Paper Beads

Sorry about the break from posts, I was just spending a little much needed time with my hubby!

Now, on to the new project!  Paper beads!

I made a bracelet but you can make whatever you want with the beads.  They are very simple, here is what you will need:

-Scrap booking or decorative paper or even magazine pages
-Mod Podge
-Wooden Skewer (like ones used for shish kabobs)
-Paper plate/paper towel (to dry the beads on)
-Small paint brush
-Elastic string

Step one: cut the paper into long thin triangles.

Step two: roll paper strips around wooden skewer.

Step three: use paint brush to apply Mod Podge to the inside of the last couple inches of paper and then wrap the rest of the around to finish the bead.

Step four: slide the bead off the skewer and let it dry and your done! Say hello to your finished beads!

To make the bracelet just slide the beads onto the elastic string until it fits around your wrist (or ankle, etc.).

Tie the string in a few knots.

Cut the excess string.

And now say hello to your finished bracelet!

I hope you enjoy this project and have fun making it yourself.  Remember, the possibilities are endless!

Banana 'Ice Cream'

Let's talk about diet food for a minute.  I have been on a diet for the past couple months (and I've lost 21 pounds so far!) but we all know that diets are tough.  When most people go on a diet, they try and find every way to get around them and eat what they want that they possibly can.  I'm actually impressed with how well I have been able to stick to mine AND workout for an hour a day but the food still gets old (I mean, how many different ways can you cook chicken that are healthy??).  So, I just wanted to share a recipe I learned with you that you will not need to feel any guilt about.

Now, this is going to sound strange and you will have to see it to believe it but bare with me.  For this recipe you will need:

• A food processor
• As many banana's as servings of ice cream you want to make ( I used 2 for this batch)
• And, whatever healthy stuff you want to mix in.  I used 1 packet of fat free hot chocolate (only 20 calories per packet) but you can use reduced fat peanut butter, sugar free chocolate syrup, other fruit -strawberries would be good- or for those of you NOT on a diet, use whatever the heck you want.

To get started, you will cut the banana's in half length wise and then into bite sized chunks.  Place on a cookie sheet (or whatever you want to freeze them on) and make sure they are in a single layer and not touching.  You may want to lay some plastic wrap down before you spread out the banana's for easy removal later (ask me how I know this).  Then cover them with another layer of plastic wrap pop them into the freezer and wait until they are frozen solid.  I did mine over night but a few hours should be good enough.

After your banana's are frozen, get out your food processor and toss in the banana pieces.  Make sure to hold it tight while you pulse, other wise it may go flying off the counter.  Be patient and keep pulsing. Once the banana's are about the size of peas, add a little bit of cold water (1 or 2 tablespoons) to help it 'go'.  Keep on pulsing, you are almost there!

After much patience, you will have this WONDERFUL, creamy banana soft serve!  You can eat it just the way it is, or you can add in your delicious extras (this is when I added my packet of hot chocolate mix) and pulse some more, just until mixed (if you are adding other fruit I would suggest just stirring it in).  For best results, I would put it in a container and back into the freezer for a half hour to an hour before serving just to let it harden up again. 

Dish it up and serve!

Hope you all like this recipe!  It is a great alternative to real ice cream and you don't need to feel one bit of guilt about eating it!

Three-tiered dessert/hor devours stand

Now that I have just finished posting a great, healthy recipe, I am going to show you how to make a three-tiered stand for cupcakes, hor devours, fruit, snacks, you get the idea.  This is a SUPER easy project and you can get almost all of the supplies at the thrift store.

Here is what you need:

• 3 coordinating plates or platters, 2 bigger and 1 smaller
• 2 candle holders (they need to be able to hold the plates far enough apart that you can fit whatever you are putting on the stand in between the plates, mine are about 5-6 inches tall)
• Clear gorilla glue
• Washable marker (I used yellow, just in case...)
• Ruler
• Water

The first thing you need to do is wash all of your parts (plates and candle holders) and if you got your pieces second hand, make sure there is no wax, etc. on them.

Next, let them dry and get your other supplies together.  Once everything is ready and in one place, measure your plates across to see how wide they are then divide by two and use the ruler to make a mark in the center of the plate.  Then do the same up and down so you can be sure you are in the actual center and place your candle stick so that it is in the center of the plate.  I made a few marks around my candle stick on the plate so I would be able to tell exactly where it should go once I have the glue on it and there is no return.  Now, do the same on the bottom of the top two plates, using the top of the candle stick so you can tell where to attach them once you start assembly.  You will want to arrange your plates from biggest on the bottom tier to smallest on the top.

Next take your finger and run a little bit of water around the edge you will be glueing and then place just enough glue to stick. This is very important otherwise, if you have too much, your glue will foam up and that is not the look we are going for (if this does happen, wait about an hour so that the piece is solid but the glue is not rock hard and still soft enough to scrap off, I used a steak knife to cut the foamy pieces off and then scrape up the residue). Each time you glue another piece together let them sit for at least 10 minutes so they will not move when you go to put the next one on.

After you have all the pieces glued together let it sit for at least 24 hours so the glue can completely cure then wash them thouroghly and voila! You have a BEAUTIFUL 'new' three-tiered stand to do whatever your little heart desires with!  You can also use this technique in many other ways, such as a wide bottomed candle stick (for stability) glued to the bottom of a plate or platter as a cake stand or a platter with 4 painted wooden knobs (drawer pulls) glued on the bottom and handles glued on the sides for a cute serving tray (I will probably do this for another post) or wherever else your imagination takes you.  I am also thinking of a tray with a short candlestick and a bowl glued on top for a chip & dip tray.

I hope you all enjoy trying this out and use it at your next party or get together!  HAPPY CRAFTING!

Dining Room Artwork...

So here goes my first post...

For a while I had been looking for a big painting to go in our dining room since we had one large blank wall in a room with vaulted ceilings.  It seemed that ALL the paintings of the size I wanted were EXTREMELY expensive and weren't exactly what I was looking for. So...I decided to paint my own! I talked with my husband and we decided we would like a painting of a horse so I hopped online and got some inspiration.  I knew I wanted it to be mostly red since all of our kitchen accents and small appliances are red so I found a couple of different horse paintings I liked to use as a reference and got to work.  It took me about 6 hours total, since it is sooo huge, but I got it done and LOVED the finished product...

To paint it I just used an ordinary pencil to sketch out the shape of the horse and where the eyes, ears, etc. would go and then I got to work on the background, blending the paints while they are wet (you can use a squirt bottle with water in it to keep the paint wet but be careful and don't add too much or the paint will run).  After that I started the base coat of red for the horse and just kept adding layers of paint until it looked the way I wanted.  Last, I painted the hair and VOILA, you have the finished painting.

All in all, this project cost me about $32 since I already had the acrylic paint and brushes and I got the giant canvas on sale at the craft store (WAY better than I price tag of at least $180 for a painting of this size at the store).  I know I have a background in art and some people may be intimidated by a project like this but you will never know if you like painting, or art for that matter, until you try.  Get out your paint and brushes and just paint something YOU enjoy.  That is what matters.  If you have to, print out some images in silhouettes and trace them onto the canvas then paint inside the lines (in fact, I may do just that in a later post).  I know this wasn't a really a tutorial but I wanted to give you all something to look at for now (later posts will have step by step photos and directions).  I hope you like it!

Remember, whatever you are inspired to do, whether it's painting, cooking, crafting, baking, interior design, photography, or just getting outside for some fresh air, get up off the couch and DO it!