DIY Upcycled Bracelet

I have a serious thing for jewelry. The problem is, like with any undying obsession habit, it can get pretty expensive. Even buying supplies to make my own jewelry can cost a pretty penny and extra pennies are sometimes hard to come by these days. That's why I love it when I find ways to fill my jewelry box that don't cost me a thing!

The other day, while digging around in my craft closet, I came across a bag of cardboard tubes that a relative had given to me. One in particular stuck out. About the size of an empty roll of duct tape, it seemed perfect to use as a chunky bracelet.

All it needed was a bit of sprucing up. I dug up some lace scraps and leftover streamers and got to work with my trusty decoupage glue.

I layered on the paper first for a nice pop of color in the background. Once the paper is dry, go ahead and seal it. I used a spray on sealent for decoupage. If you skip sealing it, just make sure you keep your bracelet away from water. You really don't want the paper to come undone or the color to run the second you go to wash your hands.

Now, for the lace! Glue it all around the outside and let it dry. Things can get messy if you try to rush. For the inside, I suggest using glue at its regular consistency to hold down the lace. There will be some overlapping going on and the thinner glue just doesn't have what it takes to reign in the stiffness some laces can have.

If you look close, you can see that I put another layer of paper around the inside and sealed it with a gloss spray. I just wanted to smooth things out and make sure my lace stayed in place. There's a reason I suggested using thicker glue for the inside. Ha!

I may have mentioned this in a past post, but I really love projects that are flexible. Nothing kills my imagination and enjoyment like instructions that are set in stone. The beauty of this project is that you don't have to use any of the same objects I've used here. Use anything that will fit your wrist. Trade the streamers for tissue paper, pages from a magazine, or hell, even paint it! Who says you even have to use lace at all? Give the kids some crayons and a few stick-on plastic jewels and it's time for dress up! There are so many things you can do!

Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce

 It always amazes me how much better homegrown vegetables taste compared to store bought and when hubster brought home a big bag of organic tomatoes from a generous co-worker's garden, I was thrilled. We've tried so many times to grow tomatoes on our little apartment patio without much luck, so it feels like a real treat when people share their crops.

Beautiful, aren't they? But I was a little worried that we'd have a hard time finishing them off before they spoiled. That's when hubster mentioned that he'd always wanted to try making spaghetti sauce from scratch. I'd never done it before either, so of course I went on a Google hunt for recipes. I didn't use a specific recipe, but I did need a basic idea of what to do.

First thing's first, those tomatoes needed peeling! An old trick my mom taught me long ago is to give soft fleshed fruits and veggies a quick bath in boiling water to loosen their skins.

All they need is a couple of minutes. I suggest around 3, as hubster and I left them in the bath for 5 minutes and they felt a tad too soft.

Once done, transfer them to a cold water bath so they get cool enough to touch and the skins will peel right off for you.

Attack of the naked tomatoes!

Now you'll want to chop them up. It doesn't have to be pretty and the size of the sections is up to you. I like chunky sauce, so I went with large cuts.

Here's the base recipe hubster and I used:

5 lbs tomatoes, peeled and chopped
2 large onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar (I used Stevia. Shhh, don't tell hubster!)
Spices to taste (we used basil, rosemary, parsley, oregano, and some other stuff. We tend to get carried away with the spice rack!)

I threw everything into my crock pot. I'm sure all this would work just as well in a pot on the stove, but to me, spaghetti sauce always tastes better the next day when I'm chowing down on leftovers for lunch. A good overnight soak gives all the ingredients a chance to get cozy and love fest-y. So, I set my trusty crock pot on low and hubster and I went to bed.

And BLAM! We woke up to this:

No, you're not seeing things and the cooking fairy didn't add mushrooms.When reheating for dinner, you can add anything else you want. When I make Italian food using store bought sauce, I'm always stuffing extra veggies into the mix. Spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, etc... No reason to treat homemade sauce any different!

Here's the yummy sauce in action, topping some beef ravioli:

Bonus: Remember the garlic olive oil in the last post? I brushed it on the bread pictured and then sprinkled a little Parmesan over it before toasting it in the oven. AMAZING!

Garlic Infused Olive Oil

One of the things the hubster and I like doing with our dear friends and favorite dirty hippies over at the Broccoli, Bees, and Blocks blog is going to wine tastings. Honestly, I'm not crazy about wine or alcohol of any sort, really. It's not a moral thing, I've just never enjoyed the taste much. I do, however, love getting a little dressed up and pretending to be fancy with awesome people. Oh, and cheese! Wine tastings are a great excuse to hork down copious amounts of cheese and bread and that's something I can totally get on board with no matter how much my arteries protest!

I have to admit I raised an eyebrow when half a head of garlic popped up on our cheese plate one night. I'd heard of roasted garlic as an ingredient, but eating it straight? Surely, that couldn't be what that head of garlic was there for. No one seemed to be touching it, so I bit the bullet myself and popped a clove in my mouth. HOLY MOUTHGASAM, BATMAN!

That very night we tried to recreate that little bit of creamy heaven back at the stinky farmers hippie house with some not so great results. Then I simply forgot to try it again... Until, that is, I came across a recipe for garlic infused olive oil over at Pixelated Crumb and I knew I had to give it a shot, because the bonus of garlic olive oil, is ROASTED GARLIC!!

Now, I did a few things different than the recipe linked above. I used Extra Virgin Olive Oil and dried spices.

But everything else, I did the same.

Half with their heads!

Bake at 300F for 45-60 minutes. This is where things went a little wonky for me, probably because I set the timer for an hour and wandered off when I spotted something shiny. My garlic came out a combination of ways. I got crispy critters, chewy cloves, and in a few cases a pretty tasty garlic paste. I suggest maybe checking on your garlic 30 minutes in. Careful with the hot oil! I don't consider it a loss at all, though. The crispy garlic works for a fantastic salad topping and I'm using the chewy stuff in a crock pot spaghetti sauce for tomorrow's post!

Now, as far as the oil is concerned... Best. Oil. EVER!


Once it cooled, I strained it (because believe me, you don't want any buggies hitching a ride on garlic bits floating in your oil) and put it back in its original bottle.
 
This is going to be my go to oil from now on, I just know it.  

Decoupage: Gluing Crap to Other Crap

What's the strangest thing you've ever done for craft supplies?

Last month I spent two hours taking part in a music opinion research poll that contained way too much Linkin Park for anyone to remain sane and that's coming from someone who is well aware of their terrible taste in music. By the end of the survey, I'd started listing buildings in my hometown with rooftops high enough to properly leap from.

Is it obvious that I'm not much of a Linkin Park fan? Sorry, boys (I'm sure their hearts are just ripping at the seams), but you've still got hubster's joyous vote of "meh". At least there's that.

Anyway, the point is that in return for two hours of borderline musical torture, I got $100 worth of Amazon rewards. Worth it? Well, I'm broke, so I'm gonna go with a hearty hell yes!

The first thing I did was pre-order season 4 of True Blood... Don't judge me! With my lust for blonde vikings sated After that was out of the way, I remembered that I was running dangerously low on glue. I mean, my last little bottle was making horrible gasping sounds. Now, decoupage is my favorite form of art (or crafts, whatever your opinion may be) and an empty bottle of glue just wouldn't do. To the search bar I went and that's when my whole life changed, because it never before occurred to me that glue was sold by the gallon. By the gallon, people!

Yeah, that's right, I'm the kind of girl that gets excited over mass quantities of glue.

Just look at that sexy beast!

Let's talk more about glue, shall we? Shut up, you know you want to.

I know there are other kinds of glue out there besides plain old school glue. There's even fancy, specialty glues just for decoupage, but you know what? They all suck. At least to me, anyway. They can be kind of pricey and I run through glue way too quickly to spend that much and in the past, every time I've tried using something other than plain glue, I end up getting everything all gooped up. My paper tears. It dries funny. I can't get an even coat. Of course, there's a very good chance that all I am is a bull in a china shop and it isn't really the special glue's fault, but I prefer to blame it all on the glue. Stupid, fancy glue! No, nothing works quite as well for me as plain, old, watered down glue.

Have I said glue enough yet? Too bad.

Yes, plain, old, watered down GLUE! That's where the smaller milk bottle comes in.

I fully admit to being a little on the lazy side, so I don't like measuring stuff unless I have to. That's the beauty of this DIY decoupage glue. As long as it still makes stuff stick, it doesn't matter! Just mix the glue and water to whatever consistency you feel comfortable with.

And there you have it!

Now, before I show you a few projects I've finished with this very same glue, I want to give a shout out to my favorite place to get most of the rest of my supplies. SCRAP Denton. It's a reuse store where everyone can buy and donate leftover art supplies and other odds and ends. The second I started shopping there, my imagination exploded like never before! I'm telling you, I haven't been to a regular craft store in months! Shops like these should be everywhere.

Okay, so here's a few examples of what I've created with watered down glue and SCRAP on my side:

Cake or Death?

I've had a raging, psychotic sugar beast on my back bit of a sweet tooth as of late and surfing Pinterest hasn't been helping me ignore it one bit. If you've ever been on Pinterest, you know what I mean. I've managed pretty well so far and by that I mean I've started eyeing that year old box of terrible dollar store popsicles I somehow managed to never throw away, but then I came across a pin for a two ingredient cake. All you need is a 12oz can of soda and a box of cake mix. Somewhere in my head a tiny voice whispered, "Weeeeeight Waaaatcheeeers..." and another little part of me cheered! I remembered hearing the same sort of recipe in a Weight Watchers meeting long ago (using diet soda), but I'd never tried it and that's when my sugar beast sweet tooth screamed, "What are you waiting for, woman?!"

What indeed? I'd made a great dinner and my dad was visiting, so it felt like a good enough occasion for cake, darn it!

There's a real danger factor for me in keeping random boxes of cake mix in the house, so I just don't do it. I'm not above hopping in the car and speeding to the nearest store, though. Sadly, my car is in the shop, so the job fell to the hubster and good timing too, because it was just about time for him to get out of work.

I explained to him that he could pick out any cake mix he wanted, but if it turned out to be a white cake, the diet soda should probably be a clear one. He came home with Funfetti cake mix (his favorite) and a bottle of Sprite Zero and I went to work.

"I doubt this recipe," hubster told me, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, what's it going to taste like?"

"It's going to taste like freakin' cake!" I cheered. I may or may not have been dancing. I admit to nothing!

I heard my dad tell hubster: "I've never had 'freakin' cake' before. Hope it doesn't kill us."

"I still don't think it's going to turn out right," hubster called and right then and there I made a bet with him. If the cake tasted good, he had to do the dishes, if it didn't I would have to take out the trash. High stakes 'round here. I'd trashed the kitchen making dinner.


And now I present to you...

 Freakin' Cake
1 box of any flavor cake mix
12oz any diet soda

Combine cake mix with soda until well mixed and bake according to the directions on the cake mix box.

It's that easy and you save a ton of calories!

I'm guessing it was a hit since hubster did the dishes and, hey, no one died!