New Christmas Card for this year!

Like most people who have a blog I am not the prolific writer like they are .  I have a job and have not small children, I have 5 dogs who keep us somewhat busy, I try and do my craft things on the week-end since that is the only real spare time I have I could work on something every night, but that is not how I work I found an idea for this years cards for Christmas at Scallop Tree With Dawn.   After seeing her cute tree I new I was going to have to make some for this year.  I used to buy cards all the time and rarely got them mailed now that I have been making my own they get mailed I am up to making only 30 cards, but there are some days when that is more than enough.  This year followed her basic instructions, but created my own scallop on my cricut by using SCAL, made the tree shape she had suggested and just had an absolute ball making them, labor intense ,but that is the way I work... Made the last few unfortunately using a cute printed paper I had left over from my daughters advent tree I had made her for a friend's new baby, only made 8 of them last year but one more this year oh well...anyway her are the pictures of the tree cut out in printed paper think it looks adorable no need to decorate. The first ones I made were just the green as Dawn had suggested, did some decorating using  acrylic paint and Stickles in red, this one did not have the white acrylic on it to make it look like snow was on it ...but you get the idea. They were really fun now get to decorate the envelopes so the look just as Christmasy, also need to add a sentiment to inside have to come up with that yet.  Have fun hope you enjoy the cards.

Baking with Cyn STROMBOLI the easy way

Came home from work the other day you know how that goes husband and I usually play the what do want to eat while I am driving home.  The I do not know what do you want thing some times it drives me crazy and that on most days is a short trip.  Anyway we we talking about making our Stromboli, had made one about a week or so ago and it was the bomb!  In a Good way so good but it could be better, we had in the past used Martha White Pizza crust, it was inexpensive and kept in it bags till we added the liquids, it served it purpose, it worked and we liked it because we had nothing else to compare it to for convenience except getting pizza via a real restaurant or take out.  So one day staring at the biscuit cooler at the store noticed the pizza crust in a can, thought lets give this a shot.  It was a little more expensive but if it worked I was for it, it was Great Value, took it home and then one night we decided to go for it and it was not a bad Stromboli, but we thought we could do better.  So this night in particular, husband decided he wanted another one of those sorry Stromboli's we had made a week ago.  (sorry in our house is a relative term it could be bad or jokingly good) I knew he meant good so we had purchased at the store the last visit a pizza dough in the can by Pillsbury a little more expensive by about $1.00 but GV was not to be seen think Walmart is either getting new designs for their stuff or doing away, this is another story.  So get the new improved Pillsbury pizza crust out and fill the cookie sheet all 9 x 13 worth of it after cooking our Italian sausage onions, garlic and mushrooms with oregano in it, threw some mozzarella cheese on first then added the meats and vegetables, then of course more cheese and then into the (all depends on your oven) 400 degree oven for approx. 9 minutes.  We had also light coated the top of the Stromboli with olive oil and garlic powder, no vamps in our house, even though True Blood and debunked the garlic and mirror thing, and they said everything on the internet is true!  Anyway too it out of the oven and sliced it in to sections with my handy dandy pizza cutter and to our surprise it was better by far than the first. 

The recipe so that it is
1 Can of pillsbury pizza crust
2 links of Johnson-ville sweet Italian sausage
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic minced
a good sprinkle of oregano
almost a whole 2 cup bag of mozzarella cheese.
cook all the raw stuff except cheese and crust till done put pizza crust on the cookie sheet oven should be already on 400 degrees.
Sprinkle about half the bag of cheese as a base and then put the other ingredients on top , then add one more layer of cheese (you would not believe we like mozzarella so much) and then fold over the crust to make a pouch or Stromboli what ever you need to explain this pinch the edges and bake.  Did not plain on exploiting my Stromboli so did not take step by step pics (this was a spur of the moment with husbands phone) I am sure we will have it again soon so those of you who need them ( I doubt many of you do but we do have virgins out there ) and they will will post them then.  As you can see a bite or tow was already out of it when realized need to post this wonderful meal on the web. Hope you try it and enjoy it as much as we did. 

Okay Camisole Wearers unite!! HAHAHAHA

Get it they are united on one hanger...This may not be the most earth shattering thing to come up with but right this sec think it is the bomb, until one of you ladies out there on the web can give me a better Idea I am going to go with this.  I was tired of trying to find a camisole to go with whatever outfit I wanted to wear and was tired of looking for it on the last shirt I wore it with.  So fond these cute shower curtain rings at the thrift store of course and they were so colorful looked like candy drops, thought they would be a great way to hang them some way.  Of course tried them just on a hanger and they all slid to the one end then grabbed this old wooden pants hanger and put all them on it and snapped it shut and it held them in place now it is hanging in my closet all sorted and easier to find than before.....got room for a couple of more should be at least 12 of them there hooks wise not camisoles, going to probably bend them a little more so they will not slip off hanger, but for now they are okay the way they are.  Short an  sweet going to go start re-fashioning some more Hawaiian shirts got today.    This time will try and do a step by step tutorial on another V-neck one, the other was so comfortable that I made last week-end.

Doodle or Zentangle what ever you want to call it

Took a class we called Zentangle/doodling think the Z  name is probably copyrighted and can only be used by an official CTZ teacher. The class was at our local scrapbook shop and had a great time, since then I have spent at least 3 nights or more a week doodling or Z-ing a couple of hours each night. Usually working on an 8x11 pad of paper, using Microns or Faber Castell PITT Artist pens in black all different nibs, working on a ceramics piece was a new challenge.  I have been wanting to do  for awhile seen several pics on of a similar idea of this on a ceramic piece on Pinterest of course. So found this soap dispenser at the Dollar Store it cost a $1.00!! Thought about a plate a bowl and nothing spoke to me as something I really needed, not that I needed the soap dispenser, but it was probably the most useful thing I could think of that the black on white would work well, had seen the white Mustang some guy had done with regular sharpies looked really cool, but  first I did not have 30 thousand to chunk down on a car and did not want to devote 80 hours to drawing on the car.   It took about hour and half,  was trying to think of what to do on it as I went and working on a sealed surface makes the product dry a slow so I thought it really drying quicker than I thought.  It is an oil base pen marker from Sharpie who would have thunk!  So here the piece  both sides excuse the sun spot took it with my cell phone.  The dispenser is completely covered all around except the bottom had fun may do another, but get some colored ones for next adventure.  Think a dash of yellow maybe a sun with flairs coming off of it, boy that opens another can of worms.  Better than fishing!!

I guess on a blogging roll again, just finished another shirt a few ago, this time re-fashioned Hawaiian shirt.  Hawaiian shirts are sort of a uniform at our office the docs wear them everyday. the owner doc is a big surfer so can see why he wears them reminds him of the smell of surfboard wax, but that is a smell hard to forget especially when he can pretty much hit the surf at least one time a day.  Also got this at my fav thrift store thought it was a little feminine for a guy so grabbed it right up thought it would look good with khaki shorts.  So I went to destructing this garment.  First I cut off the sleeves already had in mind to make it a sleeveless model.  Hemmed the arm holes about 1/4 inch, after trying it on again decided needed to take up the pits a bit, so took about 1 1/2 in from bottom of the opening to the side seem at angle about 4 inches.

Thought about shirring under the bust to make it have a little more shape so put it on a safety pinned it just under the breast and it looked pretty cute but then started thinking where I usually get into trouble it was going to take up too much material and then it would look snug.  So went to plan "B" I made a tuck or pleat under each breast to give more shape but not take up a lot of the material.  After getting that negotiated measured down from center of shoulder about 15 inches approx measurement of safety pin, then over 7 inches from the side seam this made a center point.  From here I drew a straight line across the shirt approx 3 inches long from the center point of that line marked 1 1/2 inches from there left and then right too give me my fold in point, folded it from the  outside edge to the center line going up and down did the same for the other side of this pleat.  Did same measurements for the other side to make a matching pleat.  Pinned both pleats with straight pins then biased the area to get a fit.  Looked pretty good for first go around.  Also stitched the front of the shirt closed the girls have a habit of trying to expand their horizons and would rather they stay supervised.  Just hate it when button shirts gap that has drove me crazy most of my life.  So now it is a very short trip I do not plan to take in near future. Now back to the shirt and leaving mental health to another day....decided it was a bit too long you know how  Stacy and Clinton are always telling you long shirts make you look shorter well took approx 5 inches off split the sides and opened them up then hemmed the whole thing just made it that more comfortable.

Love the pleats short sleeves and so summery looking can't wait to wear it to work tomorrow...cya

Well It has been awhile since my last post was busy with other things than my fun crafts.  Started doing some sewing again picking up ideas on Pinterest.  That place is addicting without a doubt.  Seems like you go there for a second and it ends up an hour or more.  Where did the time go.  Anyway out here on web could not get this new blog set up to work last night so hitting it today.  We just had a "Tropical Storm" blow through here last night only had a good size tree branch hit the ground, go a dead pine in backyard figured some part of it might have fallen, but of course it is still looking like it did before the storm tall and dead.   We got some good winds after midnight and steady rain from about 8:00 pm till this morning about 5:00.  It is sprinkling right now we are sitting at 100% chance of rain (duh) today!!  Big surprise on that guess. 
    Back to why I am out here again, went to a bloggers site called Sugar Bees she does some sewing, recipes,and decorating , she had refashioned a man's tee into a cute shirred side tee. On her site she had a tutorial on how to basically accomplish the look she had so well achieved.   I have a Singer 301 which makes doing some things a little difficult where in this instance since I have never shirred before I was in a new world.  Checked out a few tutorials on how to shirr ( not sure of spelling or if that is a word)  and tried setting my machine as so.  Well it ended up eating my thread causing it to freeze up.  So after an hour of taking a few screws out and getting the thread out of the bobbin I was free (Hahahaha) to sew again.  Ended up taking machine back to the usual settings and put the foot back on put the feed dogs back up.  The shirt I found at my favorite place a big thrift store that runs a 50% off sale on all tags except a particular color that day Saturdays tags were green so of course the really cute stuff was green tagged so you paid for what the tag read.  Any way found this cute tee had this swirly design at neck it was a Columbia tee not super thin material, but liked the color and only paid $2.00 for is so thought what the heck if I mess it up no loss. 

   Got the swirly design drawn on with a pen nothing in my house would show up on it so went to sewing the area with the elastic thread that would eventually be the scrunched up area of interest of this tee.  got it done and also decided needed to take in the sleeves.  They were a little long so decided to shirr them also up one side and down the other, I had become a shirring machine.  Doing the swirly shirring was  a bit of a trick, Mandy said she ended up eye balling it which I also did. just kinda zig ,zagged in swirls and scoops...anyway it turned out kinda neat and I think it works. I am not a spokes model and do not plan to be but hopefully you get the point of the shirt.  should have taken more before and then the after but who knew it was going to work out this good....I may try it again...cya later

Painting Furniture

Found these two night stands or small dressers whatever you want to call them.  Picked them up at one of our local thrift stores they were in great shape needed a little tlc, loved the hardware.  These are going into a spare room at our office we have students who are about to finish their vet degree ,so they a place to sleep for a couple of weeks while they ride and learn with our vets....anyway I had done the room in a seascape idea the comforter has shells on it the lampshade I covered with a piece of scapbook paper tore it up and modpodged it on.  As far as these pieces painted wiht Behr Premium Plus Gulf Winds which is a light teal color. it has a primer and color in it so no sanding or anything...love that.  I used what I call a drybrush technique where there is paint in the brush but not a lot so that is has a sort of not completely painted  there is some brown showing through in most places.  Think these are going to look great in the room taking them in tomorrow will probably post agains so can get a reaction..sorry for my lack of posting lately been doing all sorts of things beside scrapping and painting.

Valentines Time!

Was looking for some new Valentines cards for this year, saw a great card on youtube from SprinkleNSparkle.com(removed the link since it must have been taken down but the creator) Valentine card video.  It was a multi-heart folded card, could not find any instructions or a pattern so decided to make my own.  Started out in inkscape first, ended up just opening up SCAL and using the heart shape that was more uniform to make this card.  There is also a cute wonky looking one which I also used.  The printed papers I used were from Kraft Love Words CCP2313, the other 2 were from Jillibean Hearty Barley collection. Quick Cooking Barley and Canola Oil   The hardest thing to get figured out is the opposite side of the half heart, when your using just plain paper there is just stamping to make a different look for the paper but when your setting up the printed stuff then u get that if I turn it over I get the opposite one I need. That did not seem to happen so I guess need to take a step back, since I made so many they sort of ended up working out ...through trial and error.    After getting all the parts glued on I started decorating with gel pens.  I love those things used a black one and my opaque white one to write on the sentiments all over the card just had fun with it.

The link for the SCAL download is here this scal includes and extra heart like on the fronts of these cards on the right , I cut out the double small hearts on the inside needing to put the larger single heart on front.Hopefully you have a s much fun making these as I did.  Can't wait to get them out.