Monday Night Craft Night- working on a bird bath

So about a year and a half ago, I made a bird bath. And when I say "made" I mean I bought this mold from this great eBay seller, I lugged a giant bag of cement home from the hardware store and I actually mixed, poured and formed my own basin for a bird bath.

After pricing out concrete bird baths at local home improvement stores, I decided that even if I never made another one, this was still about half the price of buying one already made, so it was definitely worth it!

The idea was that I would mosaic it and put it in my garden. Well I started out on a roll. Here you can see I started cutting the glass and laying it out in a pattern.

I even managed to adhere that bit to the bottom of the basin.

Then life got in the way and so did the bird bath, so it got shoved under the basement stairs where it sat. And sat. And collected dust kitties. And ewwww.

Okay, now fast forward to last night- the year and a half later bit of my story. I hauled it out of the basement and up into my car and down to my friend Lexi's house for craft night. And I finally got around to doing some more work on it.


You can see I was working on the green and blue section. It was a pain because I had to come up and over curves- which required me to make really small cuts (something I'm not terribly good at!)


The general idea is that the rainbow will come over the sides and "land" in the white "cloud" section at the bottom- which isn't very cloudish looking at the moment but I've only just started that section as well. It will, I promise!


I am bound and determined to get this thing into my garden before summer is over! This is going to be my "because I want to" project this week.

Many people think my job is great- I get to be creative and make things all the time. And while that's true, sometimes it's hard because if I have a large order to fill, like 50 of the same Christmas ornament, it looses some of the creative fun and just becomes WORK like anything else.

So when I'm super busy with real work, sometimes it's fun to take a break and do some fun (read: unpaid) work to help keep my creative juices flowing!

Hopefully I'll have some more progress photos to show in the coming week. Wish me luck!

OOPS! I almost forgot to mention that I bought the cute starfish tile (and also a whimsical little red crab that I'll use on another project) from artsyhandpaints on Etsy!

Read more...

Tin Can Flower Pots, a Kid Friendly Recycling Craft

1. Wash empty tin cans and remove all the labels and glue from the outsides

2. Ask a grown up to smooth out any sharp edges

3. Decorate the cans with paints, shells, rocks or anything else you like!



(Sticking one's tongue out usually leads to better concentration and creativity)

The middle one has different pictures on each side


4. Put a layer of small rocks in the bottom of the can (this helps the water to drain through the dirt)



5. Add a layer of potting soil on top of the rocks

6. Put your plant into the can and then fill in with more soil

7. Give your plant a drink of water

8. If you are giving it as a gift, tie on a little tag with growing instructions (Ours are going to school for Aidan to present for his "recycling invention" project- and then home as gifts for the teacher and aides. We also printed out these instructions for each of Aidan's classmates)



I am thinking that a giant tin can (like from a large can of coffee) would look adorable on my front steps. I'm thinking trusty white spray paint and then perhaps some black lettering with my house number on it or something and some more pretty pansies?... we'll see!

Read more...

We have a giveaway winner!

The winner of the Scarborough Seashells Jewelry Giveaway is Beth @ The Stories of A to Z!



Congratulations, Beth, I can't wait to see what you pick out!

Read more...

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas, a recipe

Ingredients:



1 lb boneless chicken, cut into small pieces
1/3 sweet vidialia onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
(1) 4.5 oz can chopped green chilies
(2) 10 oz. cans green enchilada sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
9-10 large corn or flower tortillas
1 TBSP olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add the onion to the pan and cook until translucent- 3-4 minutes, add garlic, stir to combine and cook an additional minute.
Add chicken to the onions and garlic, browning on all sides until cooked through 8-9 minutes. Add chilies.

Then, piece by piece, drop the cream cheese into the pan, add the cumin, salt and pepper and reduce heat to medium low, cook until cheese is melted and bubbling.



Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Sprinkle with 1/2 the cilantro and give a gentle stir to just combine.


Spoon the chicken mixture into the center of the tortillas and roll them up. Place seam side down into a greased 13x9x2 casserole dish. Continue this all the way across the dish until it's filled.

Pour enchilada sauce over the top, sprinkle with the shredded cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes until cheese is melty and golden brown.



-------------------------------------------------
While it's in the oven, try a quick wine spritzer:

-1/2 a glass of your favorite (at my house that equals affordable!) chilled white wine (I like Pinot Grigio)
-1 can of Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale



Mmmm, refreshing and light and perfect while hanging out in the kitchen waiting for good smellin stuff to finish cooking!

-------------------------------------------------

Now back to our enchiladas- Sprinkle the remaining cilantro over the top and serve topped with fresh tomato salsa and/or sour cream.

At the last minute I decided we needed a side dish to cut through the richness of all the cheese so I whipped up a little black bean salad.

My batch tonight made 9, so I used the left over tortilla (plus a few others I had in my bread box) to make a quick batch of chips to snack on later with some hummus. Yum!

Read more...