Safety Pin Bracelet

Happy summer! I know most places have already started their holidays but today was my last day of school. Being slightly crazy, I only have 3 days of vacation until I go back to work. Every year I head to Edmonton (our province’s capital) to mark government exams for a week during the summer and this year the marking starts early. On a positive note, that means it’ll be over early and then I can come home and relax. Anyway, to go with the first day of summer holidays I thought I’d share a cute safety pin bracelet that my stepdaughter M made. It came from a kit but we added to it and changed it a bit, and you definitely don't need the kit to make your own.

Supplies needed:

Saftey pins

Beads

Elastic string

Add beads to the safety pins. M used the ones that came in the kit (including the charms) as well as other random ones from my stash.

String the elastic through the bottom of the safety pins so it’s the right size for your wrist. Tie the ends together. Do the same through the top of the safety pins.

That’s it. It’s not really my style but it looks awesome on a 10 year old

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The Saturday Seven @ Positively Splendid

Take A Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts

The Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentible

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order

Summer Link Up @ Ginger Snap Crafts

Lemon Cookies

Because I’m all about exercising and getting healthy lately I decided to make some cookies. Seems logical, right? Anyway, I love lemon and I love things that sound easy so this recipe for Nurse Susan’s Lemon Cookies from the Bearfoot Baker on Lil’ Luna looked right up my alley. To be honest, I first read about these on another blog but pinned them from the original source and can’t find the site that I first saw them on.*  I did tweak them a bit because I was too lazy to go to the store for more icing sugar and real lemon juice wanted them to be healthier.

Cookies:

1 box of lemon cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup of oil

Mix all three ingredients together and blend until smooth. Roll into balls (I made 30), place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and flatten with a glass (although I wish I had flattened less). Bake 7 – 8 minutes until starting to crack at 375 degrees.

Let cool partially on the pan and then place on a cooling rack. To make icing and clean up easier, I put some tinfoil on a cookie sheet and put the cooling racking on top.

Icing:

1 ¼ cups icing sugar

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp lemon juice (from a bottle, not fresh)

Stir all the ingredients together in a bowl. Drizzle over the cookies once they are mostly cooled. In the original they made a much larger batch of icing and covered the cookie but I find they have plenty of icing with the amount I made. 

You can eat them warm but J and I liked them even better once they had been in the refrigerator. They have a light, tangy taste and are a perfect summer treat that I'll definitely make again.

*Update: It was Mandy at Sugar Bee Crafts who blogged about the cookies. She ran out of lemon and had to get creative. Here's the link if you'd like to check it out.

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The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across
Take A Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts
The Creative Spark @ Clean and Scentsible
Wow Me Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts
Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order
The Saturday Seven @ Positively Splendid

Washer Pendant

The other day I decided to get on the bandwagon and make myself some washer necklaces. I’m sure you’ve seen them around. I’ve seen so many versions of these but never actually read any tutorials so I made up a way that worked for me.

Supplies:

Washer

Paper

Pencil

Scissors

Modge Podge

Brush

Dimensional Magic

Bobby pin (or something to spread with)

Hemp or some kind of string

Step 1: Trace the washer on the paper, cut it out and trim it until it fits perfectly. To make the hole in the center I just pushed the pencil through the paper.

Step 2: Modge podge the back of the paper, put it in place and let it dry. Once the back is dry, modge podge the top of the paper and let that dry as well. I also modge podged the back where the paper was pushed through the hole.

Step 3: Cover the front in Dimensional Magic. It took a few tries to figure it out.  I found what worked best for me was putting it toward the center and then spreading it with a bobby pin. Be careful to let it dry very well.

Step 4: Loop hemp or string around the washer and tie it so it can be adjusted.

I wore one of my new washer pendants to school today. Sorry for the slanted, wet-haired, head chopped off picture but I took it before school so that's as good as it gets. I think the pendant looked nice with the outfit and made me look a little more put together. For less than $1, I'd say that's pretty good.

Shared on:

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order

The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across

Take A Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts

The Creative Spark @ Clean and Scentsible

Wow Me Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts

The Saturday Seven @ Positively Splendid

Pounds To Goal Jar

I’m a visual person. It doesn’t matter how many times you tell me something, I need to see it written down. Because of that, when I saw this neat jar of rocks at Thirty Days To..., I pinned it. Fast forward to last Sunday. I decided enough was enough, I have to get healthy, and I have to stop procrastinating. Jillian Michaels and I are going to become best friends, but more on that later. To help motivate me, I decided to create my own version of the jar. I didn’t want to spend money so I dug around my jars until I found one I liked and used chalkboard paint to colour in a rectangle on the side. I then filled it with one button per pound I want to lose to reach a healthy and realistic weight for my height.



Confession, I have more than 42 pounds to goal... a lot more...
but I'm not comfortable telling the interwebs exactly how much
so 42 seemed like a nice random number.



Back to Jillian Michaels… Have you ever heard of the 30 Day Shred? It’s a seriously horrible, painful, hard workout but it’s short. Really short. Less than 25 minutes. That’s my kind of workout. So I committed to doing it every single day. Yesterday was day 7 and when I stepped on the scale, I was shocked. I lost 12 pounds. Yes, a lot of it is water weight. Yes, I still have a lot to go. No, I don’t care about those things because I’m thrilled with my results. No, I’m not getting compensated to say this. Anyway, after weighing myself I removed 12 buttons from the jar, erased my old pounds to goal number (and some of the paint came off, grr. I think the glass it too smooth and I should have scratched it up frist. Oh well, live and learn.) and wrote my new number.

My goal is to be down another 11 buttons for a total of 33 by the end of my 30 days. Wish me luck!

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The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across
Take A Look Tuesday @ Sugar Bee Crafts
The Creative Spark @ Clean & Scentsible
Wow Me Wednesday @ Ginger Snap Crafts
Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order

More Changable iPhone Covers

Like I mentioned in a previous post, June is a crazy month for me. I still have two and a half weeks of school left, even though it seems like most people in blogland are already on holidays. In the midst of marking and exam prep, I decided to take a break and make some new covers for my cell phone.

Rather than explain how to make them again, you can check out my original post for instructions… or just wing it. It really is as simple as it looks. The only thing I would change from the original post is to not buy a white case because it gets really dirty.

I change it every couple days and it’s kind of pathetic how happy it makes me. It’s the little things that count, right?

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Delightfully Inspiring Thursday @ Delightful Order
The Saturday Seven @ Positively Splendid

My Nemesis: Sugar Cookies

Do you have anything you just can’t make? For me, it’s sugar cookies. I’m not sure why but I can not get them to turn out. I’ve tried multiple recipes but had no success. Recently, I got the beauty below as a shower/wedding gift and decided to tackle yet another sugar cookie recipe.

 

I would like to the blog from which the recipe came but the cookies were a bit of a disaster so I don’t want to do that. It's one I've got other recipes from before and they've been delicious. Not so for these. Instead, let’s admire my mixer throughout its first mix.

Below is the finished product. Yes, I know they look edible but don’t let the appearance fool you. They’ve been here since Tuesday and I think between J and I we’ve only eaten 2 of them.

I'm not giving up though. Someday I WILL make a sugar cookie that is not just edible, but delicious. Until then, I'll have fun trying with my pretty new mixer.

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Saturday Seven Party @ Positively Splendid
The Cure for the Common Monday @ Lines Across

Guest Book Scrapbook Pages

I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately. I’m a teacher. It’s June. Life is crazy. Add to that the fact that J and I are getting married in less than 2 months and I’m changing schools this summer, and crafting has been put on the backburner. I miss it though, so am going to try and make time to craft at least once a week this month.

Anyway, here’s a wedding craft I’ve been working on. Instead of a traditional guest book for our 9 guests, I made scrapbook pages. This way, when I scrapbook our wedding photos, I can include these pages.

Above is a photo of the instructions in a frame to go on the table. The poem is a combination of a bunch of different ones I found online and then I added to it to make it work for us. I know it’s cheesy. In case the picture is hard to read, it says:

As we begin our journey

a brand new Mr. and Mrs.

we could surely use

your advice and good wishes.

Jot down a fond memory,

a reminder of the day.

Write a quote or lyrics

if you’re not sure what to say.

Share with us your wisdom

about marriage, love and life,

the key to being a kind husband

or a loving thoughtful wife.

Your photos will be placed

in the empty spaces

so we can read your messages

and see your smiling faces.

I have purple markers and some stickers that will be on the table for our guests to use. I’d like to find some sort of bowl or platter to put them on but I haven’t found anything yet.

Last but not least, here are the pages. I kept them very simple, placing only a little bit of decoration and the names of the person / family. The photographer is going to take a picture of each person / family to put in the space.



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Saturday Seven Party @ Positively Splendid