the pan.  This is one of my favorite Bon Appetit recipes.

The result of all of our mad carving was a ton of pumpkin seeds.  I found a bunch of recipes online, but I wanted something cajun stlyle.  I was going to buy seasoning which is hella expensive, but I happened to be purchasing some chicken breasts from the butcher and remembered that you get free seasonings/marinades with your meat.  I got the perfect seasoning.  It was some sort of cajun, southwest, BBQ type of thing.  I just asked for it in a separate container and it was plenty for what I had.  The recipe is just vegetable oil, cajun seasoning and salt.  Super good and a nice change if you are used to the salt and Worcestershire recipe for pumpkin seeds.  

Being Crafty

jar and candle idea that i saw on pinterest, pinned from this 

blog.  hers are prettier.  think i need more of them and have

 them be inside to get the full effect.

michelle's pumpkin vs. julie's pumpkin.  i decided to go

off the grid with pumpkin carving this year and free style

them.  this was my first creation and it was a success.

when i saw the wind-up teeth at the dollar tree, i was

thinking, this will be a great spin on the marth stewert

project that julie did with pumpkins and dracula teeth

in this earlier blog.in the end i decided that this is just

creepy and not very cute.  won't be doing this next year.

the full effect on halloween.  I got a red light because the bright white light that is normally there was making it hard to see the glow of the pumpkins.  only had one trick-o-treater, which is on par with the last 4 years, but that didn't stop me from buying 4 bags of candy.  I even bought the good stuff, or "rich people candy" as my roommate called it. 

Overall, a successful trip.  Julie got a lot of yardwork done, and cooking, and I didn't get any studying done while she was here.  Maybe I'll have better luck over thanksgiving break. the p-town sisters will be in the same town again, this time in Portland.