Mosaic Heart Stepping Stone Class

I poured stepping stone bases today for next Friday night's mosaic class.  It's a perfect way to wind down your week...come join the fun.  Any skill level welcome.   www.CreativeMeTime.com

Mother's Day Garden Party Brunch

Garden Party Perfect for Mother's Day
or Anytime!






























What You'll Need for Wreath
Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue
18" Grapevine Wreath
Garden Shears
9-3/4" Plastic Gazebo (found in cake decorating dept)
Spanish Moss
Flowers, Assorted Mini Silk or Dried Garland with Small Leaves
Fence, Miniature Wood

How to Make It
1. To make an area on wreath to hold gazebo, cut grapevine from about 1/4 of wreath, using garden shears. Pull wreath apart slightly.
2. Assemble gazebo, following manufacturer's instructions. Glue gazebo on prepared section of wreath, near center, referring to photo.
3. Glue moss and flowers around gazebo and on top of gazebo. Cut two pieces of fence to desired length. Glue on both sides of wreath. Let dry.
4. Wrap garland around wreath. Glue flowers and leaves on wreath. Refer to photo.

What You'll Need for Invitations, Food Tags and Favors
Aleene's Original Tacky Glue Sticks
Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue
Floral Paper
Decorated Edge Scissors
Parchment Paper, beige
Computer and Printer OR Pen
Blank Cards, beige
Spanish Moss
Porcelain Flowers, small
Bubble Envelope for each invitation, if mailing
Permanent Pens: white, black
Silk Leaves: 2 large for each favor
Flower Seeds
Flowers: Silk or dried
Ribbon, 1/2" wide yellow
Fence, Miniature Wood

How to Make Them

Invitations
1. Cut floral paper slightly smaller than card, using decorating edge scissors.
2. Print "Garden Party" on parchment paper, using computer and printer or write by hand.
3. Cut parchment paper slightly smaller than floral paper, using decorative edge scissors. Glue parchment paper on floral paper, using Glue Stick. Glue floral paper to card.
4. Glue a section of fence on parchment paper. Glue moss on bottom of fence and porcelain flowers on fence.
NOTE: Hand deliver these special invitations or mail in bubble envelopes.

Food Tags
1. Cut a section of fence and an extra fence post for each tag. Glue extra post at bottom of fence for stake. Let dry.
2. For label, cut a 1/2" x 1-1/4" piece from parchment paper. Write name of food on piece, using black permanent pen. Glue tag on fence. Let dry.

Favors
1. Write guest's name on a leaf, using white permanent pen. Glue two leaves together, leaving a 1" opening. Let dry. Fill with seeds. Glue shut. Trim edges, if necessary.
2. Glue silk or dried flowers along edge of leaf above name.
3. Tie a small two-loop bow. Glue bow at stem of leaves.
4. Print planting instructions on parchment paper. Cut out around instructions to make a 5" x 3-1/4" piece. Cut floral paper slightly larger than parchment piece. Glue parchment paper on floral paper, using Glue Stick. Glue favor on parchment paper.

What You'll Need for Fruit Dip
8 oz. Cream Cheese
Mixing Bowl
7 oz. Jar Marshmallow Cream
1/4 Cup Strawberry Preserves
Spoon
Small Bowl
Serving Plate
Knife
Assorted Fruit

How to Make It
1. Soften cream cheese in mixing bowl. Add marshmallow cream and strawberry preserves.
2. Stir ingredients by hand until smooth. Place in small bowl.
3. Place dip in center of serving plate.
4. Slice fruit into 1/4" wedges. Leave strawberries whole.
5. Insert Fruit Dip Food Tag.

What You'll Need for Canapes
White Bread
Sharp Knife
Oven
Pastry Brush
Butter of Margarine, melted
Gherkin Pickles
Cheddar Cheese (slices)
Spoon
Dry Italian Dressing Mix
8 oz. Package Cream Cheese (softened)
Serving Plate
Silk Flowers

How to Make Them
1. Remove crusts from bread. Cut each slice into four equal pieces.
2. Place oven tray 3"-4" from heat. Preheat oven to broil.
3. Brush one side of bread with melted butter or margarine. Place in oven. Toast 3-4 minutes or until golden brown on buttered side.
4. For flower leaves, make a thin lengthwise cut on two sides of pickle. For stems, cut a 1/8" x 2" piece from pickle. Cut cheese in Tulip shape, approximately 1" square.
5. For spread, stir dressing mix into cream cheese to taste. Just before serving, spread cream cheese mixture on unbrowned side of bread. Place pickles and cheese on spread.
6. Serve canapes on plate. Add a sprinkling of silk flowers.

We're having a Mother's Day Brunch for my mom this Sunday and I can't wait to make these yummy recipes and projects again!

Joan

Crafty Weekend at the Fair

I can't wait for some crafty fun tomorrow! The big county fair is in progress and I get to go up on stage in the Home Arts building and do a Craft Challenge. It's a friendly competition with a fellow employee and two volunteers from the audience - I hear we get a box of goodies and have 15 minutes to create something - anything!!! This is going to be soooo much fun! Hopefully I can get someone to take pictures during the madness. I see glitter and glue in my near future.

Saturday also holds a catch up phone call with a very dear friend. You know how you always say you'll stay in touch when someone moves away and how life gets in the way of doing that...my friend and I have set up the first weekend of EVERY month to catch up - it's a relaxing time with no interruptions and we just gab and gab about everything. It's so nice to have a friend that you can let your hair down with and they still like you.

The rest of the weekend is catching up and getting ready for next weekend! Lauren and I have talked many times about all the 'stuff' we have that we need to get rid of and we've both tried ebay and found it to be time consuming, so we decided in Vegas that we'd go to a local Flea Market and get rid of a bunch of stuff. We're making it easy on ourselves by sticking to a couple prices and just blowing all the stuff out. We have an added bonus - the flea market we're going to is very near Pattie Donham (aka Pattie Wack) so we're spending the night before at Pattie and Scott's house - AWESOME!!! The three of us haven't been together for years, so I'm sure we'll stay up late, giggle and have a great time.

Oh, we decided on the theme for our Halloween party - I can't let it out yet - but, we'll be working on our costumes over the next couple weeks...

BTW, I'm working on a Breast Cancer Awareness project that I'll post over the weekend.

Have a safe and creative weekend,

Joan

Birthday Present Fashion Art Fun!!!

It was a friends birthday recently and she was talking about needing to buy some new clothes - that sent the creative spark to my brain and I created two fun shirts - I really got into it! I didn't want to stop creating and you'll see from my next post that I went on to make more fun stuff!

Pretty in Pink and Sparklies
Here's what I did:

I used Fuchsia Tulip One-Step Fashion Dye. For easy clean-up, I put a plastic garbage bag in my shower, placed my crumpled up T-shirt on the bag, added water to the dye bottle, applied it and just let it sit. Later, I ironed on the Tulip Iron-On Fashion Designs - I had so much fun!

Lovely in Lavender

On the lavender T-shirt, I used the brand new Tulip Sticky Fabric Stencils - the adhesive is already on the back, so I just placed it on the T-shirt, dabbed in some Tulip Soft Fabric Paint but then it needed just a little something more so I added Tulip Iron-On Crystals. Again, it was a fast, easy project!

Now, to wrap and pack up the creations! I can't wait to hear how she likes them!

jI'm very excited!!!

I'm off to San Diego to ring in the new year! I haven't been there for ages and it will bring back many memories of the 4 years I lived there. It will be an interesting journey for me. Of course, I'm taking my camera to take some hopefully awesome photos of the area and of some creative things that I spot.

Resolutions! Yes, I've been thinking about them and will continue to think about them - I'm a goal oriented kind of gal, so this time of year just begs for me to come up with some challenging things to pursue.

Definitely one of my resolutions is to craft more and create something for me! Maybe a life collage...

Until next week, have a safe and creative weekend.
Joan

Not Your Ordinary Party...

Doug's holiday party was phenomenal!!! (see next post for more details about Doug and the party)

Not only did Doug go all out with decorations and food, he provided us with entertainment - and it wasn't your usual entertainment.

Find the Pickles and Find the Fairies - Doug had hidden 3 fairies who "needed to find their way home" and two Christmas Pickles - we scurried around inside and out and had great fun finding the unusual items.

Make a Christmas Tree - This idea is wonderful for any age - Doug had green and beige paper, a whole lot of embellishments and of course, Aleene's Original Tacky Glue set out on a table. Notice I didn't mention scissors - nope, we couldn't use scissors. We folded, we creased, we tore, we calculated - we had fun! Check out our creativity. It was also great fun to just sit, chat and dance around to Christmas music as we made our trees. (It's Monday morning and I'm hearing from lots of people that their tree isn't shown here, so you'll be seeing more soon! Doug tells me he's bringing them all in so we can vote.)

Smores - We huddled around Doug's backyard firepit and made smores! See, Matt, I did put up your photos!!! (Matt's been not so secretly wanting to be on my blog and see what I'd write!)

Matt, Megan and Josh making the perfect smores!