DIY Christmas Ornaments

DIY Christmas Ornaments 

I decided to try out making my own ornaments.  I picked up some cheap acrylic paint and some glass ornaments from Michael's.  And then I just squeezed out the paint into the bulb and counted to 8 (somewhere around 7-9 seconds was enough paint).

This is when I was squeezing way too much paint into and wasting it!  Like I said, about 8 seconds is enough paint and maybe even 7 would be plenty.  I think I was squeezing about 12 seconds into each bottle! What a waste!

Then I swirled and shook and swirled and shook until the inside was all covered.  I left them to dry overnight and during the next day.  I think 24 hours is sufficient to dry, but be sure to test it out and see.  I found a much more efficient way to dry the ornaments afterwards, of course.  Just stick a toothpick or a little stick in a block of foam and hang the ornaments on the toothpicks to drip dry!

I started draining the bulbs back into the paint bottles.  The paint is water soluable so in order to clean off any paint that had dried on the exterior, I just had to wipe it down with a wet paper towel or use my nail to scratch it off.

I picked coordinating ribbon for the ornaments and now they're ready for the tree!  If only I had a tree...

Winnie the Pooh

My sister drew this.  I think it's adorable.

Birthday Box!

It's the Chick Daddy's birthday today!  Happy birthday, Babe!

 


Instead of a typical card, I made the Chick Daddy a birthday box with sentiments inside (the little box).  What's actually inside is a hollowed-out egg with a note inside that reads:

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You crack me up! Have an EGGceptional birthday!

The Chick Daddy will have to crack open the egg to get the message.

The box I'm excited about.  I cut it out using a 3D Box by Lori Whitlock pattern from the Cameo site that I downloaded for $.99.  I cut the box out on a 12x12 brown cardstock piece.  Then I made the box a lining with the same Happy Birthday paper from Paper Source that I used to wrap the Chick Daddy's gifts.

I glued the wrapping paper liner to the cardstock and then assembled the box.

Here is the finished box!

The Chick Daddy's Birthday Balloon Avalanche!

Today is the Chick Daddy's birthday so I wanted to give him a great one! To start, I set up the doorway balloon avalanche that you see all over Pinterest.  He loved it!

I left part of the door without streamers or balloons so that I could see his face when he came out of the door.  He doesn't want his photo posted but he was very surprised and it made him laugh, which is all I wanted.

My New Silhouette Cameo!

It's my birthday today and as a very special gift from my parents and sweet boyfriend, they gave me the Cameo Silhouette!

Now I get to play!

Here's what I made myself today:

Gorgeous Eggs!

When the Chick Daddy and I picked out the breeds of chickens that we wanted, egg color was high on the list of deciding factors.  We picked out 2 Americaunas specifically for their blue-green eggs, a Golden Comet and an Australorp for their brown eggs, and a White Leghorn for the standard, large white egg.  Well, the surprise was that our White Leghorn turned out to be a Delaware and lays brown eggs!  Ok by us!  But what wasn't ok, was that we didn't seem to be getting any of the blue eggs that I so wanted.

Until today!  Another one of the girls started laying blue eggs, and they are beautiful and large.  In fact, our brown egg layers seem to have more colorful eggs as well.  Take a look:

Our pretty eggs in a rainbow of colors!

Orange, red, green, and blue! I love them and I'm so proud of our girls!

Thank You Card

I made this card for the Chick Daddy's parents to thank them for my stay at their house.

I stamped the "thank you" stamp and then heat embossed it with gold, glittery embossing powder.  And the wreath is made of a 1 3/8" x 12" paper, scored and accordion folded every 1/4 inch.  I glued the ends of the wreath together and carefully maneuvered it into the wreath shape.  I used Zots to stick it to the card and folded a tiny, red raffia ribbon.  Thinking of adding some stamped flourishes at the corners, but still undecided about that.  Hope they like it! 

Chicken Attack!

The chickens were chasing Oliver around the yard after they pecked him in the butt!  Poor Oliver couldn't believe it!

Oliver on the run!

New Eggs

We think that Sticky Buns is the latest to give us eggs.  She's just starting so her eggs are a little funny looking!  There could be a mini-gnome inside!

Fluffy Pancakes

The Chick Daddy and I decided recently to put dates on our fresh eggs so we know which day we collected them from the coop.  But we had 6 eggs from last week that just missed our new system.  I know they are all pretty fresh, but I decided we should just go ahead and use them and start with our new system so there is no confusion about egg age.

So today, we had pancakes and over-easy eggs for breakfast.  Yum!  I found the recipe for Fluffy Pancakes on Allrecipes.com.  This one was submitted by kris and you can find it at: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fluffy-pancakes-2/.  The Chick Daddy loved them!  So I have to save the recipe for later.

Here it is.... picture and all!




3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter, melted
cooking spray

1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

Sparkling Water

Water.  This is going to sound weird, but I'm not a huge fan of it.  I like it ok when I'm thirsty, but if someone serves me tap water I'd rather go thirsty than drink it.  I do drink a lot of sparkling water, though.

My usual go-to sparking water has been La Croix.  I love the lime flavor when it's ice cold and has that bite to it that makes me simultaneously go "ouch" and "yes!"  The coconut is also pretty darn good cold.

But in the last week I discovered Seagrams Sparkling Seltzer Water and it has blown my mind!  It's a new product, just released earlier this year, and it is so delicious that I seriously can't wait to get to work (my source for Seagrams) to have another.  I've searched my local grocery store and Target and haven't been able to find where they are sold.  I looked on Amazon, but it's not available (sold out?).  I've even posted on Facebook hoping someone would know where to buy them.  Finally someone at work said that I could possibly get them at Specs so I'm going to look for them tomorrow.


I've had the White Peach (yum!!!!) and Blackberry Raspberry (yum yum!!!)  and I can't get enough of them!  They have the best flavoring I've had in sparkling waters and a perfect amount of carbonation.  They are amazing!  I'll update this post as soon as I find a place to purchase them.  In the meantime, keep an eye out for me and let me know if you find a place to buy them!

Update:  I tried Spec's but they didn't have them! I'll keep up the search tomorrow.
2nd Update: They are available on Amazon but for $49.99 for a 24 pack!!! That's crazy!!!

Oliver

I strongly believe that my dog, Oliver, is the cutest dog in the world.

I think the evidence is here in his puppy photos.

Thank you card

Made this thank you card for my dad.  I really like the way it turned out with the polka dot patterned paper and then the embossed dots below.

Dad's birthday

I wrapped my dad's gift up and I liked the way it came out.  My sister picked out the wrapping paper from Paper Source.  She's really into hedgehogs right now apparently.

Double backflip into the dumpster

This would be my first experience with dumpster diving.  I picked up 2 chairs from someone's trash pile with hopes that I could give them some lovin' and also satisfy my need to make things.  I've never refinished furniture before, but considering these were free, I didn't think it'd be a huge loss if I screwed them up.

The chairs look like they had a rough time in their last home.  The cushions were stained and dusty and the wood had been colored on and scraped up.

So I borrowed my dad's sander and went to town.  Not hard to do but even with a sander it was still time consuming.  Just to give you an idea of how long it was taking, my boyfriend had time to mow his 1 acre lot on a riding lawn mower while I worked on 1 chair.  And even then he finished up before me and helped me with sanding.  By that point my fingers were numb and felt like they were vibrating like little springs, so I was ever so grateful to him.  I'd say that in about 3 hours I was able to strip the chair, paint it, clean up and take some breaks to play with the chickens too.

This is T-Rex Chicken telling me to get back to work.  So I did.  On to painting!

The first chair I painted grey because I love grey.  The second chair is going to be marigold.  I picked out some fabric to compliment the grey and marigold paint, but if I had to do it again, I'd pick out the fabric first and then get the complimentary paint colors.  It's difficult to match the limited fabric choices to the paint, and much easier to match paint.

Also, I HATED the upholstery fabric.  Yuck!  It all looks old-ladyish.  So I found some cute fabric that wasn't upholstery fabric and I'm going to attach 2 layers of fusible interfacing (iron on) to make it stronger.  I don't anticipate the chairs getting much use (they're mostly for decorative use) so I'm not too worried about the fabric getting worn out.

My latest hangup is that I don't have a staple gun.  The Chick Daddy and I are going to order one online tonight and I anticipate it's quick arrival (love Amazon Prime!) so that I can finish up this project by this weekend.

Incidentally, the Chick Daddy asked me tonight why I like making things.  And I answered that it's because I have something to show for my work.  Something that I created or altered or edited that I can look at and see the work I put into it.  I'm excited about these chairs.  And I'm equally excited to show them off

And here they are all finished!  I really like the way they turned out, but especially the yellow one.  I was a little worried about my paint color choice after I painted it, but I think it's the cuter of the two.