Victorian Themed Charm Bracelet

My random swap package was received today soI can finally start posing some of the projects I made for it. My partner is going on a trip to England in a few months and requested a victorian themed something. I decided to make a charm bracelet. There are hearts, bows, and lots of random charms covering this bracelet. To me all the charms have that "Victorian" feel to them with all the grey tones.

Winner!

I used Random.org to pick a winner and it picked number 12! Congrats Melissa T!!!

The Peanut Gallery

Here is a gallery of my peanuts artwork from the 3rd grade

I beleive this is a self portrait

Here we have a dog and a very unhappy looking cat

Monsters!

This one is my favorite. She said they had to trace different shaped vases and then paint them. I love the fish in the upper right hand corner!

Last but not least is the pot of flower pens she made for her teacher as a thank you gift.

She is turning out to be a great artist already! There is a lot of talent in our family, unfortunately I didn't get the artistic stuff just the creative stuff.

Mmmm Rolls

This is my first attempt at making any type of rolls or bread that requires yeast. These were quite easy to make and turned out very good. The kids gobbled them up and I will definately be making them again.

First I gathered all my ingredients....

Then I mixed up my dough and let it sit for about 6-8 hours in the fridge


Next I separated the dough, rolled into balls and placed in my greased muffin tin

I let them bake for a bit and look at how nice these rolls turned out. All that was needed was a little butter.

2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup warm milk
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
4-5 cups all purpose flour

In a large bowl dissolve yeast in warm water and follow package directions for active yeast
Add milk, shortening, eggs, salt, 3 cups flour and sugar.
Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, stir in enough remaining flour to fourm a soft dough.
Mixture will be sticky! Do not knead
Cover and refrigerate overnight (or all day as I did)
Punch down dough.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 24 portions.
Divide each portion into 3 pieces, shape each into a ball
Place three balls in each greased muffin cup
Cover and let rise for about 1 hour 45 minutes
Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes
Yeild: 2 dozen

Cute as a Button Giveaway!

I created two more super cute button pendants with resin. I love how the different shades of blue and pink play off each other. Well since I can't wear both of them I want to share. So here's your chance to win your choice of one of these two pendants.

*required entry* If you aren't a follower yet become one and leave a comment to let me know. If you are already a follower leave me a comment.

You can get an extra entry by exploring my blog and letting me know what your favorite item is or what you think I should put in my upcoming Etsy shop.

I will pick a winner on Sunday May 23rd. I will contact the winner on Sunday, you will have 48 hours to respond or the prize will go to someone else.

Good Luck!

Robotics

Who doesn't love robots? They are super cute for boys and girls alike. I made a family of robot shirts for the Ongoing Wish Swap.

There is a mom Robot....

A
son robot.....

And last but not least a daughter robot!

Please forgive my off color photos, my camera stinks in artificial light and these photos were taken in my office this morning. The son robot is actually on a lime green shirt with a dark green paint. The daughter robot is done in silver glitter paint and outlined in black.

These stencils were made using freezer paper. It was my first time using freezer paper since I can't seem to locate it in Arizona, my craftster pal Babalina was good enough to send me a HUGE roll to play with though. I will say that I am now a freezer paper convert, it's easy to cut through and sticks to the fabric well so there isn't any bleeding. These stencils were from Stencilry.org and and random find on the internet with a free stencil download on Flickr.

Crochet

I have been wanting to learn to crochet FOREVER! I have tried to learn 4-5 times in the last 2-3 years and it has never gone well..... I could start a chain and I figured out how to add to the chain using a single crochet stitch but my attempted projects always ended up with missed stitches and would get narrower and narrower as I went on. I knew that I didn't have the patience to sit and count my stiches over and over and over and figured how hard can this be? You get to the end of the row and you turn and start a new one??? Right??? WRONG!!!! At least for me it was wrong. After actually learning some basics I figured out where I had been going wrong and how I kept missing stitches. I used some help from YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/show?p=Nf83vF1w3bU&s=1 and a little practice and I have finally mastered the single crochet!!!! Here is my first ever completed crochet project. Who knew I would be so excited over a washcloth!

I am now in the process of learning/mastering the double crochet stitch. Good thing Teresa has great YouTube videos to help me along.

Oh and thanks to all my new followers who came around from Friday Follow!

My Favorite Things Crafty Style

An Ode to Crafting

Fimo that glitters and fibre that felts,
Bright Fat quarters and plastic that melts,
Lovely swap packages tied up with string,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Glass beaded bracelets and freshly baked cake,
Hair pins and tack pins and cookies to bake,
Silver adjustable cabochon rings,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Soap in small dishes with nice fruity smells,
Jewellery that sparkles and jingles with bells,
Anything that features birds and their wings,
These are a few of my favourite things.

When the thread snaps, when the glue stings,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
And then I don't feel, so bad!

By Jo Prout

***Thanks so much for letting me share!!! Your poem is AWESOME!

Finally some pendant trays to play with

I have been wanting to play with pendant trays and resin forever. They are a little easier to work with than scrabble tiles because the have raised edges, no more overspill! They also already have a hoop attached so I don't have to glue on a bail. As you can see on the diamond pendant it looks as if the photo wasn't sealed well enough and there are some dark spots on the bottom....hmmm I guess I will have to Mod Podge the heck out of the next batch. There will be more as I have 10-12 more trays. I also purchased some other sized trays that I am going to experiment with soon. Please let me know if you like these new pendants!
I think this skull is my favorite out of this batch





























I also quite like this butterfly.

Hearts + glitter = Oh so cute!

A big sparkly heart and a matching little heart, either will make a super cute pendant. You can't go wrong with glitter! I love the fact that with resin I can mix in just about anything I want to make a pendant. Glitter, sequins, sprinkles, beads, anything goes!

More giveaways!

A few giveaways I entered and thought you might enjoy!

Over at Who Doesn't Love Coupons you can enter to win an Oatmeal soap set.

At Dimes2Vines enter to win and on the go Squiggle pad

At Thrifty Wifey you can enter to win a SodaStream

You can also go check out One 2 Try for a list of even more giveaways!

Good Luck!