Activities of the Heart

Since I missed a Valentine Day post, I'll catch up today before February is completely gone!

My scarf obsession turned into Valentines...  My daughter spotted a handmade flannel infinity scarf that she liked so I decided to make them both one.  The pattern is really simple and these can be made in under an hour.   The flannel can be bulky, which she likes.  And boy they are warm, I'm not sure it's been cold enough to wear them!

Scarves ready to go in the mail.

I loved this painted heart tutorial so our littlest sweetie got her Valentine on a shirt.  This shirt is cuter with her in it!  ha ha!!

Heart shirt for the sweet granddaughter

My hubby got his Valentine on his plate.  I have been following Ms enPlace and can always find something that sounds really good and cajun-y on her site.   I chose her Blackened Bacon Shrimp and Cheesy Grits to serve my cajun-lovin' hubby.  This dish was SO good!

And lastly, I played with the camera trying to get some photos of the beautiful velvety red roses that I received.

Fried Dill Pickles

This past weekend I celebrated a birthday.  

A vase of these greeted me when I walked into the kitchen.  They're pretty!

It was also a big game day weekend for all the football fans at my house.  We decided on these fried dill pickles for the tailgate, aka couch. 

We only order them at restaurants when there's a table full of people to eat them.  I like them, but you never know what you're getting so I don't get real excited about eating them in restaurants. 

I had never made them at home and was concerned they would be too soggy.  So I let them drain on paper towels for a few hours.  I chose the chips over the spears and the chips are definitely more time consuming by having to dip each one multiple times!

They were crispy and tasty!  Dip 'em in ranch dressing and pop 'em in your mouth.

 

DIY Angry Birds Costume

Over the years, I've enjoyed DIYing costumes as opposed to buying the packaged kind.  The kids also enjoy it when the adults dress up.  It's just fun for everyone!



Cruella Deville and Elwood



Thing 1 and Thing 2 were simple to make and we had so much with it. 

Of course, I was Thing 1 :)  and have you ever seen Thing 2 with a  beard?  Ha ha!



Thing 1 and Thing 2

So that brings us to this year's popular Angry Birds!

I used my Thing 1 hat. 

To make the hat you will need:

a toboggan hat in the color of your choice
a feather boa in the color of your choice
safety pins or needle and thread

I happen to find a toboggan at Target that was just the perfect teal color!  The boa came from Hancock's Fabrics, but you can get these at Hobby Lobby, Walmart, or other dollar store type places.

Attach the boa to the hat using the pins or tack it with needle and thread.   I chose safety pins because I could adjust them easily if needed.  Since the toboggan stretches, put it on your head every now and then as you are pinning to get the best boa coverage.  It isn't necessary to cover the hat solid with the boa since the feathers fluff a little.  Just wrap it around, I used one boa spaced out between rounds to cover the hat.  The boa has thread ends, so just tuck those under the feathers so they don't show.

Now for the mask.  I wanted something that was easy to take off, yet will stay on my face.  (I don't ask for much, huh?) 

For the mask you will need:

Sunglass frames (lense removed, I got mine from the Dollar Tree)

card stock or craft foam

yellow felt

tape or hot glue

black Sharpie

Below is the drawing I did to cut out the shapes.  I used card stock for the white part, red foam for the red cheek part and yellow felt.  These are just items I had on hand, but the felt did work well for the beak so it would adjust to my nose when I put the mask on! 

Looking at Angry Bird images on the internet, my eyes may be a tad large in relation to the beak, but I was going for drama!  That can be adjusted easily by trimming down the size of the eye with a pair of scissors.

I taped each piece on the backside.  The tape can be adjusted as you fit it on the glasses and on your face.  When it's all together it can be hot glued, but my tape was sticking just fine so I left it as is.  

Using the black Sharpie, highlight the edges.



If only I could split into 3 like the game...

Have a safe Halloween!

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Kelly's Korner

The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday

It's a HodgePodge Life

There's something strange in the neighborhood...

Who you gonna call? 

It's really spooky around here!

See what I mean?

These ghostly images are just down the street from my house!  

My cell phone camera was all I had with me to snap a photo of them before they vanish. 

They look like they are in their element billowing in the fall breeze with a spot of light on them and shadows surrounding them.

I played with the image in Picasa using different ghoul-y looking effects.  Now just print the black and white ghouly versions and add them to the Halloween decor.   DIY Halloween decor!

I enjoy looking at all the fall and Halloween outdoor vignettes that people display in their yards. 

Is it getting strange in your neighborhood?

Jack's Place

Such a creative use of pallets down the street from my house.

Sharing at Friday's Fences

Sling glide chairs

It's fall and it's still nice out here for the most part, so come on over and have a seat...

Ok, well you might not want to choose THESE chairs to sit in.  Ugh!

Let the makeover begin!  Remove the nasty green canvas and sand the wood a bit.

We used this product on the boathouse so I know it will be good for the wood on the chairs.

Brush it on and let it dry.

The stain sealer makes the wood much nicer, almost looks new!

I just measured the nasty green canvas and cut the same measurement out of Sunbrella fabric.  It's indoor/outdoor fabric, but it is lighter weight than the original heavy duty canvas.  So I sewed two pieces together back to back to make it heavier.  Using the handy staple gun (that I love), I attached the fabric to the wood frame.

Now, won't you have a seat?

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Flaunt It Friday

Summer Sun

I'm enjoying these last rays of summer sun!  How about you?

Sharing at Friday's Fences

Fall Repurposed Wine Bottles and Orbs

Determined to hang on to summer as long as I can, I put off starting my fall mantel until AFTER Labor Day. 

My friend Jennifer from Come Rain or Come Shine and The Sweet As Pie Cooking Club recently asked me what projects I had going.   At the time, I couldn't think of exactly WHAT I had going, so much of them are just in progress! 

So far I have more repurposed wine bottles.

Just spray paint them.  That green doesn't look like fall in this picture, we'll see how it goes with the rest of the stuff on the mantel.   Or use Modge Podge and attach scrapbook paper or yarn. 

When the yarn is dry, embellish to your heart's content!  These gold leaves were earrings I found on a clearance rack, and of course, the wine cork.  

This is all in progress over several days so I've still got to add something to the scrapbook paper bottle.   Suggestions are welcome!

As for orbs, I have always loved them, but never purchased them.  Some really pretty ones I have seen cost up to $12 each!   I knew I could DIY orbs.

I found large plastic Christmas balls and sprayed them brown.

Then with the Modge Podge attach anything with texture like these wooden discs.

I also covered one with jute but any heavy cord would work.

This is where it got ugly!  I cut some linen in strips and tied the ends together.

And wrapped it around the ball.

Ugh,  not at all what I was hoping for.  You might not see that on my finished mantel!  Ha ha!

Puppy Love

Has you ever been awaked by sounds in your closet?  I was so rudely awakened one morning a few weeks ago to the sound of this:

Yes, the top rack hanger thingy in the closet fell!  Ugh, what a mess! 

As I peeled through the layers of stuff in the floor, I ran across my old collection of Donny Osmond albums. 

I understand if you click the X to close your browser at this point!  Ha ha! 

Oh, yes, the Justin Beiber of the 70s!

I just had to get out my old photo album and look at the poor pictures from the concert where I saw him in person!  Yes, I couldn't believe it at the time, that I was going to his concert.

And would you believe is only cost $7.00?

It seems silly to be sharing this.

At this point my family will say "Don't you have anything better to do?"  My response is "Yes, I just choose to not do it at the moment!

And the closet is back to normal...I know you were wondering about that, too!

Nekked Jalapeno Poppers

If you want to make really good baked jalapeno poppers make these Emeril's jalapeno poppers. 

If all you really care about is the jalapeno and cheese, like me, make nekked jalapeno poppers like this:

Marlene at Isom's Orchard knew we were going to make jalapeno poppers so she gave us the freshest "just picked today" and BIGGEST jalapenos she had!  They were huge and yummy!

I piled the cheese mixture in the jalapeno.  Put them on the grill until the cheese is melted and the jalapeno is slightly softened.  Or just bake them like in the recipe link above. 

Forget the breading, who needs it anyway?   Who's playing?  It doesn't matter, I'm cheering for the tailgate!

Serve on the tailgate at game time.  Roll Tide.

Once in a blue moon

Yesterday was a blue moon day.  

I'm not an astronomy enthusiast or anything like that but I learned that the modern day definition of a Blue Moon is when there are 2 full moons in one month. 

I now have 3 years to learn how to get the best picture I can of the moon.  Or maybe I'll just learn how to Photoshop a picture of the moon!

Either way, see you on July 31, 2015.

Have a great weekend!

Anthro or industrial? magnet board

Seems like these days, a lot of our pictures never make it off the computer.  They remain on the disk drive, cell phone, blogs, Facebook, Instagram, wherever.   So make sure you're backing up your computer or at least the My Pictures folder (or wherever you're storing yours)!

My daughters needed some place to display the Zapps pictures from the events they attended.   A nice big bulletin board or something like that to also add some decoration or interest to the almost bare walls of the house would be great!

I thought those cabinet doors from the Habitat Restore would be perfect for a magnet board for pictures.   There's not a lot of pictures of my DIY here, but hopefully you get the "picture" :).

Just give them a coat of primer first thing. 

Then I painted on the color that I want the trim to be.  The color gray is so popular now and I thought the college crowd would like it.  This is called Elephant Gray. 

Sheet metal can be found at Lowe's in a 2'x3' piece for less than $10.  I took it to a local sheet metal shop and they cut it to the sizes I needed.  The cuts were crisp with no crinkles or bends, nice!

The one on the right has the primer/trim painted.  The one on the left has the metal inside the frame, attached with Gorilla glue.

I sanded the edges of the frame to give them a distressed look.  With the gray color from the trim and the gray/silver sheet metal, it kind of has an industrial look which I wasn't crazy about. 

Adding a few smiling faces using some pretty magnets should perk these right up!

.
Unfortunately, when I'm visiting Tuscaloosa, I can never remember to take a picture of them hanging on the wall!

This year my neices have moved to T-town and I had one more cabinet door with sheet metal to fit.  So I finished it as a little house warming gift for them.

After the primer, I spray painted it with "cherry red".  Whoa, was it bright!   Now, I wasn't going for a "crimson" color here.   I'm sure if I wanted crimson, all I have to do is look on the shelves for that color.  And if crimson is not one of the color choices, they're definitely missing out on some sales!  This color was just too bright.

So I started trying to tone it down a bit and washed on some of the elephant gray. 

I took a damp cloth and dipped it in the gray paint and rubbed it on.   I kept dipping and rubbing and letting it dry until I was satisfied that it wasn't too "cherry".

For the magnets, I used some gems from Michael's.  Not the irredescent ones, they need to be clear.  Using Modge Podge, I attached decorative paper or scrapbook paper to the flat side of the gem.

I got a tip from one of my crafty friends about using an old magazine as a work surface for glue projects.  This works great if the project is smaller than the magazine page size.   When you're done, you just tear off that page and have a clean page to work on.

This works great for glue stick projects such as cardmaking or scrapbooking.  When using a glue stick, the glue WILL get off the card and then the card ends up sticking to the work surface.  So you constantly need a "clean" surface.  With a magazine as a work surface, you just flip to the next page to continue with the card or scrapbook project.

Anyway, that was my crafty tip for the day!  

Glue magnet discs to the back of the gems once the paper has dried.

The magnets are ready to go!

Now ready to hang on the wall, here's the cherry-gray-distressed version. 

Hopefully, it has a little more "Anthropologie" look than industrial!

Now just add pictures! 

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