Halloween Earrings

Before Halloween is over, I just quickly wanted to show you the earrings I made that are similar to the Halloween bracelets.
I did not seal the plastic (as I should have) and some of the marker is wearing off, because these have been in my purse since I wore them last week. Of course, since they're so quick and easy to make, I can always make more that are better, stronger, faster, ummm where was I? Oh well, Happy All Hallow's Eve!!

You Likey the Linky?

Just a quick post for "Wild, Wild Web Wednesday"

Here are some neat links I found for today:

• What celebrity do you REALLY look like? MyHeritage can tell you.
• You know nothing cleans like MomSpit.
• Did they not notice these unfortunate logos before?

Enjoy! Hopefully, I will have more interesting links for you on another Wild, Wild Web Wednesday!

Happy Halloween

I hope everyone has a lovely, scary, spooky, fun, and/or festive Halloween!! Remember that treats are better than tricks!!

A Little Geek for the Soul

I want to introduce "Techie Tuesday", where I will be bringing up a neat tech, internet, geeky tool that may, in fact, make your life easier or a little more fun.

Since I just started a blog that I hope everyone is interested in and wants to read as often as possible, I thought I would introduce you to Bloglines.
In the simplest terms, it collects all the blogs you read in one place so you don't have to go skipping all over the internet to read those blogs that interest you. You can even install a button into your toolbar that makes it easier to add a blog to your bloglines list of feeds.
Here's what Bloglines says about itself (from their About page):

Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install -- simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device. And it's FREE!

Bloglines is a window to a whole new world of dynamic content that is being created and distributed over the new "live" web. You can make your own personalized news page tailored to your unique interests from our index of tens of millions of live internet content feeds, including articles, blogs, images and audio. And it's FREE!

Bloglines shields you from the confusion of news feed standards -- RSS, Atom, and others. Bloglines allows you to search for, read and share any updates from your favorite news feed or blog regardless of its authoring technology. And it's FREE!

Last, but not least, Bloglines provides you with the tools you need to begin creating your own clip blogs and blogrolls. Become a publisher, share your thoughts and opinions! And it's FREE! Get started today!.

I admit that I have probably not used Bloglines to its fullest capacity. However, simply having all the blogs I want to read in one place is a beautiful thing. In fact, I have two different accounts; one for work and one for pleasure (craft, frugal, and friends' blogs). At some point, I will put up a blog-roll on this site that will list many of the pleasure blogs I read. However, right now, Bloglines keeps track of all of that for me, and it is invalauble.

Try it out.

I will try to post again tonight, but I really need to get LOML's* clothes ready for his interview and clean my house some. So, we'll see!

*LOML= Love of My Life

Quick and Easy Halloween Bracelet

I did get to craft tonight! Yay!! Now let's see if I can show you how I did it.

First, I gathered permanent markers, a permanent ink stamp (like Staz-on), Halloween stamps, and a sheet of shrink plastic.

Next, I stamped the shrink plastic with the permanent ink and allowed it to dry. Then, I carefully colored the images with the markers.

While that dried, I got my scissors and a hole puncher.

I cut out the images so that I had enough room to punch a hole above and a hole below the image. Then I cut around each of the images in a curved pattern (to keep the plastic smooth for my nieces).

With my heat gun and a metal knitting needle (to keep the plastic from blowing away), I shrunk the plastic (my favorite part!!).

As soon as they were completely shrunk, while still hot, I placed a flat piece of metal on the hot plastic to ensure that the plastic laid and dried flat. Please note that I protected my surface by using a ceramic tile to place the plastic on while I heated it.

Once all the charms were shrunk, I got out my beading supplies: black, orange, and purple seed beads; crimping pliers and wire cutters; crimp beads; findings (simple clasps); and plastic covered wire.

While the picture shows a ton of jump rings, I do not use these for the child bracelets. I'm not sure yet how to explain how I string it (you can send me a comment and I will write it out for you then.) It's a real simple process with the wire just looping through the holes in the shrink plastic holes with a few beads and crimped on each end. Repeat that for as long as you want the bracelet.

Hopefully, you will end up with something like (or better than) this:

I also made myself some earrings using this method. I'll post that later.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Smile Because You Can

I know I said that I was going to work on bracelets tonight (and I still might), but I wanted to also announce "Made Me Smile Monday." Who doesn't need to think about smiling on Monday? Here, I will be listing all the things that made be smile or laugh out loud over a week's time. However, since I only came up with this today, I have a rather simple list. In the future, the lists will either be longer or contain much more intense smile-provoking instances. Here we go
Today, I smiled because:

• I spied a sneaky morning glory (flower) who was found nested at the edge of the lawn instead of in the flowerbed
• I heard a New Kids on the Block song that took me back to middle school
• By 10am, I had 15 hits on this very new blog
• I read this question: "Would you die if you got scared half to death twice?"
• I almost missed my chair at lunch but landed on the edge, instead of the floor
• These pictures:
  
• I got to eat sushi (with wasabi - mmm) for dinner
• LOML* asked if it's cruel to have an aquarium in a sushi restaurant
• I watched this video:

[Please excuse me if you can't see the pictures or watch the video - I AM still learning. And I think I'm doing pretty good teaching myself this stuff.]

I hope these instances made you smile or laugh as well. Please try to take in the moments that make you smile because these are the ones you'll cherish.

Leave me a comment and let me know how I'm doing. I'd love to know who those 15 hits came from.

Crafts to Come, I Hope

I know I haven't proven ANY of my craftiness yet, but the whole process of making this blog itself could be 'crafty.'

Um, well, I do plan on sharing some crafty ideas and pictures soon. In fact, I did make myself some Halloween earrings & a bracelet last week and hope to work on a pair of similar bracelets for my nieces tonight. These bracelets are a 'quick & easy' project so maybe I can get them done AND get pictures of them up here. We'll have to wait and see how that goes. LOML* may need to assist me with the more technical aspects of getting pictures posted. Wish me luck.


*LOML = Love of My Life

Sunday's Special

So, I don't want to be lax on this blog and not post. I definitely want to keep it interesting around here. As such, I have been racking my brain all day to figure out what to offer up for y'all. As I said in my first post, I'll have some yummy recipes. Therefore, I hereby announce my first ever "Somethin' Yummy Sunday".

I will only be offering up recipes that I've actually tried and can verify are . . . well, 'yummy'.

LOML and I had this recipe last week and really enjoyed it. We're not big celery eaters, but this didn't bother us. We thought that water chestnuts and baby corn would be excellent added to this (however, we have not tried it this way yet.) I'm also not much for dried fruit, so I didn't add the dried apricots. Yet, if that's your thing - go for it!! Without further ado, check out KraftFoods' One Pot Curry & Rice.

Let me know if you enjoy it as much as we did.

Don't Make Me Cry, Some Good News

LOML* and I got tickled at dinner because I admitted that I have been on the verge of crying all afternoon/evening for very silly things (ex: I heard a song on the radio I like, I got excited about creating this blog, I didn't know where I wanted to go to dinner, etc.) I mean really, silly things. We laughed because I kept threatening him with crying and then started asking him if he was going to start crying. I guess it was funnier in the moment.

However, I know I'm not pregnant yet and not PMSing, so we were trying to figure out what was wrong with me. All we can come up with is - I'm happy. WOW, what news! No, no I'm just really excited about the good luck that may be possibly befalling us. LOML is supposed to fly up to D.C. next week to do a face-to-face with a company that probably wants to hire him. He's done all the technical screens and they say they want him, they just need to see that he exists (pretty much). The great thing about this possibility is that it will mean quite a financial increase for us.

Therefore, we (I) think that the crying is the result of great happiness and the fact that I realize that our lives are about to change in many ways (for the better hopefully). However, this does mean leaving the company that has been so very good to us. So, it is sad in other ways as well.

Really, nothing has happened yet. It is just the anticipation of it all. I felt like sharing and getting some of this off my chest, maybe my eyes will stop watering up now.


*Love of My Life = LOML

Not Just Another Craft Blog

Well, here comes my attempt at a blog I may actually enjoy. This is something I have wanted for a while and have been putting off until I'm 'ready'. However, I don't know that I'll ever be completely ready, so here I go with both feet - anticipating the water.

I have named this blog "Crafty Hope" up until I can actually come up with a better name (like I said, I'm not really ready). However, while I do expect to spend some time here talking about crafting, I plan on also posting about much more: thrift finds, interesting links, inspiring pictures and quotes, frugal goodness, yummy recipes, and basic day-to-day life. This list may change at any time, because I can be crazy like that if I want to . . . it's my blog dangit!! There are also so many subjects under each of these topics that I could go off on a tangent at anytime - BEWARE!!

Come in and enjoy. Your suggestions and comments are so very welcome.
I have so much to say that I am afraid I will run off on a tangent now. Yet, I'll digress and save that for another time. Cheers!