0 Leaf Flowers

Yesterday I made flowers out of leaves =] I had a really good day at work and when I got home I just sat in the yard and played. Does it get any better? Nope. Here they are:

Pretty right? So if you live someplace that has seasons like I do, your yard probably looks something like this:

Or, you know:

Either way, my suggestion is that you plop yourself down amid the leaves on the ground with these:

Grandma's old sewing kit and some scissors.. unless your sewing kit contains scissors..

Thanks for the sewing kit Gradma! =]

Find you a good leaf to start with, you'll want to make a pile next to you of leaves that are freshly fallen, you don't want the brittle/dry ones

Fold down the center point

Then one side

Then the other side..

Start rolling it up from one side to the other

When it looks like this set it aside, you can set your scissors on top of it to keep it from unraveling

Pick up another leaf, be sure not to use the dry ones

Fold down the center

And the side..

And the other side..

Put the first leaf on the second leaf like this..

Bring one side over..

Then the other.. =]

Keep adding more leaves just like that and it ill start to come together pretty quick

When you get to the desired size, get out some thread

Wrap the thread several times around the base of your "rose" then tie it off

Yay! Aren't they pretty? I like them.

I made three.

Tear the label off of an old Ale-8-one bottle and there you have it =]

Photo Bomb! Haha! Hank just had to get in one of these pictures, gotta love him =] Other people have done this as well, I got the idea from >HERE< though I think they may have done it a little differently. They look a little sickly in these last couple pictures, I again apologize for that, my camera doesn't like taking pictures inside, it puts a weird orange-y yellow tint on things. 

Happy Crafting!

Enjoy! =]

0 Sandwich Container

I've never been one to bring my lunch along with me to school or work or whatever.. I like hot meals, there's nothing wrong with that. Until you wake up one day and wonder why your pockets are always empty. Its clearly much more economical to pack along a sandwich. So I've joined the lunch bringers, but now that that decision has been made, how do you get your lunch from A to B? For some its simple, dig out the old lunch box you used back in school.. I don't have one. So I bought a lunchbox at the grocery store a few weeks ago on sale for like $3 which is totally cool but I can't just throw my sandwich in it.. Some people go with baggies which is fine but significantly wasteful. So, I need a sandwich container. Some of you may be familiar with the ziplock sandwich box things >HERE< I think glad makes them too and probably a handful of other companies as well. I don't like them. Not at all, not for anything. A little extreme? Maybe. Here is my alternative solution:

Cute right? Eco-chic too.. Yeah, that's right ECO-chic, that thing used to be a milk jug. I stumbled across >THIS< the other day and had to make my own. So to start with you'll need a milk jug..

This is our local gas-station brand milk, I had a jug all rinsed out and ready to go then someone threw it out on me, but fortunately/unfortunately we go through about a gallon of milk a day at my house so I finished this one off in my cereal this morning and here we are. 

So I rinsed it out and removed the label, which comes off best if you pull up a corner then use cold water to loosen the rest as you peel it. It came off pretty clean.

Draw your lines on as a guide

Scissor time! Cut along your lines, I started way up there to make sure I could get the scissors into the jug without destroying anything. 

Make sure the indent part isn't on your tall side.. unless you want a big circle in the middle of your container.. which could be cool.. I should've thought of that before.. use it as a label type area.. put a circular sticker in the center of it.. Oh well. 

It's all coming together =] Clean up the edges if they need it and fold it up.

Yes, like that..

So you can see it's a little bigger than your average sandwich, you could as the link I posted in the beginning says, throw in some grapes or carrot sticks but I really just pack a sandwich and a drink usually.

But how will we keep it closed? Well after searching unsuccessfully for a big rubber band to put around it I dug out my great-big-craft-bag-of-everything and found some string. There was also some shoe laces and ribbon and whatnot that could've also worked but I went this route. 

See how much you'll need, then cut off a piece..

BAM! Eco-chic sandwich container =] 

Cute and environmentally friendly, what more could you want? I'm really happy with this project and I'd love for others to take part in this one so make your own, then comment and let me know what you think of it =]

Happy Crafting!

Enjoy! =]

1 Cake Balls

I should be ashamed, really, I should. Because its taken me literally a week just to get the pictures from my camera to the computer.. But, since I happen to have today off from work (substitute teaching lends itself to randomly having days off - <3 ) I decided I needed to catch up on a few things.. Also, I should be ashamed that I didn't get any final result pictures and for that I sincerely apologize. This is the best I could do:

They're amazing, just FYI, and I'm not posting a recipe because honestly I didn't really use one and enough people have their own variations that I didn't feel the need to credit anyone.

Start by making a cake, any kind of cake, if you're less adventurous I give you permission to use box cake, I simply didn't feel the need to spend $3 on the box mix when I already had all this at home -yes, I'm cheap. 

This cake recipe can be found >HERE< it's really easy I promise and you probably have most if not all of this in your cabinets already.

It really doesn't matter what you bake this cake in, like really, you could even do it in a glass mixing bowl if you wanted though the center may take longer to finish.. 

Bake, bake, bake until the center is done and its gold-ish-y colored

Like this.. but you could easily use a chocolate or red-velvet or lemon or any number of other cake flavor options

While the cake is baking I mixed up some frosting, again, since this is my recipe and didn't come from anyone else there are no measurements just keep adding things until the consistency is where you want it. *keep milk to a minimum, it will thin out the mix like crazy. 

When it's done (and I'm really sorry, my camera only likes to see orange-y yellow sometimes) its time to destroy it, yeah you could let it cool, that would be okay too, and probably best.

Yes, I meant "destroy" it. It should look like crumbly dust when you're done with it

Throw the crumbles in with the frosting mix and get your hands dirty, then start forming balls, it should be easy like play-doh but wetter and smooshier. Then put the balls in the fridge (or freezer) for long enough to forget you were making them then suddenly remember you were working on something.

Put some baker's chocolate in the microwave (because its faster this way) but make sure there is no water anywhere near the bowl before hand and don't chew the corners off the chocolate or it will seize up in the microwave.. These will be horribly unattractive and since it happened to me, these will be sacrificed to the kitchen gods and new chocolate in a new bowl will be heated for the Movie Night snacks.

This is what seized chocolate looks like, no, there is no way to recover from this, if you know of a way to remedy it, please comment below, as far as I know once this happens its ruined, but I went with it anyway because I needed a sacrifice for the kitchen gods. 

(after I made the new chocolate I kind of forgot I was supposed to be taking pictures so these all have seized chocolate, non-seized chocolate is smooth and pretty) Roll one of the cold balls of cake/frosting around in the chocolate

I threw in some arrows so you can see the cake ball

Turn them out onto a cookie sheet or foil or something to dry, you can put them in the fridge if you want to, I didn't, they harden up okay at room temp if you use baking chocolate

And here they are, you can tell which ones were seized and which weren't in this picture, see the smooth ones.. those were from the second batch of chocolate. I strongly recommend these for any event or even "just because" they're great and amazing and somewhat addicting so heads-up. =]

Happy Baking!

Enjoy! =]