Face Mask Purse

 

I ran into a number of face masks at a store that were marked down to 18 cents for two.  I couldn't pass that deal up, especially when I saw this idea for cute little girls purses on Facebook!  

Materials:

• 1 Adult cloth face mask
• Thread and needle
• Embellishments that match

Steps:

1. Fold the face mask in half
2. Sew up both sides with the needle and thread
3. Sew embellishments on

Crochet Beaded Necklaces

 These necklaces are relatively simple to make and depending on the colors, could be for a boy or a girl.

Materials:

• Approximately 30 Beads
• Size 5 crochet thread/cotton
• A needle
• Crochet hook

Steps:

1. Use the needle to thread the beads onto the crochet cotton
2. Chain 3 stitches
3. Add a bead in the next stitch by sliding it up to the hook and incorporating it in the yarn over
4. Chain 6 stitches
5. Repeat steps 3-4 until no more beads remain
6. Chain 3 stitches
7. Finish off
8. Knot the tail to the beginning tail
9. Use the needle to weave in the ends

Simple Memory Wire Bracelet

These are really simple bracelets that can be worn by a wide range of ages.  I bought my memory wire and the memory wire pliers together off Amazon.  I've heard that trying to cut memory wire with regular pliers will damage the pliers so I bought specific ones designed for memory wire.  The wire comes in loops already so there is memory wire designed for bracelets and some for other size projects (rings, necklaces, etc).

Materials:

• Memory Wire
• Memory Wire pliers
• Beads (seed beads or a little bigger work well)
• Needle Nose Pliers

Steps:

1. Using the Memory Wire pliers, cut off a section of memory wire. I do about a round and a half. You can certainly do more loops, but I wanted to maximize the number of bracelets I could make.
2. Use the Needle Nose pliers to add a small loop at the one end.
3. Add the beads until there's a little under a centimeter of wire left
4. Use the Needle Nose pliers to add a small loop at the end.

Waffled Cheesesteaks

You've probably heard of Meatless Monday and Taco Tuesday, but have you heard of Waffled Wednesday?  I came up with the idea of Waffled Wednesday after I was looking for ideas for my meal plan and my husband asked "What haven't we waffled?" I thought maybe I was original with coming up with this idea, but it turns out I'm not the first. Oh well.  

For the First Waffled Wednesday in our house, I took my husband's suggestion and did waffled cheesesteaks.

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough (I used this recipe)

1 pound ground meat (I used turkey)

1 green pepper - diced

1 onion - diced

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup beef broth

1 T flour

1 c mozzarella - shredded

ground black pepper

olive oil

flour

1. Brown the ground turkey with the onion, green pepper and mushrooms until meat is no longer pink.
2. Add the flour and stir then add the broth
3. Cook until thickened
4. Plug in your waffle iron to preheat
5. Dust the counter with flour and roll a portion of the dough out so that it is about twice the size of your waffle iron you want it to be about the thickness of a thin pizza crust.
6. Put some meat filling on half of the pizza crust
7. Top with cheese
8. Fold over the other half of the dough and roll up the edges (the "top" will be the side where the edges are rolled)
9. Brush the top with olive oil
10. Flip it on to a plate, pizza peel (or something similar) so that the oiled side is down.
11. Brush the bottom side with oil
12. Flip it onto your waffle iron so that the top is up again (by doing it this way, if anything cooks out of the edges it is less likely to stick to the waffle iron)
    
    
    
13. Close the waffle iron and cook it until the dough is done. If your waffle iron is like mine, you may need to flip it over so that the side near the hinge changes because that side cooks faster than the outer edge.  If you need to do that, wait until the dough is cooked enough to be crisp/firm.
14. Repeat with the rest of the dough and filling. 

Tip: Put the finished Cheesesteaks on a cookie sheet in a warm oven to keep warm while you make the rest.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

The final Iron Craft Challenge was announced a few weeks ago. I knew it would happen eventually, I was just hoping for another year though so that I could participate a little more.  Unfortunately, much like my blogging, my crafting has taken the back seat to other things in my life lately.

However, after doing so many of the Iron Craft Challenges, I couldn't let this last final one go uncompleted, especially given that it occurred over the holidays when I actually had a bit of time to craft!  So, even though I was out of town, I headed to Joann Fabrics and picked up some supplies to work on the challenge.

Originally I was going to do a bracelet to wear New Years Eve when I went out to dinner.  I was thinking something similar to this only crocheted.  So I found this lace pattern and set to work.

However, after I got it completed and blocked, I decided that I didn't really like it as a bracelet. I think it's actually better suited as a bookmark.

So, there you have it. My final Iron Craft Challenge project.  I'm sad to see the challenge end. I loved the idea of it and enjoyed seeing what everyone created.  It surprised me that I reached a point where I could recognize someone's crafts just from the picture without seeing their name attached to it.  So while I will miss the challenges, I understand that it's time for it to end and I thank the ladies at Just Crafty Enough for all their work.

Ear pins

A few weeks ago the ladies over at JustCraftyEnough.com had a green challenge for the IronCraft challenge.

I took this opportunity to make some ear pins after having seen some on pinterest.  They were actually quite quick to make.

I took two bead pins with flat heads, threaded my beads on and then bent them.

So you put them on like regular earrings and then turn them so the wire clips them against your ear to hold them in place.

Maybe some day, I'll be up to making some like these.

WFMW: Weekly Bible Verse

As part of my goals for the new year, I'm doing something each week to help bring my kids closer to God.  This week, we started a weekly Bible verse for them to memorize.  We've had them in the past, that they've brought home from church, but it often was just added to the stack of papers on the table.

So, I've decided to make it more visible for us by using a dry erase marker and writing on our sliding glass door. (Our blinds are in between the glass).

Is it the perfect solution? Not really, there's a lot of glare during dinner when we're reading it because of the light) but it's working for us until I find something better.  It is right next to the kitchen table where we can all see it though. The girls have almost memorized this verse and my husband has picked out next week's verse.

Do you display a weekly verse for your family? How do you do it?

For more great ideas, check out the Works for Me Wednesday link up at We are THAT Family.

To follow my new years' goals check out Five for the New Year.

New Blog!

I started a new blog a few weeks ago.  Come check it out.
Five For the New Year.

I'll still blog here too, this just provides a little separation between my new years resolutions/goals and everything else.

IC 2013 Challenge 2: Orange basket

This "week" the challenge was the color orange.  And for me, that truly is a challenge since, it's no where near my top favorite color.  But, I did happen to have some orange fabric in my stash and I also had some more organizing to do.

In our kitchen, there's a small counter next to the refrigerator that is for the phone.  But our phone mounts on the wall, so we use it to keep the girls brushes, etc right now since we still help with their hair some and usually do it right after breakfast.  The problem is it is always looking cluttered.

I took a box that I had, covered it in white fabric (I just hot glue it to the outside of the box) and then I sewed a liner for it out of the orange floral fabric I had.  Then, I put all the tall bottles and the hair brushes in the box.  Now, there is actually counter visible and we're not constantly knocking stuff off.

For more great Orange projects, check out the IronCraft Flickr pool.

IC1: Bean Bag Storage

Stuffed Animals, they're EVERYWHERE! They're in pretty much every room of our house (except the bathrooms, but don't think that my daughters haven't tried to change that!).  The problem is most of them have a story or some other sort of emotional attachment.  For example this guy:

His name is Bear Bear. For a while, he went everywhere with my oldest.  She gave him the name Bear Bear on a trip to the doctors office when she was about 2.

Then, there are the ones that my husband has won for them from those claw machines you see in some restaurants, the ones they got on vacation, a gift from Grandma, etc.  We've got a lot!

I don't want to get rid of them, but I would like to store them in a better way.  They've outgrown the boxes/bins that we're using currently. And it looks a bit cluttered.

Then, I saw this pattern for a bean bag chair and remembered somewhere seeing a "bean" bag chair that was "stuffed" with stuffed animals.  It seemed like a great solution and I have a lot of fabric already (plus it only takes 3 yards if you don't line it, which I didn't).  So when the first Iron Craft Challenge for 2013 was Cotton, I decided to give it a try!

I also used a zipper instead of velcro to keep it closed.  

Check out other great cotton projects in the IronCraft Flickr group.

This is definitely working for us.  For more great tips check out the Works for Me Wednesday post at WeAreThatFamily.com.

IC 20: Homemade Pop Tarts - a test

I love pinterest.  There are so many great ideas on there!  Even before pinterest though, I'd seen homemade poptart recipes and thought about trying to make them with more whole wheat flour.  Then this recipe popped up on pinterest.  As with most of my pins, it aged a bit on my pinboard, but I did get to it!

Part of my desire here is to cut back on the sugar that my kids eat the other is to avoid so much processed food and dyes.  But, I wanted to test out how open they were to me making pop tarts instead of the store bought ones.  Baby steps, right?

So, I started with the dough in the recipe above and made it exactly how it says in the recipe.  I split it in half and used half for something else (which didn't work so well), but I think you could get at least 6 pop tarts out of the dough.  The first in my baby steps was to replace the filling, I just couldn't bring myself to use jelly for the filling, so I made some unsweetened strawberry applesauce by cooking a chopped apple and a handful of strawberries until they were soft then, I ran them through the food processor (I'm really missing my immersion blender, it would've made that easier!).  Then, I used that for the filling. I didn't add any sugar. I forgot to taste it until I had already filled a few of the pop tarts.  It really could've used some sugar, it was pretty tart!

After I filled the pop tarts with the applesauce, I put the top on, crimped them around the edges with a fork and poked the top with the fork too.  In retrospect, just one fork poke wasn't enough because the tops cracked.

 

However that's ok because as I said, I'm taking baby steps here, I'm pretty sure that if I were to give these to the kids they'd reject them flat out since there's no frosting.  In fact, I bought unfrosted pop tarts once and they rejected those.  So I had a little bit of frosting left over from some cookies I made a while back that I put on the top and then added sprinkles (because everything is better with sprinkles!). 

 



I layered the frosting on a bit thicker than I really wanted to, in part because the frosting was too thick and in part because of those cracks.

The result? The girls each ate a whole one and said that they liked them.  Which for my youngest is an improvement over a lot of the store bought ones. My oldest asked that next time I use just strawberries for the filling. I suspect she's reacting to the tartness of it and her thoughts about not liking applesauce.  Next time I might increase the strawberries, but I don't think I'll eliminate the apples completely.  I would never put them in the toaster (actually mine puffed up so much they wouldn't fit anyway), but they could be heated in the microwave if you want.  I had one at room temp and thought it was pretty good. Not really a pop tart but still really yummy.

I made these as part of Iron Craft Challenge 20 (Edible Crafts) at Just Crafty Enough.

WFMW - saving squash and pumpkin

It's that time of year! Pumpkins and squash are on sale and available at most farmers markets.  I use pumpkin in baked goods, pancakes and waffles for my kids to give them an extra bit of vitamins.  I ran into problems because rarely did the recipe need a whole can of pumpkin and I was wasting the rest.  So I started freezing the left overs. 

Then, my kids started going on field trips to the pumpkin patch where they got these little pie pumpkins that weren't big enough to carve.  So, I started cooking them and freezing them to use instead of the store bought canned pumpkin.  Now, I do it with squash too.

Here's what you need:
squash or pumpkin
food processor
muffin pan (silicone works best)
1/4 cup measuring cup
Knife
9x13 cake pan

Preheat your oven to 350 F.  Cut your pumpkin or squash open and take the seeds out (I usually cut mine in half from stem to bottom). Place the pumpkin in the cake pan cut side up and put some water in the bottom of the pan.  Bake it until it's soft.  I didn't time mine, but I think it was about an hour. It'll vary depending on the size of your pumpkin or squash.

Let it cool.  Peel off the skin, it should be soft enough that you don't really need a knife to do this.  Then cut it into chunks and put it in the food processor.  Puree until it's smooth.

After it's pureed, using your 1/4 cup measure, scoop 1/4 cup into each of the cups in your muffin pan.  Freeze it (I do it over night). Once it's frozen solid, pop them out and put them in freezer bags.

 

Now, the next time a recipe calls for pumpkin, I can just pop out what I need and thaw them quick in the microwave.  I've found that there's a little more moisture than what's in canned pumpkin. Some of it comes out when I microwave. I just use my judgement when I'm making something on whether I drain that off or add it in.  You could probably cook it down more after you've pureed it a bit to get some of the extra moisture out. 

 

Now is the time to get your pumpkin and squash.  In the pictures, I used butternut squash. I got a huge one for $1.  I'm getting more out of it than the boxes I'd buy at the store for more than that. And I can use it in place of pumpkin in recipes too. 

 

You could shred zucchini and freeze it this way also!

 

What do you like to freeze? Any recipe recommendations for pureed squash?

 

For more tips go check out We Are that Family's Works for Me Wednesday post.

 



 

IC15 - London - Crown for 18 Inch doll

With the Olympics under way, the theme for the Iron Craft Challenge is London.  When I think of London, I think of Big Ben, West Minster Abby, the Queen and scones.

So for this challenge, I decided to make a crown.  Originally I was going to make it from wire, but the silver colored wire I have is too difficult to crochet with, so I reverted to crochet thread.

RD1: Use the chainless base and make the equivalent of 44 stitches. Join to make a round (careful not to twist it!)

RD2: Ch5 skip 3 stitches and sc in the 4th stitch of the previous round. Repeat around until there are 4 stitches left in the first round, ch3 dc in the same stitch as the first chain.

RD3: ch 5, sc in the middle of the next ch 5 loop, repeat around (end with a slip stich at the base of the first ch 5 of the round).

RD4: sc3, picot, sc3 in the first loop, ch 6, picot, ch6 and slip stitch in the sc between the two loops of the previous row), repeat around, join, fasten off.

Weave in ends then block and stiffen.  to block mine, I rolled a newspaper up (so it was the same diameter as the inside of the crown), covered it with plastic wrap and then slipped the crown on the outside.  I then took some straight pins and pinned it in the correct shape all the way around.  After that I brushed on some white Elmers glue and left it dry.

WFMW - Keeping track of the stylus

My kids got DS Lite's for Christmas a few years ago.  They don't play them often (we don't do a whole lot of electronics at home), but will take them on long car trips. After the first two trips and loosing two styluses as well as one of the girls chewing on the stylus and then swapping it with her sister's, and the constant tears from the back seat when someone dropped a stylus and couldn't reach it, I finally had enough.

I took a length of nylon crochet thread, feed it through the narrow slit in the end of the stylus and knotted the stylus on.  Then, the other end, I took through the hinge in the Nerf case (love this case by the way, the DS's have been dropped a couple of times and are still ok), and knotted it there.  The string is long enough (18 inches maybe?) that they still are able to use the stylus unrestricted, but now we're not needing to replace them.  The girls like it better too because if they drop it in the car, they can get it back and keep playing.

Tip: if you take a narrow strip of card stock, fold it in half and put the end of the string inside the fold of the paper, you can feed the card stock through that little slit and pull the string through easier.  Basically a simple needle threader.

I haven't looked at other DS styluses to see if they've all got that slit, but the DS Lite ones do.  And if you don't have a case to attach it to, maybe you can catch it in the battery door? or duct tape it on?

This is definitely working for us.  Check out more tips at We Are that Family.

IC 8: Recycled Garden tags

This week's Iron Craft challenge was another recycling challenge, where we were to use something that was going to be thrown out.

I decided to reuse an aluminum pan that came with some IKEA cinnamon rolls to make some garden tags, so I don't need to remember where I planted what.


Materials:
aluminum foil pan
pencil
old scissors
Sharpie
Styrofoam tray (or other soft surface, an old phone book would probably work too)

I cut the pan (using old scissors) into rectangles.  Then, I carefully folded over the sharp edges.  After that, I sat them on a styrofoam tray while I wrote (pressing hard) on them with a dull pencil.  Finally, I went back and used a black Sharpie to write again so it would stand out a little more.

IC5 - Can you spare a dollar? Bag and weekly calendar

One of my favorite challenges this week!  The dollar store!  Have you seen Dollar Store Crafts?  It's how I found out about the Iron Craft Challenges.

A few weeks ago, I'd stopped by the Dollar Store to get some yarn to make my friend's grandson a bag.  I'd made her one and he ended up confiscating it, but it was pink and purple, so she asked me to make one in colors that are better suited for a boy.  I was having problems finding colors that were for a boy.  For some reason all the cotton yarns tend to be pastels and really girly colors.  But I was as the dollar store and saw that they had some navy, so I picked up a couple balls.  When this craft challenge came up, I thought I would make the bag.  But, the more I thought about it, the more I questioned if it was really in the spirit of the challenge.  It's not all that much of a challenge to go to the Dollar Store buy a single craft supply and make something with  it.  So, I put that project on hold and decided to make another trip back to the Dollar Store.

I was at a friend's house a few months ago and she had this cool weekly calendar on her wall, where she used a dry erase marker to write the family's events.  I really liked the idea and admired it.  She said the hardest part of the whole thing was finding a frame that had that many opennings.  Using this as inspiration, I decided to create a weekly calendar for my family.  When I was at the dollar store though I ran into a problem, there weren't enough of the frames that I liked (and that were suitable).  So, I decided to settle on doing five for now and I'll add another one for the weekend later.  I'll just have to be very careful when I go back to make sure I get one exactly like the ones I've already bought.  It's amazing how much those frames look alike!



So, I bought 5 frames that were the same and had square sides.  Then I took my hot glue gun and just glued them together in the configuration I wanted.  Picking the configuration was the hardest part for me, I'm not good at layouts.  After that I found some printable scrapbook paper and used it for a background to the days of the week in my word processor and printed out a rectangle a bit bigger than my frames.  I cut the paper to size and put it in. 



If I were to do this again, I'd use a little less hot glue.  Some seeped through the front and is visable.

And then, I went back and finished the bag :)

IC 3 - Catalog Creation - Jewelry tree.

About 6 or 7 years ago, I saw these whimsical jewelry holders at a craft show.  They were pretty simple, so I didn't purchase one at the time, figuring that I'd make one for my daughter.  I bought the stuff to make it, painted it, glued it together and then waited to get some holes drilled so I could get the cup hooks in.

Up until last week, it was still waiting.  Furthermore, I now have TWO daughters and was in need of a second one.  So I made another.

Materials:
1 wooden ball (mine had a flat spot on it)
1 wooden candlestick
6-8 cup hooks
paint and paintbrush
glue
drill

1. Paint the candlestick and the wooden ball.
2. Glue the ball onto the cup for the candlestick.  Allow the glue to dry well. I used a wood glue for this.
3. Mark where you want the hooks to be.  I recommend looking at it from the top and the sides to make sure you get them spaced evenly.  I placed 4 on the ball and 2 on the candle cup in between two on the ball I would've done 4 on the candle cup, but ran out of hooks.
4. Using the drill and a bit that is just smaller than the hooks, drill pilot holes at your marks.  I recommend going in the full length of the screw portion of the hook because the wooden ball is really hard.  I didn't make my holes big enough the first time and ended up breaking some of the hooks, they twisted right in half.
5. Put one hook in each hole.

Now you're ready to hang necklaces and bracelets on it.  I like hanging them up, so they're less likely to get knotted.  I couldn't find another candlestick that was the same height as the first one so they're two different heights.  Taller would be better so you can hang longer necklaces.

IC 2: Hearts!

For the second Iron Craft challenge this year we were to do something with hearts.
My daughters and I made this heart garland.  We took a piece of the stiff glittery felt and cut them in half (so they were approximately 8.5x5.5) and then each half I cut into strips (about one inch wide). Then, my daughters sewed (they're working on learning basic hand sewing, you could use hot glue or even staples if you wanted) the narrow end of two strips with the right sides together (this becomes the top center of the heart).  Then, we sewed the other two ends wrong sides together.  The felt needed a little shaping still after doing that, don't worry about it for now.  We did that with all of the felt. 

I got out some pink, white and red heart shaped beads and some fishing line. One girl worked on one end of the line and the other worked on the opposite end.  They strung some beads and then using a needle threaded with the fishing line would add a heart.  We went through both sides of the heart as well as the inner point of it, it's better if it's a bit closer to the top, I think, so it's less likely to flip upside down.  Then more beads and more hearts until we were done with the hearts.  On the ends of the fishing line, I threaded one more bead and made a loop around that bead (so the bead is trapped in the loop) to keep everything from sliding off the end and to give me something to hang it with. 

After doing that and hanging it, I noticed the beads had a tendency to slide and squish the hearts, so I got out my glue gun and put a little dot of glue on the heart where the fishing line went through to keep it in place. This also helped a bit with the tendency to flip.  Start in the middle and work your way out to both ends.  They still flip some, so I'm going to add some weights to the bottom (one I glued a bead in and that worked pretty well, but you can see it, so I'm going to try to get some fishing weights and hide them a bit more).

Overall the girls did it in a few hours and had a lot of fun doing it.

IC 48: Wreaths!

Iron Craft Challenge 48 is to create a wreath.

I decided to make an ornament.

Take a sheet of green felt.  Cut it into 4ths lengthwise so that you have 4 long strips.  Then, cut those strips into squares.  Mine were about and inch or so, not perfect, but that's ok.  Take each square and  cut it into a circle.  Just free hand it, if the circles are uneven, it will look better in the end.

If you held several pieces of felt together when you were cutting, separate them and out into a pile, so they get mixed up.

Then with a needle and thread, string the circles by inserting the needle half way between the center of the circle and the edge (If you do it in the center, you'll need more circles to have enough to make a wreath, doing it offset, allows for the center to be bigger with this amount of circles).  Once all of them are strung, tie them in to a circle.  I sewed around one more time just to make sure it was secure.

Then, I sewed a bow of red ribbon on the front and then I sewed a loop of ribbon between two of the green circles to hang it from.

I considered adding some beads or fabric paint ornaments, but decided not to.

IC 45, 46, 47: Fall, gift, and for the table

For the first time since I started the Iron Craft Challenges, I missed posting my craft.  It was for the Fall Contest Challenge.  You know what the sad part is?  It was one of the few times that I knew right away beyond a doubt was I was going to do.  And I actually did complete the challenge, I just never got around to taking a picture of it! Things are really starting to pick up here for the holidays!



For the Fall contest, I decided to do a Thankful Arrangement.  I cut out leaf shapes from scrapbook paper, punch a hole in them put some string through the hole and then gave them to my daughters to write things they're thankful for on them.  Then, I hung them from some branches that I placed in a vase filled with silk leaves and tied with a ribbon.



For Iron Craft Challenge #46, I got back in the game and made some fabric fortune cookies for my grandmother.

 I bought a plastic Chinese take-out container to put them in.  She'll be able to open one each day in December, or would be, if I had gotten them in the mail on time!


Iron Craft Challenge #47 was "For the Table".  My favorite center piece for the table this time of year is really simple.  I take a glass bowl (usually a crystal one), fill it with water, pour in some cranberries and then float about 3 floating candles in it.  There should be enough cranberries to cover the top of the water and I think that white candles look best.   But is that really a craft?  I was going to do anyway, but I forgot to take a picture of it before guests arrived for my party early on in the week and didn't have any more floating candles left to do it again.  So, all I had was this really bad picture.



Now, I think I'm back on track.  Stay tuned for my craft for IC 48!