You know what your holiday table setting is missing?! A customized butter mold! Make a buttery version of your family name, a holiday wish or even a humorous statement. With my Customizable Butter Mold tutorial for Crafts Unleashed, the sky’s the limit!
Have you seen the fun new line of quick and easy interchangeable accessories, Styled By Tori Spelling? Each collection has a huge variety of necklaces, earrings and bracelets that can be mix and matched to what ever your little heart desires! Keep reading to see how I used some of the Styled By Tori Spelling pieces to make two unique, vintage inspired pieces.
Honestly, I absolutely love the big, ornate necklaces with their shiny pendants (check out some other examples on my previous post) but I’ve got a curious one year old who still nurses quite frequently and there’s no way I could get him to stop fidgeting with and eventually ruining anything hanging two inches away from my breast. Kind of a bummer but like many of you, that’s my life.
So, I decided to figure out a way to use pieces of the Styled by Tori Spelling line in a way that doesn’t distract my baby boy so much that he pops off in the middle of a crowded restaurant, exposing me to the world. (Although, really? At this point, after nursing two kids for the last three years, practically everyone has seen a bit of this action.)
With just a few extra jewelry findings I got at my local craft store, I now have a super cute hanging medallion and a vintage chic cardigan chain. The best part? It only takes seconds to make and change if you decide to switch out your outfit last minute!
If you’re making a cardigan chain, you’ll need two metallic closures, a bracelet and one pendant. (As always, use care when working with small magnetic pieces around children. Can’t wait to wear mine on our next date night!) The magnetic pieces are strong enough to hold the chain and pendant in place but won’t harm your nice cardigan.
For the hanging medallion, you’ll need a jewelry kilt pin, a large pendant and a bracelet. Simply connect the pieces to the loops and you’re done. With four different jewelry lines (I used pieces from the Glitz and Boho collections) the possibilities are endless! You can check out all of the collections at Jo-Ann and many of the pieces at Michaels.
And that is really just the tip of the iceberg on what you can do with these pieces! I’d love to see any different or unusual ideas you come up with as well. Don’t forget to come back next week for the Styled By Tori Spelling Giveaway where you can win almost the entire Glitz line.
You can keep up to date with Styled By Tori Spelling through Facebook and Twitter. Don’t forget to join Blueprint Social’s Styled by Tori Spelling Twitter Chat on June 13th to get fun hints and tutorials as well as win a prize pack worth $100. Score!
Disclosure: The previous content was a paid campaign with Darice and Blueprint Social. All opinions expressed are my own. (Sponsorship Policy)
Yup. This is, yet again, another mason jar craft tutorial. (Turns out I like crafting with mason jars) I know, I know…”again?!” They’re just so gosh darn resilient, accessible and most importantly, cheap. I can overlook almost anything being a bit too country style for my taste if it’s as ridiculously useful as mason jars are.
You may remember my Foaming Hand Soap Mason Jar Dispenser post and if you didn’t see mine in particular, I’m sure you’ve seen a million tutorials on Pinterest. That was four months ago and the foaming pump is still going strong. Boo plastics, yay glass!
It was that dispenser that got me thinking about my witch hazel one night. (Actually, it probably wasn’t “one night.” More likely, “one morning” since I’ve been staying up waaay too late watching Friday Night Lights and pretty much just rolling into bed. <tangent> And might I just add, I totally didn’t think I would like FNL since I’m not too familiar with small Texan towns nor do I particularly like football but seriously, it’s a fun enough show with decent writing and strong character development. You should watch it on Netflix.</tangent>)
Ok, so I got tired of having to open the top of my witch hazel container one morning and decided that I was either going to buy an easier bottle to pump it from or just stop washing my face. Hey, give me a break, when you’ve got two crazy kids to watch, feed, snuggle, strangle (Heh, just kidding on that last one. Kinda.), things have to be simplified or they just won’t get done. So this is what I came up with…
I’m not sure what you would really use one of these pumps for but I found it at a beauty supply store (Sally’s) so I’m thinking something pretty girly (which I, obviously, am not). I like that I just have to grab a cotton ball, press gently on the top, wash my face and then I’m ready for bed. Super easy for this super exhausted mom.
After spray painting the pump with hammered metal spray paint, all I had to do was cut out an appropriately sized hole for the pump tubing with tin snips. Spray the jar lids with spray paint and allow to dry.
When completely dry, insert pump in the hole on the lids and glue in place with a strong silicon glue and fill with any sort of toner you use. For me, it’s Witch Hazel. I was using Apple Cider Vinegar for a while there but got tired of my husband joking that it smelled like he was falling asleep with a salad. Very funny, Jim.
So there you have it. I’m a little ashamed to admit that a mason jar is largely responsible for me washing my face lately but hey, it is what it is. One of these days, when the boys are grown, I’ll have this long, drawn out nighttime routine that involves steam and rose petals but until then…
We recently started squeezing our own orange juice after reading about industry standard flavor packs in your morning OJ. Now, we’re not big fans of juice in our house anyway but I’ve got to admit to loving a little glass of orange juice with my morning waffles. So, now we’re left to squeezing our own, which basically means we only drink it on the weekends when Jim and I have time to tag team the kids while we go to town on the oranges.
You never realize how many oranges it takes to fill a tiny little breakfast glass until you’re trying to do it while balancing a heavy 10 month old on one hip! And what to do with all the peels? You could candy them but that can be a lengthy process and do you really want a ton of yummy candied peels just hanging around your house, screaming at you to eat them? You could also put them in some boiling water with a little cinnamon and cloves to make your house smell amazing but that takes care of eight of the peels. What to do with the other 30+?
Make orange infused vinegar!!
The process is so easy, you almost don’t need instructions. Just shove a ton of orange peels into a large jar, fill with vinegar and allow to sit for at least two weeks. After your vinegar has a nice orange hue to it, strain the liquid into another smaller jar to store. To use, fill a squirt bottle with 50/50 orange vinegar and water.
Not only do you have the cleaning power of oranges but now your vinegar smells good. Maybe it’ll make me clean more often!
Creativity over here in T&T land is kinda a funny thing. Sometimes it’s all about fun and frivolous crafts (It’s almost Peep Wreath time again!) and sometimes we’re all about practicality over here. Remember how I mentioned that I wanted to freeze my own shredded cheese for the Super Quick Homemade Mac and Cheese? Since the attachment pack for my KitchenAid included a grater, I really didn’t have any more excuses and so I picked up a large block of sharp cheddar at Costco to shred and freeze.
I had to first cut the cheese (hah, last fart joke, I promise!) into small blocks that would fit into the processor.
I’ve got to admit…watching the cheese come out of the grater was immensely gratifying. There was something therapeutic about it.
You have to lay the cheese out flat and in one layer so that it doesn’t freeze as one big block. I used three covered baking sheets, stacked on top of each other in the freezer.
Once the cheese had frozen completely (overnight), I used my hands to crumble it up and measure. I decided to store my shredded cheese in 2 cup portions since that’s the amount I need for the Super Quick Homemade Mac and Cheese.
I used Ziploc bags with that suction thingy to store the cheese in. I have a FoodSaver (which I love!) as well but I wanted the option to open and close the bags at will. I know FoodSaver makes an attachment part for their re-closeable bags but I’ve heard mix reviews on it and the Ziploc option was super quick and easy.
Tada! A one pound block of cheddar cheese made three 2 cup bags and one large gallon bag.
The frugality of shredding your own cheese is obvious but perhaps the best reason to do so…choices! You want awesome shredded Gruyère? There you go. Want to make sure your kids are eating Mac and Cheese from happy, non-antibiotic or hormone treated cows? No problem. All the convenience of preshredded cheese with non of the worries.
No more having to worry about random things like wood pulp in your cheese!
And of course, what’s a food post without your obligatory “Cute Baby Eating” picture. Max sure does love hummus! :)
Sherri @madefrompinterest.net: Absolutely Genius! Thank you for sharing a great idea! Pinning this....
carissa: adorable! i love that we can watercolor it. genius and thanks for shar...
Kim: Love the glittered rainbow frame! A larger one would be great with you...
Amanda @ Dreamsicle Sisters: Awesome giveaway! Hope I win :)...
Vanessa Brady: I used alcohol markers: http://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-Noir-Alcohol-Ma...
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