Peacock Ornament

Today I opted to make another ornament for my tree that I currently don't own.  I also drove home for a long weekend because let's face it, one more silent night without that TV and with a lackluster internet connection and I might have gone looneytunes.  It was like solitair-ey confinement...without a deck of cards...

HAHA SEE WHAT I DID THERE?? Solitaire? Cards? Play on words?

Alright fine, ornament it is.

Materials:
-Plastic or glass ornament, take your pick, whatever is cheaper
-Adirondack or whatever other kind ink you want to use (I buy the Tim Holtz stuff) in colors of choice
-Adornment of choice (for me it was a peacock feather)
-Wire, glue, or whatever you need to attach your adornments

So basically you just drip the the ink in random patterns around the ornament.  This stuff blends really well so it comes out with a great fluid look to it.

After doing this with just blue and green, I would like to take a moment and suggest using a metallic ink.  I think it would add a lot to this, although for this particular thing clear is more than sufficient. 

I tried to use Tattered Angels stuff in there and it just simply did not work.

Again, get a metallic ink.

Next, cut your adornment to fit on top and attach it with whatever method you choose.

I know, not descriptive, but this is so open to interpretation.

This is a terrible picture, I understand that, but it marbles really well and looks really cute.

And how awesome will this be on my tree that is completely personalized with ornaments of all sorts of shenanigans?!

Again, please put some metallics and rhinestones on this guy when you all try it because ornaments need some sparkle!

Overall, it is a nice second ornament for my someday tree.

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Steampunk, Revisted. Day 22

Admittedly, I thought this day was going to involve a yummy recipe for hawaiian bbq yummy pork scrumptiousness. 

Well it doesn't.  And since my lack of foresight in packing has murdered my craftability, I decided to put the finishing touches on my steampunk pendant and go ahead and make it a necklace so that it could be worn at my discretion. 

I used:
-The pendant
-bolts and washers
-old pieces of a jeweled necklace
-jump rings
-old earring pieces
-toggle clasp

It is really pretty straightforward here, I just hooked all the various components together to come up with something delicate yet industrial. 


I really think that is going to be my overall theme in my urban planning career.  Mixing old infrastructure and designs in with new sleek designs for this mix of the old and new.  I am pretty excited about it really.

Alright I am also still insanely nervous about my classes and still think I am going to struggle with them.  But other than that I am excited.

Today we got our own cubby spaces.  We have desks and cabinets and drawers and whatnots, all that will be ours until we graduate.  Or have a mental breakdown and leave.  Whichever comes first.  Haha!

I am hoping that my cubby space will be a craft of the day soon.  I have every intention of making it a highly organized and well stocked (with snacks) area that I will enjoy being in for long periods of time.  Because seriously, I can't handle working in this apartment all day.

Mostly because I end up sleeping and not working.

Tomorrow I am going home to get my TV, more crafty things, and all the other junk I forgot.  Like my cookie sheet.

Who forgets a cookie sheet?? Pin It Now!

21 Cupcakes

Fair warning, another super good craft with a me moment at the end!

ALRIGHT I only made 12 cupcakes not 21, but it's day 21 and that counts.  But still.  First, note that I teeeeecccchnically did this yesterday.  HOWEVER, it was such a good result, but not good enough that I could bump the steampunk pendant, so I decided to expand on it and use it today.  And then I came up with the single best idea ever, and so it is really more like a new one at this point.

Not that I really got to try out my idea, but it combines two I have done previously, so it would work amazingly.

Ready for it?

LOW FAT LEMON LIGHTIES!!! yes, low fat.

Ingredients:
-1 box super moist white cake mix (with the pudding) 15.whatever size the box is nowadays
-2 lemon chobani yogurts
-Slightly under 1 cup of water (unless you find an 18.25 ounce box in which case go ahead and use a full cup)
-1 regular size tub of low fat cool whip (or fat free, I just happened to find LF on sale at the time)

For the Cupcakes:
Mix the cake mix, one lemon chobani, and the water together.  This is one of the few times I don't even feel the need to break out the Kitchenaid.  And I mean VERY FEW TIMES.  Anyway, give that a good mixer-rama until it is all incorporated, and fill 12 lined cupcake wells with the mix.  It might have made a few more, but I ate a bit of the batter...it doesn't have raw eggs so I got a little over excited :).  I personally filled mine up a good ways, it was AT LEAST 2/3 of the way full in each cup.  It is a thick batter, so it really doesn't spill over much.

Bake these at 350F, and pretty much follow the baking times.  I believe mine were in there for maybe just shy of the 18 minutes it calls for on cupckaes, but since I am not used to this gas oven and my smoke detector when off at least 20 times and I was scrambling around, I really have no idea how long they were in there.  I turned the oven off at first because the alarm scared me, but decided that I was not going to give up on them and gave it another whirl with all of my windows open and fans going everywhere.  So my best advice is check them around 15, they probably won't need too much longer and I doubt would reach 20 in there.  Use the toothpick test on the center of them and you will be just fine.


This whole cake plus yogurt stuff has been on Hungry Girl btw.




If my stupid internet (worst connection EVER) allows me to upload a picture, I am hoping that right here will be where you see how good the inside of them looks.  Look at those air bubble holes so typical of many cuppycakes.  Look at that lovely color and thourough cooking.  Look at my internet symbol telling me I have no internet access and yet here I am still typing away hoping for the best...

What pretty cuppycakes.  Anyway, if you just do the lemon and the white it does not come out with a very strong lemon flavor but does taste extremely good.  I would almost say I like it a little better than typical vanilla.  But maybe it is the texture that I like so well.  It is close to a regular cupcake but a little more substantial, if you will. Thicker, maybe is a good word for it. QUICK INTERNET ADD PICTURES!!

AHAHA new found spot to work, going rogue and laying on my dining room floor.  Strangely it vastly helps my connection to one of the routers.  Oh well, I'll take it, I will even break out my sleeping bag if need be.

I had absolutely nothing to ice these with when I made them.  After setting off my alarm as many times as I did, I really did not even care.  But I got to thinking about it today, mostly because I had these in the fridge overnight since my counter space is limited (highly advise).  And what I came up with was partnering these with some other deliciousness I made a few months ago.

MIX your remaining lemon chobani into your coolwhip.  Or maybe even Dream Whip if you are fancy pants such as that.  Anyway, this by itself is completely freaking delicious, but on top of these cupcakes and the whole dealio being in the fridge is completely the way to go.  This is absolutely doable for a cake instead of cupcakes (poke cake style with lemon jello possibly), and is a great way to cut out a lot of the fat and sneak some protein in. 

Not that it necessarily makes them healthy per se, but it sure does take them a huge step in the right direction.

All in all, I have had a rough start to my graduate career.  I am not sure I am capable of doing it, I am used to passing things in flying colors with relatively little effort.  Grad School, on the other hand I think will push me to my limits and possibly even my breaking point and that has me a little on edge.  I have however started to make friends and that is cool and all, but seriously this internet thing is killing me.

Talk about first world problems.

This is why I sometimes get really mad at myself- here I am complaining that my internet doesn't work in my cozy little apartment whereas campus is under a mile away and I could always go use theirs.  We never realize how completely dependent and somewhat lazy we become living in such a great country where most of us have stuff handed to us, do we?

And boohoo, grad school will be hard.  Others don't ever get the chance to attend graduate school and here I am not only attending it, but doing it mostly on someone else's dime.

So yes, I am officially a little first world twit.  And it irks me greatly.  I feel some self evaluation and reflecting coming on.  I also have this sneaking feeling that I am right where I need to be, as much as I hate to admit it.

You know those moments, when you know God does something that you can't ignore? I think I just had one.  A friend texted me completely out of the blue that I have not talked to in a good long while, just to wish me luck at grad school.  I had been thinking about emailing this guy a while back but was not sure what email he was using. 

Well played, God, well played.  Keep sending me the messages (but don't email them my wifi sucks).

Amen. Pin It Now!

Steam Punk Funk, Day 20

Warning, this involves a craft and then a philosophic (sort of) trip through the inner workings of my mind.

Lately I have been really interested in steam punk style jewelry.  It is really interesting to me just because of how basic the components are yet how interesting the outcome is.  My spoon necklace pendant was a cutesy version of it, and I decided to do another pendant that was more mechanical looking.

I used:
-A metal hoop off another necklace that used to have a jewel hanging in the hoop.  I took that jewel out.
-Washers and small bolts
-Key charms
-Watch gears
-Silver wire

I used the wire to attach a key to the hoop and also to attach a large washer to the hoop.  I thought this might make a more interesting bail as opposed to making a wire one.

When I originally tried this pendant, I used a long piece of copper wire and tried to wrap all the components with the same piece and it just looked so messy I could not handle it.

Though Steampunk style things are, in my opinion, bizarre and strange, one thing they are not is messy.  I had to take the whole thing back apart and start new.  I am not sure why I hated the copper wire so terribly, but it had to go.  As you can see here, I opted for silver.  Gauge is up to you, mine is around 26 so it is easy to wrap with.

I have started calling this pendant "Timing is Key" since there are watch pieces and whatnot in it.  Yep, I am a nerd that names my pieces.

Continue to attach widgets and schmidgets until you get a look you are happy with.  Again, I cannot stress how much I like this clean look with individual connections as opposed to using one large piece of wire. 

It looked haywire.

My biggest issue so far has been making necklace chains that I like my SP inspired jewelry on.  My spoon pendant is proving the most difficult, or maybe I am just proving to be more picky than I expected.

I never thought I would find myself identifying with crafts.  But I really do identify with this.  Timing is everything, and it is something I have really been in an epic battle with myself over.

I am a human born with a sense of urgency, I don't feel like I have much time to do what needs to be done.  It could just be because in my perception of time it moves alarmingly quickly.  I think it also goes back to my periodic struggles in faith.  Whenever I am going through one of my low-points, I seem to become a lot more agitated about time and how I am spending it. 

It's really all rather interesting, I am a person that looks around and find it hard to believe that all of this came from nothing.  Here is my usual train of thought:
- Evolution in no way shape or form is an issue with religion in my opinion.  The Bible progresses sequentially, evolution progresses sequentially, and no maybe they don't match perfect but we also don't know if either side has portrayed the whole picture (ie things getting jumbled in orative passings versus science only being sure until the next breakthrough discovery is found, and similar).  I really don't think that the "seven days" thing is literally meant as seven since there are ample versus depicting that time is something different to God, and it fully could be that it was told that way so that people would understand it.  I mean seriously ponder 7 days and then ponder billions of years and you tell me which is easier to get your mind around.
-It is completely mindboggling that we just "happen" to be right where we need to be when the slightest hair of closer or further from the sun would have us goners.
-Even if there is a multiverse, which has not nor likely can be proven...HOW DID IT GET THERE? This is my biggest thing of arguments like the multiverse, it seems even more ludicrous to me that there would be a mechanism producing universe after universe that just happened to get there.
-No matter what exactly spawned this universe...HOW DID IT GET THERE?  I am of the mindset that something of matter has to come from something else.  It needs the right ingredients and it needs a component,  all machines need an engineer.

Now, my problem is I often turn all this around and ask myself, ok, well then how did God get there? And then I throw myself into a continuous loop and really it is not something that a 22 year old usually ponders.  Which is exactly why I cannot talk to it with my friends, because absolutely none of them ponder it to the rather insane extent that I do.  At least not that I know of. 

I do find it intriguing what William Lane Craig proposes of a disembodied mind being God.  And maybe that is where I find myself getting tripped up. Because I often forget that Jesus came as man but God Himself stayed solely in the spiritual world.

I also find out of body experiences to be very intriguing. Also intriguing, is the scientific principle that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.  What is here is here and will be here and always was here.  Now that is a very interesting thing, because that is exactly what God said about Him, far before scientific times.

I also think about how long people have been praying to Gods in some form and believing in the spiritual things, and I consider that to be valuable evidence because it is not like this is something that just sprung from nowhere when Jesus arrived on the scene.

I will digress with the inner workings of my mind, as you probably did not expect to read that from a steam punk pendant.  But I have this odd feeling that this blog and this challenge are going to turn in to so much more than what I had expected.

And that is something I do like the prospect of.

Until next time. Pin It Now!

T-Shirt Headband, Day 19

Sound the alarm, I tried to sew again :).  Just kidding, it really did not turn out that bad.  I had a blue Arizona T Shirt that I haaaaated since the day I bought it (too big) and decided to make something out of it.

Originally, I was going to rehab the neckline like I keep seeing people do...

Well mine turned out HIDEOUS.   Maybe it was the material, maybe just user error, but it was really rough looking. So instead, I decided to try my luck at a headband.

Materials:
-A t-shirt, with a section cut from the middle and one of the sleeves cut (angled, poorly, however you prefer to cut)
-Needle and thread
-A bead or button (optional)

You will want to cut a section from the middle of your shirt.  The width is completely up to you, keep in mind you will fold it over to sew.  I used the front part of my section, cutting it away from the back at the seams.

Stitch the sides together (it does not have to be perfect, thankfully) in whatever stitch you know, and then flip it inside out once you get the side done and your thread tied off. 

Next, figure out where you need to sew the two ends together to make it the right size for your head (or rig up a button or closure if you know what you are doing). Stitch the ends together, again, not worrying too much if it is perfect.

Why would it not need to look nice, you ask? Simple, we are going to cover it up.  Fake it til you make it!

Take the sleeve of your shirt (does not need to be cut it can still be a circle) and start bunching it like so.   Or really any way you want so that it comes out looking flower-y. I like to keep the seam side out so it looks more like I knew what I was doing.

Play around with it until you get a look you like.

I was going for a sort of pansy flower shape for mine.

Anyway, once you get it as you like it secure the shape with thread.  I always think more is more when it comes to thread, just so hopefully overstitching will keep it together.

When you get the flower stitched, take a small bead or button and sew it in to the center of the flower.  I like to send my thread through the bead multiple times. 

If you have enough thread left, go ahead and sew the flower to the headband, tacking down petals as needed so that it all stays perfectly in place.

In the end you should come out with something surprisingly cute like this!

I would have shown it on my head, as it fits remarkably well, but I am opting for a "look like a scrub" day.  Heehee.

I think this would be really neat to do with a shirt that had a print on it. 

You don't necessarily have to make the flower out of the sleeve, I just used it because it had a nice finished seam so the flower would look far more finished than if I had tried to do it out of a middle scrap.

Mix colors, mix prints, put multiple flowers on there, go crazy!


Best part? COMPLETELY FREE! Pin It Now!

Day 18: Beads Beads Beads

On Pinterest I keep seeing this thing for making these cute vintage looking necklaces using beads and wire, and it frustrates me because the how-to isn't in English and I really want to know how to do it! So like usual, I took matters into my own hands.

Materials:
-A big bead, I like the crystal looking ones over pearls as they are less frustrating
-26 gauge or so wire (color of your choice)
-Smaller beads
-Wire cutters or scissors

To start off, I cut a very long piece of wire and wrapped it around and through the bead so that it went around it twice. Two works better than one, but one is possible as well.

Next, I wrapped the short end of the wire around the wire looped over the bead so that my end would stay in place.  The long leftover end is the one you will want to string beads on, one at a time.  I strung the bead on and looped the end of the wire under the 2 that circumvent the bead, and followed suit with more beads after.

Do this one bead at a time, for a very long time. 

The only reason I prefer crystal beads to pearls is the offsets in them make it MUCH easier to get under the wire.  If you use a pearl bead or smooth round bead of any sort, you might consider not wrapping your wire quite as tight, but still tight enough that the wires won't flop around.

You could always put a dab of E6000 on at the end, which is what I pretty much suggest for everything.

After I got all the way around this bead, I decided to try something a little different.  I moved the two strands closer together and added a third in the back.  I really think I would like it with 4, but my bead supply for those small brown beads is a little low until I go home again.  When you have it as you like it, simply twist the remaining wire either back into the bead, or make a loop and twist it around itself multiple times to form a good connector that you can put jump rings through.

As you can see, I also did this with beads that were closer in size.  I really like the little yellow guys and how they turned out, even though the pearls gave me trouble.

There is no reason to think that you could not add another layer of beads in, the problem is just finding some that work really well with the aesthetic you are going for.  I am not good yet with doing the second layer, so I opted to not.

I think these beaded beads (if you will) are rather interesting mixed in with other strands, chains, and similar.  It adds an interesting texture in, and I also think they would make really cute earrings.

If you do a lot of stuff with beads you probably have a ton left over from random projects that aren't quite enough to use for a big necklace, but might be just enough for something such as this.

It is also a good use of seed beads, which are quickly becoming the bane of my existence.


I also moved in to my apartment today for grad school.  It is pretty cute, and I am glad to be able to hang up pictures.  My last school apartment was a super old cinderblock type setup with glossy white paint on the walls, and that combination is impossible to hang stuff.

Tomorrow I have to go tackle grocery shopping...so if I never post again, it got the better of me...

Just kidding! Until tomorrow! Pin It Now!

Day 17: Pendants ROCK

Numerous years ago (maybe 6 or 7), it matters not how long, I had Betta fish.  Quite a few of them really.  At one point we had 6 jars I believe, and it was a nightmare to clean.  But they were so cute!  But so smelly. 

Anyway, near my senior year or maybe slightly before, I was tired of the fish.  They had dwindled down to a few fish left, and I decided that I would just wait them out and not buy any others.  Naturally, after they were all gone and buried under the willow (I really liked my fish), I had a ton of leftover rocks. 

Recently on pinterest there have been various things about making magnets out of them.  Well I wanted to show you another way to upcycle them into fun and usable goods.

Materials:

-Larger glass rocks
-Wire (various colors)
-E6000
-Wire cutters (or scissors if it is not heavy duty wire)

If you want to be less annoyed while doing these, put a spot of E6000 on the back and let the end of the wire dry in it while you do the same to other shapes and colors.

Once it is set, wrap the wire around the rock in various directions or however you choose, wrapping the ends around the wires to "tie" them together.

Experiment with various colors and directions, and add beads if you so desire.

When you have them as you like, cut another smaller length of wire so that you can wrap it through the ones on the back of the rock and make a loop to use as a connector later when you put it on a necklace.

If you are like me, you will want to put another spot of glue on the back at the end, just to make sure it all stays on there nice and snug.

There are many other options available, such as putting pictures behind the rocks before you put the wire on. 

If you were to use stronger wire than what I used, you could also make interesting curls all around the rock, especially by making a base or "nest" so to speak that it could sit in and then wrap the curls over it.

It is a nice way to remember my betta fish, and so nice to not have to clean them now.

Also, consider putting a loop at each end and making a statement necklace out of them! Pin It Now!