Chicken, Pork & Beef Rubs

My daughter in law and I decided to put together some Chicken, Pork and Beef rubs to give as gifts for the Christmas season.  We did this because there is always that someone that you really want to know that you are thinking about them, but don't always have alot of money to spend.  We made these very economical and very practical gifts to give because who doesn't love to cook or eat?  We started out with the 3 oz square containers from Dollar Tree and then went to Winco to buy the bulk spices!  I of course added the vinyl of a cow, pig and chicken (rooster) to the containers and filled them with the rubs we made (You can find the recipes here), stacked them in cute little threes and then tied them together them with some pretty glittered ribbon.  We will add Christmas tags to them before giving them away!  What a useful, quick and easy gift to give that favorite someone.  If you want to expand on the idea, you could always give a gift card, to the person, for their favorite meat store.  TFL

 Close up of the containers

Stacked and ribboned. 

Halloween Wreath

This is the finished wreath that I made.  It came out ok, but I really think if I were to do another one, I would definitely put the papers, web an spider towards the back side of the deco mesh rather than on the top side.  That way it would give it more depth and the spider would be laying flat against the wall instead of just hanging out there in space lol..
I started with a metal wreath base and black pipe cleaners (to attach the deco mesh) from the dollar store, then got the deco mesh, assorted halloween printed papers and the felt web all from Hobby Lobby.  If I were home, I would have cut my own web...but it was only 1.29 so pretty affordable.  Mesh, was on sale for 5.59 and the papers were 4 for a dollar so it was a very inexpensive wreath to make  The Spider cost me less than 2 dollars to make so all in all it was about $11.00 to make this wreath...not bad.  Please note this was my first attempt ever at using deco mesh....lol  not as easy as it looks to make the loops uniform, but it was fun to dabble with.  TFL

Beaded Spider

This was my first attempt at making a beaded spider.  It was actually really easy.  This spider is going to eventually be hanging off of a Halloween Wreath.  More pictures to come as I get to making the wreath.  TFL

16 New Halloween Designs

16 new Halloween Designs have been added to the blog store.  Check them out :)  Or see them on my facebook fan page as well as get your chance every friday to win a free file of your choice! :)  See you there!  https://www.facebook.com/creativeblingvinyldesigns  TFL

Kroeplin Wedding Gifts and Signs

My boyfriends daughter recently got married on the 19th of September.  Since they paid for their wedding themselves. my wedding gift to them was making the wedding party's gifts and signs for her rustic wedding. I also made their Wedding gift of course!!!!   Her colors were Tiffany Blue and Tan.  TFL

Kylie and Carl's first Dance

 Cutting their cake

Groom, Best Man, Groomsmen's and Ring Bearer's gifts 

Father of the Bride and Officiant's (uncle) gifts

Dave (cousin) got a pilsner glass as the honorary Escort Stand in.

Kylie's Dad had a full coronary arrest on July 30th and was without a heartbeat for just a little over an hour before they were able to bring him back.  He has been fighting his hardest to recover in time to walk his daughter down the aisle, but unfortunately he was just not strong enough yet to make it to the wedding. (Yes I videoed it so he could see it later that night.)  Dave is Rick's cousin and the man responsible for saving Rick's life through lifesaving cpr that he began well before the paramedics could arrive to take over, so what better choice than Dave to stand in for Rick and to walk his Daughter down the aisle! :)

Bride, Maid of Honor, Bridesmaid's, Junior Bridesmaid and Flower Girl's gifts 

(back side)

 Front Side

 This was the wood pallet for the seating.

This was placed in front of the Drink Station that was set up on top of some old vintage dressers...drawers were opend up at staggered intervals and held the mason jar glasses/gifts each glass was tied with jute and held a tag commemorating the bride and grooms names and wedding date

This sign competed my wedding gift to the bride and groom! 

Crocheted Winter Hats

I guess I am in a crocheting mood lately.  I get that way sometimes, I go months and months without picking up a crochet hook and then all of a sudden, I really can't get enough!  My grandkids were looking online with me at winter hats.  Each had a definite idea of what they thought they wanted and definite colors as well. This is a result of their choices.  Both went up really quick :) TFL

This pattern can be found here: http://swirlsandsprinklesblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-favorite-elf-hat.html

This hat was made from a pattern that I got somewhere about three years ago but there is a very similar pattern that can be found here:  http://lacycrochet.blogspot.com/2013/05/lacy-stitch-newborn-hat-free-crochet.html

What the hats look like by themselves :)

Drop in the Pond Crocheted Baby Blanket

I made this baby blanket for a baby shower.  It is called 'Drop in the Pond' and you can find it on Ravelry.com.  It is a lap blanket but I found it to be a little narrow for a baby blanket so I finished mine off completely different than the pattern called for so that I could widen it out a bit.  I really like the pattern, it is super easy and I think i would really like to try it with Black as the main color and turquoise and purple as the supporting colors.  Thanks for looking!

Nameplate Wall Plaques

Made up these two little wall plaques for my Grand kids to decorate their new rooms.  Their bed frames are black as is the dresser, so wanted to make the plaques black as well and just added the color into the names and decorations on them.  I actually like how they turned out.  TFL

Vinyled Rain Boots

My grand daughers,  aged 5, 6 and 8 came from Corvaliis Oregon to spend the weekend at Grammy's house.  They of course brought their clothes and shoes and an extra pair of purple rain boots that they thought were just too plain and needed some "grammy love" added to them.  Gia picked out the color for them and said she wanted them flowered up!  This was the result!  Though the lighting made them look not so purple, they are actually a very deep purple and the flowers are lilac. Thanks for looking! :)

Princess Birthday Card

Rick's Neice is having a birthday party tomorrow, so I thought I would make her a card (nothing fancy, as it will more than likely get thrown away anyway) . I saw a cute card on pinterest that I used as a model for making this card.  I used lilac cardstock for the card base and then overlayed some amethyst velum by "Over The Moon Press", to give it some pop!  I also used the same amethyst velum to make a small envelope on the inside of the card to hold the "princess" necklace and chose to close the envelope with a small flower.  I will use the space above and below the envelope to write a personal message to her.  The crown is a pattern that I got from "My Scrapchick"  I cut the crown in the pink glitter Core dinations cardstock and used some iridescent gems to top it off.  The lettering is all done in vinyl, lilac and purple.  Thanks for looking, hope she likes it!

Strawberry Cheesecake Muddy Buddies

I made Strawberry Cheesecake Muddy Buddies for my boyfriend for Valentine's Day since he can't have regular chocolate.  The picture is the property of the Creme de la Crumb blog.  You can find the original recipe here as well: http://lecremedelacrumb.com/2014/01/strawberry-cheesecake-muddy-buddies.html.
I did make a few changes to the recipe since I couldn't find the small packages of the cheesecake flavored pudding.  Instead I used the Jello Cheesecake boxed mix.  This kind of killed two birds with one stone as the regular recipe calls for two graham crackers broken into peices.   Well I just used 1/2 cup of the graham cracker crumbs and added it to the strawberry jello and cheesecake mix.  This worked perfectly and I truly think added to the whole cheesecake flavor as coated each piece with all the essential flavors of a strawberry cheesecake. The recipe called for 6 cups of Rice Chex, there was only 8 cups in the box I bought so I just added them as well and there was more than enough coating mix to thoroughly coat every single square of chex cereal and then some!  I also couldn't find the strawberry sour balls, and it being Valentines day and all, I just substituted the strawberry juju hearts instead, which the mix also coated.  I am not a sweet eater, but these little gems, truly tasted just like I was eating a perfect piece of cheesecake!  Flavor was excellent and the boyfriend loved them!

On a side note, I told my daughter about them and she decided to try them as well for her work party.  She decided to use Cherry Jello and the used the same boxed cheesecake mix and followed my directions.  She used sour cherry balls to add to her mix.  Below is the picture of her Cherry Cheesecake muddy buddies. They were a huge hit!

Persian Lights Bracelet

I watched a video on youtube about the persian lights bracelet and fell in love with how shimmery and sparkly it was.  I decided to try to make it with just what I had on hand.  The bicones along the outside should have been much smaller, but it's what I had so I made it work.  In the video, the instructor said that the first time would take quite a while to get the hang of it but subsequent bracelets would only take about two to three hours to complete.  This was my first try and I completed it in about an hour and twenty minutes.  Not bad, its pretty simple and very repetitive so it went pretty fast.  I think this would be beautiful using the black seed beads with silver glass beads and black bicones.  Think I will try that one next :)  TFL

Upcycled soda can Dragonfly pin

I love upcycling things.  Today I was playing with some new dies and embossing folders that I got and decided to make this dragonfly pin.
Vintaj offers an awesome set that includes a  Sizzix dragonfly die as well as a flower pod die and three different mini Sizzix embossing folders.
I started out by cutting two of the dragonflys from a soda can.  I then embossed one of the dragonflys before coloring them with the Adirondak alcohol inks.  I really recommend coloring the pieces before embossing them.  This would have been much easier.   I truly had visions of turquoise and purple, but didn't have time to dig through my craft stuff to find these colors and hte orange and purple were already out.  It worked for this experiment.   lol...next time!  Anyway once the colors were dry, I just used a piece of tacky strip to attach the two pieces and slightly bent the top wings up to give the appearance of flight.  The pic doesn't yet have the pin back attached, but am going to attach this with some e6000.  Thanks for looking! :)

A Few Gifts

These are just some simple gifts that I made for my bestie and her hubby for Christmas.  Jackie loves to bake and is always making something for her Hubby Paul.  So I thought a nice cake taker would be the perfect gift for her.  And Paul is a huge Cowboys fans and water drinker and is always saying how he needs a bigger glass, so I thought I would make him one with his favorite team on it.  I fully intended to etch it in the glass, but I was just so rushed with everything this year that it was just easier to cut some vinyl and slap it on there! :)  The Plate is a gift I did for them last year, but never got a pic of it before now.  They both enjoyed their gifts though, which is the whole purpose of gift giving in the first place! :)  TFL

Money/Giftcard holders

So every year my dad and my dad's girlfriend, Stella, each give the great grandkids $5.00 for Christmas, Typically they put them in an envelope with their names on it.  But this year Stella asked me if I could make something cute to put them in and hang on the tree or put under the tree.  She was thinking a cute little box...I was thinking my girlie girls love purses and I had seen a few around that were done with circle and other shaped die cuts, so I thought I bet I could make me one of my own to cut on my cricut so I set out to work, here are the results, since I have two grandson's as well, I was in need of a boyish item as well so I made a wallet, decked out with ribbon, sticky gems for a little Christmas sparkle, and some iridescent snow flakes to top it all off.  I used single sided paper, but if you want to have them double sided you can use single sided paper ang just cut twice flipping one over and glue together or purchase double sided paper. then just glue the money/giftcard holder in the center of the purse and you have a super cute little purse.  With the Wallet, just cut, fold and glue the tabs!  Pretty simple and I think they turned out pretty cute and both svg's can be found in my blog store.  TFL

Snowman Handprint Ornaments with the Grands Pic Heavy

This year's fun activity with my grand kids was making the adorable Snowman Hand print Ornaments!  They had a blast making them.  Each kiddo had definitely ideas and stories to tell when they were painting their snowmen families. I love the intensity in their facial expressions when they are creating.  TFL

               Coby

                                                                                Lylliana

 McKaiLee

 Gianna 

 Riggin

Indika

Waterless Snowglobes - Pic heavy

My Friend Jackie asked for my help in making her family some waterless snow globes from up-cycled containers.  I of course jumped at the chance since my daughter collects snow globes as well.  So, off we went in search of the perfect containers.  We must have hit at least a dozen second hand stores when we hit the jackpot at the Salvation Army store.  most of them were square glass or round apothecary type jars with lids, with the exception of one,

being an old glass cheese block with a wooden base that was perfect for the Victorian scene.  We used a very lacy white doily to complete the look.  Most of the people we got at the dollar store, along with trees, streetlamps and park benches.  The snow came from Joann's Fabrics and of the animals made by Schliech toys were all picked up at D & B.  The embellishments for the tops mostly came from Joann's fabrics and the dollar store as well. We used e6000 to seal the jar lids to the jars.  When it came time to do my daughter's I couldn't find any of the previous jars we used, but I did find an awesome glass cake cover with no bottom to it.  I thought maybe I could find a glass plate for the bottom and was looking around a second hand store when I spotted a few of the Glass turntables for a microwave oven. The turntable was a bit larger than the glass topper, and left a ledge that I wasn't sure what I was going to do with, when all of a sudden it hit me....A TRAIN!!!!  So I finished the inside and then added the tracks and trains to the outside of my little village, it turned into a whole city complete with Santa, carolers, the Christmas tree, houses, sledders and just people milling around.  I love how beautiful each and every one of them turned out.  All unique and catered to each receivers personal preferences in life.  What fun we had. Have a whole pic and a closeup of each.  TFL

 Brett and Amy's Farm

 Lark's Deer

Nevada and Al's Cat

 Joel & Andi's Wolf

 Jackie's Mom, Evelyn's Victorian scene

 Candy's Winter Scene

 The Entire Set together, minus My Daughter's

 Nikkii's Snow Globe.  Sorry, we were in a hurry that day and I took the pics of this before I cleaned up all of the glue strings, globs and strands. :)