WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO AND SO SHOULD YOU!

Fright Night (Nevermore) by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

obsessed

-Jerica-

DIY: PORCELAIN PEN ON MUGS

Here is a project that is all around Pinterest that we did with our friends Alix and Katherine. It is so simple, all you need are porcelain or ceramic mugs (ours were all from the thrift store) and some porcelain pens for a new mug set! This could be a fun DIY gift to make for someone, pair it up with some hot chocolate mix or this homemade chai tea mix and you're good to go! The porcelain pens I picked up were from Micheal's because Hobby Lobby didn't seem to have any, however I couldn't find the ones that you can bake in the oven to set the drawing. So make sure you handwash these babies only and be very gentle when washing the drawing because it may come off, as you would expect! Also the paint can come off if the drink is extremely hot, so I would recommend not drawing on the inside of the mug unless you use the ones that can be baked, so that you don't die! You can find the designs that Amy and I used for our trees here. 

My mugs:

I found the mug with the little brass knuckles from the thrift store, its my favorite! I chose all white mugs so it would still look like a cohesive set even though they are all different styles.

Amy's mugs:

Katherine's mugs:

See what you can come up with!

-Jerica-

CHALKBOARD PICTURE FRAMES

Another simple and easy project. I realize that when it comes to crafting I have ADD. It takes me forever to finish one project before I start the next. And Pinterest does not help that little problem at all. This little project I have been meaning to do for over a year! 

I have been collecting picture frames for quite some bit of time. I am attempting to fill up one whole wall with scattered frames. but due to extreme laziness and being cheap I have been avoiding printing pictures that aren’t the regular 5x7. Soooo they have basically been hanging up on my wall blank for a good year. Did it look cool? Not even a little bit. So today I finally decided to do something about it with my handy dandy chalk board spray paint.i think the pictures are pretty clear on how I did it…. but if it requires some directions here is a very very simple step by step.

1. Run the glass in a dishwasher on hot and steam dry to get those stubborn thrift store tags off. Or soak in hot soapy water for a half hour.
2. Follow instructions on the Chalk Board spray paint. It will require a couple of layers and time between each layer to dry.
3. Put back in frame and draw to your heart’s content.

I should also note that I did use white paint on two of the chalk board frames to make the texts more permanent and visible. Sooooo essentially I could have just used black spray paint…but I didn’t.  =)

-Amy-

THRIFTING TIPS

Crafting supplies are soooooo expensive. A little tip for crafting is search for tools, supplies, and even inspiration at your local thrift stores! And if you have any old folks handy bring them with for 50% senior discounts! Haha now don't think I'm abusing the seniors-my parents probably love thrifting more than I do, so why not go thrifting with them and save an extra few bucks. Even before thrifting was hip my parents have been clothing me with thrift finds since the day I was born. I use to think it was so embarrassing and cheap but now I'm 22 making my own money and realizing the value of thrifting! My awesome finds today were stained glass paints, embroidery threads, buttons, paint, clay, and measuring cups for baking!

Last week I also got this awesome old recipe box with recipes still in it!! And some sweet old mason jars. Can't wait to try out some of these recipes. Especially the stuffed hearts...

 

-Amy-

DIAMONDS ON MY MIND

 

Working on a logo idea! This was done on Adobe illustrator as a little doodle for a class project but I am loving how it turned out! Especially the one with the outline removed! Of course edited in Instagram- my lazy attempt of photoshop. ;)

 I played around some more with cutting bits and pieces out and got a western looking cow skull out of it! Triangles are a magical shape!

-Amy-

BLACK PHOENIX ALCHEMY LAB

I found this amazing company, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, that hand-makes countless scents. They set out to capture smells of storybook characters and places based on story excerpts or experience. There’s actually a scent for each Alice in Wonderland character! Their inspiration comes anywhere from to H.P. Lovecraft,to video game characters, to countries themselves. The Amsterdam scent is described as “Tulips, peony, fresh flowing water and crisp green grasses.” While some of them may not be ideal for a perfume, the idea of capturing a country’s or person’s essence is such a fantastic idea. Makes me want to watch the movie Perfume!

-Jerica-

WOOD BURNING KNOBS

Greatest find ever. Okay maybe not really but I was pretty damn excited when I found this jar of knobs. I have been looking for vintage knobs and came across a few in Europe but they were prettttty pricey! A little fancier but these are awesome because they are wood!

Whichhhh means I get to use my wood burner again! I have been going a little crazy with it and its not the best tool (considering it was 10 bucks) so you can definitely feel the heat. My hands kind of feel like they are on fire right now… probably not a good thing but they look okay at least.

I went with the chevron design for my first attempt since it is the easiest print for me to do and its hard to mess it up. That explains why everything I do has that pattern, if anyone was wondering. Its just a good experiment design. So basically did what I have been doing burning and painting baybayyy. Also if you haven’t noticed there has been a repetition with the paint I use. Again simple explanation; It's all I have. Everything else is dried up or quite the opposite, too watery!

-Amy-

WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO AND SO SHOULD YOU!

Icarus by White Hinderland

-Jerica-

BUNTING IDEAS

Here are a couple examples of bunting I have around the house! These are very easy and require no sewing. For the one in the bedroom I used fabric, scrapbook paper, and some paint samples, which are great because they’re free and you can get any colors you want! For the one above the table I used fabric paint on white fabric I cut up from an old sheet. To string I just took a needle and threaded it once in and once out, so it was just one large stitch.

 -Jerica-

BEER BATTER CHOCOLATE BACON MAPLE CUPCAKES

This is definitely a cupcake that is suited for the students of CU Boulder. Its the ultimate munchies cupcake- Beer Battered Chocolate Bacon Cupcake with Maple Syrup Frosting. Drooooool. I got this recipe from another blogger who was inspired by one of my favorite shows! Two Broke Girls.
I absolutely loveeeeeeee bacon. A few months back I made some bacon chocolate chip cookies and packaged them in some mason jars for some wonderful classmates that were super helpful in a group project (I’ll post that recipe up soon). As for the other chocolate cupcakes I made last time… meh. The flavoring was great but the texture was too dense. Once I tweak that recipe a bit I will post it!

-Amy-

I AM SEEING TRIANGLES

Triangles are my inspiration today. Not sure why but I am loving them at the moment. For another project I had to pick my favorite letter and create a graphic rendition of it in which the letter remains intact but is not as recognizable. I chose the letter A.... slightly narcissistic apparently. I am not going to lie this probably wont get me an A. I spent less than a half hour on this- when I was suppose to at least dedicate an hour to this project. I guess I shouldn't have waited till the last minute. 

-Amy-

NOSSA NOSSA!

I am having a nostalgic moment. For one of my class projects- did I mention that although I just graduated a few months back I am back in school! Job searching is way boring- more so than school sooooo I decided to go back to school! Anyways for one of my classes we have to create a montage/postcard/photo collection whateverrrrr about either one emotion or traveling. Sort of a loose guideline - but either one. Since I spent the last year traveling that seemed perfect for me. This project got me thinking about some of the amazing places I got to go to this past year. After graduating last December I have gone to all of the following places:

Pernambuco, Brazil
Santa Catarina,  Brazil
Seoul, South Korea
Busan, South Korea
New Orleans
San Fransisco

London

Paris
Venice

Rome

Florence

Heidelberg

Barcelona

Madrid

Brussels
Lucerne

 I think that is all... for now. Oh yeah and Vegas. Lots and lots of Vegas this past year haha. Turning 21 is baddd. The photo above is from my trip to Brazil. It was taken after a hike up these beautiful sand dunes at a beach in Florianópolis. I went to Brazil to visit one of my great friends Grazielle and adorable as she is surprised me with a ROAD TRIP! We drove from her home city Goiana, Pernambuco to Florianópolis Santa Catarina-which is a beach town. We stayed in this beautiful beach house that was a 10 walk to the beach and a 5 minute walk to the boardwalk shopping. It was so amazing- every meal we had fresh mango in our salads, tons and tons of delicious steaks, and giant ( and I mean giant!) avocados. The avocados pits alone are the size of the whole avocados that I buy here at home. I spent this whole month in Brazil eating. I swear I gained at least 10 lbs. Even laying out on the beach consisted of tanning and eating! I barely even went swimming- that whole 30 minute of waiting before swimming would be a waste of eating time! On the beach they sold ice cold coconut water ( in the coconut), corn on the cob with salt and butter, roasted cheese on a stick rolled in herbs ( that they roast in front of you), and my favorite dulce de leche filled churros with sprinkles. Brazil is without a doubt Heaven on earth. Amazinggggg.
Might I add that this song "Ai Se Eu Te Pego" by Michel Telo has been the anthem of all of my trips! Every where I go, and I mean ever where, this song has been playing nonstop. I thought it was a Brazilian thing but no its a whole world kind of thing. 

-Amy-

IS IT POSSIBLE TO PUT THIS NIGHT TO TUNE AND MOVE IT TO YOU?

I am getting at that age when all of my dear friends (myself included) are graduating and getting to that point where we are starting to figure what we are doing with our lives and where we are going. Quite the turning point in our lives- I am still trying to figure out if I want to stay here in Colorado or go somewhere far and new. I just need to take that leap! Just like my dear friend Alix! She is off to California in the next few weeks to begin her sweet adventures.

Since she is leaving soon last night we had a little get together with drinks at 303 Distillery in Boulder. One of my favorite place for a chill night. We had a late night out the night before so we wanted to take it easy and shared a few drinks, a Vootbeer and a Dreamsickle. Deliciousssss- both made with gluten free potato vodka.  As a goodbye present I made Alix this map highlighting her two homes!

This was inspired by a pin on Pinterest- well many pins. I am not sure which is the original but props to them for their clever creativity!  This is my version of it. Since Alix was moving I wanted to make her something related to Colorado and I loved this state/nail/tread art project. However Colorado is possibly the most boring shaped state on the map. Seriously it would have just looked like a box on a board. So I had to brainstorm! I decided to go with the whole country and highlight her two homes California and Colorado.

The process is pretty simple- sorry I didn't document it with photos on my camera so I have a lower resolution version from my ipad that I will include.

It is a lot easier than it looks for the most part.

Materials:

Wooden Plaque

Nails ( 3/4 inch)- try to pick something with a larger head

Hammer

Tread

Print out 

Wood Stain

Super glue- with brush

1. Print out shape of the state or shape of whatever it is you want to do for this project.

2.Varnish your wooden plaque with whatever stain you want and let it dry a bit. I was impatient and immediately started working on the nail parts before it dried and pretty much stained my hands and my clothes with the varnish. I also hammered the plaque all over the place to create a beat up old version.

3.Cut out as close as you can to create a template.

4. Lay it down on your plaque. You can also tape it down so it doesn't shift when you're hammering to keep it from sliding around.

5. Hammer the edges down to create an outline. I just eyeballed the spacing. I did them pretty close to create a more defined outline.

6. Once the outline is nailed down you can just rip it out and begin threading!

7. Threading was the most frustrating part- mainly because the nails I chose had pretty much no head to them. This caused the thread to slide right off every time I tried to wrap them around. But if you get a better type of nail then this wont be a problem for you at all. I had to hold each piece down as I wrapped and create a lot of tension to keep it in place. I didn't have superglue till the end of the project but if I did I would brush each nail tip after I was done with the thread to keep them from moving. Instead I did it at the end to sealllll the dealllllllllll!

For the treading pattern all the ones on Pinterest had strings either did it  in random directions and colors or one color all coming to one point to make a uniformed looked. I tried both- but with doing the entire United States it just did not look as good to me. So I played around for a bit and eventually made each point to make a triangle. I redid this shape in different sizes and directions until it covered most of the open space. I then did the same with the highlighted states but with a brighter color tread.  I also kept all the thread ends hanging to create a vintage vibe to it.

-Amy-

WOOD BURNING OUTLET COVERS

More wood burning! I found these old outlet covers at the thrift store some time ago and had no idea what I wanted to do with them. Oh life was hard before my amazing wood burning tool! The only thing is that these are already varnished so it smokes up a bit when I am trying to draw with the burner.

-Amy-

DIY INSPIRATION BOARD

Here’s a project I did recently that only took me about 45 minutes! I wanted to redo my desk area and found inspiration here. All you need is some cork board (I got a pack of four with a sheet of double sided tape at hobby lobby for $9) some white paint, and painter’s tape. Because they are stuck on the wall with double sided tape, you can remove them and switch the pattern so it looks more like this. Either way is great!

MATERIALS
Cork Board
Painters Tape
White paint
Double sided tape to hang

DIRECTIONS
1. Take the painter’s tape and line it up on the cork board.
2, Take the second square and place the tape strips diagonally, making sure the tape lines up with the tape from the first one. I didn’t do any measuring and just eyeballed it because I was doing it on my lunch break from work and was too excited!
3. Paint a few layers of white paint on the open spots and be careful around the edges of the tape so it won't bleed. I had to do a few touch ups where the lines didn’t quite match up, but I think it turned out pretty gooood.

-Jerica-

DIY LEATHER WALLET

This is a fairly easy project. Something I came up with on a whim. While I was shopping for other craft supplies I saw that HobbyLobby sold some small pieces of leather. Which I have been thinking about getting for various other projects I saw on Pinterest. But I got a pretty small strip and not enough to do anything to big or crazy with. It was pretty pricey so I wanted to try working with leather first before I bought a bunch and started something big and destroyed it. Since I am terrible with my cards (I lose them on a monthly basis) I decided to make a wallet with the strip of leather I got.

MATERIALS:Leather
Leather cutter
Thread
Thick and pointy! sewing needle
Scissors
Paint

The strip was pretty much already cut to the width of my cards so I did a rough measurement by sticking a card inside and folding it over hamburger style twice so it made a bottom and a flap- cutting off the excess with this rolling fabric cutter that I found in the basement ( still in its wrapper from like the 90s!) I suckkkkkkk at sewing so the craftsmanship on this is pretty shitty but I’m just going to call it my practice round! I painted the top with some regular paint and just use some of the scrap for an accent piece on it.

-Amy-

CORN CHOWDER- FOR THOSE COLD DAYS TO COME!

Mmm today I made corn chowder from a recipe my friend Jessica gave me! I changed it up a little because it wasn’t as spicy as I wanted it to be. It was amazing though.

Vegetarian Chile Pepper & Corn Cream Chowder

2 TBS butter
1 C. Chopped Onion
2 Anaheim Peppers ( I used 4)
1/2 C. thinly sliced celery
1 pkg. frozen corn (16 oz) ( I also threw in some peas cause I love them)
12 oz. red potatoes diced
4 C. whole milk
6 OZ. cream cheese ( I used fat free- granted this is already unhealthy so it probably made no difference)
salt and pepper to taste
(Then I threw in some Cayenne peppers, chili powder, and garlic powder- to taste.)

1. melt butter in large saucepan over medium-high add onion, peppers and celery cook & stir 5 MINUTES
2. move into big soup pan and add corn, potatoes and milk. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
3. Remove from heat add cream cheese salt and pepper. stir until cream cheese is melted.
EAT AND ENJOY!

-Amy-

DIY WALL PLAQUES

On a random shopping spree at Walmart I came across this awesomeness! A two in one burning tool for wood or stenciling. Check it out here: you will LOVE it. It has become my new favorite crafting tool! I had some extra wood plaques that was left over from my picture transferring onto wood project, I decided to put them to use and see what happens.

During a moment lapses of creativity (and as a practice piece) I decided to use the blog title and play with a font I found on Jerica’s Pinterest and one of my logo ideas. I did some accents with some acrylic paint and voila! On another plaque I decided to burn lyrics from one of my favorite songs, Pachuca Sunrise by Minus the Bear. The lyrics are “This is a city for not sleeping and the clocks are set by feel, at this moment from where I sit none of it seems real”. ooooo so deep and meaningful haha. But really it is one of my favorite songs.

The only thing with using this tool is that its hard to get the fonts exactly how you want them especially when they have curves in them. It could possibly be because of the head I used but the other additional heads that came with the kit did not heat up as hot. I am definitely one that likes instant gratification so I didn't want to wait around redoing each letter to get the dark scorch marks on each of the letters. The tip I used was the angled tip.

Since the plaques were a light color and looked unfinished I tried a stain that has been all over Pinterest! Are you seeing a theme here? Pinterest Pinterest Pinterest. I soaked some old nails and steel wool in apple cider and absamic vinegar to get a gray wood stain. I had to let the mixture sit for almost 24 hours before the color actually started to become apparent. So hard for me to wait that long but I did it! Add a coat or 2 for a darker shade.

-Amy-

DIY: BATH SALTS, BATH FIZZ AND BATH OIL

I have the most adorable boss ever. But unfortunately in the world of retail things get really stressful for her. She always does nice little things for all of us, I decided this time I wanted to do something for her. I decided to make her some bath goodies to help her mellow out and wind down after a day of hell that comes from retail. My house smells like a bomb of lavender and lemons has exploded! Everyone in the house will be intoxicated to relaxation to say the least.

For her relaxation kit I made a lemon sugar scrub, Lemongrass and Lavender bath oil, Lavender bath salts (hallucination free mind you), and some Bath Fizz (directions found here).

Bath Salts:

3/4 Cup Epsom Salt

1/2 Cup Sea Salt

1/4 Cup Baking Soda

8 Drops of Pure Lavender Essential Oil

Blue and Purple Food Coloring

1. Mix all dry ingredients together

2. Add in drops of oil and coloring and mix

Bath Fizz:

1/2 C citric acid

1 C baking soda

2/4 c organic cane sugar

food coloring

10-15 drops essential oil

spray bottle, silicone ice cube tray

1. Mix all dry ingredients together

2. Mix food coloring/oil/water in spray bottle and spritz as you mix everything together till it all sticks

3. Set in mold

I used these cheeeeeeesy flower molds because that is all Walmart had. I also used some mini cupcake holders too.

Bath Oil:

1. carrier oil- I used Almond oil and olive oil

2. lemongrass and lavender essential oil- I used 7 drops of lemon grass and 13 of Lavender.

-Amy-

WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO AND SO SHOULD YOU!

Amber by Labyrinth Ear

-Jerica-

HOMEMADE VANILLA CHAI MIX

This is the most amazing vanilla chai mix, so creamy and full of flavor. Some of the ingredients are harder to find, like the cardamom. I got lucky because my boyfriend’s mom heard I was on the prowl for some and gave me hers. To store it, I grabbed an old green chili jar, spray-painted the lid gold, then mod-podged a label on. It makes a great gift, especially with fall coming up!

Vanilla Chai Mix

• 1 Cup Non Fat Dry Milk Powder
• 1 Cup Powdered Non Dairy Creamer
• 1 Cup French Vanilla Powdered Non Dairy Creamer
• 1/2-2 Cups Sugar
• 1/2-1 Cups Unsweetened Instant Tea 
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper (or black!)

To make the mix, grind up all the larger stuff (the powdered milk, creamer, sugar, and instant tea) in the blender first, then add all of the spices after and mixed those in. The consistency should look like cocoa powder mix. Add to hot water or milk to taste.

-Jerica-

PORTOBELLO MUSHROOM BURGER

Gorgeous day to have lunch outside in Colorado. Made a delicious portobello mushroom burger with an avocado yogurt spread! So simple! Just grill the portobello with oil, sea salt, and black pepper. And for the spread mash together half an avocado, 2 tablespoons of yogurt, some minced garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Eassssssssy and quick.

-Amy-