Day 55 - Altered book

Today was an interesting day. Started out with a delay for the kids which I never look forward to, it just throws my whole day way off. Once the kiddos were off I had to head to the post office to ship an order and then to the grocery store. Want to know just how fast gas prices are rising out here? Well I drove by the gas station on my way to the store it was $3.849. I did my shopping and started to head over to McDonald's to grab my one and only shamrock shake of the season and the price was $3.899. That means it went up five whole cents in a half an hour. I refuse to buy gas in my state, I go to the next state over where it's at least thirty cents cheaper. But I digress. It's ridiculous just how fast they are rising. Everyday the gas station raises it's prices.

Anyway, I drove by the gas station (with my eyes bulging out of my head in surprise at the jump in price) and headed to the drive thou at McDonald's. I figured I'd spend my extra points on this shake and only limit it to one for the season. I love the shamrock shake so I'm sad that I only get one but one is better than none. I paid for the order and the cashier gave me back my change. As we pulled away something wasn't right. I looked at my change. The ten dollar bill didn't seem right. We pulled into a parking space and examined it more closely. It was off and something was wrong, it was smaller than my other bills. So we took the bill to the bank. They tested it with all their tests but couldn't find anything wrong except....get this... the whole image was shrunk about 1/8". Well what the hell? If you lined up one border the one on the opposite side was short by about an eight of an inch. Lovely. Now what the heck am I suppose to do with this? The bank didn't offer me a new one to replace this one they just said..you know there have been counterfeit bills circulating in the area lately but the serial numbers don't match those you should be fine but you could take it down to the police and have them look at it. Sigh. (It's already been a long day but I don't want to risk the bill being a counterfeit.) We call the police who come and take my ten dollars. (now I'm broke..sigh) They said that it will be sent to the secret service (pretty darn cool) to be analyzed and if it's real I'll get my ten dollars back and if not I'm out the ten dollars. (OMG! Are you kidding me? I didn't ask to be handed this bill...I better get ten dollars in the mail!) Then he sent us on our merry way.

It's just been one of those days...So I decided to do some painting and playing with medium.

Day 53 & 54 - Photo and work

This running around is gonna kill me. So darn busy, it's insane. It needs to slow down soon.

So I came across this tree on day 53 in a parking lot I was in while I was out and I saw something in it. I snapped the picture took it home and drew what I saw on the tree in Photoshop. Now it's not the greatest drawing, I could have done better if I broke out the Wacom and took my time, but you'll get the point. It's kind of silly but it stood out the second I saw it.

So outside of running around, I've been busy working on a deadline. This brings us to day 54 and work. I've been color my butt off.. Coloring what? you ask. Well this:

Vampirella line art trading cards for Breygent Marketing is what I've been busy coloring. While it is work, it's still creative to come up with how to color the cards and different ways to color cards that have the same art on them to make them look different. I'll post a picture of some done ones when I can.

Day 52 - A Day of Food

Today I enlisted the help of the kids to make some cavatelli like my hubby's grandma use to, similar to Nana's video below. Though my pasta dough this time was 2/3 white flour and 1/3 wheat flour.
It took the kids awhile to get the rolling down right but they eventually did. I had them make about a pound of it before hubby and I took the rest of the pasta dough and made ravioli with it. The ravioli was interesting to make. It was my first time making it. I use a mixture of ricotta and seasoning for the filling. I first started off by making a sheet of dough, putting spoons of filling on it and covering it with another sheet of pasta before cutting them. Then I realized it was much easier to make a sheet, place the spoons of filling just off center and fold it over to make half round ravioli. You'll see in my picture some of each and in one of the pictures you can see the bag of cavatelli, my pasta machine, the bowl of filling and misc. goodies. It was a fun experience. We froze all the pasta but 12 ravioli, which we made for dinner. We had them in a brown butter and sage sauce, with a Montreal encrusted fillet....So good.

Days 49,50, & 51 - So far behind

So I haven't had much time for blogging the past few days. It's been absolutely craziness. Non-stop going, and I have still been doing my creative day thing every day even if I didn't post it. I'm going to take today's post to catch back up on everything.

Day 49 - My creative thing for the day was deciding to try to make something else with wonton wrappers. Yep I'm going try to fill them with everything I possibly can. Today was for a late night movie snack with the hubby. We wanted something spicy so..wonton wrapper jalapeno poppers it was. They came out really good, so good I'll be making them again very soon. Here is what I did:

You need: 3 oz of cream cheese
                  about 5 diced pickled jalapeno rings
                  1/2 tsp of sour cream
Mix it all together in a small bowl or ramekin till everything is together. I took the cream cheese mix and put about a half a tsp - one tsp in the middle of the wonton wrapper, wet the edges with a little water and folded it into a triangle pressing the edges together. Bake at 350°F for about 10 - 15 minutes until they start to brown.

Day 50 - Today I made a musical ornament. Not musical in the sense that it plays music but musical in the sense that it has to do with music..sheet music. I took a wood ornament painted it, decoupaged on some musical paper, added some musical notes, painted the edge with some gold dust and viola:

Day 51 - Today was all about the kids. I helped the oldest finish up her painting for the art show. Taught her how to make "snow" on the top of the mountains using a white marker. I then framed them and attached some hanging wire to them and took them to the gallery so they could be hung for the kids show. :) I love that my kids like art and I'm proud that their art will be shown in a gallery at such young ages. <3

Day 48 - Birthday Present

This past week was my grandma's birthday. I figured I'd go and make her something small. A little mini note book that she can carry in her purse or put by her phone to make notes in. I was making it today and ran into a little problem. One that I'm sure grandma wouldn't mind, as grandma likes the special handmade gifts, even with there flaws. I..um...well...wasn't paying attention when I glued down the light yellow paper and the picture and...well...I glued it on upside down and backwards. (sooooo mad at myself for not checking before I glued. It's like the carpenters rule - measure twice, cut once. It should have been check twice on the orientation of the papers and glue once.) Sigh. It's one of those things I can't believe I made that mistake, so disappointed that I did it. And I really liked the notebook too. I'm sure that grandma will love it regardless of the mess up. Heck she might not even notice, (or at least I can hope that she doesn't notice.)

Day 47 - Glass Life Counters

Having access to a ton of Magic the Gathering cards that would have just been thrown out I decide to find a way to upcycle them. I took some glass baubles and made a set of life counters for card games similar to Magic. Twenty counters in all. I like the way they look and the way they magnify the pictures. I felt lined the backs of them to help them from sliding around the table so much when playing.

They are up on E-bay right now.

Day 46 - Swarovski crystal earrings

OOOHHHH!! Guess what?! I after I posted my blog yesterday I found them!!! I found my cards! Funny thing was that they were nowhere near where I though they were and they were hidden inside another card. I'm so relieved. Finding those makes me feel so much better.

To celebrate I made myself something nice. :) When the hubby was downstairs in our old office he found some Swarovski cubes and some old sterling silver hooks. I forgot I even had those down there. I decided to make myself a nice pair of earrings. I used the Swarovski cubes, a purple disk crystal and a clear Swarovski bicone on the top.

Day 44 & 45 - Craziness

Yeah I didn't post yesterday...first time I've missed in well, 44 days. Not bad. Well actually it is bad. Have you ever had one of those days where everything is just wrong? Can't find anything to save your life? I did yesterday and am still there. I miss placed some cards and for the life of me can't find them. I've been tearing the office apart trying to locate them, with no luck. I can vaguely remember the conversation with my hubby about how I had to press them because they were curling really bad. Now I can't seem to find them. It's like they vanished into thin air. I've even been asking St. Anthony (you know that thing you say when you lost something...Dear St. Anthony come around, somethings lost and can't be found) to hurry up and do his magic a little faster. (I found my Hello Kitty sticker book, it was lost, but it's not what I really wanted to find.) Even pleading with St. Anthony hasn't worked to find these cards. I'm at my wits end and it's really getting to me. I'm going to lose it....soon.

***Deep breath***So yesterday, while in the midst of searching for these darn cards, the oldest wants to work on a piece of art for the art gallery. They are hosting a Children's Exhibit. I worked with her on her water colors and how to not press so hard on the brush. She, for some reason, wants to push the brush all the way to the paper so that the metal end is scraping on the paper. I tried to get her to use the tip of the brush, how to get different shades of the same color and how to even out the paint on the paper. She's doing good. I can't wait to see how it looks when she's all done.

Today, but of course, you guessed it, more card craziness. Still can't find them. Still driving me NUTS!!! To take my mind off the craziness I decided to decorate some garden stakes. Thinking about the garden makes me happy :) I plan on putting quite a bit of work into it this year and over the next few years. I really want it to be something wonderful. I found some garden stakes in one of the dollar bin at Michael's and picked some up. I took some Mod Podge and affixed some decorative paper to the fronts of them, trimmed the edges and sanded them down. I aged them with some vanilla paint and sand paper. The border around the yellowish one was done with water colors and a detail brush. The lettering I embossed on with wet embossing markers and clear embossing powder. Finally I sealed them with a couple of layers of Mod Podge and once it is nice enough outside I'll give the whole steak a good cover with some clear coat.

Day 43 - Water color tip

Today I wanted to finally start my pallet for watercolors for painting trading cards. I've been using my hubby's pallet in the past but bought one of my own and figured I'd start putting some paints of the colors that I'm using in it. It's tough to decide which tube to squeeze onto the pallet when there are two or three of the same color in different brands or just trying to figure out which color is which. I decided to do what I've done in the past with my water color pencils for the tubes of water color paints. I took a piece of water color paper and painted a little splotch on it and labeled it so I know which is which. I then can decide which gives me the best color or the color I want. I also know what the paint actually comes out like when painting with it, as the paints sometimes don't really match the color on the outside label of the tube. Here's some of my decision making help for browns and a blue.

From this I decided to add the Cotman Burnt Umber, Pentel Yellow Ochre, Cotman Black Ivy, and the Pentel Prussian Blue to my pallet. I will keep this around in case I need to know what the colors tube paints look like.

Day 42 - Green Key Bookmark

Today I began looking at CSAs. Now I loved our CSA from last year but with the fear of gas prices going up I started looking closer to home. Alas all the ones closer to home are more expensive. It seems that the money we might save by not having to drive as far might be lost by the initial cost of the CSA. Still got a lot of thinking about this to do and not much time to do it in. Most CSA's close at the end of March for sign ups. I better get deciding.

I was singing "Oh crappy day!" (hehe a play on "oh happy day") earlier today as it was gloomy, gray and snowy. So to brighten today up I took some time today some beading and made a little bookmark (or book thong as some people call them...it just makes me laugh. Hehe.) It's a green satin cord with some aurora glass beads and green Swarovski crystals with these cute little silver keys at the ends. :)

Day 41 - Taco Cups

So being on this diet not being able to eat the things that I use to, or at least not as much. We are trying to find ways to cut down the amount of points for dinners. Not an easy task. In doing so though I came a cross a little discover on the Weight Watchers facebook page...wonton wrapper. They had this recipe posted for a sort of pierogi made with wonton wrappers. I made those. They were really good. The package of wrappers came with a card with recipes on it for wontons (duh)and ravioli (really?) Looking into it and thinking about it more I figured you could fill wonton wrappers with anything.

So tonight I made taco cups! It was a definite experiment...no recipe to go by. I sprayed my muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray and laid two wonton wrappers cockeyed of one another and gently pressed them down a little bit. I made my taco seasoned meat. Once my taco meat was done I put a spoon full of meat in the center of the wonton wrappers and pushed them down to the bottom of the muffin tin. I then put a small spoon full of re-fried beans on top of the meat and some diced green chillies on top. Topped it all off with a slice of colby jack cheese and baked them in the oven at 350°F for 10-15 min and yummy yum yum. I served with some sweet corn bread and rice. I will definitely be making those again!

Day 40 - Another Valentine Card

How about another Valentine's Day Card, or an I love you anytime card. This one is crazy. It's made from card stock with lots of circles on it. There are also glittery 3D heart stickers on it, along with some pink and red buttons. The larger pink heart button has a ribbon tied threw the holes that has the word "love" written down it. The card I left blank inside. :)

Day 39 - Update and Valentine Card

I ended up rooting two more green onions, so that now I have four. All of them up on my kitchen window sill. I figured I share with you just how well they are doing. I have to say that I am completely amazed by this. The far right one I just planted yesterday and it has not had a chance to straighten out as it was bent in the glass while rooting.

With Valentine's Day right around the corner I figured I'd post a Valentine card, or an I love you anytime card. :) Those are always nice too. It's made from card stock. There are a couple of heart brads affixed to the paper, a heart candy box that reads love and a tag at the bottom that says i <3 u!

Day 38 - Playing with Wire

Today I decided to play with my wire jig a bit more and try some different thing other than writing with it. I didn't like the first two I made.

I had a tough time trying to figure out the best way to begin and end the flower. I was much happier with the next two that I made. :)

I think that I like working with the heavier gauge wire. The light blue one, of the first two I made, was a higher gauge than the rest. It's tough to keep the higher gauge wire to keep it's shape after you take it off the jig. I'll have to play some more sometime. I have an even lower gauge that I used to use to make rings for chain mail I'd like to try using, but that will have to come later.

Day 37 - Seed Tapes

Thanks to CRFM for another great idea. I find out so much useful information from them. They posted a tutorial on their face book page about seed tapes. Found here: How to Make Your Own Seed Tape. I thought this would be a great thing to do to prepare for the spring and planting the garden. Today I made up some paste, I used whole wheat flower, I don't think it matters. I made the seed tapes for carrots and parsnips. Both need to be thinned to 2 inches apart after they get growing so I figured I'd "glue" them at 1 inch intervals. I'm figuring some won't grow and I can thin them down as needed. I did find however, that with the parsnips some of the seeds popped off after they dried. I just glued them back on. I'm wondering if it might be that the seed size was to big for the amount of "glue" I used. I think they came out good we'll see in the spring how well they work. :)

Day 36 - Paper Pots

Today's all about the garden. I went out today and bought all, at least I think it's all, my seeds for the season. I've never started my whole garden from seeds. I usually buy a lot of plants from one of the farmers down the road. This year however, I've decided I want my garden to be all my doing. (Keeping fingers crossed that this all goes as planned or I just might still end up buying plants.) I bought all heirloom seeds. Yay for no genetically modified food! I got tomato, carrots, corn, parsnips, lettuce, peas, beans, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, leeks, onions, squash, celery, basil, sage, thyme, and a flowering vine for - hopefully - a new fence. It's a lot...so much so that we well be expanding the garden yet again. Now it trying to figure out where to get cheap lumber (hard wood..preferably cedar) for building more boxes. I have left over floral fabric from a french drain I put in last summer that I'm going to put down over the grass to kill it off and keep the new part of the garden weed free. :)

Right now the next step that I can think of, out side of finding some lumber and skids/pallets for a fence, is to get the seeds ready for planting. I plan on purchasing a little greenhouse so I can start some of my seeds ahead of time. I heard from somewhere about paper pots and a light bulb clicked. Why should I pay for the decomposing pots when I can make my own seed pots for free by recycling my newspapers. So I looked for a good video on how to do it and found this one here:

I made a couple to see what it was like. I used a regular sized soup can for the larger of the two and a small juice glass for the smaller one. I'm thinking that the tomato paste can might work the best but I'm going to have to wait until I need to use a tomato paste to find that out.

Day 35 - A Rose Petal Bookmark

What do you do with a tiny little bottle full of polymer clay rose petals? Make a bookmark! I had to run to Michaels though. (Bad because I see so much great stuff in there that I could spend a small fortune.) I needed some light siam (red) swarovski 4 mm bicones. I ended up with some great clearance finds as well. I'll have to see what I can come up with for them. I'm sure it will be something fun.

As for the little bottle with the rose petals. I had fun making it into a bookmark. I think it came out nice. Here it is:

Day 34 - Miniature Bottle of Rose Petals

I was thinking along the lines of Beauty and the Beast on this one. I love the movie, it's one of my favorites. I sculpted a little tiny rose (the piece that broke of course) and rose petals.

My clay sat in the oven over night. It was so thin and tiny that I heated up the oven baked them for a few minutes then shut the oven off and left them in there over night to finish baking and cooling. I broke one piece but that's okay I think I like the ones that are left. I painted them in two different shades of red and a white. I placed them in a tiny glass bottle, so tiny that it's just over an inch tall including the loop at the top. I have so many ideas for this cute little bottle.

Day 33 - Baking something

Well today I have no pictures for you. I will tell you it's a surprise for tomorrow and it's baking tonight. I hope that it comes out okay. I sculpted something really tiny. Tomorrow I hope to have it all painted and in place. Then I will have pictures. :)

Day 32 - Gears Steampunky Journal

Today I did another recover. I took apart a smaller journal and recovered it with a steampunk theme in mind. The cover paper is a grey and has glossy gears all over it. On the front cover I add a few metal gears too. Seeing how I already showed you how I recover journals in a previous post I won't bore you with all the details again. Instead I'll get right to it: