11/30/13

Let insanity ensue! Holiday Crafty Projects, Tutorial on Calendar Coaster and more!

Hey Krazies!

Here is a quick video showing you my craft room that exploded with to do project supplies!  Also I wanted to talk to you about how to do a fun calendar coaster!


First the video!








Now the Calendar Coaster!  Or, Coaster Calender if you'd rather!


 Aren't these adorable?  Last year Michele and or Candace from Jaded Blossom sent me the green Coaster Calendar with an order (pssst.... right now, today 12/30/2013) they are having a big ole stinkin sale, the more  you buy, the more you save WOOT!  Anyhoo, they sell Coaster Kits which have the blank coasters and dated calendars but alas they are out of them.  So, you can order the coasters (or use some from a bar/restaurant or if you are a loosey goosey with the booze, your own stash) from Sky Blue Pink.  I bought these a year or two ago and haven't checked the recent prices but I know they were very reasonable.  The Calendars, well my best guess would be to google  'mini calendars' or 'mini tear off calendars' or you can even make your own in Word.  Just search 'mini calendar template"
 So I took down JB's calendar and gave it a look see.  I then dug around my stash to find the coasters that I knew I had but did not remember where I put.  I gathered up a 12x12 Recollections Christmas pad from Michaels (50% off dontcha know) and grabbed some coordinating scraps from my scrap bins.  I initially tried the 1" circle with a 1 1/4" for the bottom layer - way too big. So I went with the 3/4" circle punch and the 1" for the bottom. Better fit I'd say.  I used # stamps from Peachy Keen's PK-09 Cheesy Packers set and a teeny bow already tied from who knows where.   I placed the coaster (already taped using tape gun) down on the non printed side of a sheet of paper (not card stock, paper works better) and then simply trimmed around it.
I tried in vain to get the banner behind the letters perfect but, it wasn't to be. I used my square punch to cut the lil notches out - but it got shorter and shorter until it wasn't overlapping like the cute one from JB.  Oh well I give up.  Using pop dots under the calendar year was smart because it really stands out.  Have fun, I know you have a huge stash and are itching to play - go to the local bar and ask for coasters (I actually got a stack from the bowling alley snack bar one night before I ordered the plain ones.  Oh and don't forget magnets, I used button magnets but I would have rather used my less expensive business card magnets that I have 100 of... somewhere in this room.  Please tell me how I can have such an organized room but never remember where I put stuff?  OF course I label drawers and cabinets but you can't list every single solitary thing or you'd go nuts.

Today and Tomorrow will be paper craft day.  Monday will be sewing screw up day. I promise I'll screw it up because I do not know how to sew!  Once I hand sewed a button on a sleeve, and sewed it to the backside so you couldn't poke your hand through LOL!

I have SIX stamp sets to give away - I have to do the drawing of the 12 people who commented a few weeks ago, as soon as someone tells me how to read my darn comments I'll jump on it!

Here is the crazy list of stuff I'm going to tackle in the coming days. Yes, I said DAYS.

Tube Candy (the plastic tubes with candy and toppers)
Tin Candy (Hershey nuggets wrapped in a tin with a window)
Candles (you'll see)
kisses and tons of them (hershey kiss bottoms with cute tags)
Reindeer poop, Snowman Poop, Coal and more with cute toppers
Glass ornaments with a twist
a few sewing projects.

Stay tuned, Christmas 2013 is going to be CRAZY!

Happy Holidays!

Hugs and Happiness!

11/27/13

Happy Happy Thanksgiving! A few cards to share

First thing is first:  Can someone tell me how in the world I view the comments?  They used to just show up, now they are no longer there.  If I click on 'comments' it prompts me to leave one.  Sigh.  I have to get these stamps to winners but first I have to find the winners LOL

I wanted to talk about coupons for a quick second.  I buy NOTHING without a coupon/sale and if it's combined I'm in HEAVEN.  Yesterday Kohls had a couldn't pass up deal.  After coupon code (BLACKFRI), free shipping, a 30 dollar rebate, $60 in Kohls cash AND $14.08 from ebates I was able to snag a Kitchenaid (this one: Stand Mixer) for 79 dollars!!  Lets be honest, that's flat out stealing!

Ebates is the bomb diggity!  They have SO many stores you are going to find a bunch if you shop online for the holidays.  Click here to join free:  http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=y%2B2MF9xlQukP76SLXgnBMw%3D%3D

Last Christmas I snagged over 100 bucks in rebates just by going thru their site first. WOOT!

Ok, so with all that finally being said - guess what I have coming up?  My very first SEWING project - look out boys and girls! You are going to be amazed and in awe.  You know, cause making jewelry and paper crafting wasn't enough - I had to add sewing.  I wish I would master something before starting something else but it's a curse adults with ADD have to deal with. Sigh....

So here are a few cute cards for you.  I used a bunch of techniques. From the rolling sew easy stamp thingy, to punching with the piercing tool, stamping, edging with decorative scissors and using washi tape or ribbon.  You can click the photo to enlarge it.  I even matched the envelopes.

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving and I'll see you all over the weekend with some fun Christmas Projects!


















Hugs and Happiness!

11/20/13

Who wants some Chicken Fajita's?

Wow this was a super easy meal and a huge hit!  If you like Fajita's, you are going to love this!

Crockpot Fajita's




Onion
Green Pepper
Fajita Seasoning or Fajita Seasoning Packet
4 Chicken Breasts boneless skinless, or Chicken tenders
1/4 cup of chicken broth
All your fixins for Fajitas (tortillas, cheese, lettuce, sourcream, etc)

If you use FROZEN chicken for this, you do not need chicken broth.  If you thaw them first, use the broth. If no broth on hand - just had a lil water to thawed Chicken.

So, cut up your Onions and Peppers and place in bottom of your crock pot (as many or little as you want)
Place chicken on top of that.  Pour in the chicken broth and then sprinkle on the Fajita Seasoning (or seasoning packet)
Turn your crock pot on medium for 6 hours, high for 3 hours.

Your house will smell amazing.  Simply amazing!  When the chicken is done, simply use two forks to shred it (it will shred very easily) and that's it.  As you can see from the photo, I served it in a bowl with the onions and peppers on top.

I have a friend going thru Cancer right now so I doubled the recipe.  I put half in a zip lock bag and then stopped at the store on the way to her house. I picked up a package of wheat tortillas, a package of shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, a tomato (fat juicy one) and a container of sour cream and delivered it.  She and her husband enjoyed it and she didn't have to do anything but heat it up.

I'm going to dry this with beef strips as well and will let you know how it turned out.

I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know if you make this and if you liked it as much as we did :)

Hugs and Happiness!

11/19/13

Vinyl on Glass Blocks

Hey everyone!


Hope you are having a great week. The holidays are coming fast YIPES!  My daughter and I are sitting here watching spooky stuff and I figured I'd get this post done before I go to bed.

One of our friends had a birthday this weekend. He is a die hard Baltimore Ravens Fan.  I have been wanting to do something like this for him for awhile but needed an excuse.  We hang out with he and his wife quite a bit - normally it's the guys on the deck watching football games while the girls  hang out inside discussing girly things.  Usually there are other couples with us - we all graduated in the 80's from the local High School so it's fun to hang out after all these years.  There are a lot of "Remember when" conversations.  The more drinking, the funnier the conversations (and more embellished lol)

So I started off with the intention of cutting this out with vinyl and putting it on the glass:

People lemme tell ya - this was a NIGHTMARE.  What was I thinking?  I didn't have an SVG and I wasn't quite sure how to convert properly to svg.  Every time I tried I'd only get one big cut, not individual.  So, I put my thinking cap on (after I found it, it was behind a dresser, full of dust, cat hair and bad memories) and I cut this puppy out on every color I needed.  Then I tried to piece it together like you would a puzzle.  Ohhhhh no.  I screamed like you would not believe. I threw stuff (not really, I like my stuff) and my son kept saying "You can do it!" but no, no I couldn't.  I finally gave up after ruining a LOT of vinyl.  (I have no more gold, don't ask me to make anything with gold.  Or purple for that matter)
So, I decided on a Raven Head.  Not simple, but oh so much easier considering I had an actual SVG and I really only had to ungroup it all and put it on the cutting mat the way I need to arrange it.  But even that I had to do twice because I didn't get the layering right. Oh it cut correctly, I did not place it correctly.  Sigh...
So I got the glass block for 5 bucks at one of the craft Giants... AC Moore I think.  Sale of course.  I got the purple lights at a local Ravens shop.  The ribbon I had on hand. I have a wife purple ribbon then I glued down a black ribbon and actually glued it on the bottom after placing it all the way around.  The top ribbon is just a mock bow, and then a bottle cap on top with the originally logo I wanted to create.  Tim loved it and immediately put it under his tv they have on the enclosed deck.  


Mr. Krazy and I are Green Bay Packer Fans.  They were playing at 4pm yesterday so our intent was to watch them after the Ravens game at Tim & Karens.  However, Chicago had all those horrible storms so the game was delayed a few hours.  This is me and Allen on the couch, alone, watching the Packers while the rest of the gang was on the back deck watching the Ravens LOL.  Both teams lost but we still had loads of fun, plenty of food and drink and loads of laughter.  My friend Dawn made the hats for us. She custom makes them so if you are interested shoot me an email and I'll get you in touch  :)

Oh one last thing - I told everyone at the Birthday Party "No, I will not do a custom order of this glass block - none of you can afford what I would charge.  None of your friends can afford what I'd charge.  Bill Gates estate can not afford what I would charge to do another one of these.  Ever.

See ya next time!  



Hugs and Happiness!

11/15/13

Vinyl Cups, my Tee-ma necklace and meet the kids!

Hi Krazies - yeah, I misspelled it yesterday, I wrote Krazys.  But I'm not changing it. Why? Because I'm lazy like that.  It's how I roll.

So let me show you a vinyl project I did last month for my great-nephew Jaxon who is going through a Firetruck phase.  But first I have to tell you a story.  When Amanda was 3 (she's now 22) we were at a county fair and strolling around.  A fire truck was there with fireman hanging out and letting kids climb all over, explore, toot the horn, etc.  A fireman says "Hey kids, wanna come check out the firetruck?"  to which my baby Amanda replies "No thank you Mister.  My Uncle Brian gots one and we seed it already a lots"  LOL  That tickles me to this day.  Ok moving on.

So I got these fun cups at the Dollar Tree one day.  I kinda wish I had picked up more but I got one in each color.  It has a flip top and a straw pops out, a cord for them to hang around their necks (not sure that's a super idea...) and a cup on the bottom that you can put a handful of snacks in for the toddler in your life.


.
I looked all over the place for a simple fire truck svg.  Something with only a layer or three - nothing complicated.  I'm talking I looked ALL over.  I found this one. Where?  Oh, just hanging out in a folder on my laptop titled "SVG's" and in a sub folder called "Firetruck"    Yeah, I am not that bright.  Anyway - I cut them out on the Cameo first using paper to make sure that I could piece it together correctly.  Once I got the sizing correct, I cut it out with vinyl.  Let me tell you, that ladder was almost torn in half by my patience and nerves. You would think it would 'hang' at the top, but NOOOOOO.    I also made the Jaxon name thingy ma bobber in Cameo's software.  I offset the background and matched the colors.  Easy Peasy fresh and squeezy.  I have not asked my niece about Jaxon's reaction.  Mainly because I have the memory of a gold fish (3 seconds) and forget to ask her. She has a very active toddler (aforementioned Jaxon) and his sibling is growing in her belly now.  She has her hands full. (better her than me HA!)

Jewelry, Kinda.

Here for your pleasure (ahem) is my Teema necklace I put together for myself.  Problems I have right off the bat are the crystals are too small. They are the girls birthstones and I thought it would look dainty and cute. But no, it looks cheesy. But that's ok, cause I'm cheesy.  Anyway, just wanted to share this cause I knew y'all would just rave on and on about it and share it with your friends and on pinterest and then tons of people would contact me wanting to know how they could get one and then I'd be busy making them and getting rich and going on cruises and vacays and......  Where was I?  Oh, just thought I'd have something else for you to gawk at.  Here ya go.   I can't stop making these silly things. Maybe one day I'll actually do a good job!


My kiddos

You must never ever EVER tell them that I posted this. EVER.  #1, I did not touch it up in any way (clearly). #2, they all hate it and #3 You can see the lovely water stain on the drop ceiling behind them, you can see red eyes, and diamond eyes.  My girls (Amanda left, Krys Right) are smiling like dorks (their words not mine) and Matthew looks like... well, we aren't sure.  He wanted to hold a cat because he felt lonesome.  But we wouldn't let him LOL.  This was taken at a TWD family get together (The Walking Dead, jeeze people, follow along!)  Again, don't tell them.  If you see them, and you tell them, I will do something drastic. I don't know what, but I will.  Since none of them every go to my blog I should be safe. However, some of my family and friends occasionally pop on here.  DO NOT TELL.   

  My grand-babies!


Here on the left is our miracle.  Ragan was 8 months old yesterday. On the right our lil angel Julianna was 4 months on the 3rd.  I don't normally shove them in the activity mat and start snapping pictures, but they were holding hands and talking to each other and well, I just had to.  Aren't they the cutest?  I LOVE kissing all over these babies.  I realize that they look the same age.  Ragan had a rough start by spending 2 months in Pediatric Intensive care, 6 weeks of that was in a coma so they tell us she will naturally be about 2 months behind other babies. She should catch up by 1 or 2 years.  Julianna has been on track with everything so we are starting to notice the difference with Ragan now.  Either way - we are blessed beyond measure to have these beautiful, happy, healthy little girls in our lives.

That's it for now - hope to have the winners announced in the next day or two.  Truth is, I'm stretched out on my couch with the laptop and not IN the craft room to take photos and choose winners and such.

Hugs & Happiness!

11/14/13

Where in the world is Kricut Krazy?

Hey there Krazys!

So yeah, I had all these big plans. Blog post every day or two, blog candy (I haven't forgotten the stamp candy)  Recipes, Projects, Jewelry, etc, etc, etc.

What happened?  Well, life.  As a lot of you know, I take care of my mom who has Parkinson's.  We have good days, we have bad days. Lately we've been having a lot of 'falling down' days.  We've had 2 ER visits in the middle of the night and one fun night when she fell hitting her head on the deacon bench in her room. At 4 am.  I did not find out about it for several hours, by then I was in full panic mode and sure she had a skull fracture.  Turns out, a scrape about 2" long across the base of her skull that bled like she had been hit with a hatchet.  Thankfully, other than a headache and a huge mess to clean up, mom is doing fine.  What a scare that was!

Anyone following my saga knows that mom's regular night attendant had a massive stroke last year.  This broke mom's heart as Betty was nothing short of her best friend and angel.  Betty lost a lot, her husband died a few months after her stroke, she lost her home, etc.  It's sad and mom misses her dearly (as do I).  I hired a gal Elizabeth from Kenya who was to be a live in.  She lasted about 8 weeks.  One day I walked into the hallway to hear her scolding my mother for needing help standing off the toilet.  She was terminated on the spot and we haven't had anyone since.  Until now.  Enter Josie.  Josie is my nephews grand-mom on his mothers side.  She has been coming over from 7p to 7a for a week now and things are SO much more stable and relaxed.  She is heaven sent for sure.

So, moving forward (as if anyone is still listening at this point, yawn-fest I know) It's TWD season.  The Walking Dead my friends. Zombies and Rick, Darrell and Michone.  We are a family addicted.  So every Sunday Krystina shows up around 11am with Nick and their baby Ragan.  In the afternoon Matthew strolls in, and in the early evening Amanda, Brandon and their baby Julianna skate in.  It's a family affair.  The last few weekends Krystina has decided to spend an extra night.  Then an extra 2 nights.  Then my week is shot.  I can't get enough of Ragan and Julianna (Grand-parenting is the best isn't it?) so I'm not complaining.

I finally got rid of.........took Krys back home today.  Told hubby and mom at dinner tonite that I was excited because I had my house back and I was going to clean up the craft room (which has a massive collection of various jewelry findings, beads, stones and glue all over the desk) and get ready for the holidays by working on tons of projects.  Everything from cards (duh) to 3d items, ornaments, vinyl projects (got me a few of those big ole glass blocks you put lights in) to treat bags and more.  I was SO excited to get a good nights sleep and dive right in.

Oh the plans I had.  First, clean up and reorganize, that should take the better part of the morning. In the afternoon I was creating a blog plan.  A post for every day.  We were having a Recipe day, a jewelry day. a Cricut day, a Cameo Day and a few whatever goes days.  I was going to have everything done by Sunday so posting could start and be scheduled.  You know, work smarter not harder and all that jazz.

What happened you ask? (of course you don't ask, you have fallen asleep at your keyboard and cracked your forehead on the space bar, but I have to keep going, because one day when I'm super famous, people will be looking for drivel like this and I will be TOTALLY prepared)  Because after dinner, Mr. Krazy and I were relaxin and fixin to watch some Revolution, the Middle, Modern Family, etc. and my phone rings.  It's my baby girl.  "Mommy? can you watch Julianna tomorrow (4 month old lil love-bug)?  Brandon has a 12-14 hour day ahead of him and I have the chance to get more hours but we're stuck"  OF COURSE I said yes... what kinda Teema would I be?

So, I will try to get some things done around Jule's and her nap time.  Amanda picks her up about 3:30 and I have to get dinner on the table and out the door for bowling league so I will resume my big plans of Blog domination on Friday.  I hope.

For those of you hanging on and waiting for something to happen, waiting for the cobwebs to be swept away, waiting for some inspiration, a few laughs and a prize or two, you WILL be rewarded...eventually. For those of you that have given up and are muttering "Kricut Krazy? Who the heck is that?"  I don't blame you one bit.

I've missed you all - and I will getcha back.  Even if I have to bribe you (and I probably will)

xoxo

Hugs and Happiness!

Backpack and T-shirt’s

Back when Ragan was starting preschool, she wanted a Hello Kitty Backpack. The only one I could find was way out of our price range. So, I m...