Crafty Christmas: Goodies & Cards

I haven't been able to get enought of Christmas lately! Our house is all decorated, and it makes me happy :) Maybe later this week I'll share some more decor around (and outside!) our house. I've been doing a bit of baking for a few Christmas parties I went to recently. One was a cookie swap, where each girl had to bring 5-dozen cookies. It was also a contest to see who made the prettiest and yummiest cookie. Although I didn't win (I totally should have!!! bitter much?), I wanted to share what I baked because they are sooooooooooo delish!

I made Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies, recipe found here. I've been obsessed with salted caramel goodies for a while, sipping on salted caramel hot chocolate, and I've even made cupcakes.

This was my little cookie setup at the cookie swap party:

I totally forgot to take a photo of the inside of the cookies, but if you check out the recipe you can see it's filled with a carmely suprise in the middle :) They were awesome, and pretty, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

I also wanted to share how I am hanging our Christmas cards this year:

I just took some green and red yan and twisted them together, and used some push pins to secure them to the wall. Cards are being held to the yarn with the cutest mini clothes pins (from Michaels). Last year I just taped the cards to the wall, and I like this a whole lot better!

A little wedding diy: favors

Alrighty! I am back in the blogging mode (I think), as I have tons of fun stuff to share both wedding and not wedding related. While I'm waiting to receive our official photos (this week, yipee!!!!), I wanted to share a DIY or two. I'm not kidding when I say we did everything ourselves for our wedding. And I am so glad we did. Everything turned out perfect, exactly our style.


I had a few different ideas for favors, but my sister and I came up with this great idea to use the many bags of coffee she has been able to accumulate from her job (helloooo Starbucks!). Each guest was able to take home a cute little bag of yummy Starbucks coffee, and oh, it smelled SO GOOD! You can do these easy favors for many other kinds of gatherings, too, and customize to your liking of course.

The VERY few things you'll need:

1. Muslin baggies. I used 4"x6", which held about a cup of coffee beans.

2. Alphabet/number stamps. I borrowed this rolling stamp from the lovely Morgan. An alphabet/number stamp set like this would be just as good.

3. COFFEE!

4. Stamp pad in your color of choice.

So as for the DIY, just use your stamps to decorate your bag! If you are doing a bulk amount, I recommend doing one word/line one each bag, then switching to the next word/line. (for example, I stamped "CHRIS" on all the bags, then switch to "ALYSSA", etc.).

I happend to find the cutest little coffee mug stamp among my Mom's stamp collection, it was PERFECT for this. Fee free to use any decorative stamps, or none at all. Here's some adorable little stamps that would be perfect. I also had to use a brown Sharpie to create the "+" sign and the hearts in between our wedding date.


After all of your stamping is done, fill each bag with coffee using some kind of funnel (I made a ghetto funnel out of paper so coffee beans could fit through easily). We used one cup ber bag.



And last of all, tie your baggies so you don't lose the coffee (because that would just be sad!). So,voila, your favor bags are done! They shouldn't take very long and they are oh so cute :)


Oh and the best part, I only spent about 20 bucks to create 75 favor bags since all I had to buy were the muslin bags and the stamp pad. Score!

Before & After: Craft Room

When we bought our house and realized we had 4 rooms to fill up, I knew that one of them would be made into a craft room for all my crafting shenanigans to take place. Well, as all things go...the craft room wasn't on the top of the list and almost a year later, it's finally pretty much set up! (I think I re-painted it like...2-3 months ago, LOL! I am so slow).

Here is the, um, beautiful room before:

Apparently I only took one picture back then because of the obvious beauty this room held...

And now...

Come on in.

Nope, didn't bother to vacuum for you guys. Sorry 'bout your luck :)

Pretty much my favorite shelf ever. The little birdies and the cute lantern I got up at a gift shop in Shaver Lake (where our cabin is). The little dealio on top is something I got at Target a while ago.

Probably a bit too much light here. Anyways, got the bookcase at Target for like, $20. You can kind of see the black shelf to the side of it. I got it at a yard sale a LONG time ago and just painted it black. Not sure where to hang it yet. Ideas?
PS @wishcake, see the vase?! Yeah, that was supposed to be filled with pussywillow (hehehehe). FML.

This shelf is the most amazing thing ever. I got it at Michaels, but I had a 40% off coupon so it wasn't all too expensive. See those little metal tins with the see-thru tops? $1 each at Michaels! I got a 12-pack of Ball jars a while ago, and that is where I store my feathers for my pins.

I couldn't handle the ugly closet doors, so I just took them off. Chris bought me some shelves at Home Depot and I hung them myself. ALL BY MYSELF (I won't mention the fact that I hung them up backwards the firt try). So yeah, a few shelves for random crap, one for candle making supplies, and one for sewing supplies. Works like a charm.

Workspace. The shelf is from Ikea. I actually got it when we first moved in, but never found a good spot for it. Uder the shelf we hung a curtain rod, which I used to put those little clippy curtain holders on. I'm hanging a few scissors from there now but I inteded to hang pictures/inspiration, etc. I also need to find a cute fabric to cover the cork board with...ahh, another project.

This tray is the cutest thing ever...yet another thing I got at a gift shop up at Shaver Lake. I use it to transport craft projects to the living room while I watch Lost ;) My little sewing box is from JoAnn's.

So I guess that's it! There's a few little things I want to do still in there but for now it works just fine. I obviously have plenty of space to do whatever I need to do. I love it <3>

So this one time

...I was all giddy and started up a new Craft Challenge.

I already had an idea of what I wanted to make.

I ordered a part for said item on Etsy.

Two weeks later, it is still not in my mailbox.

Craft fail.



So I was going to make a really awesome necklace for just the price of that locket. And when I do, it will be awesome.

Crafty Challenge V. 2.0

Morgan brought up to me the other day that I should start doing my Crafty Challenges again on my blog. I had totally forgot about them!!! Honestly, I think the last one I did I got a bit discouraged because of the lack of participation maybe (I know, boo hoo right?!). So I am going to try this again, because I know everyone loves to create things! The main goal is to share ideas, and obviously have a little fun with your inner crafter!

In the past challenges, I centered my idea around a holiday; well, there aren't any close enough! My inspiration for this challenge is from my own craft endeavors. I always see these cute accessories and think to myself: oh my gosh I can totally make the for way cheaper!

Crafty Challenge 2.1: Create a piece of jewelry for yourself, or someone else. The possibilities for this are endless! Earrings, necklaces, rings, hair jewelry, bracelets...you can create something out of fabric, metals, beads...anything!!!

Tip: If you have time, Etsy has tons and tons of supplies you can order with just a few clicks. Want to make earrings? Buy some backings and a cute button/cabochon/bead and just glue it on. It's really THAT simple. Of course, you'll probably be able to find things easily and quickly at your closest craft store as well!

Photo via Flickr.

Deadline: August 18, 2009. If you're going to participate, write a blog post about what you created on or before the date and send me a link: I'll create a post of all of the participants the day after the deadline. E-mail links to: parodyofanangelx(at)gmail(dot)com.

Crafting Update

My Etsy shop had kind of fallen off my radar screen that past month, or two...I'm trying to make some time each night this week to update it. This crafting stuff is some serious business! (in all honesty, some of my favorite bloggers, Mrs. Priss & Wishcake make me a wee bit jealous! <3>

Tonight I made a some new things, and posted a couple of them.


Let me know what you think! I actually plan on revising some of the stuff I have in there right now to make it better. And I also made a few little girly type pins that I will try to add this week, too. Weeee!

Oh and isn't it awesome that I have a craft room yet I totally craft on the kitchen table. Yeah the kitchen table that we don't even use to eat on. Win!

/shameless self plugging :)

Busy Bee!

Dudes, I've been NONSTOP the past few weeks (okay probably more than that, and let's not count my partial laziness this past weekend...). So without further adieu, the much not-requested "what the heck have I been doing?", in pictures and other things.

Watching Chris put up new "wood" blinds (hey, we're on a tight budget here! faux wood blinds FTW!). These babies are cat proof. Does anyone else have cats that tear the crap out of their cheapo vinyl blinds??? Hmm...probably not.

Making the garden grow!

Waking up twice a night and early in the morning to let Sadie McWhinerson out to potty. While we're on the subject of Sadie...if you don't already know, we took her to the vet and found out that she is a MINIATURE Aussie. Apparently we got a 92% discount!!! I always knew I was frugal :) Oh and we're not supposed to be taking her on walks or to the dog park just yet...oops. So that means she has been a little shiiiiiaaat, driving us NUTS. Children will be a breeze when the time comes.

Crafting a little bit :) Shameless plug? Whatev, I need to make a living, yo!

We also installed new lighting fixtures, all by ourselves (Mommy, WOW! I'm a big kid now!!! ...ok that sounded cooler when I sang it in my head)!!! Bye bye 90's glistening gold crap!

Oh also, cutting back my internet purchases. Sucks right?? Dang you ETSY! When you have a good chunk of extra money...you tend to not really budget as well as you should...then it's all gone and you wonder what happened. Yeah, that would be ME!

Pinned

I have mentioned a few times of a little "project" I was working on. Well it's been a thought in my head for probably a year. If you look to the right side of my blog you may or may not figure out what that is.

Annnndd, that's all folks :) XOXOX

(Not very much there right now...but keep an eye out for a lot more!)