Make Your Own Round Shaped Paper & Glass Mat!

Howdy-ho folks! I loves CJR’s tutorial on making shaped paper so much that I adapted it to making round paper! It’s so cool and very easy. First you need a 6″x6″ piece of scrap paper, fold it in half diagonaly, then in half again like you are making a snowflake. Draw a design under the strait fold (see below) and cut out. On the piece of paper you want to shape draw an “x” from corner to corner and lay your template in the triangles and trace.

fold paper in halffold in half again, draw design & cut outDraw an x on paper, line up template & tracecut out and enjoy your shaped paper!

fold in half again, draw design & cut out

Draw an x on paper, line up template & trace

cut out and enjoy your shaped paper!

Cut out using scissors or a craft knife and glass mat. I like to use a knife and glass mat cuz it is way quicker for me. BTW if you don’t have a glass mat you can make one! I use a glass chessboard b/c it is thick, tempered (I can use my wood-burner on it without it cracking) and it had a grid (so handy!) but if you just need something for cutting simply tape the edges of a piece of picture frame glass and you are good to go. One word of caution though: this is not a strong as tempered glass and can break easily if dropped, keep away from the kiddos! You can use this method to make shaped circles in any size just make your template square 1/4 the size of the finished size you want, ie a 6″ square make a 12″ shaped circle.

Make an Embossing Pouch!

Happy Saturday! Did you know you can make an anti-static embossing pouch that tops anything you can buy for free? well you can! All you need is a scrap of thin fabric and a Tablespoon of cornstarch or cornstarch based baby powder. Cut a 5″x3″ piece of fabric, fold in half and sew up two of the sides to make a pouch. turn right-side-out, stamp a design on it if desired. Fill with corn starch and stitch closed. Easy peasy. If you don’t have a sewing machine, or if you want an quicker version simply cut a 6″ circle of fabric, place the corn starch in the center, gather up the edges of the fabric and secure with a rubber band. You are good to go! Rub this pouch on your paper before you heat emboss and it will keep the embossing powder from sticking where it shouldn’t. You can also rub a sheet of vellum with it before ink jet printing! Enjoy, you just saved $5-$10 on an embossing buddy!

A Sparkley Card and a Pot of Tea!

Howdy! I’ve been playing with my Cricut and the SCAL software again and made this fun card. I used Harold’s Pips dingbat font to cut the bird and a scallop circle by Jose and my Trusty Cricut+SCAL to make this. If you don’t have a Cricut don’t worry. It’s simple to make with traditional supplies too. Fold a 6″x12″ piece of card stock in half. Draw a 5 1/2″ circle on the folded square making sure to overlap the circle on the folded edge so the circles will connect to make a card. Cut on the outside of the line with scalloped scissors. Cut a 5 1/4″ circle from card stock and hand cut a shape in the middle to make a window. Stamp if desired. Fill a small ziplock bag with a SMALL amount of hair gel and glitter. Seal the bag and tape it behind the window. use foam squares to attach the window panel to the card. Optional: use a fine tip glue applicator to trace your stamped design and sprinkle with glitter, don’t waste your $$ on a glue pad,make your own with a cosmetic foam applicator and white glue and store it in a small plastic container ( a makeup compact would work great and would fit the round foam applicator perfectly!) Also I use a small circle hole punch to add holes in the scallops.

A card made with Inque Boutique stamps, hair gel and glitter!

Now for a nice pot of tea! We received this lovely tea pot for our wedding 8 years ago and it has never been out of the box until today. When I was picking salad greens I noticed renegade mint popping out from the bricks of our garden bed (we pulled it up this spring cuz it was taking over!) I picked it and the kiddos and I made this tea to go with dinner, hubby likes mint tea! Here’s what to do: Gather several hand-fulls of mint leaves and tear, pinch and crush them to release the oil. Put in tea leave chamber of a tea pot. Add lemon, lime or orange zest. Pour boiling water into the pot and let it steep for 20 minutes. You can also tie up the ingredients in a piece of cheesecloth and simmer on the stove. Your house will smell so nice! I like mint and lime zest with lime wedges, its like a warm cozy mojitto!

3 hours to myself, a painting and my new Around the Block tote!

Ahhhh, I had a fabulous morning, 3 hours to myself, I finished a card and started and almost finished a painting. It’s my first oil painting in over a year! I’m glad I can still remember how! I’ve been scared to have the solvents out with so many little peeps around but they were at a friends house today so I got out my paints to play. I’ll post it in a few days when I am done…there I said it now I’ll have to finish it!

I got a cool goodie bag from my mother the other day. It is by Around the Block and it is a mystery bag packed with scrapbook goodies and a surprise tool. My sis has them in her shop “Bry-Anns Arts and Crafts” 207 968-2498. I normally don’t go for the grab bags or kit clubs because I have a massive stash already and wouldn’t want to get a duplicate or something I would never use but holy cow, check out what came in this bag:

Around the block mystery bag

Lucky me! In the kit was the tool I really wanted but couldn’t justify buying because I didn’t know If I would really use it…The Phrase Maker! I’ve had my eye on it for a while and I couldn’t believe it was in there! Plus 4 inks, 11 rolls of stickers for the Phrase Maker, 20+ sheets of doublesided cardstock pattern paper, ginormus bag of chipboard with eyelets already in them perfect for my ATB tagger gun, clipper & clipper clips, epoxy alphabet stickers, oodles of soft rubbery embellishments, stick pins, ribbon and frames! How cool is that and if you don’t have a sister who owns a store you can still buy it for only $40! Its over $100 worth of stuff. My sis just got these in and if you’ve got to have one call the above # and ask for the craft department or if you are in China, Maine stop in and see for yourself! PS If you are one of the crafty ladies who comes to my monthly craft nights let me know and I’ll grab one for you!

Make your own Metallic Watercolors!

Howdy! This is cool. Did you know you can make your own metallic watercolors on the cheap? Well you can! I was at the “Dollar Tree” on Saturday and found metallic tempera paint by Prang. It came in 9 colors and of course I got them all (a buck each, can you blame me?) You can use any metallic tempera or poster paint but not acrylic because when acrylic paint dries it goes through a chemical chance and cannot be turned into paint again. Squeeze the paint into a plastic palette, muffin tin or tackle box. Anything with compartments will work and if it has a lid bonus! Let it dry so you have little cakes of color. The paint will shrink to about 1/3 due to the water content of the paint. Then to use simply dip a wet paint brush in the dry paint and you are good to go! You can paint on a rubber stamp before stamping, color in a stamped image with the paint or brush some paint around the edges of a card as I did here:

Now you are probably thinking “Why Bother?” I can leave the paint in the bottle and squirt it when i need it. True you can but the paint contains a lot of water and if you let it dry and use a wet brush to bring it back you control how much water is in the paint and how bright and shiny it will be plus it is a whole lot easier to tote a small palette to a crop rather than 9 bottles of paint! If you want to be really frugal just by the white pearl color and mix it with whatever watercolor you have to make your own custom colors! Have fun & Happy Crafting!

Vegan Mac ‘n Cheese!

I get asked for this recipe a lot! Mostly from parents with lactose intolerant kids but it’s also very yummy comfort food for us vegans who remember bowls of gooey mack and cheese as kids. As a bonus the main ingredient is nutritional yeast (available at health food stores) that supplies a boat load of B vitamins*, I Tablespoon provides 386% Thiamine, 337% Riboflavin, 175% Niacin 150% of the ever-elusive Vitamin B12, 270% B6 and 29% Folic Acid. You can easily whip up a batch of “Cheese” while your pasta is boiling. To make this meal easier toss some broccoli or frozen peas into the pasta water as it cooks, the vegan cheese id especially Delicious on green veggies!

*Vegan Cheese Ingredients:

1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp wet mustard

Optional: 2 tablespoons of pureed squash baby food.

Whisk all ingredients except mustard and squash in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook until it starts to bubble and thicken stirring constantly. After it starts to bubble cook foe 1 more minute (keep stirring!) Remove from heat and whisk in the mustard and squash if desired. I usually use more garlic powder and salt than I listed so feel free to adjust. You can sneak any pureed mild flavored veggies in this recipe. I keep jars of squash baby food on hand for this (also good in spaghetti sauce) but tomato paste works well in this too!

Now Moms this is important: Do not try to pass this off as “Kraft Dinner” I call it “Mommy’s mac ‘n cheese”. Make a plate for yourself and start eating, within minutes you little ones will appear wanting a bite, begrudgingly let them try it, when they are hooked get them your own bowl. My kids act suspicious when I offer them the food in their own bowls willingly, for some reason thinking that I made the food just for me makes it all the more tasty!

This “cheese” is also great on chili! While were at it here’s one more recipe:

Fat Free Vegan Chili:

1 Can of each: kidney beans. black beans, sweet corn, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beer (if desired)

1 bag of Morning Star Farms or Boca Recipe crumbles

1tsp each of: chili powder, garlic powder, cumin and salt

Put everything in a pot and cook high until it starts to bubble, then turn down to low to keep it warm until ready to serve. You can make this in the crock pot as well. Just a note: since their is no fat in this recipe you need to use less spices than traditional chili. Top with vegan cheese or guacamole.

Vegan guacamole:

2 ripe avocados

1 tsp each: garlic powder, Lemon juice, salt

Mash all ingredients with a fork until well blended or puree if you like it smooth. Yum!

*Nutritional Yeast info from “The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook” a great reference for any vegetarian.

Shaped Paper, Oh My!

Wow! I found this way cool tutorial by Crystal Jeffery Rieger at Memory Makers Magazine on how to design and make your own shaped paper (and no, you are not just tracing around store bought paper!) I’ve made 6 template already! I’m hooked! Check out her tutorial here (and leave a comment to make her day!)