$5 Black Chairs

grab your pickup or minivan and hit a thrift store or two…snag up any chair that has a simple seat and work your magic! playing the Michael Jackson Thriller soundtrack is a must for churning the cr8tive juices!

Cr8tive Cupcakes

check out these amazing cupcakes that Field Editor Michelle Grant made…

“There is such a creative joy and satisfaction from creating cupcakes.. biscuits and all other scrummy treats! After all you can’t eat a scrapbook can you!

Share with us your edible creativity… and why not join us in our ‘challenges’ In February we want to share all things edible and love… goodies to create for your kids, loved one and even your hubbie!!”

Find more photos like this on Cr8tv

We’d love to see what cr8tive stuff you’re mixing up! Share photos, notes or recipes in the comment section and you’ll be entered to win this little cutie:

What are your favorite things?

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…bright copper kettles and old woolen mittens…brown paper packages tied up with string…these are a few of my favorite things…”

You better have just been singing that tune in your head while reading–singing it outloud brings you even more points!  Other than the famous musical “Sound of Music”, some of my favorite things are little odds and ends that wouldn’t seem like much to others.

Why these random things you ask?  Well, the cookbook was my Gramma Shirley’s (she was my hero and bff), the coffee mug was from a line of pottery I collected when my boys were little and I was first married–so, gives me good flashbacks, and the clear glass jelly dish was something I picked up at a flea market–it just makes me remember the times back in the day when life was much simpler, slower and I’d like to think more treasured. 

What are YOUR favorite things?  Would you be so kinds as to share them here with us?   Come on–take just 5 minutes and remember the good times…

 

Crafting Makes Me Happy

I’ve been having a couple of rough weeks. I’m not going to get into why it’s been rough, but I will say that crafts tend to be my saving grace. They allow me to create something beautiful while I’m in the midst of turmoil, pain, or just the chaos of daily life. There is something amazingly rewarding in looking at a project take shape right in your hands.

As many of you know who have been following along, I have been working on my biggest cross stitch project to date. I’ve decided to work on a couple smaller items so that I can have a sense of accomplishment (many crafters relate to this – it gets you motivated to tackle the bigger ones).

Having said that, let me tell you another project I picked up to take my mind off of things. I belong to a quilting guild in North Royalton called Keep Us In Stitches. One of the Challenges that you are given when you join is to make your own name tag. I’ve decided to combine cross stitch and quilting into mine. I finished the cross stitch piece this week and I will be quilting on a border very soon. I designed this myself (a major first for me). It’s small, but I love it. It speaks to my heritage and personality.

My Favorite Organizational Accessory

I love shoeboxes. What? That’s not an accessory? Sure it is, especially when you jazz it up a bit. Let me explain. I see infinite possibilities with shoeboxes, especially when it comes to organizing your craft supplies. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes (especially when you have children who need back to school shoes) and you can get two boxes in one if they’re the type that have lids the same size as the box.

There are so many options with these. I love that the cardboard tends to be thinner so you can cut it up if you need to and fit it to your needs. Cut holes in the side and feed your ribbon through to have easy access to the stuff you use most. Store samples of card fronts and other smaller items in them. Use cardboard dividers to create compartments for all those tiny items that can get lost easily. You can also decorate them to make them “prettier” if you will have them out where people can see them. My favorite thing to decorate them with?

Wrapping paper!

I buy the non-holiday specific paper without the “happy birthday” and “merry Christmas” messages and use those to make my shoeboxes look a bit more festive or match the decor of my craft room. You can, of course, also use plain brown paper and scrap it up with different embellishments if you want to go crazy. Once you start thinking outside the box with these (forgive the pun) you’ll be amazed at how much you can get accomplished in terms of your organizational projects.

A Quilting Project in the Works…

Are you like me? Do you tend to get absorbed in a book that you are reading and all you want to do is whatever is in that book? I read Jimmy Stewart’s biography and went on an old movie kick. I read American Brutus by Michel Kauffman and decided to follow John Wilkes Booth’s escape route (Still yet to do this). And then I read the Elm Creek Quilts series and decided I wanted to create my first hand stitched quilt. Of course I do.

Now, I don’t consider myself an artistic quilter- the patterns I choose and the work I do is quite simple. But I love to sew. It is so therapeutic and soothing for me. So I chose 12 different sampler patterns and my fabrics that look adorable together. I’ve gotten some done and I’ll show you the first two here. They’re not great, but I’m definitely enjoying the process!