Christmas Card Upgrade

The last time you saw this card it was just an ornament on a white card with a little Merry Christmas at the bottom.  Well, that was before I decided it didn't have enough pizzazz.

Naturally I opted to draw a tree in the background and spice up the colors on the ornament.  I think it has a bit of a Seussical quality to it, which makes me happy because I LOVE the Grinch. 

You know, when the little ornament rolls across the floor and whatnot? This little guy could completely be that little ornament.

Anyway, maybe this technically doesn't count as a new craft but it does, because it is my blog and what I say goes, but my goal here is to encourage you to brave the world of mixing your stamps with your drawing.

And your amazing Prismacolor pencils.  Which you are borderline obsessed with.

I have had quite a fun time with Christmas cards this season.  I terrorized someone who has become a very good friend very quickly with a glitterbomb disguised as a Christmas Card.

A real pink nightmare of a card, if you follow.  Ruffles and pink and tons of things that made me want to gag (I hate pink).  Also a nightmare in the fact that I put multiple shakes of super tiny super sneaky POLYFLAKE in the card.  That's right, I used the good stuff.

Thank God he has such a good sense of humor.  He is actually quite a hoot overall.  Which I will later deny that I said even though it is here in writing.  My blog, my rules ;).

Regardless, maybe the overall goal of this holiday for me is to remember to have fun with it.  Christmas cards don't have rules, they don't have to be stuffy, and the holiday season can be one never ending parade of shenanigans if you let it.  We get so caught up with the need to buy things and overspend, hung up on the inconsequential details, and just forget to remember the importance of family and fun for the whole time!

So don't just send a card, send a glitterbomb.  Send a funny picture. Make the whole card a funny picture.  DO IT!

Happy crafting. Pin It Now!

Clearance Necklace

I really like things at a good price.  I was raiding Michael's for some paint to make yesterday's steampunk hot air balloon ornament (which is now on my little tree).  After finding all the paint I needed I stood up and had a moment.

This is going to sound really odd, but there are just times when a craft idea comes to mind that is so incredibly well developed that I can almost literally see it right in front of me instead of whatever I was looking at.  Which probably makes you think I am crazy.  Which I really don't care.

Regardless, I then had to promptly march to the jewelry section, where lo and behold I found all sorts of things I "needed" on clearance.  I found charms and chains and necklaces and beads.

Which leads me to this post.  I found these wire orb bead things and I was intrigued.  I quite frankly love things that are a mishmash mess if you look closely but that when you zoom out look perfectly put together.  So of course, I liked these beads.  I also wanted them because they were inspirational on making my own beads out of wire, which I plan on trying at some point.

Regardless, what I did not know was how in the world I would turn them into a necklace or any other sort of jewelry.  I ended up putting them and two clear beads on eye pins, attaching them together, and then putting them on chain to make a longer necklace.  

A longer necklace that I have a terrible notion it will be one I keep instead of my plan on giving much of what I make this month as Christmas gifts...

I did, however, make some others that actually will be Christmas gifts, so at least I am partially where I should be. 

Is it an astonishingly beautiful necklace? Well, perhaps not.  But I like it, and I imagine that it will give you your own ideas on how you could use these quirky beads or other clearance things to your benefit. 

Mostly, I just hope it inspires you to reach outside of your usual go-to's in jewelry or crafting and take a look at something you might never have purchased before.  There is potential in everything.

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Steampunk Ornament, Round 2.

After not being impressed with a past steampunk ornament I did, I opted to give it another try.  This is most likely due to the fact that I have recently found a new really good friend that I seem to have a lot in common with, and he is also a fan of steampunk style things. 

I am once again not very sure that I am qualified to do steampunk anything, I don't know a whole lot about it but I do know that I really like it.  I relate to it for whatever reason. 

I can also relate to hot air balloons, which is what this is, because I completely LOVE the movie UP! (I am adding this random note here so I can punctuate after because that movie title messed me up...) haha.

Probably because my friends are convinced I am a robot.  Or maybe that I like gadgets.  Or perhaps because I like gadgets. 

Oh right.  You are here for the how-to.  Get some metallic gold paint, heavy on the dusty vintage, some copper/red puffy paint, jewels, watch gears, and a lightbulb.

I painted it with the gold and let it dry for a bit.  What is it setting in, you ask? A styrofoam cup with slits in the bottom. It makes for a perfect lightbulb holder.

I ate a delicious dinner and then used the puffy paint to do the linework.  After I was done I used the E6000 to put on the jewels and gears and glued the gears on and let them rest on the cup.  Remember that the less dry your paint is the harder it is going to be for your stuff to stick on and stay in place. 

And as always, keep in mind that everything has a backside, so some flaws can be hidden by the grace of quality arrangement later.

I don't feel like steampunk needs to be perfect, personally.

This once again did not turn out as awesome as I had hoped.  Isn't that always the case when you are fluffing around trying to be all cool?  Yes, yes it is.  Foiled again.  I will get that cool card back someday, mark my words.

On a random note, there is a nice spring storm going on outside...in the middle of December.  It is mind boggling.  Quite frankly, this is why I adore Indiana. The weather is completely unpredictable and I love it.  She just does what she wants.  Cold one day, hot the next.  70's in December, snowing on Derby.

I just can't help but smile.

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Peacock Christmas Tree

 Well this is actually my sister's tree, but she was nice enough to let me use it for my blog today.  We were all out for about 12 hours shopping, and she and I conspired on some of the ornament ideas when this tree was just a concept.

The tree is completely done in blues, purples, and golds.  There are purple round LED lights, found at Target.  I frantically texted her one day from the Target in Muncie because the lady in front of me was buying these awesome purple lights.

Thanks lady in front of me!

There area  lot of different ornaments on there like keys, bulbs, feathers, fun shapes, peacocks.  The main stores for finding all of these were Hobby Lobby, Target, and Wal-Mart. I must hand it to Wal-Mart this year on some of their loose ornaments.  They were actually really on trend.

Hobby Lobby had the coolest tree toppers.  I am all for traditional things, but I would be lying if I said I was not completely in love with this peacock tree.

I like mishmash trees too.  As I am a very random soul.

Regardless, Hobby Lobby had this crown topper.  WHO WOULDN'T WANT A CROWN ON TOP THEIR TREE?!?! I love it.  So my sister bought these peacock ornaments to go on it and some feathers and wired them on. 

Small gauge gold wire, good call on my part.  People can love their hot glue all they want, but wire definitely has its merits.

Hobby Lobby also had an excellent array of ornaments like keys, which speaks to my side that has been so interested in steampunk.

How cool would a steampunk tree be.  Legit.

Anyway, so she bought sparkly keys at HL along with numerous other ornaments. 

The ornate purple ornament pictured in this post is from Wal-Mart, who also had VERY cute little peacocks and feathers that clip on.

Not pictured in this because I forgot to snap a shot of them are cute peacock ornmaments from Target.

Other glittery bits were found at Old Time Pottery.

And we were covered in glitter for days.

I am very much a last minute Christmas shopper, so I was not able to check off many gifts today.  But I did start to develop some ideas about what I might get people, so it really was beneficial.

And between my sisters and tweeting with my friend, I was in stitches nearly all day from laughing.  Which is good because it is supposed to burn calories and I ate:

Breakfast (most important meal), red velvet donut, raspberry m&ms (a ton), pesto sun dried tomato yumminess of pizza heaven, cake batter froyo with white chocolate chips almonds sprinkles waffle cone pieces, and french fries.

Not all at once mind you.

If you don't let loose now and then with your food, I think you are simply missing out.  Five meal days can make for the most entertaining stories later. 

Meals are also so incredibly intertwined with loved ones and good times.  You really just can't argue with the power of good food and good company.

And a GREAT nap while your sisters brave the holiday version of Old Navy.  That is a moment in life when a 42 inch span from the top of your hip bone to the end of your toes is really not beneficial at all...

But the point is, go make yourself a fun and festive tree, and don't limit yourself to a basic topper you can buy when you can dress it up with a ZILLION other things.

Happy crafting!


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Santa Card

So here is a random card I made.  I conned a few friends into giving me their mailing addresses today, so I am starting to designate a few cards to specific homes.

For this card, I used a rich red paper, tore a small strip of black, and tore out a square from my gold paper.  I used scissors to put slits in the square so I could lace the belt through it.

I attached the decorations with mod podge, and then mod podged the entire card and put polyflake on it.  Then I put mod podge over it to keep the sparkles on...

Now, let's say you are a shenaniganizer like me.  And let's say you were threatening someone with glitter bombing them via a card.  If you were this kind of shenaniganizer, you might not put a second coat on...heck...maybe you don't even put the first on there....

The world may never know.  Ahahahahh.  I have some seriously fun friends.  I really should have taken a picture of that card before I put it in an envelope.  Bugger.

Regardless, this responsible and polite card will be going to someone, it doesn't know exactly where it will end up yet.  But it is festive.  Holly and jolly.

If you don't have friends as fun as mine, you need to work on that.  Because my friends and my family keep life interesting. Pin It Now!

Easy Peasy Christmas Card

I love colored pencils, I am nearly obsessed with them in fact.  That was the basis of this card.  All you need to do is find a big stamp, put it on in black, and color in a little color near the middle. 

You can color the whole thing or you can color little bits like I did with this one.

I am not sure why, but I love the simplicity of this card.  There isn't a lot going on and it doesn't have a lot of bling or zing or aquamarine, this card is green and red.

Yes I lapsed a little into Alice in Wonderland there.

This is short sweet and to the point because I drove home tonight and this is all I have in me haha! Until tomorrow, craft on. Pin It Now!

Baked Crab Rangoons: Picture Overload

**Update: A lot of recipes call for garlic, which I originally intended to add a pinch of it.  I like these as they are, but you may choose to add that in.

For the sake of my sanity, I am not going to try to line up the details with each particular picture.  I was trying to add captions to each picture for your sake but it is acting just like Word does and messing up my formatting.  At least I tried.  Recipe now, discussion to follow:
-1/3 Block reduced fat cream cheese
-Onions and chives to taste, see pictures, go lightly
-Heaping 1/2 cup of finely chopped imitation crab, or the real stuff, the imitation was on sale for $1, so it won.
-1/2 container of greek yogurt (plain)
-3 Dashes of Soy Sauce (I refuse to metric this, everyone just shakes some in regardless of tsp amount)
-Wonton wrappers (about 20-30 depending on shape, details to follow)


Finely, finely, ever so finely chop the onions.  I mean mutilate them, seriously.  No crunchy chunk of onion is going to fly in a rangoon.  I had chives in my spice rack, and gave them a good chop as well.

As you can tell by the pictures, I use VERY little of each.  These are crab rangoons, not onion rangoons. 

Chop the crab and mix all of the filling ingredients together.

Place little dollops in the center of the wonton wrapper and fold to desired shape, brushing the edges with water and then folding to seal.  Bake at 350 (I did it at 375 but I would suggest a lower temperature, as I expected) for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown, which will vary by shape and amount of filling.

Other recipes call for other additions such as worchestire, lemon, etc etc, so feel free to add other things as you see fit.  I personally like how these taste.  With it being a reduced fat cream cheese and with the inclusion of greek yogurt, it gives it a tangy taste and so I did not add lemon into mine. I did brush a few of the tops with butter and this did not seem to overly change the results.

Shapes, with my own name designations:

-Commodore Hats.  These made me think of those goofy hats the sailors wear in Pirates of the Caribbean.  You probably just have to be in my crazy brain to see it.  Regardless, start with a dollop in the center.  Brush water on all edges of wrapper, and fold two corners into themselves as if you were going to fold it over into a triangle. Bring these two corners together toward the center to create a pouch, and stick the remaining two sides together.  This will make a LOT more sense in the pictures.

Only because it literally can't make any less sense writing it out.  But that, my friends, is WHY I took all of these pictures for you.

-Traditional looking crab rangoons.  These are similar to the hats, but you will want to bring the middle of each side in toward the center and stick them together.  You can pretty much do this one handed when you get used to it.

-Pocket Packets.  What can I say I like weird names.  Anyway, do the same thing you did for the traditional shaped ones, but wet the corners as well and bring them in to the center after you have the traditional shape.

-Triangles.  Boring name, easy shape, if you can't make your wonton be a triangle...bad news bears.


Here is what I learned from all of this.  First, the shape of your wonton and subsequently the amount of filling will affect your baking time.

How recipes like this bake at 425 is beyond me.  If you want to try that be my guest, I prefer to do this at 350.  Height and corners become your enemy at higher temperatures.  You can probably get away with a higher temperature with the triangles or with a folded in square type shape, but you need to test that theory before you use these for a party.

You should test all recipes before a party, by the way.  Solid advice from my mother.

You need to watch these like a hawk.  I facebooked for a few minutes when they were nearing completion and I got some brown corners.

That being said, don't be afraid of the darker corners.  They are delicious and crispy and this is coming from someone who hates everything that is even remotely "burnt".  Like char marks on grilled food, not a big fan.  I like barely there marks on my hot dogs.

These aren't fried, so they won't have the same crispyness as a deep fried rangoon would, but they still have plenty of merit.  Mostly in the form of not being so incredibly unhealthy.

You can use philly cream cheese that has onion and chive in it already.  They make that.  What would the conversion be? I have no idea.  Some? :)  It should not be hard to adjust.  I don't buy that particular thing and always have cream cheese on hand, so I just used what I had.


There are probably a zillion ways you could fold a wonton, so get creative and have fun with it.  Food should be fun.  Sharing food and meals with others is fun, and there is no reason the cooking can't be as well.  The dishes will never be fun, and that is a fact of life.


Now, time for me to ramble about my day.  Although I think there is a howler monkey or something in the hallway...or a very drunk sorority girl.  Maybe a very drunk sorority girl who owns a howler monkey.

Oh lord.  That would be quite the combination....

Regardless, my mom came to visit me today and it was such a pleasant sort of surprise.  She obviously called first to make sure I wasn't embroiled in some intense homework.  I technically had my paper I am working on open, but to say I was working on it would be a teeny bit of a ginormous stretch. 

When she got here, however, I was VERY surprised because she came armed with cupcakes.

Now, for anyone who doesn't know me if I ever truly had a weekness it would be cupcakes.  I love them.  I love everything about a cupcake.  I went to DC and I was fixating on the idea of getting Sprinkles cupcakes to the point of near insanity until we finally went over to Georgetown.  I would take a trip back to DC just to have that red velvet again.

And eat at the restaurant inside the Museum of the American Indian.  That was delicious.  Sweet potato cheesecake, for the win.

Anyway, the point is it was so nice to have company here in Muncie.  I was one of the few from my hometown that actually took off to school pretty far from home, just passed that distance that people are more willing to drive to come visit.  I go home every other weekend in most cases, and go to a friend's house some of the weekends that I am not here, but it is always such a pleasant change to have someone come here.

And I had just cleaned my apartment, how convenient!

That made the cupcakes like a reward for cleaning.  I sent most of them home with mom as I will be headed that way for break tomorrow (she was in this neck of the woods for business is how this started), but there is currently a red velvet cheesecake cupcake and a snickerdoodle cupcake sitting deliciously in my fridge.

I wish I had not been such a rudeling and had thought to make these while she was here.  I was, however, caught up in conversation and enjoying the moment.  I shall have to make it up in leftovers that I am bringing with me tomorrow.

You could fill these with anything.  Think of the insane amount of possibilities in the simplicity of a wonton shell.

Happy crafting.






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