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Getting creative - week 3

A little late posting this week's craftiness, but here I go.

I started working on some Christmas gifts. This one is for my SIL who had been an exchange student in France back in the day. The charm was part of a pack of 3 pieces, the little dangle was repurposed from a pair of old earrings, and the chain was in my beading box. Total cost: $2.00 (for the charm)

I copied this idea from some post on a DIY day a few months back. I'm thinking of enclosing a few in my Samaritan boxes, and using the others as part of gift tags/wrap on Christmas gifts to my friends. The beads were from a bracelet bought at Goodwill and repurposed to my beading box. The twine was from some failed project and the fabric was from the stash. Total cost: .98 cents for the bracelet.

While I had the beading box out, I refashioned a pair of earrings I already owned (the pearl/silver dangles). I also tried my hand at wire-wrapping beads. The green earring are a bit heavy to wear. I may see if I have some smaller beads to try again. Total cost: $0.00

The paper background in the above shots is for a project I'm working on, but not quite ready to reveal.

And this is another project yet to come. While in Plattsburgh this past weekend, I stopped by the antique/flea market mall located downtown. My friend B passed this table over because she thought it was $60.00. No, the price tag was really $6.00. The veneered side pieces need some work, but the table is solid wood and has a leather inset on the top. I'm thinking priming and painting in addition to reconditioning the leather.

Getting creative - the ice cream edition!

Image courtesy of Cuisinart.com, saved to my server.

Dear friends purchased this for our 25th wedding anniversary and frankly - I have no idea how we've lived without it for so long! So easy - I can start a batch when I get home from work, and we are eating fresh ice cream in time for dessert. So far, I've made Chocolate Peanut Butter, Mocha Almond, Raspberry, Vanilla, and Banana Cinnamon ice creams, as well as Chocolate Sorbet.

I've tweaked the recipes to use light cream instead of heavy cream and cut the sugar substantially. The texture is similar to the homemade ice creams I ate growing up, which I prefer. I think B & J's may have lost our business for good (or at least for a long time).

Getting creative - week 2

Beachy DIY day!

Scroll down a few pics to see my homage to the beach!

I'm especially proud of this week's major creative project: my T shirt makeover.

I inadvertently shrunk this T shirt, so I snipped it down the middle, cut the neck band off and handstitched a knit scarf to the raw edges. I wore it to work Friday and got several compliments. My good idea was also reinforced by the cover the early fall Lands' End catalog which featured this sweater. Total cost: $19.95 for the scarf.

One of the kitchen thrifty things I learned from my mom and grandmother was to save bread bags and the plastic bags you bring home from the grocery store: the bags are great to double wrap around fragile items you want to freeze or to hold stinky stuff you are throwing away. To corral them, I store them in a paper towel tube (Mod Podged with scrapbook paper to strengthen it) in the drawer where I keep my foil, plastic wrap, etc. Then I found this post and decided to use my current tube (cut in half) for some extension cords, and to make a new tube for my bag storage. The pretty pink and green flowered material is from a thrift store blouse that I cut up into scraps for little projects just like this. Total cost: $0.00

Here are two creative bathroom projects. I re-matted my painted starfish onto a scrap of muslin - I think it looks much better than the blue scrapbook paper I had originally matted. The soap pump is an old blue-green glass jar with a tin lid found in an neglected corner of a local antique spot. I took the lid and the pump (which I kidnapped from another bottle of soap I had) to work where one of the machinists drilled a quick hole into the lid. A little Loctite around the newly drilled hole and now I don't have to clean a soap dish anymore. Total cost: $4.50 for the glass bottle.

Last weekend was not only the Festival of the Islands, but my own "Festival of the Plattsburgh Target". I purchased the bracelets on clearance, but realized when I got home they were a tad too small. Enter a black rubber-band (the ones used for little ponytails). I looped it through the existing button loop: the bracelets have just enough 'give' to close and move freely on my wrist. Total cost: $3.98 for the bracelets, $0 for the rubber bands (I bummed them off my superfantastic landlady.)

The 12 x 12 pillow is one of a pair ($2.00 for the pair!) I found in a little furniture resale store called Rumplebox between Alburgh and Swanton. The fabric reminds me of one of my favorite blog reads.

I purchased these bottles a few weeks ago, unfortunately they didn't come with the little tip caps. Enter Sculpey modeling clay. I made some chunky block-y caps as well as adhering a piece to a bottle opener, then topping it with a magnet so it will stick to our refrigerator. Total cost: $1.98 for the Sculpey (and I still have 3/4 of a block left!)

Fasting

Photo: Katherine Dutiel via Google Images saved to my server

Food fasting is one of those disciplines I rarely practice. I did not grow up in a church that celebrated the Lenten fast, so until I got to high school (and knew families who practiced Lent), the concept was foreign to me.

I love the concept of non-food fasting. I can get sucked into a vortex of wasting time and energy pursuing something that may have started out good, but is now not so good for me. Fasting - i.e. abstaining from the now not so good thing - has really helped me maintain balance. Too much time on the internet? I read a good book (or the Good Book ;-> )  A day filled with negative comments both given and received? I plug into my iPod playlists. As soon as I find myself getting ready to engage in the 'off limits' activity, I STOP and redirect.

The fasts can be a day, a week, or maybe a lifetime. I've broken some bad habits using the 'fasting' method: the keys are to find a replacement activity that is beneficial and to remain vigilant.Those vortexes can be sneaky.

The upside of muggy

Image courtesy of mydogoscar.com/birdspot,n via Google images saved to my server

Is that my morning commutes have these lovely, hazy, misty, ethereal moments.

Getting creative

I recently saw a piece of art that stated, "Do one thing a day that you love." While I understand the sentiment, I would like to think my days should consist of more than one thing I love. So I thought why not change that to "Do one creative thing a day." Many days that is a challenge for me: between home and work it is very easy to let the creative time slide. Occasionally, the creativity may be nothing more than making a delicious, balanced dinner out of what I have in the kitchen. I'm cheating a bit this week and I'm posting a few projects completed before last Sunday.

This is my Mod Podge party: I recovered my pencil cup with a scrap of blue printed paper and some leftover ribbon. The books reside in our bathroom (don't 'ewww' me, I know there are books or magazines in your bathroom too!) One of the books had a red fabric cover that rubbed color off in the humidity. I sealed the covers so they should be impervious to moisture now. The starfish hang over our bathroom sink. And yep, I changed them up already - they are now mounted on muslin.

Speaking of starfish, here are ones I don't have plans for yet. When I got the starfish, they were all stained bright colors. I tried to spray paint them, but the porousness of the skeletons just soaked the paint right up. So finally I did 2 coats of primer, then a coat of high gloss white (the same Valspar I used on the bathroom cabinets.) So far, no bleed through. The berry baskets I bought a few years ago at an antique mall in State College: I finally got around to edging the baskets using the leftover quilt binding from my bedroom wall hanging.

This little Swedish postcard is from an antique mall in Lewisburg PA. I used spray adhesive to attach a scrap of fabric to a piece of cardboard, then some glue dots to attach the postcard. The wood frame was a $1.00 find in an antique barn here in VT.

Also on that VT outing I found this vintage fabric pouch in a box of miscellany out in a little shop's shed. It was free for a donation to the Humane Society. I pulled the drawcord out, gave the whole thing a good wash, and re-threaded a piece of ribbon as the drawstring. Right now it is housing my current knitting project: a cable and lace scarf using Serenity sock yarn.

And here's a little glimpse into our hall. This part of the house is my next major renovation - I'm leaning toward wallpaper. The hall is oddly shaped and two walls used to hold doors, so I'm approaching the whole project with fear and trepidation. But this project I was happy to accomplish: turning our bookcase into a coat cubby. We attached a brace of scrap wood on the back of the bookcase before attaching the hooks to the front. The shelf under the coats is fixed and I put the other shelf in to hold the basket. In the wintertime, that shelf holds the baskets for our gloves, hats, and mittens (which are currently in storage behind the curtain). The curtain was one of my first sewing projects with my new machine and is hung on a tension rod. The flowers on top of the bookcase are (silk) poppies and veronica. Purple loosestrife and orange day lilies are the common roadside flowers here in July and I love bringing that color combination into the house.