Saturday, February 5, 2011

Sew Darn Crafty...Blog Party!!

I'm inviting you to another Linking Party! This party is all about YOU! What have you been up to in the sewing, knitting and crafting department? Well, Sew Darn Crafty is the place to share your projects. Link to any post that you'd like to share with everyone. Link to the specific post, not your whole blog...it makes it easier to find your project.

Linking parties are a great place to share your projects and it also brings new friends to your blog too. If you're having a give away and want more visitors to your blog...link up your give way for all to see. If you have an Etsy site where you sell your handmade crafts and need more traffic to your site...link up here!

No matter what you link up, we all love inspiration...that's why Sew Darn Crafty is the place to be.

Grab the button below for your post or your side bar and link to Sew Many Ways in your post to spread the word and more can join in!

Thanks for joining in,
~Karen~





The Best Chocolate Cake and Frosting Recipe...and a Party

Hubby turned 47 on Wednesday and I made him his favorite food...CAKE! Chocolate cake that is. This is the best recipe for both the cake and the frosting. The cake is super moist and chocolaty...and the frosting is whipped and creamy.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 (half) cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 (half) cup oil
2 Tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups cold water

Mix all ingredients in one bowl until well blended. Pour into greased pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 - 40 minutes or until pick comes out clean. There is enough batter to fill one 13x9 pan OR 2 rounds OR 2 squares. There isn't a typo in the ingredients...there are NO eggs in this recipe.

The Best Frosting Ever

1/4 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 (half) cup or one stick of butter, softened
1/2 (half) cup Crisco (shortening) I used butter flavor
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium sauce pan, whisk together the flour and the milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick. Remove from heat and cool completely.

In a larger bowl, mix together the butter, Crisco and the sugar. Beat on high for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, add the cooled flour/milk mixture and the vanilla. Beat until fully mixed together. Refrigerate if not ready to frost your cake.

Enjoy both these recipes.





I'm also having a blog party tomorrow to celebrate YOU! It's starts at midnight! You can link up any sewing, knitting or crafty project...That's why I named it Sew Darn Crafty! You can also link up any give away or etsy shop of your handmade crafts that you want to share. See you on Sunday. The link party will last the whole week. See that post for the details.
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Take care,
~Karen~


I'm Guest Posting...Let's Go For A Visit

Hi everyone...Chris from Pickup Some Creativity was "sew" nice to ask me to guest blog on her wonderful series "Sewing 101". She has so many wonderful guests who have shared sewing tips along the way. In my post, I have gathered up all my sewing organizational tips and put them into one post to help you organize your crafting/sewing space.
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Click here to the link to my post.

Hope you can pop over to her site and have a look around.
~Karen~


Sewing 101

Friday, February 4, 2011

Hand Metal Stamping...

I said Friday for this tutorial right? Better late on Friday than never! I promised I would show you how I taught myself how to metal stamp. The part about teaching myself should give you a hint that I am not an expert at this at all, but we all have to learn some where.

The first step is the steel metal stamps. I purchased my at Harbor Freight. Great service and fast shipping. This set is the full alphabet, numbers and the "&" sign. I know you can find a whole array of letter styles and symbols, but I wanted to start out with the basics, especially at a great price.





Here's the nice little box all the letters come in.




Each letter or number is on the end of the steel rod.






Beware when you get your set of stamps. They are coated in oil to prevent rusting! I just wiped my clean.



I'm sure the expert stampers use a steel or metal stamping block or area, but I just use our cement walkway or the garage floor. I know...not great for delicate sterling silver pendants, but I'm just practicing on 20 cent washers from the hardware store. DON'T hammer on tile floors for obvious reasons. Unless you want to replace your tile floors.



Set your letter where you'd like. Remember to make sure the letter isn't upside down!! See this picture below...this first strike made an upside down "S".



That's how I ended up stamping on the back of the washer on the rough side. Oh well, practice makes perfect right?



My advice in the beginning is to not try to make them all line up. Make them all crooked on purpose! To make the letters stand out, take a black permanent marker and color in over the letters.


On the first one I made for the bookmark, I stamped it on the smooth side and all the black ink rubbed off.


When you rub the surface, the ink stays inside the depth of the letters to show up more.


See that light hue of the black ink still in the rough texture of the washers? That won't happen if the surface is smooth.




You can make the bookmark like I did in the previous post, add a ribbon for a necklace, attach a key chain etc...





It's also great for stamping card stock or thick paper.



Make sure you stamp the paper with something thick underneath or you'll end up with an "S" on you butcher block desk...don't ask. I should take a picture of it. "S" for stupid!









I've been collecting old silver flatware from flea markets or thrift stores. I only paid 20 cents for some of these. If you look online, you'll find flatten spoons that are stamped and used for plant and herb markers. So cute.



For the best inspiration, go to Google Images and in the search bar type in hand metal stamps, hand stamped washers, hand stamped spoons, hand stamped crafts etc...
Or you can click on all these links below...

The best source for supplies and inspiration is Etsy. I typed in metal stamping and here's the link for that. Click here.

I hope this little bit of info will start you off on a new crafting adventure...like we all need to start a new hobby. LOL No hate mail for tempting you on a new project.

Have a great weekend,

~Karen~

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Lots of Requests for Metal Stamping...

Hello everyone...I had lots of requests and emails about the metal stamping on the bookmark I did in the tea and coffee post yesterday. I am definitely not an expert on this...still a newbie, but would love to share how it works with you.

I'll put together a post for Friday and Saturday and share what I know about it!! Hope you can come back for a visit!

It's easy, you just need to practice a little first.

See you tomorrow,
~Karen~



Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Tea or Coffee Anyone?...Craft Ideas and Organizing

Do you love to read books and drink tea...well, this project could be for you! I drink many different kinds of tea, but this particular box of tea bags has an extra goodie inside.




This might look like trash to you, but these cardboard dividers are always good for something.





Perfect size for a book mark. I know we can just cut up card stock and make one, but these are already done for you.


To pretty them up a little, I just glued on a strip of fabric. You can also use scrap booking paper too. I left a 1/4 inch margin on each side.



Punch a hole at the top...



and with a little ribbon and a doo dad for the end of the tie, your book mark is done.



I used a metal washer from the hardware store and stamped Love in the metal. It was my first attempt at metal stamping. This was my second washer and it's still a little crooked, but works for me!




edit...I put together a tutorial for metal stamping, so click here for that.


Now onto the coffee tip...I use these trays for many things. They are paper trays that I found in an office supply store in the clearance rack.



The best thing I use it for is the coffee pot we use every day. I keep the coffee pot tucked under our cabinets, in the corner and out of the way.



However, this particular coffee pot has to open on the top to put the coffee pods in, but the handle hits our upper cabinets and won't open up all the way.



Here's the fix. The coffee pot is in the tray. It just slides out very easily each time we need it.



Then it slides back under the cabinet when we're not using it. We could just slide the coffee pot, but most appliances have little skid pads on the bottom, so it doesn't move. The tray glides very smoothly.



We're in the middle of an ice storm here, so I think I'll have a cup of tea...or maybe coffee...or maybe both!
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Take care,
~Karen~

Monday, January 31, 2011

Tool Time Tuesday...Knitting Needle Holder

Welcome to another edition of TTT...where we always think outside the box! This week's idea comes from the hardware store again! Where else, right? I think I'm in the hardware store more than the fabric or craft store.

I've used PVC pipe in the past for several other projects...quilt design frames, games and dog gates. Today's idea came to me when my youngest daughter Kelsie started knitting over her Christmas break from college. She taught herself how to knit one night while we were both on our laptops together. I was on the computer writing a blog post and she was on her computer watching a YouTube instructional video on how to knit. She was knitting away by the end of the night.

Once family knew she was knitting, the supplies started rolling in. So where to store all the knitting needles?...PVC pipe of course! The picture below shows the pipe needle holder and the black scarf that she started. Isn't her scarf so cute...her first one.



I used 3/4 inch pipe and 2 end caps. A 10 foot piece of pipe is $1.62 and end caps are only 32 cents each. The pipe cuts easily with a saw, but you can always ask the men at the hardware store, they'll cut any thing for you.


I cut my pipe about 18 inches long to fit the needles she has, so the pipe and the 2 end caps total about 98 cents!


The end caps just go onto the ends very easily.



Just fill the pipe with your needles...maybe all one size in one tube and label the outside.





Squeeze on the other cap and you're good to go...knitting that is!



Stores easily in your knitting basket without any chance of getting poked.



They do sell wider pipe if you want to store all your needles in one tube.


No matter what size pipe you use, this is a quick and easy project and cheap too.



Now if we can convince the pvc company to manufacture the pipe in fashion colors. Wait...if we do that, they'll raise the price, especially if they knew we were using it for something fun. Maybe we can just spray paint it.
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What does PVC actually stand for...poly vinyl chloride. Boring! Well, for me it means...pretty valuable crafts! Click here for the other pvc projects.
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Happy Tuesday and see you in the aisles of the hardware store,
~Karen~

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