Hey, you!

   

 Wowzers! It's been a year since I've posted! A lot has changed in a year. Boyfriend became Fiancé, he proposed to me on Valentine's day! We are planning a wedding for next fall! We also bought our first place! I am very proud of us that we bought and paid for it and that we own it. We put a lot of work into it going in, so we did pretty well for ourselves. Anyway, we've been living in our new place since April, and I've been doing lots of crafty little things, but I made something a few days ago that I thought would be super cute to post pictures of, but I'll get to that in a minute.

    Last week I put up my Christmas decorations! I know, it's  not even Thanksgiving yet, what was I thinking? But, I wanted my house to be pretty for Thanksgiving, and Fiancé's family was going to come over the weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving with us early so that we could go to my family's on Thursday. So, I put up my $5 tree that I thrifted last year and a few cute decorations, I didn't want my place to be over the top Christmas-y. 

    I've taken up Pen Pal-ing! I hand write letters to four girls in the U.S. and I have an email buddy from the UK. It's so much fun writing on pretty stationery and putting in stickers or just something special for the reader. And I love going to the mail box and finding a letter from a pen pal. I would much rather find a letter than a bill! It just amazes me how cultures are so different, even with my pals in the U.S. sometimes I have to explain certain things, which, of course, is no problem. And I have to say, when I started pen pal-ing I was very into writing letters and sending them through mail and I wasn't sure if I could afford international shipping, cause lets face it, just sending a letter internationally is EXPENSIVE, not to mention the amount of time it would take to get the letter to it's destination. So, when I got an email asking if I was still looking for pen pals from my (now) friend in the UK, we agreed to email each other instead, and I have to say, I love that too. Don't get me wrong, I still love the handwritten letters and the excitement of seeing one in my mail box, but I also love that the emails are so much faster, I can get a response in a few days rather than a week or longer. So, I guess, to sum up, shout out to my pen pals! You're all wonderful!

    Anyway, a few of my pen pals and I are doing a package exchange for Christmas. Just a few things, nothing expensive, to send to a pal to let them know you were thinking of them. Here are the packages I put together:

1. a NC post card
2. a NC key chain
3. a hand sewn (by me!) pouch, it's small enough for a key chain or purse and has plenty of room on the inside to hold money or lip gloss
4. a pair of hand made (by me, again!) earrings
5. a Santa hair clip (also made by me!) ^^This is what I'm going to show you how to do
6. and a few cutesy little pens!

I love these little pouches. They're so cute, and easy to make! It only took about an hour to put each one together, and that's with cutting out the shapes and pinning things and the sewing. I had the zippers already, but I got the fabric from Wal*Mart. They have, in the craft section, these large rectangular fabric swatches that are about 10-12 times the size of the pouches I made. I got four different patterned fabrics and cut out two squares (the whole piece of fabric was folded down to the pouch size, so when laid out flat it has all of the folds indented, so I cut out two of those squares) for the outside of the pouch, and two squares of a different fabric for the inside to line it. I also attached a little piece of fabric to attach to a key ring. 

The hair clips are also super easy. Made from felt, which you can get at any craft store, and attached to a hair pin, which you can also get at any craft store. I just cut out the shapes, put in a few stitches to hold it all together, and hot glued to a hair pin. I've already made all of my Santa faces, but I thought I could show you a few pictures of the process while I made a turkey one:

I cut out the shapes I was going to use, and I sewed them on. For the Santa face I just used four basic colors, white for the beard and hat lining, red for the nose and hat, black for the eyes and tan for the face. The turkey had a dark brown body, a rainbow color of feathers- red, green, purple, and yellow- and I cut out the same kind of shape that I used for the feathers to make wings on the front, then a little white and black for eyes, a yellow beak and a bit of red for that little dangly thing (what's that called?). These are super easy in that it only took me about 20 minutes to put each together. I sewed on the pieces and then glued the whole thing to the hair pin, you could probably glue all of the pieces on if you wanted, instead of sewing them, but the hot glue gets really messy, and I felt like sewing them on really anchored them.

That's all for now! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Holiday Craftiness/ Photo Dump

Horrible blogger over here! I know, what have I been doing the past two and a half months! Well, I've got lots of photo collages to show what I've been doing. I also plan on revamping my blog, taking better pictures (now that I have a camera), and just being a better blogger in general.

First let me say, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season this year. I had one of the best because of the generosity of my family, and finding out that one of my sister's is going to become a mother in July of next year. Hearing the news that I'm going to become an aunt is one of the best gifts I got this year.

I got the craftiness itch from a different angle this holiday season, after making jewelry, painting, pottery, and doing a ton of reviews this year (I will still do all of these things!), I got into sewing!

I first started making felt pillows:

1. Mr. Owl was my first pillow! I think he still may be my favorite. He's just too cute!
2. Hello Kitty! This was part of my best friend's Christmas present, she loves Hello Kitty, and so I made a   pillow up for her!
3. I made this kitty cat upon request for a friend's daughter. I started with a totally different shape in mind, but when I tried to cut it out to put together, it was just too difficult, reminding me to not over complicate things.
4. Penguin looks like a bowling pin, I know, but don'tcha just wanna give him a squeeze? I was actually watching Happy Feet when I made him. I like his little bow tie. I gave him to boyfriend's kid brother for Christmas, and he carried Penguin around all day.
5. Santa face pillow isn't my favorite, his face came out a little oblong, but hey, I've been sewing all of these guys by hand! It's harder than it looks!
6. Oh, Christmas Tree pillow, I like. A lot. I think it's too adorable with it's button ornaments.


The second thing I made quite a few of is felt dolls:

1. The Bobbsey Twins- Boyfriend's mom was giving these girls away as Christmas presents to a set of twins, about 8 years old. She picked out their pant/jacket fabrics, so I added "highlights" in their hair to match, also.
2. I made this little red headed cutie to give to Bryan's mom, she has reddish/brown hair, and she loved this doll!
3. This is not a complete picture of the elf that I crafted, I also added little white booties so that her feet weren't cold. But she was much smaller that the dolls in pictures one and two, but still just as cute!

My best friend got me a sewing machine for Christmas, so, as much as I loved making the above crafts by hand, they might come out looking a little better in the future if I can make them with a machine instead.


The last bit of pictures are from my Christmas:

1. Boyfriend and Brother-in-Law putting together the fooseball table that my grandparents bought for Bryan.
2. I also started making "phone cozies". I made all of these as stocking stuffers for my family this year.
3. Something I was super stoked about! Our Christmas tree! We wanted a real tree over an artificial, but real ones are just too expensive to just throw away later. I went to Salvation Army with Bryan's mom and grandmother and we found this 7 foot artificial, pre-lit tree for $5! It was such a good find, I don't want to take the tree down!
4. My super cozy slippers my grandma got me this year. She always gets me something interesting.



Expect pictures of my first sewing adventure that I'm documenting tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

Holiday Jewelry Sale!

One of my hobbies is making jewelry, and this is my first year making holiday themed jewelry. I came up with a few really cute designs yesterday, and thought I would share them here. If you are interested in purchasing any of the following pieces, email me at calli.grace92@gmail.com.

This necklace features two chains, one beaded with red, green, and clear glass beads, the other is a simple gold chain. The clasp has a cute heart design. $20.00

This is similar to the first necklace, but instead features a silver chain with beads on the chain and a separate red, green, clear, and white beaded chain. There is also a matching set of earrings. $25.00

 

 

This necklace is a simple design, one silver chain, with one charm that forms a snowman. $15.00

 

 

 

Gold metal and Christmas beaded earrings. $8.00

 

 

 

Upon request I can make other designs, with other colors. If you have another design in mind, just email me. I consider all reasonable offers if my prices aren't in your range.

 

More of my designs at Calli's Accessories on Facebook.



Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Milkshake

It's safe to say, I will be putting my Pumpkin Spice on almost everything this season! Boyfriend and I were relaxing on the couch, watching RV, and I got some inspiration. I put chocolate icecream, a splash of milk, a dash of pumpkin spice, and a few dollops of whipped cream in the blender, and Ta-Da! A nice treat to end the weekend. There were no exact measurments, whatever suits you. It was so good! I will definitely be eating my ice cream this way for a while.

Bring on fall!

Make it at Home: Frozen Hot Chocolate

I was browsing Pinterest this morning and came across a recipe for Frozen Hot Chocolate, I was going grocery shopping today anyway, so I went ahead and picked up a few extra ingredients to make this yummy treat at home.

Here is where the original recipe comes from.

** A little note before starting, this recipe makes A LOT of Frozen Hot Chocolate, I recommend splitting it with a friend or if you're indulging in a treat alone, make half of what the recipe calls for.

 

Start by putting three cups of ice and one cup of milk in your blender, and set it a side.

 

 

 

In a double boiler melt 5-6 pieces of your favorite chocolate. I melted five sections of a milk chocolate Hershey's bar and one Reese's. When the chocolate it melted, add 2 teaspoons of store bought hot chocolate mix and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar.

 

 

 

 When the hot chocolate and sugar are mixed into the melted chocolate, add half a cup of milk and mix it all together really well until it's smooth.

 



 

Put this mixture into the blender with the ice and milk and blend until there are no large chunks of ice left.

 

 

Add your favorite toppings, I put a dollop of whipped cream and a Reese's, Bryan opted for whipped cream and shaved pieces of dark chocolate.

 

 

This was a great addition to an already wonderful reading of lighting our jack-o-lanterns for the first time, and finding Nancy Drew books at the library.

 



 

 



A Fall Floral Arrangment

Yesterday, Bryan and I took Shadow for a walk because it was so beautiful outside. It was perfect for a stroll through our neighborhood. On our walk, I noticed all of the pretty wild flowers growing on the side of the road. So Bryan, being the sport that he is, picked all of these gorgeous flowers for me and we put them in the vase that I decorated in this post.

The mustard yellow flowers mixed with the purple blooms just went so well together.

So, Bryan went in and got me a wonderful selection of these flowers plus more, while me and Shadow relaxed in the grass.

 

 

We took our loot home, cut them down, and took some of the leaves off the stems and put them in the vase. The purple matched perfectly to the purple yarn I had wrapped on the vase previously, and complimented the blue yarn and brown suede string, also. I love that I didn't have to spend any money to put pretty flowers on my kitchen table.

 



Decorating for Halloween!

Finally, it's been weeks since I've had anything blog-worthy to write about. But, Bryan and I got into some early fall shenanigans yesterday. The day was filled with pumpkins and Halloween gags.

 

We started by stopping while on our errands to get some coffee. I got my first ever Pumpkin Spiced Frappucino.

It was soooo yummy. I love pumpkin anything. When I stock up on Hot Chocolate for the winter, I put a little Pumpkin Spice creamer in it. So delish.
Bryan got a Triple Espresso, we enjoyed our drinks outside.

Next we went to Wal*Mart and Dollar Tree to get a few decorations for the house. It was my first time decorating for Halloween. I picked up this cute pot holder and these ice cube trays from Dollar Tree.

Next we decorated our front door, with some caution tape, a door knocker, and a glow in the dark skeleton sticker. All from Dollar Tree also.

Then we hung some glow in the dark bats in the kitchen and the main doorway in the house.

Bryan was a huge help, after all, it was all of my idea to get the decorations.

Next, we wanted to gag our roommate, so we bought a "bloody shower curtain" from Rite Aid Pharmacy, and some body parts from Dollar Tree. Then we filled the bath tub with water and put in red food dye and the "body parts". He was totally fooled when he got home from work, partially because he was so tired, but it was fun!

And lastly we carved pumpkins! It was awesome, I've never carved before. We got three pumpkins, one for an entryway decoration, and two for carving. As you can see, Bryan was enjoying it.

I carved a classic pumpkin face, and then on the back I tried out something I saw on Pinterest about using a hammer to punch cookie cutters in the pumpkin. It worked great.

I am so glad that I didn't have to spend a fortune on Halloween decorations, they were affordable and they look great, in my opinion.

A little preview of tomorrow's post: