Thursday, November 22, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #80

Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Are you out braving the Black Friday madness or do you have other Black Friday traditions? We always go to downtown Seattle to see all of the annual Christmas decorations and then end the day back in our city w/ the kickoff Santa coming to town. Let's see what creative goodness everyone's been up to this holiday week!

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Wishing You A Happy Thanksgiving

Gratitude

When we host Thanksgiving, I like to have a quote expressing gratitude, thankfulness etc. as part of my place setting. I used PicMonkey to create this one.

Wishing you all a day filled with family, friends, food, love, and happiness. Grateful for all of my readers and BFFs here.

Easy Cranberry Sauce From Scratch

Easy Cranberry Sauce

Whenever I tell people I make cranberry sauce from scratch they think I’m nuts (the reason they give me is the making from scratch part anyway) but I can’t think of an easier thing to make.  So I’m sharing here in case anyone thinks this is really hard. Of course when you make it and people like it, it was really really really hard. You know, like you picked each berry by hand hard.

I shared the recipe straight from the Ocean Spray website last year but this year, I remembered to take pictures while I was making it.

For this you will need:
  • Fresh or frozen whole cranberries. I used Ocean Spray
  • Sugar
  • Water
  • Orange peel ( optional)
You need 1C Sugar for each bag of berries. I used two bags so 2C. Same amount of water. Put those in the pot, bring pot to boil. I like to add fresh orange peel to mine:

Cranberry Sauce Sugar
Photographed here before adding the water.

Once boiling, add berries. We have lots of cranberry bogs here in WA and we pass them on the way to visiting my father in law. So if you see this on your bag, we probably drove by them!
Ocean Spray Cranberries

Mr. Chocolate loves cranberry sauce as its own dish. Not as a condiment. He will literally eat a bowl of it. So this time of year I stock up and throw bags of berries in the freezer.

Cranberries 1

Here they are in the sugar/water/orange peel. You want them to come to a boil and they’ll get a bit foamy. You do want to watch this pot boiling though because the berries will foam up and can bubble over. 

Cranberries foamy

As they bubble, they’ll turn a darker shade of well, cranberry. I let them go until they just about reach the top of the pot and then turn off the heat. Let them come to room temp or mostly cool off. Go make crafts.

Cranberry Sauce

Once they’re cooled down, pour into bowl, cover, refrigerate. I leave the orange peel in until I ladle into my serving dish to let the flavor set.

Seriously. Easy. And the recipe’s from the back of the Ocean Spray bag!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Frosty Blue Wire and Bead Crocheted Bracelet

Crocheted Wire and Bead Bracelet

Do you ever finally get around to trying something and then kick yourself for not doing it sooner because you thought it must be much harder than it actually was?  Raise your hand and fess up.

I have wanted to try: 1.) Crocheting with beads and 2.) Crocheting with wire (and beads) but thought “Oh no. It has to be really really REALLY hard”. I was wrong.

I found a video on You Tube. Most people go to YT for laughs or clips of things they missed. I go for craft tutes!

BMB PB&J

I used a thinner silver beading wire ( 26 guage) and this bead mix called “PB&J” from Blue Moon Beads. I thought this color combo was perfect for jeans and sweaters and Winter.

Following the tutorial, I went to work and made this in about well I don’t know exactly how long but it was less than an hour!

BMB PB&J Crocheted Bracelet

I was worried about it being too small so I actually ended up making it a little bigger than I needed but I overlapped the ends and secured them with a lobster claw clasp. Problem solved.

Crocheted BMB PB&J Bracelet

I may even branch out of my usual neutral wardrobe colors and look for a frosty blue sweater to match my new bracelet!

Design Team Member

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As a member of the Blue Moon Beads Design Team, these products were provided for my use. All opinions are mine. 

Monday, November 19, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #79 Wrap Up and Features

Happy Thanksgiving Week crafty peeps! I’m so thankful to have all of you creative people in my life!
Once again, you all didn’t disappoint with ideas shared at Friday’s BFF Open House.

Here are just a few, some last minute Thanksgiving ideas and a couple to get you started on Christmas!

I love these faux wood leaves from Carolyn over at homework. Pop on over for the secret ingredient.


Doreen, from Altered Artworks shared her “Giving Thanks” journal ( I think I may even have that paper!) . This would be a fun thing to bring out each year and then start another volume once filled up.


Nichole from PinkieforPink shared how she made this lovely burlap and lace Give Thanks banner. No sew and great tip to keep burlap from fraying.

Looking ahead to Christmas , visit Sarah at Alderberry HIll to see how she made snowballs for her gorgeous lantern:
1 033 thumb Homemade Snowballs and A Christmas Lantern

But back to Thanksgiving and this week’s chocolate feature. Jocelyn from Inside BruCrew Life shared these adorable peanut butter cup turkeys. If I have one teeny tiny whine about Thanksgiving, it is that it is not known for being a chocolatey holiday! Problem solved.


Thanks again to all who linked up. Make it a creative week!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Embossed Metal Snowflake Tile

Embossed Metal Snowflake Tile

I mentioned in an earlier post that College Boy is going to a Professor’s home for Thanksgiving. I wanted to send something for him to take as a little token of our appreciation for hosting him.

The card I made was all about Thanksgiving so I decided that I’d make something Wintery since we’re nearing the end of Fall.  I started with a plain MDF plaque I’d picked up along the way and the plan was to Mod Podge a Winter Branch die cut and embellish from there. Except, once I podged it on, I hated it!

Project Fail

I don’t know about you, but if I am not feeling something I just have to start over. I peeled off the paper intending to recover with a different paper but once I pulled it off and a rough edged layer was left behind, I got another idea.

JudiKins Mica Gloss

I grabbed some metallic Mica Gloss inks (JudiKins) and started sponging them onto the remaining paper layer.
Mica Glossed Tile
This was much more “me”. I grabbed a handmade paper scrap from my stash, tore the edges,  and Mod Podged that on. Now I was really feeling this project. After the inks dried, I sealed with a layer of Mod Podge and sprinkled with fine iridescent glitter.

Went to my embossing folders and pulled out a snowflake design ( Sizzix) and ran a piece of Art Emboss metal through my Cuttlebug.

Sizzix Snowflake Folder

Embossed Metal Snowflake

Trimmed that to a size that would fit with my tile, added decorative brads to each corner, and glued to my tile as shown. Punched some snowflakes from the metal scraps, and dotted the centers with adhesive pearls, and finished with a free hand sort of pom pom of ribbon yarn.

Embossed Metal Snowflake Close Up

Punched Metal Snowflake

Embossed Metal Snowflake Tile

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

BFF Open House Link Party #79

Happy Friday Eve all and yikes, Thanksgiving is a week away! I still can't believe it but I guess I better because I'm cooking lol.

So let's see what everyone's been up to this week ( which once again has flown by so fast) . And let's share the love and make sure and visit some of the other BFFs!

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