Day Tripping and Chocolate!

Welcome to those stopping in from:

Sunday was a beautiful Northwest day and we decided to take a day trip around our lovely Puget Sound. Like Dorothy learned the hard way in "The Wizard of Oz", sometimes what you're looking for is right in your own backyard. So we headed over to Whidbey Island , about 30 miles north of Seattle. We crossed Deception Pass with its breathtaking view:

and then headed south to the town of Coupeville for lunch at a really lovely place called The Front Street Grill. Coupeville is the second oldest town in Washington. The waterfront is home to wonderful shops featuring talented local artisans. After lunch and ice cream at Kapaws Iscreme ( Coffee Almond Fudge yum!) we headed south to Langley, another very artsy town.

I resisted temptation to break my "Stashbusting September" commitment when we stopped at Greenbank Farms and Winery, a sustainable marketplace featuring local artisans, one of whom was there dropping off her newly dyed yarns while we watched another spinning raw wool into yarn.

 Throughout the property are art pieces by local artisans like these:

Finally, we made our way to Langley, another seaside town filled with incredible art galleries and shops and this should come as a surprise to exactly no one that my favorite shop of the day was this one:

The Chocolate Flower Farm itself is a nursery  just outside of Langley where they specialize  in "chocolate" (dark colored) plants and rare perennials. They've been featured on HGTV and have a store in the town of Langley called The Garden Shed. You don't have to live here to visit the store because they have a virtual tour here.

 They sell all kinds of wonderful goodies but their special specialty is there line of CHOCOLATE CANDLES and Chocolate infused bath and body products. The store of course smells divine. And I don't think I broke my Stashbusting September commitment by buying these:

Chocolate Candle and Chocolate Mint Tea

It was a perfect way to spend the day. Happy Labor Day everyone.

Stashbusting September Project #2

Last month I saw this over at Elizabeth's Twelve Crafts Till Christmas and knew that I wanted to make something similar to it.

 Initially I thought I'd use some of my scrapbook papers and do this on a canvas, but as I was going through the magical mystery closet, another idea occurred to me, that I could do this on a pillow. So I got out some fabric:

and cut the oatmeal colored felt into two "12x12" squares ( ok 13x13 for seam allowance)

then cut circles from brown and oatmeal felt and black and brown organza.

I burned the edges of the organza circles using my embossing gun, layered the flowers,made rosettes for the center from strips of brown organza and assembled. Sewed the flowers to one of the pillow panels, assembled the pillow, stuffed, closed, and :

 

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Stashbusting September Project #1

It's three days in and I haven't set foot in a craft store! Yeah me! That may also be because I haven't left the house but.....pesky details. I went to the closet of magical mystery and pulled out some stuff that I picked up to be used "someday".

ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

I decided on a project using a cabinet door I picked up at a salvage place. Everyone keeps cabinet doors on hand for no reason right?

I had some vinyl left over from my "Wish Upon A Tray" project and the lightbulb went on. So I painted it black. The cabinet door. Not the lightbulb.

FIRST COAT

added a second coat and then tried the white glue crackle technique. "Make The Best of Things"  has a great tutorial on this. I will NEVER buy crackle medium again! Love this. Best part was that during school supply shopping, I bought a half dozen or so bottles of white glue at Staples for maybe $2 total. Less than the cost of a small thing of crackle medium.

SMEARED IT ON W/FINGERS

After it gets tacky but not dry, add another color of acrylic paint and wait for it to dry. Or not...I was not patient so used my craft dryer ( aka an old blow dryer) to speed things up and I can't be sure, but I think the heat made it crackle more:

I just did the edges so it would look like a frame if that makes sense. I added a couple of strips of scrapbook paper on the raised panel in the middle; used my "dream" vinyl leftover from my earlier project; added an embossed metal strip from the magical mystery closet (which means it was something I picked up on sale somewhere that I knew I'd use someday) along with some dimensional flowers (Jolee's Boutique I think) from another project which I dry brused w/ gold paint and silver Rub n Buff; and a butterfly from a bag of ephemera I'd bought at a stamp show. And: 

STASH BUSTED! OK, TINY DENT MADE!

You can check out the other projects in the T Shirt Diaries "Stashbusting September" challenge here

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Getting Ready To Bust Some Stash

You may have noticed a buttton on my sidebar that identifies my blog as participating in "Stashbusting September". This is the brainchild of Robin over at her blog The T-Shirt Diaries. Robin hosts a regular link party called Upcycled Awesome which, as the name implies, is focused on projects that are re-purposed, re-invented, upcycled, etc.

A logical extension of re-using stuff is using the stuff we already have and the worst kept secret among those of us creative types is we tend to have tons of ahem, "stuff". And I don't know about you, but as much "stuff" as I have, I can always buy more. So I was hesitant at first to sign up for Stashbusting September, wondering whether I could resist the lure of the JoAnn's and Michaels 40 and sometimes even 50% coupons, or the pull of the Dollar Tree and Goodwill and I decided I definitely should, and I could. We'll see about that! No new craft supplies or thrift store pickups in September! EEEEK!

There's still time to sign up to be a "Stashbusting" blog...You can check out all of the details and see the other 34 bloggers who are participating  here.

And Robin knows we are mere mortals so she's made provisions for an "oops". Not that I'm planning on needing this button or anything.

Don't Know Whether To Use It Or Eat It

I don't think it's a blogging no-no to blog about things you learn about in newsletters you subscribe to so if it is, well I didn't know (but there's a share button so I think it's OK) . Anyway, I subscribe to the FaveCrafts newsletter and guess what they had featured in the one I got today? This, that's what!

CHOCOLATE BODY SCRUB

And it's edible! Wouldn't this make a fun gift ( if it gets out of your kitchen)? I knew I saved those pasta sauce jars ( hangs head in shame for using pre-made sauce SOMETIMES) for a reason!

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup cocoa nibs
• 1/2 cup kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened
• cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup jojoba oil
• 1/2 cup sweet almond oil
• 2 tablespoons vitamin E oil

Steps:

1. Use a food processor or blender to grind the oats into a powder.
    
2. Add the cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, salt, almond oil, jojoba oil, and vitamin E oil.
    
3. Hit pulse a few times to blend.
    
4. Store in a glass or plastic jar, and scoop out for use with a spoon or a seashell.
    
5. Massage the scrub into skin, then rinse with warm water.

Champagne and Chocolate

 

And I'm not even talking about the consumable kinds. Fall is in the air and I decided that a wreath I'd made for Spring / Summer was out of season and I needed something more Autmn-y. I loved the brown hydrangea I used in the wreath I made for my mom so I ran back to Michaels to get one for me and also found the most beautiful champagne colored ribbon. So using one of these again from the $1 Tree: 

I wrapped it in the champagne ribbon, and added the chocolate brown hydrangea, and some "milk" chocolate and dark chocolate flowers, along with some floral picks I found in my stash. I wish these wreath forms were just a little bigger but as I reminded myself "they're a dollar".  Added a few spiral thingies I made from a never ending roll of paper bark covered wire, added a chocolate brown bow, and:

 

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When You Wish Upon A Tray...

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I keep finding trays. Doesn't it seem like when you find something to re-purpose, you keep finding more of that thing wherever you go? I found an old tray with a glass bottom at an antique store and initially, I thought I would reverse decoupage the glass part because it looked pretty bad. But once I got it cleaned up, it looked pretty good so another idea came to mind.

It had a beat up finish but was kind of "70's brown". Taped off the glass part, painted it black acrylic paint, dry brushed it with darker brown, didn't like it, glazed it with black and glazing medium and then finally went randomly over it w/ silver Rub N Buff  which really made the handles pop.

In one of my scavenging visits to JoAnn's, I'd picked up a package of "Hip In A Hurry" vinyl that was 70% off that I thought would be perfect for this project:

The best part is there are 4 sheets in the package and I only used one for this, so 3 more projects..yeah!
 You can guess from my play on words in the title which one I used? No? OK here:

When You WISH Upon A Tray

And despite my earlier statement that "more is more" and I really thought I was going to do more on this, I decided that simpler was better. That won't be a habit! To finish it off, I used two Prima paper flowers I'd picked up while on vacation.

Now, if I could only find a cheese dome!

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