Monday, August 6, 2012

Shark Week!

Hammerhead-ch

Shark Week is fast approaching, and for those of you who don't read my newsletter you may be unaware that I have a bunch of sharky plans coming up in honor of Shark Week!

I decided to spice up my Spoonflower "Hammerhead" fabric design with my new favorite color combo: yellow, gray, black and white, so feel free to go check it out and purchase some for your own shark themed crafts. I will also be giving away some swatches of my sharky fabrics during shark week, so check back for your chance to win!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Easy Vellum Flower



I have been slaving away making flowers for my sister's wedding (it also helped pass the time while I was waiting for a replacement lens for my camera to arrive). As such, I was not really able to post in July, so I hope you all haven't been too mad at me. Fear not, the new lens has arrived and I am almost finished cutting out all of my sister's lovely wedding flowers.

While my sister decided on mainly paper roses, which can be found as part of my paper flower roundup post. I have come up with some cute and much easier flowers that can be used to fill in bouquets. A great thing about these flowers is that they work especially well with this great platinum vellum paper I found! Vellum doesn't like to be bent/shaped/hot glued the way copy weight papers do, so finding a simple flower with less fuss is a great way to use it. The shimmer of the paper also makes this simple flower look a bit more exciting. It's a win/win!



I started this flower by using the template from some of my tissue paper flowers, as shown above. I decided that cutting out 3 same sized petals, punching a small hole in the center, and arranging them around a simple bead on a wire looked simple and elegant, and was also pretty darn quick and easy! I used a tiny bit of glue between each petal to hold them in place. You could also cut out 3 petals of each size and make a larger, layered flower. I think a bouquet made entirely of these little beauties would be a great everyday centerpiece or table decoration!

I'll be posting again tomorrow to let you all in on my upcoming projects! If you can't stand the suspense, check out my July Newsletter! What have you all been up to during my unplanned break?

Monday, July 9, 2012

Pina Colada Popsicles



On top of being super busy, it is now officially Summer here in Portland. You know what that means, it's HOT! Made much worse due the the insane lack of air conditioning in this town. The obvious solution for that? Popsicles!

My husband made these super easy Pina Colada popsicles, and you can too! All you need is:

A blender
one pineapple, peeled and cored
one can (13.5 oz.) coconut milk
extra sweetener, to taste
If you are feeling like a "real" Pina Colada, you can also add a splash of Rum

Mix all your ingredients together in a blender, pour into popsicle molds of your choice and put in the freezer to set up overnight.
If you don't have popsicle molds, this also makes a yummy granita. Simply pour into a shallow container, and periodically scrape the mixture with a fork during the freezing process to create lots of yummy ice crystals!