Pin 183

Original pin:

No source available. If this is your sweet creation, let me know so I can give you credit!!

Happy Valentine's Day! I caved at the last minute and decided to craft up some Valentines for the kids. I had already even spent my $1 for the easy boxed kind. I'm not against those, I have used them plenty. It was just when you pair my crafty heart with my new camera obsession and mix in a little holiday spirit, I couldn't resist the urge to create.

I pinned this image a loooooonnnnggg time ago. Possibly over a year ago. I think it is a cute and clever idea.

Getting the picture was a bit more difficult than I anticipated. I showed the kids what we were looking for and they were so excited to create and shoot that they were wiggling around like they had ants in their pants. There was much jumping and twirling and superhero-style posing. I had trouble with them getting the fist rotation and placement (i.e., not directly in front of their face) just right. As I was editing I was thinking about a way to make this easier. They need something that they would normally hold upright. I thought about maybe a clear juice glass. They would naturally be inclined to hold this upright, create the right shape with their hand, and have more of a natural "handing-off" pose. It could be easily edited out, cut out after printing for the lollipop, or just obscured when the lollipop was in place. I have these small glasses I found in the dollar spot that would have been absolutely perfect--had I thought of it before hand.

It took me three separate sessions (I don't get much time with these crazy boys) to end up with two mostly workable shots. Here is what I started with:

Hmm. One of those superhero poses. He was alternating between superheroes and rock star.

I finally got his placement right after I pinned him down on the floor. It slowed him down just long enough and kept his fist forward. His eyes are a little diverted, but maybe he's looking at the lollipop?

After a little editing magic I had these ready (minus the pinspiration marks, of course):

names obscured to protect their superhero identities

I printed these out at one of those store kiosks that print them while you wait. I don't have a good photo printer so I just loaded them on a thumb drive and ran to the store.

I made the mistake of stepping into a craft store while I was out and I stumbled across the most perfect cardstock. I had to buy it to mount the photos. I cut the cardstock a little bigger than the picture, used an exacto knife to cut some holes in the appropriate places, and started assembling.  When L got home from school, I sat him down with a sacred adults-only sharpie marker to write in his classmates names. W's school specifically asks for generalized cards to make it easier for the kids to pass their own.  In the middle of assembly we had to make an impromptu trip to urgent care for the world's worst nosebleed--ugh.

Sometime around midnight, I finished them up. They were not difficult, nor really time consuming to assemble, it was just so late thanks to our 4 hour urgent situation. Here are the final results!

We just couldn't get the cute face and the right fist on this wild man. This will do.

Total cost: $14 without the cardstock, I bought a big pack for $10 and used 20 sheets of it. Somewhere less than $20 for 40 Valentines.

Total time: Really the actual photo taking was the hardest part. Assembly took maybe two hours because I had to cut all the cardstock to size. These would have been perfectly fine without the cardstock, but I like the look and it made them a little more sturdy.

Final verdict: I think they turned out pretty cute. Minus the funky hand position on L, but his friends will never notice that. They are going to notice the lollipop. I spent a little more than I planned, and way more than in years past where I use the dollar store box split between them both. I am happy with them. The boys had an absolute blast shooting them and getting them ready. I have honestly never seen my boys so excited to pass out their Valentines. We just may get in a tradition of photo Valentines. Also, while editing, I googled something about photo Valentines, and there are a ton of versions of this. Check out the image search for more ideas on posing and staging the shots. Another note, when you buy your lollipops, consider the wrapping. These had a lot of wrapping which limited areas of the photo that were visible when the lollipop in place so I had to account a large empty area in the picture.

And Happy Valentine's Day from Pinspiration!!

Pin 182

Original pin:

http://dollarstoremom.com/2012/02/our-valentine-tradition-14-days-of-little-love-surprises/

I love this cute idea to help get in the holiday spirit. I pinned this a long before Valentine's Day and have been keeping my eyes out for some cheap Valentine-themed towels. Did I mention that this pillow is made out of towels? Like dollar-store-kitchen-two-per-pack towels? That is so my style. The idea behind the pillow is that there is a pocket on the front, and for the fourteen days of February leading up to Valentine's Day you leave sweet little notes and surprises for each other.

Unfortunately, I never came across said Valentine's day towels at the many dollar stores I frequent. I did, however, come across some St. Patrick's day towels. Put that together with a little red and voila! The "Lucky in Love" pillow is born.

Since I am making these for my two little boys who are notorious for sticky hands and snotty noses, I wanted to make sure these were washable. Pillow forms were on sale for half-price last weekend, so I picked up a couple of 12 x 12 pillows so that I could make these covers to slip on and off for washing.

I cut one 14 x 14 inch square and two 14 x 8 inch rectangles out of the shamrock towels.

Next I needed a pocket. I wanted to make my pocket out of the red and I wanted it to be heart-shaped. I needed to make a sturdy heart-shaped template. I keep a few empty cereal boxes in my craft stash because the thin cardboard is always coming in handy. I went to grab one off the shelf and found a Cheerios box in my hand. Looking down at it, I realized exactly how perfect it was.

It already had a giant heart on the box! What luck! It was the perfect size and now I didn't have to fuss with trying to get a perfectly shaped heart template. I cut out the heart and used it to trace two hearts out of the red towel.

I made a few attempts at getting this heart just right. One of the consequences of sewing on the fly is that you don't always do it the right way the first time. I'm going to try to show you the way I liked best but I didn't take many pictures of it.

I cut the two hearts out of the red towel. I stitched them right sides together almost completely around. Trim the excess, clip the corners, turn right sides out, press and topstitch around the whole thing, closing the open portion. I ended up with a nicely shaped lined heart pocket.

I pinned this to the center of the 14 x 14 square and stitched in place 3/4 of the way around, leaving the top open to make the pocket. Backstitch at the start and end to reinforce the pocket.

Yellow dotted line is the stitch line

Next I prepared the back. I serged one long edge of each rectangle to neaten it up a little. I sewed a 1/2 inch hem on one of the rectangles and topstitched close to the edge.

I pinned two pieces of Velcro in place on the hem and matched up the Velcro pieces on the serged edge of the other rectangle. I stitched the Velcro in place.

I laid the top piece down, right side up. I placed the back pieces on top, right sides together, lining up the Velcro strips and edges.

I pinned through all layers all the way around and stitched in place. Press, trim the excess, clip the corners and turn right side out. Press again and now it was ready for the pillow!

This was full version one, featuring heart version two. The heart is not exactly evenly shaped so I had to try it again.

Full version two, featuring heart version three--which I am completely happy with.

For comparison, version one on the left, version two on the right. Next to each other the lopsided-ness is much more obvious.

Total cost: $12 for two pillows--three shamrock towels, one red towel, two pillow forms

Total time: The first version took 1 & 1/2 hours, but since I had worked out a few kinks the second one was done in about 45 minutes.

Final verdict: I am going to give these to my boys on Valentine's day but I think I am going to have to replace the heart pocket on version one. My OCD-ness just will not allow that to stay when its twin is so much better looking. I know that my boys won't care in the least. The little lovebugs just adore anything I make for them.  I like her idea of sharing little messages but clearly missed the date on that one. These will be in season for at least another month, so maybe we will share messages from Valentine's day until St. Patrick's Day?  And now that I know how many dollar store towels it takes to make a cover, maybe I'll just whip a new one up for each season.

Pin 181

I have an announcement coming soon, but its not quite ready yet, so until then I give you this Valentine's post:

Original pin:

The pin linked up to http://www.recipebyphoto.com/heart-shaped-carrots-tutorial/ but the original idea and pictures belong to http://www.sophistimom.com/chicken-soup-heart-shaped-carrots/ with a recipe for the soup.

So if you can't tell from the teensy tiny picture, it is carrots that have been cut into heart shapes and tossed into a bowl of love, also known around here as homemade chicken noodle soup. I didn't use the recipe over on sophistimom, but I did love her carrot-cutting. She even said her brother does butterflies!! Wow! I'm impressed.

Last week I cooked up a big pot of chicken noodle soup. In the spirit of our upcoming holiday, I decided to cut my carrots into little hearts. I remembered this pin, but didn't actually go look at it or read it before I did it, so my technique was a little off.

I started with shaving the bottom of the heart. A few swipes on each edge to create a point.

Next came the wedge. I found this to be the hardest part. It was easier once I cut the carrot into smaller pieces (maybe 2-3 inches) and then wedged each section on its own. I made a little v-shaped cut into the carrot, aiming my point to reach in just inside the center ring of the carrot. It is hard to cut straight down, and my carrots weren't perfectly shaped so some of my hearts were not quite centered.

Can you see the v-shaped cut here?

Pulling out the wedge

And here is something vaguely heart-shaped.

Next I used my peeler to try and round out the edges a little to coax a heart shape out of this carrot. Then it was slicing time.

I didn't really want to waste a lot of food just for the sake of cute carrots, so the wedge and the heart were both sliced and into the pan they went.

A variety of heart-shaped resembling things and the scraps that made them.

When the soup was all ready, I ladled up the bowls of love for the boys of the house.

 

They were so incredibly under-impressed with my carrot cutting skills. First, I had to point it out to them.

me: Did you see the carrots??

boy: Yeah, they're good.

me: Did you see their shape??

boy: hmmmm. . .

me: They are hearts. You know, because chicken soup is made with so much love and its close to Valentine's day and. . . and. . . see? Hearts?

boy: Oh. Those are hearts? They don't look much like hearts.

me: (visibly disappointed) Oh, heh heh, yeah. I guess not.

boy: (because he is the sweetest thing ever even if he is a boy) No, mom, I see it! I love my carrot hearts. Yummmm yum.

Total cost: $0

Total time: Way longer than just dicing and slicing like I would normally do to prepare the carrots. Probably twice as long, but if you get a good technique down, it would probably be faster.

Final verdict: Even though my family was underwhelmed, I still think its a cute idea. My technique could use some work, but I'm not sure that I will put in the time or the effort to refine this skill. Although next time everyone will probably complain about there boring old round carrots.

And one more photo just for fun (and because I was playing around in the photo editor)

Pin 180

Original pin:

http://www.bluelacehouse.com/2011/05/make-your-own-camera-bag.html

A tutorial to make a camera bag insert to use in a purse and avoid the standard black boxy camera bag.

My birthday was earlier this week and I got myself a really fantastic birthday present! I have been saving my money a long time to get myself a fancy schmancy new camera! I am so excited. I have been wanting this camera for ever!!

I never even considered that I would need a place to store it. But as I waited in line at the camera shop to pay for it I was eyeing a bunch of really cute bags that were way, way out of my budget. I knew Pinterest could help me out here. It only took a few minutes to find this simple tutorial. Time to go shopping.

I hit up a discount clothing store and picked up this cute bag:

 

 

It has a large zipper-top opening and deep side pockets with a handy little zipper pocket on the side.

 

I swung by the craft store for some foam and some fabric--I needed something colorful to jazz this up. After I put the littles to bed, I started drawing out my plans.

I did this in the completely, absolutely wrong order. I should have first taken my bag home and measured both the camera and bag before buying the foam and fabric. But since the discount clothing store and the craft store are neighbors, I thought I could just estimate. I was a little short on foam. I had to compromise.

Foam core board to the rescue! This particular board has been in so many projects, but this was the last bit of it. I wrapped these in batting to substitute for some of the missing foam!

Then, I was short on fabric as well! So I dug out this t-shirt remnant that sort-of coordinated with my fabric.

I tried to follow her directions, I really did. They were simple and easy to understand, so its not her fault. I was just adjusting as I went. 

Halfway through, I decided to forgo as much Velcro as possible. Starting with the middle divider, I decided to sew it on. I just felt like it would be more stable that way. However, I could only easily sew the bottom part of the middle divider on.

So, then, I had to sew Velcro on to each side of the divider panel. (Note to self: sew the Velcro on first). Another step out of order.

I fully sewed each end on the insert. I couldn't sew the Velcro on for anymore dividers at this point. All Velcro should be sewed on before assembly! This is what happens when you sew as you go.

Here is the finished product. Its a little sloppier than I prefer. There are too many visible seams, the topstitching isn't tight enough to the edge so the edges look a little loose and sloppy to me.

The non-Velcro-ed divider slides in perfectly though--this is one of the ones with the foam core board.

All aside, this goes INSIDE a bag so really the only person to see these little details is me. So how does it look inside?

Not too bad. It adds a nice pop of color. It fits all my things perfectly. I'm not sure it could withstand just a whole lot of jostling, but I'm going to put some of that extra foam board & batting I covered underneath and on the ends for a little more stability.

Total time: Not the one hour she had!! I had a few trouble shooting moments to take care of. I spent about four hours all together on it.

Total cost: $24.99 for the bag and around $10 for not-enough fabric and foam. (That's not including the money I spent on other fun goodies at the discount clothing store while I was in there.)

Final cost: While it is not super pretty on the outside, it is doing its job nicely. It fits in the bag, it fits my things. I could do it a whole lot better next time. But I'm going to stick with this one for now. A great idea to save some cash!

Pin 179

Original pin:

This pinned picture is linked to http://www.belleamour.co.uk/2011/03/crocheted-love/ but the actual tutorial lives over here: http://saltforthespirit.blogspot.com/2009/02/itty-bitty-crochet-heart-tutorial.html

One of the local craft stores was having a sale on yarn a few weeks ago. I was drawn to the colors in this yarn and picked up the whole skein for $1. I decided I needed to do something Valentine-y with it. I decided to crochet up a little Valentine decor. Using the little heart tutorial I started by making a bunch of little hearts. I played around a lot with the basic pattern and tried bigger and smaller hearts. Some of those worked out, but others didn't. I ended up with 13 finished hearts. I made some crochet lace on the fly. I first made a chain long enough to drape along my mantle. Then I did a (sc, ch2, skip 1 ch, sc) all the way down the length of the chain. When I got to the end, I turned and did (sc, ch3, sc) in each space made in the previous row.  I whipped up four little tassels to use to tack up my chain.

my little tassel

I tacked the chain and tassels up on the mantle and gathered all my hearts. They were a little spread out because I had been making them randomly throughout last week.

Most of them did not lay flat. I decided to iron them flat so that they would look like hearts as they hung from my garland.


The heart on the left is before ironing and the heart on the right is after ironing.



All the hearts after ironing

 

All that was left was to get them up on the garland. I tied them up there, each a little differently. No pattern or measuring done.

 



 

 

Total cost: $1

 

Total time: Once I had the hearts figured out, I could make them fairly quickly--ten minutes each, maybe. The garland lace took the longest. All together I probably spent around 6 hours crocheting and assembling the garland.

 

Final verdict: I like it. It feels festive and I just love the color combo of the yarn. I have never decorated for Valentine's Day in my house, but this may just be catching. 

The Stuck Jar

I don't have a pin for this. I don't recall seeing this on Pinterest, but that doesn't mean it is not out there. I don't think I came up with this on my own. I think I MUST have seen this or heard this somewhere and it was one of those thing that was just filed away in the dark, dark, recesses of my brain.

However. . . it. is. FANTASTIC!

Back story:

A long, long, time ago I used to have multiple jar openers. The rubbery disc kind, the weird wrench-like kind, a plastic circle with gear-like teeth. Then I got a husband and I didn't notice as much the gradual disappearance of these said jar openers. Lately, my jars have been so tightly sealed. Even Mr. Muscles has been having such a time opening a particular brand of peaches that I have just stopped buying them.

Yesterday as I was preparing dinner, I needed to open my new jar of minced garlic. It wouldn't budge. I tried tapping, running under water, and any other trick that has worked in the past with no success. I was fearful I was going to break a bone in my wrist as I struggled against the jar, half bent over, clutching it between my knees. Time to stop and think rationally.

Which missing jar opener was my favorite? The rubbery disc.

Why? The rubber really got a good grip on the lid.

How have I opened jars in the past? At work sometimes I use a glove to open tight lids.

What do I have that is rubbery? Well, those big cleaning gloves, but I don't really want those near my food. AHA! I have rubber bands!

So I dug out my rubber band ball (yes, I have a rubber band ball. I save all the rubber bands from my newspaper and stick them on my ball. It is reminiscent of my childhood--but these rubber bands aren't green.) I popped one around the lid and, magically, with almost zero effort at all, that lid gently popped right off. WHAT!?!?! Life changing. I had to try it on other jars--and it worked. Only thing is, I don't have any peaches to try it on! Guess what I'm buying at the store this week???

This is going to be really, really useful in the future! It may put Mr. Muscles out of a job--now he will have more time for those other household chores on his Honey-do list.