Valentine Cards 2013: Fish, worms, and bears, oh my!

Sorry so laggy with my postings!  We had an unexpected (but pleasant, haha) house guest last week and it's been quite the busy weekend.

This is part two of the Valentine Cards I made this year.  (I need to hurry up before it becomes St. Patrick's day... or Valentine's Day 2014!)  You can see Part One here.

Fish, worms, and bears, oh my!

 

I originally say the fish Valentine Card below on Etsy and knew I wanted to make them! However, I waited until the night before to go to Target to get my Swedish fish. :oP While standing in the gummy aisle, I saw other gummy shapes and was inspired!

(Source)

The clear bags are from Daiso ($1.50 for 25)!  Swedish fish and all other gummies from Target.

I found some fish bowl shape online, colored them in Photoshop and added some text.  These two say, "You're Fin-tastic" and "You're a great catch!"

The brown is supposed to be dirt and this one says, "You've wormed your way into my heart!"

This one says "I love you beary much!"

I printed out the shapes/bowls and cut them out.  (Maybe I'll get those templates on here sometime soon!)  Put the cut out in the clear bags, filled it with candy, and done!  :)  I did tape the bottom corners to the back to help hold the cut out bowl/shape in place a little better.  (I heard you can buy round bottomed bags from Michaels.)

Here are the final products!  I gave 'em out to my co-workers, my brother, and a couple of friends.  :)

 

"You're Fin-tastic" and "You're a great catch" I borrowed from the Internets, but I came up with the worm and gummy bear sayings all on my own.  While standing in the candy aisle of Target.  :D

 

Which one is your favorite?  :)

                                          

 

Valentine Cards 2013: Teacup!

Valentine's Day crafts! Sorry didn't get to post these before Valentine's Day, but that was partly due to the fact that I made some of them the night before. :) And some inspiration struck while I was standing in front of the candy at Target. The night before. :oP

 

I made two kinds of Valentine's for friends/coworkers and a book Valentine for Tim! Today, I'll cover the first one I made today.

 

 

The first Valentine was a "teacup" with a teabag. This was originally inspired to be sent to my college friends in LA. When we lived in the dorms, we would have "tea parties" together in the evenings. (The wild, wild college kids we were.) :oP So I was thinking we could have a "virtual tea party" since three of them are in Southern California and one of them plus myself are in Northern California. :)
 

(Source)

 

This Martha Stewart teacup valentine was my inspiration. I think I could've jazzed mine up a bit, but I used what I had and people seemed to enjoy them. :) I also drew some red hearts floating next to the teabag, so it wasn't as boring as it looks here.

 

The base was white cardstock and a pink piece of piece

I free-handed the teacup and then traced a few copies to cut out by hand, since I don't have those fancy-pants shape cutter machines. ;)

 

I'm usually worried that glue will come loose later on, so I used double sided tape to adhere everything together.

 

TIP!  Before gluing/taping the teacup down, place a teabag inside, and then press down around the edges of the teacup!  That ensures there's enough space to insert the teabag.

 

Did you make Valentines this year?

                       

Pinterest

I dids it. I held off for SO. LONG. But I did it.

I joined Pinterest. :)

I knew that I would love it. And I knew I would probably spend too much time on it, which is why I've been holding off on joining! But I had dinner with a friend a few weeks back who was totally selling it for me. (As if I needed too much help thinking it was fabulous.) :) I've really enjoyed it because... I have hundreds of bookmarks for crafts and recipes, AND... a million random email drafts with random links to "cool stuff"! So I've been transferring all these random links and deleting all these drafts. It's been great. :)

I have also had to enact some NO PINTEREST DAYS, to help prevent too much time lost. :oP

Here are some of my favorite pins for Valentine's Day!  (It's not too early to start planning, right?)  Some of these I pinned from things I've found online and others I've re-pinned.

 

Source: diycraftyprojects.com via GoodRecipesOnline.com on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Source: blog.makezine.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Come be my friend!

So are you on Pinterest?  Is it a worst time sucker than Facebook?  What are some of your favorite things to pin?  Recipes?  Random funny things?  Clothes?
                       

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins

I was all ready to post this but then I was too busy to pull pictures off my camera so this is a bit late! But here goes the first time I try making muffins.

Up in these New England parts, there is a state-wide/civic holiday called Patriots' Day (this year it fell on April 16), which commemorates the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. However, because *I think* my org gets Lunar New Year day off... we don't get Patriots' Day. :(

So I decided some chocolate chocolate-chip muffins were in order to start the week off while everyone else will be enjoying their day off (and/or running the Boston Marathon!)

In blog-speak: the cast of characters!

Mix the dry ingredients together, the wet together, then mix them both together!

Then pour into your lined muffin pan

(This one taken with Instagram)

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins (from the Food Network, Nigella Lawson)
(Never heard of her or seen her show!)

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup superfine sugar*
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

* I didn't know what superfine sugar was (it's exactly what it sounds like), so I put in regular granulated sugar. Though some further research/googling AFTER I stuck the muffins into the oven... you can make supefine sugar by putting regular graduated sugar in a food processor.


Directions

Line muffin pan with baking/paper cups.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, and 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips into a large bowl. Pour all the liquid ingredients into a measuring cup. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. (Nigella says a lumpy batter makes the best muffins.) Spoon into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips on top and then bake for 15-20 minutes or until the muffins are dark, risen and springy. (Make sure to check them between 15 and 20 minutes.)
--------------------------------------------

I thought they turned out okay.  I don't know why but I always get slightly coned shaped muffins!  I think it's because I tend to fill them more than I should.  :oT  (There are only 12 muffin slots so it's not like I can squeeze an extra one like I can on a cookie sheet for cookies!)  It was also unfortunate the first chocolate in "Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Muffins" didn't really live up to its chocolatey-ness.  The cocoa powder made them brown but it didn't really taste like a chocolate muffin.  They were also kind of... not sweet enough but it's most likely totally because I didn't use "superfine sugar."  They weren't hard at all and I think I'll have to try making muffins again sometime!

What are your favorite kinds of muffins?
                    

Easter Brunch

As I mentioned before, we co-hosted an Easter brunch for our community group (aka small group, Bible study, cell group, etc.) on Easter Sunday.  I decided it was the perfect time to do some useless crafts that I will probably give me greater joy than anyone who sees them.  :)

The Easter banner!  I found an egg shape online, plunked it down in Photoshop, put in letters and printed them out!  I actually wanted them to print in color but forgot to change it from the default B&W setting, so I did have to color the letters in hand, so the lines weren't as clean.  But I don't think anyone noticed.  I used some cute clothesline clips with little floral egg shapes on them I got some Ikea to clip them to some baker's twine.

The flowers (daisies?  sunflowers?) were made from coffee filters and some construction paper.

Brunch was preeeeetty awesome and reeeeeally delicious.  :)

Tim concocted what he calls "strawberry cheesecake" waffles.  :)  The "spread" is sweetened cream cheese and we bought strawberry syrup!  (Who knew they made such a thing as strawberry syrup!)  You drizzle the strawberry syrup onto the cream cheese and it's supposed to taste just like strawberry cheesecake!

I made a menu!  Just because!  haha.  :)

See my tri-fold menu!  The cute little icons are from Kevin & Amanda, "best bite doodles"  That was probably my favorite part of the menu.  Except Jesus and Easter and Matthew 28:19-20.  ;)

A couple people did comment on the decorations so not all was lost.  :oP  And I made Tim look at them of course.  :)

Do you do crafts even if you feel like you're the only one who sees or appreciates them?
                           

Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER!  :)  He is Risen!

                               

neato Easter things

We are hosting an Easter brunch for our small group/Bible study, so I decided to do some crafts to spruce up the place!  This is the result of things I thought were great inspiration!  Even though I didn't do any of them.  haha.

Martha Martha Martha.  I naturally looked to Martha Stewart for some craft ideas but 1) they were all too advanced and 2) I was all too lazy for most of them.  Though I did find these two I thought I could manage if I wanted to.  Except we don't own any cloth napkins so the second one is out.  But it's very cute!  :)



Paper Basket Bouquet  (Source)

Bunny Ears Napkins  (Source)

I got some "I <3 SF (way more) postcards from this Etsy seller before, so I thought these were quite cute.  :)  (Source)

MUNI eggs.  What could be cuter.  (Source)

I'll gather the crafts I DID make and post about them later.  :)