Come for the award, stay for the idea!

Thanks to everyone who blog-hopped to my Mad Tea Party! And a HUGE thank you to Vanessa for hosting - it was SO much fun!

I hope you will forgive me being so late in posting the giveaway winner but I spent a long weekend at my friend's house with her and her 6 week old baby. That's a pretty good excuse, hmm?

And the winner is....


Brittany!

Sneaky job Brittany! It was that second "already a follower" entry that got you the prize. So congratulations! Just send your address to mollythepirate@yahoo.com and I'll get your goodies in the mail!

I just love giveaways; so much fun. :)

On to the idea!

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For all of us Americans our 4th of July Independence Day celebration usually means a barbecue, a picnic, some kind of gathering in the sunny outdoors. I don't know about you, but my plastic utensils are all completely mismatched now. I refuse to buy new when these will do but I'd like it to look less like I ran around to camp or picnic sites stealing a knife here and a fork there. To add a little unification and to take some of the hassle out of the food line I bundled the utensil sets inside a napkin and bound it together with a festive paper flower in flag colors.




The flower I made using the same instructions from this post. Instead of leaving them white as I did there, I watered down some acrylic craft paint and applied it like I did in this post. Do you like how I'm making you run all over my old posts to get to the finish line? I promise I'm not just being mean. :)

When your flowers are ready this is how I wrapped them:

How cute is that?

If you'd like a little something to give to friends and neighbors you could try what I did, and just leave it as a bouquet. Just a little something to say "Happy 4th!"

And all it's going to cost is computer printer paper, paint, some floral wire and a little time.

Mustard?! Now let's don't be silly.

A little birdie told me there was a party, a mad tea party, hosted by A Fanciful Twist...

(Be sure to get in on the giveaway at the end of the post!)

It's a good thing I have the appropriate attire! My great uncle Heinz's hat...and he was a magician no less.

Hat? Check. Key to secret rooms? Check. Pocket watch dripping with tea and jam (because...that's how you fix it you know). Check. Unbirthday cake? Double check.

Someone shrank my unbirthday cakes! That's what I get for wearing a magician's hat instead of something more ladylike.

I also call this one my Frankencake. ;)

And because this is a craft blog: I made the unbirthday cakes out of garbage! Well it doesn't sound appetizing when you say it that way. Scrap cardboard, paper scraps, felt scraps and other fabric scraps literally dug out of the garbage (remember how I told you the people I was house-sitting for had an amazing quilting room? They had a really fun garbage can full of scraps too!) All embellished with glitter and rick rack and sequins.

Ready for the giveaway?

To win my "tea with cream" earrings (see full description here) just leave me a comment! To get another entry and my everlasting gratitude add yourself to my lovely followers. :)

Already a follower? You still get that second entry. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you're following/just added yourself to followers. Good luck!

Putting garage sale goodies to use

Check out the other projects in this week's Trash to Treasure Tuesday over at Reinvented!

My first garage sale of the year! I know, I'm so behind! I did find a few goodies that I knew I could put to use. The crinkle paper (20 cents for both bags) will be perfect to ship my etsy goodies in; the hole punch (one dollar) will help me make tags and the shelf? ...

Izzy wanted to know why I was taking pictures of this dumb stuff instead of something cute like her, so I had to oblige.

The shelf was spray painted black (to match the other deck accessories) and is now the perfect spot to hang my drying herbs and flowers.

I believe it was a cup and saucer shelf - you can see the grooves running along the top where a saucer or plate could sit. And of course the cup hooks. :)

Gone are the horrible 80's tones and in are patina pots and fragrant plants. I'd say that's an improvement! And all it cost was a dollar and some spray paint.

See yesterday's post for another trash to treasure project!

And be sure to stop by this Saturday, the 27th for the Mad Tea Party! There will be confections and curlicues and...a giveaway!

The fifty cent IKEA frames transformation

Not that fifty cent - they cost me fifty cents each because they were in the as-is section! I was originally going to make the frames for this project from scrap cardboard but when I saw these I knew they'd be perfect! They had "good bones" as they say.



Seriously scratched up plastic insert went bye-bye and then I covered the blah blue color with scrapbook paper, edged them in grosgrain ribbon and made little layered felt flowers to cover my seams. I also created a mat with cardstock, by simply cutting out the center.

Don't they look oh-so-much better?

Yes they are quite girly, but they are going in a baby girl's room so that's to be expected. Each frame will hold a photo of the grandparents so baby can always have her family nearby.

A clover, a bee, and revery

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.


~Emily Dickinson

I was daydreaming, staring at the lawn, watching the honeybees flit about on my glorious crop of clover (please hear the sarcasm in that). I'm pretty sure the lawn is more clover and moss than it is grass.

I was tearing out enormous clumps of it when I realized I couldn't win.

Fine. I told the clover.

I'm going to make something desirable out of you. I threatened.

And away I stalked to the computer (but of course!).


I discovered something wonderful! Clover is grand! And most importantly? Useful!

I found some uses for it here, and now that I have a huge supply of free material to fertilize my garden...well let's just say I'll be all smug when my garden grows to huge, healthy proportions. Plus my honeybees love it, and I love having them around, so I guess I can put up with it.

As I sat, studying and pondering the clover I realized it actually has a fantastic shape to the blossom - pretty really. Which of course got the hamster wheels turning in my mind.




What do you think? Not bad for something I once despised, hmmm?



Gather and dry a quantity of clover blossoms. The less open they are the better because they are more likely to retain their shape while drying.


I used scissors to cut large sections of blossoms and then raked them up with my hands into a shallow cardboard box and let them set for about a week. Don't want to do this alone? Let the kids help! They can pinch the blossoms off the stem with their little fingers. Just be sure to watch out for those honeybees.


I used a medium-sized styrofoam ball and attached a ribbon thus:

With a little hot glue for good measure.

Now that you have something to hang it with (and the ribbon step could be omitted completely if you just want your lovelies sitting in a bowl.)

I started near the center of the ribbon and hot glued the blossoms.

That's pretty much it! Just keep going until you've covered the entire ball. It's a little tedious, but no more so than any other similar project. I found that if I placed a one half to one inch line of glue and quickly stuck the blossoms in it went rather quickly.

A Summer tea party anyone? Wedding maybe?

If you didn't like stark white ribbon against the "antiqued" look of the dried blossoms, try soaking it in a cup of tea until the ribbon looks right to you.

Nature-inspired with a slight vintage look this project certainly doesn't look like most of the supplies came free from the yard.

Beyond the Garden Gate

One Saturday I happened to be in the Battleground, Washington area and got to visit a place I've been hearing about for months - Beyond the Garden Gate. If you live in the Portland Metro area you should absolutely take a drive to visit this little gem.



This is not one of those huge, only looks homey but is totally cookie cutter kind of shops - it's on her place in a little room that looks like a garden shed. Icicle lights dangle from the open rafters and cast a magical glow. Oh yeah and a big fake cow stands watch outside.



She sells vintage, handmade (plenty of local items as well as her own creations), and gourmet foods and goodies in every nook and cranny.

This large barnwood star and little bench cost around $19 for both. Yeah! (The little bench was four dollars!) I also got a punched metal heart that is now hanging on my bedpost and a raspberry truffle, but that one is long gone my friends. :)

Beyond the Garden Gate can be found at

17414 NE 199th St.

Battle Ground, WA 98604

I have no clue what her hours are but you can give her (Cathy) a call at 360-687-0075 and find out.

House-sitting: watch reruns on TV or....

...take along enough craft supplies to last you a year (let alone two weeks) and make a HUGE list of things to accomplish?

How about both?

I made two more kusudama (kusudamas? kusudami?) and let me tell you that folding 120 squares of paper is one of those things that makes a great "do this while you watch tv" deals. I've never watched NCIS before, but I remember seeing something about it on Missie Zee's blog so I've now seen more episodes than I care to admit (there have been two marathons this week). But hey! The kusudamaseses are finished.















I also managed to start another set of wool dryer balls as well as work on those IKEA frames from way back when (pictures will come when they are finished). ALSO got another cell phone cozy done - my brother's girlfriend's mom wanted one and her purse is pink soooo:

My second ever blanket stitch project. I'm...umm...learning. :)

If you missed my first post on this project you can find the tutorial here.

I also have some Fourth of July/Independence Day hostess gifts/centerpiece projects in the works so be sure to come back and check those out.

The good: the woman of the house is an avid crafter herself and has a whole basement full of crafty goodness. You should see her quilting room. Seriously.
And they have all kinds of movies I've been wanting to see and haven't got around to yet.

The bad: dial up. Guhhhhhhhh! It's okay I'll live. :) Only one more week.


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Brittany at Food for Thought has awarded me with a Premio Meme Award! And I'm supposed to tell you seven things about my personality:

1 - Unflappable - I can keep a fairly calm demeanor throughout most any situation. And I've been in some very. interesting. situations.

2 - Feisty - could be short woman syndrome (instead of little man syndrome), but I am no shrinking violet.

3 - Corny - I love dumb jokes and puns and silly word play and stuff like that. Like, "I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me."

4 - Creative - I hope! Haha. There are a few creative things I haven't gotten into, like quilting and scrapbooking, but in general I love to try things. I'm currently trying to learn to solder well. Hmmm.

5 - Quietly rebellious - I follow rules but I like loopholes. Like how I'm looking to buy a 1971-72 Chevy truck (like this one) because then it will be old enough I won't have to take it through DEQ every couple years. Sticking it to the Man! Bwahaha!

6 - I'm a Lit Nerd - I'm the one who will laugh hysterically at the Duke and the King butchering Shakespeare's plays in that scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'm the one who was watching Psych and when there was a scene with a boat named "Rocinante" said, "That's Don Quixote's horse!"

7 - A listener - I think I must look like someone who you should pour out to because I seem to get that a lot. Which is okay! And I don't think I even need to give advice for everything, sometimes just hearing and sharing is helpful too.