Old Album Cover Repurposed.

I found an old album at a thrift store for .50 cents, since I use albums for multiple projects, and I liked the album cover it was a pretty good score! I will post the photos below, after explaining what I did. I cut out the part of the album cover I liked, using scissors for the big cuts and an X-acto knife for the smaller cuts. I then took the back side of the album cover and painted it with acrylic paint. Then I used my Homemade Mod Podge, painted it on the back album cover, laid the cut out down and used the Homemade Mod Podge on top of the cut out. I know it still needs something else, and I have a few ideas, but until I'm certain as to what will make it a "finished product" I'm just going to keep it like this. I think it turned out rather well, and I already have an empty easel to display it on.

Three Cheese Chicken Penne.

I have been trying to figure out and master Applebee's 3 Cheese Chicken Penne recipe (or close to it anyway). I have looked at recipes for all sorts of penne. After a few tweaks and a few attempts, I think I've finally figured it out. I made it last night for dinner and it was awesome!

Three Cheese Chicken Penne

2 chicken breasts

1/3 cup Italian salad dressing

3 cups penne pasta

15 ounces alfredo sauce

8 ounces Italian cheese , shredded (Mozzarella, Parmesan, Provolone) (I was low on mozzarella so I used some Mexican Style shredded cheese, and it worked well!)

4 tomatoes

1 teaspoon basil

2 -3 garlic cloves

6 tablespoons olive oil

1. Chop the chicken and marinade in Italian dressing for at least 30 minutes
2. Chop tomatoes, and add in a bowl with the oil, garlic and basil to make bruschetta. Set aside.
3. Boil penne until cooked.
4. Grill or broil the chicken. (I've grilled and George Foreman grilled them)
5. Drain water, then pour the alfredo sauce on top of the penne. (I normally heat up the sauce in a separate pan and add a little garlic to mine, but I love garlic!)
6. Layer on the bruschetta.
7. Add the layer of chicken.
8. Top it with the cheese. (Put a lid on the pot to let the cheese melt a bit or serve it on individual bowls and microwave it)
9. Serve with some garlic bread.

Homemade Mod Podge!

I have been wanting  to make Homemade Mod Podge, for a while now, and I finally did! It is so simple, no mess and works great. I made 8 oz for my first trial run. That would normally be $5-$8 in the store, but I only paid $2.

Here's how you do it:

Homemade Mod Podge 

Fill jar half way up with white glue (I used a 4oz bottle of Elmers)

Then fill the jar with the same amount of water as you did the glue.

Shake Well.

This is a 50/50 mixture of glue andwater.

If you would like a Glossy finish, add 1 Tablespoon of clear varnish.

I tried it out today, not for any particular project and it works great. I truly recommend making this at home and saving money by doing so!

Craft Catastrophe!

Today was a craft catastrophe kind of day. You see it's my friends birthday, and she is an extremely crafty and creative gal. I got it into my head that if I gave her a store bought card it would be as if I was giving a painter and store bought painting from Target or something. I have made handmade cards before, so I went into it expecting good results. Boy was I wrong! My original plan was to make a card out of wax paper. I had seen a how to make wrapping paper out of wax paper on another blog, and thought that might be a cool idea for a card. I cut 3 rectangles out of card stock, one for the front, one that would say "Happy Birthday" and the last would be to write on. I burned the edges of each of these rectangles, and "white washed" them with gold paint to create a old look. I then glued them onto the wax paper, as I didn't want the moving around. I think my biggest mistake is that I had already folded the card and put cardboard in between the fold instead of keeping it flat until finished. My iron was warmed up, and had a towel over the card, ironed until it "fused" together, and then flipped sides. From here I'm not sure what went wrong, but it looked like something I would have made when I was a child. It wasn't smooth, it had tons of creases, and parts of it would not "fuse" together no matter how long I had the iron on it.

I then decided I would take a greeting card I had at home, and paint over the original cover. Not having planned anything, I started with a green base coat, which did not look girlie enough, so I added some yellow to make it more playful. This made me see the beginnings of a tree, so I carried on and painted a tree.

After I finished with the tree, I wasn't happy with the card. It's probably because my original idea didn't pan out. Plus the cover was starting to warp from the paint, so I scrapped that one too.

I then took my 3 rectangles I originally made for the wax paper card, and made this card:

I know that it needs something else, but I'm just not sure what that something is. All in all, I'm happier with it than I was with the other two attempts, and I'm glad that my craft catastrophes (for today) have come to an end. It's funny that some days the sky is the limit for crafting, and other days the simplest of tasks feel impossible. 

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to comment and follow me.

A Quick Look at Spray Paint Art.

My Husband, as I have said before has been learning the art of spray paint. He was kind enough to allow me to film him during one of his latest projects. It's pretty simple to make, especially after a few practice runs. We've given them as gifts to a few people, and everyone really loves them.  We already have a collection of spray paints, but if you're just starting out or would like to try it 5 different colors is a good start. You will definitely need black and white, the rest is up to your own imagination.

In a previous post I went over the basics on how to make a stencil for spray paint art. Click here see the How To on stencil making. Also credit goes to Brandon McConnell whose DVD's have taught Jason several techniques as well has Step by Step directions for each painting in his videos.

My Story.

I was born, and raised in Chico, California. A city in Northern California, roughly 2 hours above Sacramento. It's a nice city to grow up in, big enough to have most things available, but still small enough to know your neighbor. It's kind of funny, because although it's grown in population and has much more businesses than when I was a child, I most likely could still do a six degrees of separation on each person who lives here. I think it's just one of those cities that will never be big enough to not run into someone you are trying to avoid. Haha.

My Mother is who I give all my credit to for my crafty side. She is incredibly creative, and taught me early on that the sky is the limit, anything I put my mind to is possible. Because of her I can spend hours upon hours in Michaels dreaming of all the possibilities. And you know, even now that I am in my late 20's, she is still teaching me how to create things I had not even thought of. Including these earrings I recently made. I have never attempted jewelry before, not bad for my first try!

Apologies for the lower quality photo. Blasted cell phone camera, it's just so much easier to use when just taking one simple photo!

Anyway, I met my husband July of 2001. I was working for an office supply company, and he was the security guard for the parking lot in the back of our store, which was actually a parking lot for a bank. He would try talking to me, and I didn't really give him the time of day because most of the security guards would just talk my ears off, and I only had short breaks to pay the meter, eat lunch etc. So what does Jason (my husband) do? He pretends his car battery is dead, in order for me to take the time and help him jump start it. We became friends at that point, chit chatting during my breaks, but never anything more than during the time we both worked. He was transferred in August to do security for another business, and I thought that was the end of him. In late August I found a note on my car (in the same parking lot) with his number on it, telling me he'd like to get together sometime, and here was his number. I called a few days later, and we arranged to meet September 2nd for coffee.

After our first date, I knew he was special. We married on September 27, 2008. Yes seven years later. I am a child from a divorced family, and it was actually me that took longer to be ready to get married. I knew I wanted to be with Jason forever, but the binding contract of a marriage scared me. Now that we've been married over three years, I can't remember my life not being married to him. He's a great husband, and also very crafty! He gets extra points for that! Haha. 

In 2004, my Mom started her own company. The company I had been working for had gone out of business, so I immediately started working for her. Jason had a job at that time, but he helped out part time doing whatever he could to help Mom's business succeed. In 2006 the business was thriving, so much so that we moved our location to a much larger office space, and Jason moved positions to our company. The same year my Grandfather (from my Mom's side) passed away, and a year later Mom's husband unexpectedly passed away. Huge bumps in the road, obviously, but Jason and I held down fort while Mom took sometime to heal. In 2009, a few employees working for us took advantage of my Mom's kindness. This plus the economy going down the tubes resulted in us having to close our doors. This meant that Mom, Jason and I were all out of a job. My Grandmother (on my Mom's side) health worsened so Mom is now taking care of her full time. Jason also is now working after a year of being unemployed, and I have had some temporary and odd jobs since then, but nothing stable. 

I started this blog as mainly something to do. As many people who are unemployed, or stay at home know sometimes its good to have a purpose, something to be accountable for or to have goals for each day. This blog has already helped me in that it's pushed me to do some projects I've wanted to try, but never have done so. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to follow me, I can use all the followers I can get. :)

Make a Box From a Soda Can.

This looks like such a fun project. I'm going to have to try this one someday soon. If anyone has tried this, I would love to see how it turned out!