Craftyminx

Why Hello There!

This break was just what I needed!!  I've written about my battle with depression and anxiety on here before, but I did not tell you all how badly I was suffering with it for the last few months. It has been really really bad like up the meds and nothing works bad. Most of it had to do with my professional life and my desire for change. I got the fortune above in January and I hoped that it would come true and believe me it has! I can't give you full details just yet, but exciting things are happening in my life. Thanks for sticking around through my break. I'll share a lot more about these changes soon (hint: it fulfills one of my birthday goals). Part of it will filter in to craftyminx, but it will mainly mean less (but higher quality) blog posts. I'm still striving for 2-4 diy posts a month and I think I'll keep more of the every day life type things for instagram and twitter. We'll see. I'm not quite sure what all this will bring, but I do know that it has brought me happiness and will hopefully continue to do so. 

It's break time

I'm taking a break from the blog for a week or two to focus on some professional goals. I'll be back, I promise! I just need to move my brain into full-on library mode for awhile. Thus is the world of a blogger with a full-time day job. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've always loved Valentine's Day. Not because I was a girl who had plenty of Valentines but because I love pink and candy and hearts and cutesy stuff :) So here's a little view of my Valentine's Day. 

While I make a big deal about all the pink and hearts Valentine's day is usually pretty mellow for us. We usually go out to a fancy dinner just because, but this year Sheldon is making me a special dinner. I don't know what he's making but I'm excited about it. I'm surprised he hasn't told me yet. He's really bad at keeping surprises. He got me (or should I say let me buy) my dream pink oxfords for my gift. I'm not the biggest fan of getting flowers/candy/stuffed animals so I'm very excited about these shoes! I got him some blu rays. It's all stuff we would have eventually bought anyway but can justify on the budget by putting it in the "gifts" category -- Sneaky.

I sent my nieces valentines so they could get mail. I'm trying really hard to make sure I mail them things because it's fun to get mail and I have to keep my "favorite aunt" title ;)

Oh and I made my office baked heart donuts just because. They were really yummy!

Do you celebrate Valentine's Day? 

Be Mine Headbands

Sheldon got me a huge amount of glitter for Christmas so I've pretty much been glittering things since December. The dogs better watch out, they're probably getting some kind of glittered accessory soon. I wanted to make something fancy and pink to match my pink explosion outfit for valentine's day so I decided to sit down and make a crafty heart headband and of course, cover it in glitter.

These are really pretty self explanatory. You cut out felt, glue on some glitter, glue it all on to ribbon, and tie it around your head. So I'm really just going to go over how I made my hearts because those are the things that caused me grief. 

You will need: Felt, scissors, glitter (the colors I used from Martha Stewart glitter are below), a high temp glue gun (this won't work with a low temp), a lot of glue sticks, ribbon, parchment paper (not pictured), and elastic (optional)

Why am I using hot glue? Because it's my favorite. I have a drawer full of "special" glues and I always throw them back in the drawer and grab my hot glue gun. You want a glue that is going to stay flexible after it dries for this since it needs to kind of curve to fit your head. 

Cut some hearts out of your felt. I just kind of free handed mine, but you can draw some on paper and cut out templates if you want. In the top example I layered some together to make it look extra crafty. Make it your own by doing some embroidery or adding buttons. The sky is the limit here these would be awesome if they were made to look like conversation hearts with cute little messages. Ok, on to the glittering...

Make a parchment paper sandwich big enough to fit your heart and have a little space around it. 

Use a lot of glue and get it as close to the edge as you can. Work really fast here, You don't want it drying before the next step. Cover it in more glitter than you'd think you would need.

Smoosh it down (yes that is a technical term). I even used a glue stick as a little rolling pin to flatten it all down evenly.  Now let it cool completely! Otherwise, the glue could still stick to the parchment paper as you try to peel it off. 

Peel it off the paper and cut off all the excess. Yes, you will get glitter all over the place... sorry about that. I didn't say this method was completely perfected!

See, the hot glue makes it nice and bendy and keeps all that pretty glitter trapped in the thick glue. 

That's it, now glue everything down to ribbon with more hot glue. It can be a little tricky glueing already glittered hearts together so you may have to work with those a little more. 

For the backs, I like a little give so I used a couple of different elastic options. You could always just tie the ribbon on if you don't want to sew anything.  I also glued some onto a headband and it worked out as well. In fact, I kind of like these kind of headbands better than the around the head ones with my short hair. 

the day I made these I wasn't feeling very photogenic so I snapped some iPhone photos tonight of me wearing these :)

Handwriting Meme

I saw this on Pip's and Robbie's blogs and thought what the hey, I don't show off my messy handwriting enough, So there you go.  Here's the questions so you can join in:

1. What is your name

2. Blog URL

3. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

4. Favorite quote

5. Favorite song (at the moment)

6. Favorite band/singers (at the moment)

7. Say anything you want

8. Tag 3-5 bloggers

Here's my favorite song right now. I've been playing this record a lot lately. The woman is still rocking after all these years. I'm so glad I've been able to see her live a few times, she puts on a really good show with plenty of stories from her past and a rocking voice. 

New Tutorials Page!

I went to update the tutorials page the other day and decided I didn't like it. I'm in the beginning stages of a site-redesign right now and just decided to go ahead and update the page becuase it was something easy that wouldn't take too much time and would be a quick satisfaction thing for me. I'm getting overwhelmed by my ideas right now so it's better to just get them out while I can. In fact, this next site-redesign might just be a work in progress over the next few months instead of a wham-bam new page kind of thing. We'll see. It's all on paper right now anyway.



When you hover over one of the images it changes color and has text describing the tutorial and each image links to the tutorial. 

I'm a big fan of the hovers right now. If you hate them I'm sorry, I love them :)

I think these will be a lot easier to keep updated than the last page as well, which I love even more!!

Check it out

Tasty things

In my post on budgeting I mentioned how meal planning has become a big part of our lives as well. While I intend on doing a thoughts on... meal planning post in the future, I thought I'd just show you some of my favorite recipes from the last couple of weeks. (These are all my iPhone photos of meals, click through the links to see pretty photos and to pin the actual recipes!)

Basil Chicken in Coconut Curry Sauce

This curry is fantastic! I added some potatoes and would have added cashews if I had them. We'll be adding this one to our meal rotation.

Panera Mac and Cheese

Have you had the mac and cheese at Panera? If you haven't, do yourself a favor and get some now! If you have, you'll know how freaking amazing it is. This recipe on their site really is the same recipe. It's gold in my opinion. Definitely the best mac and cheese recipe I've found this year and believe me I'm a mac and cheese connoisseur. 

No Rise Pizza Dough

I used this recipe one night when I was craving pizza and didn't want to order out because we were just starting out with the budget. It's the easiest and best pizza dough I have found. I make it with rapid rise yeast (not sure if it really makes a difference) and half wheat flour and half all purpose then I use a small rolling pin and roll the dough flat in a cookie sheet. It makes a perfect thickness for our liking and is great topped with anything. 

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

These are amazing little gems of retro goodness. I thought they would be perfect for my madmen birthday party and they were. They are probably my favorite cupcake right now. I highly suggest making a half batch if you don't want to eat 12 all in one setting, because you will if you make them, I promise.

 

Crockpot Falafel 

Yes, falafel in the crockpot, you read correctly. These were AMAZING, incredibly crispy, and tasty! Sheldon made me make a second batch after we finished off the first one in a couple of days. They really were that good.

 

Pasta Spinach Salad

Again, another recipe I've made a few times because I love it so much and it's easy to take to work for lunch. Definitely keep the spinach separated and put a bed of it down on a plate under the pasta salad to keep the spinach nice and crisp! 

Feel free to share your favorite recipes in the comments below. Since one of my birthday goals is to make a new recipe a week I need suggestions.

I use pinterest a lot to keep track of recipes. I have a board for food I want to make and recipes I've tried with reviews for any of you who want more info about what I've been cooking lately..

Glittered Valentines

Since one of my big birthday goals is weekly DIY posts and it is February I thought I would start off with some Valentine DIYs. If you're not into the lovey dovey holiday don't worry, you can change up these projects to go along with anything. I think this project in particular would look great with black glitter for anti-valentines. 

You can really be as simple or elaborate with your supplies as you want. I used pre-made card banks from hobby lobby (but you can cut your own from card stock), Paper Glue, Glitter, double stick tape, scissors, paper trimmer, and a couple of border punches (these are a new obsession of mine and I keep buying them when they are 50% off or I have a coupon so you might see them in a few diys throughout the year). This isn't pictured, but blue painters tape could come in handy too, but it's not required. 

You're going to use two cards for this project. Trim up the edges so they are aligned when you over lap one card on top of the other then on the top card cut off about half an inch. Punch the edge that you trimmed. Now when you put the two cards together you'll have this edge that we're going to glitter.

Tape off the edge if you want, then add the glue. I painted it on nice and thick. The thicker the glue, the better your glitter will stick. Cover the whole surface with glitter. Tap off the excess and peel off the tape while the glue is still wet. Let the glue dry. Make sure you do this a day before you really need to so everything can be completely dry before the next step.

Your glittered card will be wrinkled from the glue but don't worry! Iron the card (glitter side down) on a no-steam setting and it will crisp right up.

*My friend Reagan says "Chin-up buttercup" all the time so this is a little nod to her :).

Use your double stick tape to tape all the edges of the card together get as close to the edge as you can if you overlap you can always trim the tape off later. Trim up the edges when you're done if you need to and fill it in with your own heartfelt message. 

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Want more fun Valentine's day inspiration? Check out the tutorial page! Valentine's Day is apparently one of my favorite holidays to do tutorials for.