Valentine Charm DIY

February 4, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

The 80’s called and they want your craft back! My Valentine Charm DIY is made from the good ‘ol shrinky plastic material I used to make crafts with as a kid… in the 80’s. It’s fun. You color the plastic, bake it, and it’s a magical little charm! I almost forgot about this stuff until I ran across this Shrink Film at the craft store a few months back. It’s still as magical as it was back in 1989.

Supplies:

– Shrink Film

– Valentine Charm printable

– Jump Rings

– necklace chain

– Sharpie Gold Paint Pen

– baking parchment paper

– scissors

– hole punch

– oven

Directions:

1. Print out the Valentine Charm printable. Note: your charm will shrink 50% (you can adjust the print size of the words if you want a smaller charm).

2. Place a piece of Shrink Film over the printable, and trace the words with your Sharpie Gold Paint Pen. Let dry.

3. Use your scissors to cut out around your words. Be sure to leave a little space for the hole punch, and maybe an outline from the gold pen? Use the hole punch to cut one or two holes. Optional: Add a gold frame with your paint pen. I got a little crazy and geometric with one of my “let’s just be friends” charms.

4. Preheat your oven somewhere between 300 and 350 degrees fahrenheit (my Shrink Film bakes great at 330). Place a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet. Put the cut out words on the paper, then lay a piece of parchment over the words. Bake for 2 – 3 minutes (I usually take mine out at 2.5 minutes). Let the words cool completely.

5. Put your jump rings through the punched out charm holes, string on a necklace chain, AND you’re done!

Gift this to your favorite Valentine (or not so favorite…). I think the “Let’s just be friends.” charm is perfect for your best buddy.

– Chelsey

5 Comments

Tags: happy valentines day, jewelry, printable, shrinky dink

Categories: diy, DIY Accessories and Clothing

Week 5 of drawing: Draw a profile.

January 31, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

Week 5 of my 52 weeks of drawing: I drew this cute little guy. The corgi illustrations are by far the most popular in my little shop. I wanted to add a little profile view of these little pups. He does have a full body, just not shown here. By the way, if you want an adorable overload, just google corgi images for a good time.

If you want to keep up with my previous illustrations for this challenge, click here for the main post. I’m only missing last weeks, which should be done by Saturday. Whew! Go me!

– Chelsey

P.S. my shopped is closed for the moment, will be back up soon.

1 Comment

Tags: 52 weeks of drawing, corgi, dog, drawing, drawing a week, illustration, paper mama shop, puppy

Categories: Uncategorized

Olive Juice Tea Towel Gift Wrap

January 30, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

I love you, or “Olive Juice” (as my 9-year-old self used to say). Add a cute little touch to your Valentine’s gift this year with an Olive Juice tea towel. Just wrap it around a kitchen gift and give to your Valentine. I wrapped up this neat Preserving book to gift to my favorite chef.

Supplies:

– tea towel from Zazzle

– my freebie “olive juice” image to create your zazzle towel

– a gift (needs to be smaller than the towel)

– some bakers twine

– a little paper heart

How-to:

– Order your towel on Zazzle, using my printable.

– Pick out your gift. Fold the towel over it.

– Fold the ends into the center and pinch the excess towel together. Tie with the baker’s twine, add the paper heart, & done.

If you don’t want to make a towel, you can always just print out my “Olive Juice” image at a print shop to make wrapping paper. Boom…. OR, maybe you just want an Olive Juice print? You can get that here (for 8 x 10).

– Chelsey

P.S. I used the lovely font from IROCKSOWHAT to create the Olive Juice image. This is a sponsored post: Zazzle provided giveaway items for my Alt Summit party in exchange for this blog post. Check out Zazzle for some AWESOME goodies + Valentine’s gifts.

4 Comments

Tags: fonts, gift, happy valentines day, printable, zazzle

Categories: diy, Gifts

Making fried rice from leftovers! A wonderful recipe.

January 29, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

Bah! Ok, I’m not much of a cook…. I actually would rather do most anything else before I cook. It’s just not for me. I will bake and can food, but if if comes to preparing a meal and planning out dinner… I’m over it. Luckily my handsome husband likes to cook. It’s sort of a hobby for him to try out new recipes and experiment with different foods.

Even though he does the majority of the actual cooking, I do need to cook sometimes. My goal with cooking: make something with fresh ingredients with the least amount of effort. Ha! Yes. That’s me.

So! I found this wonderful fried rice recipe on The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook blog. It’s easy enough for me to make and I made it with leftover ingredients. Leftover chicken and rice? This recipe is for you. Seriously. Just add carrots, corn, peas, onions, garlic, eggs, and seasoning. The cooking process is very fast and the result is so yummy! My kind of meal.

I only managed to take the boring phone photo of the fried rice above (since I was too hungry to take a photo with my camera), but I can guarantee it’s wonderful. You’ll need the ingredients below and head over to The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook to say thank you for the yum/quick dinner! I adjusted her recipe just a bit (since I don’t usually have all the ingredients she calls for in my home). She also has some really great tips to make your fried rice awesome.

Fried Rice:

– 4 cups cooked rice (refrigerated overnight)

– 1 Tbs. olive oil

– 2 minced garlic cloves

– 1/2 medium yellow onion (coarsely chopped)

– 2 medium carrots (chopped into small pieces)

– 1 cup leftover chicken (chopped into small pieces)

– 1/2 cup peas (defrosted)

– 1/2 cup corn (defrosted)

– 2 tablespoons soy sauce

– salt to taste

– ground pepper

Check out The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook fried rice post for the complete directions. Seriously, if I can make it…. anyone can (even though I overcooked the rice the night before… whoops). Enjoy!

– Chelsey

6 Comments

Tags: chicken, fried rice, fried rice recipe, leftovers, recipe, rice

Categories: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, food

Ok. Let’s organize this place.

January 28, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

Ok. Let’s organize this place.

I sort of let my blog get messy and unorganized. It’s time to do a bit of cleaning and get this place up to speed.

Last summer I downloaded a monthly calendar to keep my blog posts and other to-dos organized. I got a bit overwhelmed and my organized calendar list sort of disappeared in November. Time to get back to schedules.

I was so excited when I found this really cute 2014 monthly calendar collection on Snapfish! It’s free and there’s also a couple other items you can download (like menu planning and shopping lists).

Are you a calendar person, or do you have an amazing memory?

– Chelsey

9 Comments

Categories: about me, HP

It’s about the people.

January 27, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

Why go to conferences? Why travel so much? Well, it’s about the people. The people I meet, the people I know, and the people I want to introduce myself to. I meet with other bloggers and companies. I move non-stop from morning to late late into the evening. It’s exhausting and exhilarating all at once. This year at the SLC Alt Summit I got to spend the best time with my roomies: Moorea, Whitney, Jen, and Morgan. Moorea, Whitney and I were so darn busy prepping our party at Alt that we barely had a chance to attend the actual conference, but I can’t replace the time we had together. It was silly and fun. We ended up spending the majority of our time in the party room and our hotel room. We slowly lost our minds from the lack of sleep and hard work. It really was worth it. That may explain the wonderful IG photos we created (plus video).

I’ll have more to share about the conference, but not now. I’m EXHAUSTED. I hope your week was wonderful! For now I’ll leave you with a video we made on day two of staying up till 2 AM prepping our party…

– Chelsey

5 Comments

Tags: alt summit, bloggy meet up, friends, meet new friends

Categories: Uncategorized

Light-up Glitter Marquee Letters on BHG

January 23, 2014 | Posted by Chelsey

I hope you’re all having a FABulous week! I’m in Salt Lake City for Alt Summit… so crazy busy! We’re hosting a Carnival themed party here, and we shared a little party diy with you on the Better Homes and Gardens blog. Check it out! It’s fun. I love it.

If you want to keep up with my trip at Alt, you can check me out on Instagram.

– Chelsey