2013 Gift for Tae Kwon Do Masters

Last year I felt that the gift I gave to our TKD master was pretty cool. You can see it here.  So this year, I was kind of stumped.  I feel like if you do something really heartfelt and cool, you can't just revert back to gift cards the next year.  I brainstormed and brainstormed and came up with a big fat zero.  I even scoured the aisles at Hobby Lobby looking for anything martial arts or TKD.  I couldn't find anything.  So then I thought, maybe a chipboard word that says "Thank You" would be good, and I can customize it.  I couldn't find anything like that anywhere. 

But as we were driving home from visiting the family, I thought of maybe doing a TKD word cloud.  You've seen those, right?  You can actually make them online for free on sites like Wordle.  Then I was trying to think of how I could create the word cloud online and have it print decently enough to make a finished art piece.

What I came up with was using 12x12 canvases that I found at a thrift store for $2.50 each as my base.  I love the look of the colors of belts students go through, so I wanted to include those too.  I used ribbon that was about a quarter inch wide to block off roughly 1" wide stripes on the canvas.  Then I used some embossing paste (again, found it at a thrift store) mixed with the paint colors I wanted to make the belts.  I did have some leak under the ribbon, if I had had some painter's tape I would have preferred to use that.

I made Miss Kelly's word cloud first, and I learned a few things from it.  The first was I made 2 purple belts and then went back in with white paint and added the white stripe to the purple trim belt that way.  On the second picture, I mixed white with the embossing paste and applied it to the second purple belt while it was still wet.  I like the finished look of that one better.  The other thing I learned with the first picture was that while it is easier to fit those last few words in with sharpies, they tend to smear when you apply the sealing layer of mod podge on top.  Also, beware of the helpful cat who walks through the embossing paste before it is dry.  I ended up adding little dabs of color throughout the canvas to make the mistakes Jack caused look intentional.

So for the Masters' (they are married and so get 1 gift) picture, I really had to work an rework where everything went.  A lot of the words were applied and then shifted if they were crooked, if I misspelled them, and if I used up too much room for a word and then needed the space later for another word.  I also depleted my alpha stickers.  But I love how they turned out and I know the Masters & Miss Kelly will love them.  Both of my girls attend TKD now and it's our family hobby.  I truly appreciate every minute the Masters and Miss Kelly spend helping my girls.

Gift Idea: 52 Reasons I Love You

So, I'm seeing the cutest gifts all over Pinterest, one of the coolest being the 52 reasons I love you card decks. From what I can tell, everyone makes them differently. I went to Target and spent $2 on a deck of cards that had a nice design on the back (red, black and gold dragons), but I was equally as willing to pick up a deck at a thrift store with a vintage design. I used a dry brush and red acrylic paint on each card face. I didn't coat them completely, just wanted to add some visual texture.

Then I designed each of the 52 reasons in my publishing program, giving each a distressed or grungy border, and some of them funny clip art. The color scheme was strictly white and black with just a few scattered red embellishments. I didn't number the reasons because I thought it would be less of a hassle if I didn't have to get the order exactly right as I put it together. I cut them out and mounted them on the cards with old-fashioned, black photo corners. As a finishing touch, some of the cards got small metal hearts (red) or black swirly rub-on designs.
Then I punched a hole in each card and added them to my ring. Since they have the photo corners, printed reasons and embellishments, the finished stack is much larger than a regular deck of cards.

I won't say it was easy to list 52 separate things I love about my husband, even after 11 years of marriage, it wasn't. But I found some lists posted on blogs and they helped to inspire me. Here is my list:

1. Your smile. (I still remember the first time I ever saw you smile.)
2. You proposed in such a romantic place.
3. You gave me our daughter Samara.
4. You gave me our daughter Willow.
5. You are a cat person.
6. You LIKE me, like me. {one of our favorite private jokes is that he'll say he doesn't like me like that and I'll say, "oh, you like me like me." You know, as if we were 5th graders or something.}
7. You work on jigsaw puzzles with me.
8. You provide for your family.
9. You like my particular brand of crazy.
10. You work so hard even when your coworkers don't.
11. You listen to my weird dreams and don't have me committed.
12. You put up with my crazy family.
13. You get me to think twice before I waste money.
14. You got me out of Nebraska and showed me more of the world.
15. You watch educational T.V. with me.
16. You cheer along with me when I'm cheering for the bad guys.
17. You rearrange furniture without grumbling.
18. You watch cartoons with me.
19. You make the cats dance. {literally, think Caddyshack gopher}
20. You buy video games that I want and them play them for me.
21. You never doubt me when I want to try something new.
22. You watch bad Sci-Fi with me.
23. You encourage me to read comic books.
24. You don't make me listen to country music (very often.)
25. You keep hanging the towel bar back up, even though you know I'll probably knock it down again.
26. You do the checkbook so I don't have to.
27. You play WWE with the kids.
28. You make me happy-hum. {Just a weird little thing I do when I when I'm content.}
29. You take me to see scary movies.
30. You rode that roller coaster with me not once but twice. {He hates roller coasters but rode one with me on our honeymoon. Twice in one day. Awesome.}
31. You buy me things I don't really need just because they make me happy.
32. You can cook yummy food and aren't afraid to make new things.
33. You forbid me to use your power tools - but only because you really worry about my safety.
34. You let me drive your big red truck.
35. You stand up for me.
36. Even when you're gone, I can cuddle with your pillow.
37. You give me stupid nicknames. {like 'le whiny' and 'psyduck' because my power comes from my frequent headaches...}
38. You really miss me when you go away on business.
39. You take me shopping and pick out great clothes. {He really is good at putting outfits together.}
40. You'd never really leave me for Christie Brinkley.
41. You buy me action figures.
42. You can make tough decisions when I can't.
43. You stay home and hand out candy so I can go trick-or-treating with the girls.
44. You can work with your hands, fixing and building things to make our home better.
45. You love me at size 18 just as much as you did at size 12.
46. Your Norwegian blue eyes with the fleck of rust in the left iris.
47. You look so cute after a haircut.
48. You brag about my baking to your friends.
49. You never, ever leave the toilet seat up. {Thank you, God.}
50. You want what's best for your family.
51. You make me happy in so many ways - a lot of them X-rated. {I tried hard to keep this g-rated, I wanted my kids to be able to read it someday without freaking out too much.}
52. You are you. There is no other for me.

Gift Idea: 12 Days Off for Christmas

One of my very best friends is my daughters' daycare provider. She's been a great caregiver and as I've said, we've gotten to be really good friends. Once in a blue moon she'll ask me to watch the daycare when she is on vacation or needs to go watch her kid's programs. So this year, I thought I'd have a bit of fun and give her a set of coupons for days off from the daycare. Here is what her finished gift looked like.

I printed each page and then mounted them in a matchbook album using pretty papers for my mats. I also embellished some (but not all) of the pages with flat or close to flat scrapbook embellishments. The Christmas tree on the cover is actually an ornament I added brads to to make it look like colored ornaments.

A gift idea for Tae Kwon Do teachers.

My daughter has been in tae kwon do for almost 2 years now and we love Master Amanda. This summer Master Amanda married Master Billy Joe and now we are lucky to have 2 Masters. But now we're needing to give a gift to 2 Masters instead of just 1. Last year I made the cute little gingerbread men ornament for Master Amanda. Here is what I came up with this year.

Supplies included:
11x14 frame
2 12x12 scrapbooking sheets (TKD themed)
Scrabble tiles (from more than one game)
double-sided scrapbook tape
double-sided foam tape

To begin, we decided what we wanted the background to look like, and pieced it together to fit the frame. We used the double-sided scrapbook tape to adhere the pieces together. For the word art on the front, we had to layout our words in advance to make sure we had all the letters we needed. The one word we knew we wanted from the very beginning was TAEKWONDO. Then we tried to think of important words she has learned and settled on the Tenants of Tae Kwon Do:
COURTESY
INTEGRITY
PERSEVERANCE (yes I noticed it was spelled wrong in the picture)
SELF-CONTROL
INDOMITABLE SPIRIT

So we built the crossword using them. It fits just about perfectly. I laid it all out in the frame and then adhered the tiles one at a time with the foam tape. This gives them a little dimension and sticks really well. Having a gridwork on the central paper helped to keep them straight as well.

The finishing touch was to write our Christmas wishes on the back of the frame with a gold sharpie.

Birthday parties, booze bouquet, recipes and mini bar ideas

Last night I hosted my husband's 40th birthday party. It was really fun, we had a lot of friends over, and since our house isn't huge, we decided to try having the party in the garage. Early October in South Dakota can be either warm or cold. Last night was cold! But we moved the car and truck out and borrowed a few space heaters, and viola, the party was perfect. We moved in our patio tables and chairs and I didn't care at all when a drink got spilled on the garage floor. It was a great way to show off the whole "man-cave" to his friends. (I have a fun idea to add to it for Christmas.)

For my gift to him, I always throw his party and make his bourbon cake. No, I can't share the recipe, the friend who gave it to me told me not to. Last night we increased our guest list and I spent 2 days cooking getting ready. I served chili (with hot dogs for chili dogs and french fries for chili-cheese fries), homemade runzas - a divine food from Nebraska and southwestern egg rolls. For the kids I also made pizza rolls - they burned through those in no time flat, and pink lemonade cupcakes.

I sewed 3 Girl Scout vests to help me pay for the party and was able to buy him the first 2 seasons of the show "Archer" on DVD along with the book "How to Archer"

The second part of his gift was a booze bouquet inspired by an image similar to this:

Except to make mine, I went thrift shopping (like you didn't see that coming,) and I found an awesome retro-70s-faux red leather ice bucket for $2.50. Then I bought a pack of 10 chopsticks at the dollar store. At the liquor store I bought 10 different individual shot-sized bottles, the most expensive was $1.79. To put it all together, I hot-glued the bottles to the chopsticks at varying heights and added some festive-sparkly ribbon to each one. I filled the ice bucket with ice and added the booze-on-a-sticks. All said, I think I spent about $20 on the whole thing. And now we have an ice bucket.

His friends kept showing up with unnecessary gifts so now I have 3 bottles of bourbon, a bottle of tequila and all those mini-bottles to store. This has inspired me to start a new quest. We need a DIY Mini Bar!!! I'll post more as I decide what to do.

My friends asked me to share the recipes for the egg rolls and runzas, so here they are:

Southwestern Eggrolls:
1 small can refried black beans
1 small can drained black beans
1/2 pkg frozen spinache - thawed and squeezed dry as possible
2 medium fresh tomatoes, diced
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
4 green onions, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin
salt & pepper to taste
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
3/4 cup grated monterey jack cheese
flour tortillas
oil for frying

Combine ingredients (except tortillas) in a large bowl. Put a couple heaping Tablespoons of mixture in a warmed tortilla. Wrap like a burrito-very tightly. Use a toothpick to hold closed.

Fry in 1/2 inch deep oil in a skillet over medium heat (oil is ready to fry when it bubbles around the handle of a wooden spoon when you insert it). Turn and brown on both sides. Remove to a cooling rack over a paper towel. Cut diagonally and serve with dip or salsa. Can be prepared and refrigerated before frying or can be fried and the frozen. Reheat in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Runzas
Filling
1/2 lb ground beef
1 onion minced
2 cups cabbage, chopped fine
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Dough
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 packages of dry yeast

Preheat oven to 350.

Filling: brown ground beef and onions. Wilt cabbage in butter and then add to beef.
Dough: Put about 1 3/4 cup flour in a bowl. Stir in sugar, salt and yeast. Heat milk, water and shortening until warm and add to flour mixture. Add eggs and beat with mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Stir in rest of ingredients and knead dough for 3 minutes. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes. Roll dough very thin and cut into rectangles (about 4x6). Place 3 Tbsp of meat mixture in center and bring edges together. Bake 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown.

Variations: (swiss cheese & mushroom), (pizza sauce, sausage, pepperoni & mushroom)

More Zipper Bracelets!

This year 2 of my very good friends graduated from high school. "J" works with me at the library, and is kind of a punky style girl, she loves a lot of the same types of books as me and is generally pretty cool. For her, I decided on a one of a kind zipper bracelet:




"J"s bracelet is 2 zippers. I started with the grey one, sewing on the hooks and loops by hand. The loops hold the ball chain in place and it is a little longer than the bracelet, so it hangs free in one spot. The hooks hold the ribbon in place (I pinched them closed with pliers after sewing them on and getting the ribbon in place.) I decided it would be fun to add a second zipper and I left this one closed, sewing it to the grey zipper so they would have even ends. I then finished the bracelet off with snaps - I love the snap setter I got at Goodwill!

"M"s mom works with me at the library and "M" is a super-cool artistic photographer. She is spunky, fun and sweet. I wasn't sure what to do for her, I knew her favorite colors were purple and teal, but I didn't have any materials in those colors that inspired me. I toyed with a rainbow bracelet idea for awhile, but nothing seemed right. Then it occurred to me that I had zippers in my collection that had come from "M"s grandmother - "M"s mom shared left over craft supplies with me when they distributed her mother's belongings. So I decided to make "M" a bracelet with zippers that belonged to her grandma. I hope she likes the sentimentality of it. Her bracelet was inspired by The DIY Collection.

I took 3 long zippers, they weren't exactly the same length, and then separated each of them into 2 pieces. I popped the red and white zipper pulls off but the black one wouldn't come off easily, so I left it. I layered half of the red with half of the white, pinned them together and sewed them by hand. This could have been done with a machine - I just decided to create this bracelet by hand like I did "J"s. After I finished the red and white, I sewed the black to the white. The next step was to find a can in the pantry that would work as a size-guide. I wanted one that would create a bracelet big enough to easily slip over my hand, I tried 3 or 4 before I got the size I wanted. The zippers were then wound around the can in repeating layers and pinned. I could then slip it off the can and sew it together. The most hidden stitches I could find for this part of the sewing was to use red thread and add a stitch between each tooth on the red zipper. Very secure but hard to see.

Now how to finish it off? I decided to make some zipper flowers like the ones on Ucreate. But hot glue is messy and that didn't work for me (this time, I will triumph eventually!) So instead I went with a swirl like this:





And the finishing touches? Rhinestones from vintage jewelry. I think she'll love it!

S'mores Gift Bask or S'mores Party Idea

Our FABULOUS daycare provider just moved into a new house, and instead of giving her a gift card for a house-warming present, my daughters and I decided to make her a gift basket. Our daycare provider has a fire pit so we thought it would be fun to give her a S'mores Gift Basket.




The gift basket (actually a bright red mixing bowl) included the following items:
Graham Crackers
Hershey's Bars (the big pack)
Marshmallows
1 Hershey's Cookies 'n Cream Bar
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Werther's Original Chewy Caramels
1 Hershey's Dark Chocolate Bar
Roasting forks

Some of the items listed above may seem a bit odd, but I included the following recipes:
Toasted Wacky Taffies
6 wrapped caramels
12 Ritz crackers

Unwrap caramels and insert one onto the end of roasting fork. Hold fork about 12" to 15" over coals. Toast caramel over campfire until just softened, being careful not to melt the caramel completely. Place 1 caramel between 2 Ritz crackers.

Sailor S'mores
Marshmallows
Creamy Peanut Butter
Saltine Crackers
Chocolate Bar

Toast marshmallow to desired doneness. Spread peanut butter on 1 side of each saltine, then place piece of chocolate on 1 cracker. Add marshmallow and make sandwich.

S'more Burritos Please!
1 8" flour tortilla
2 to 3 Tbsp crunchy peanut butter
3 Tbsp miniature chocolate chips

Cut 1 piece of foil about 12" long. Set the tortilla in the center of the foil. Spread the peanut butter over the tortilla, almost to the edges. Sprinkle marshmallows and chocolate chips over 1/2 of the tortilla. Fold in sides and then roll like a burrito, beginning with the chocolate chip side. Wrap foil around burrito in a flat pack. Bake in 375 degree oven for 8 to 12 minutes OR double wrap and place on warm embers for 5 to 15 minutes OR grill over medium-low heat for 5 to 10 minutes.

S'more ideas
1. Cookies 'n Creme S'mores: use cookies 'n creme candy and chocolate graham crackers to make s'more.
2. Peanut Butter S'mores: use Reese's peanut butter cups instead of milk chocolate.
3. Dark S'mores: use dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate
4. Chewy Chocolate Caramel: toast caramels and sandwich with chocolate on graham crackers.

My sister and her husband were super lucky and their oldest son built them a brick fire pit for Father's Day. She thought it would be fun to have a S'mores party, and I agree. I think the lists and recipes above would be a great help to setting up her buffet table of s'mores fixin's.

Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas

My daughter is a Tae Kwon Do student and this is our first Christmas at the gym. I have been wracking my brains for what to give the teachers and Master Amanda at the gym. I have been making some super cute felt charms for my Girl Scouts and I was thinking, what else can I do with felt? What I ended up with was:

This is Master Amanda (who earned her 4th degree black belt right before Christmas) and Sammi who is currently a green belt. I used my gingerbread men cookie cutters to cut create the "bodies". Then I made the deboks basically the same way, tracing them and leaving myself some sewing room. I sewed them together around the bodies, I don't think they would have gone on after I sewed them up. I added the belts and tied them in traditional knots, then sewed the two figures together. I added the date and Master Amanda & Sammi's names to the back with fabric markers before giving it to Master Amanda. I ended up making homemade lemon sugar scrub for the teachers at my daughter's schools. Here is the link. It was super easy and I had enough left over to give 1 jar as my secret santa gift for Girl Scouts and keep 1 jar for myself (I multiplied the recipe and ended up with way more than I intended.)

Baby Honu Baby Blanket

My best friend of the last 25+ years is finally having her first baby! When we were little girls I went on vacation to the Black Hills and brought her back a little carved stone turtle. She has collected turtles ever since-she even dragged a 30 pound carved wooden turtle home from Ecuador! So I thought it was fitting to make the new baby a blanket with a turtle theme. The back of the blanket is green felt with turtles on it. I used the work of author and illustrator Tammy Yee as my inspiration. The front is hand-embroidered, it took me months, but it is so beautiful! I then decided I'd have to hand quilt it, so I figured out how to do that. I probably didn't do it the correct way, but no one has ever taught me how, so this worked for me. I was even proud of myself for making my own bias tape out of turtle flannel to make the binding for the edges.