stitched felt heart valentine's cards (ways to rid yourself of 30 yards of felt #7)

a couple weeks into the new year, and as expected, valentine's day products are already littering the aisles in shops all over.  here is a simple but slightly whimsical flat card that can be easily whipped together. send one or send twenty!

to make these cards, cut a sheet of 8.5"x11" cardstock into four. i used my awesome brand spanking new paper cutter (a christmas gift, thank you, thank you, bff!).  

hand cut little hearts with your felt.  twelve little hearts, to be exact. three for each card.  i used red and pink from my stash.

thread your sewing machine with thread (a color that will pop off the page and go with your hearts-- i used pink), and stitch three hearts down the middle with the centers of the hearts about an inch into the card.  

you may find it helpful to use a ruler and lightly mark with a pencil the line down the paper where you intend to sew. cut the threads flush (or you could leave them hanging a little longer if you like) to the card, and you should find yourself with something like this:

how do you feel about valentine's day?  love it? hate it? look forward to it every year? wish it didn't exist? 

kill that virus with ginger tea

since people everywhere seem to be crazy sick this winter (hopefully you are not one of them), i thought i'd share my favorite home remedy brew that i make when i feel borderline sick, or during a full blown illness: ginger tea.   

this is a seriously intense brew, and is not for the weak... BUT really works...in my opinion.   it's also very easy to make, although you'll need a little bit of time.   

all you need is: water, chopped fresh ginger, and dark brown sugar (or some kind of sweetener)

my friend d- likes to use a tiny piece of ginger.  my great-aunt likes to use several large roots.  i tend to be somewhere in the middle and use one or two medium sized roots.  so really, there is a lot of flexibility in how you want to make this.    

i like to make a lot at once, about 4 quarts, and throw in my chopped ginger into the pot as the water boils.  i also add a couple tablespoons of dark brown sugar, and let it boil. once boiling, i lower the heat down, and let the tea simmer for at least two hours.   the longer you let it simmer, the more intense the ginger will be (and the more effective, if you ask me).   

you can do without the sugar if you think you can stand it, but i have yet to meet a person that can.  

i like to keep the extra tea in a thermos and have a cup or two a day while i'm sick.   i also like to freeze the leftover tea for emergencies.    

do you have any home remedies you like to make when you're ill?

ikea expedit wall shelf --> nightstand

my new life left me with zero pieces of furniture.  so as i searched for a place to live in san diego, i simultaneously started collecting ideas for my future home.

being divorced and unemployed pretty much limits my shopping range, meaning places like room&board and crate&barrel are pretty much out.  possibly forever.  luckily, i love ikea, which generally matches most of my design sensibilities without tearing too big of a hole in my pocket.  my room is mostly finished, and i am quite happy with it.  while i am not ready to showcase the full room yet, i will first show you my one "diy" piece: my nightstand.

i can be very particular.  i want things to be just so, especially when it comes to my furniture, something i see and use daily.   i bookmarked several nightstands and except for a west elm nightstand i didn't want to pay for, i had trouble finding something that would fit the bill.  but after looking through what seemed like every product on ikea.com, i settled on turning the expedit wall shelf into a nightstand by adding hairpin legs.

hairpin legs are my FAVORITE.

aren't they magnificent? !

i bought my 8" legs made to order from hairpinlegs.com and attached them to a white ikea expedit wall shelf and added a two-drawer insert.   if you want to make this nightstand, you'll also need a drill.

i also rust proofed the legs before screwing them on, since i bought the raw steel hairpin legs.  just in case.  i just did a few coats since my nightstand lives indoors (the can recommended something like 6 coats?).  the legs are also available in brushed stainless steel, but i prefer the raw look... which is also slightly cheaper.

i kind of really want a second nightstand, but i don't have anywhere to put it... nor do i really need it.  how unfortunate. 

oh, and before i forget, happy new year! ! 

berry + toasted rice white chocolate bark recipe

i thought of this festive looking white chocolate bark mixture a couple weeks ago, while i was taking a long walk on the beach.  there are still/only four days until christmas, but it is definitely not too late to make a batch of this berry + toasted rice white chocolate bark.  

bark is easy to make, and there are recipes all over the web that are all pretty much identical... but here is the way i made mine.

ingredients
about 32 oz of white chocolate (i used ghiradelli white chocolate candy dipping and baking bar, which is 40oz, available at sam's club if you have a membership- or know someone that does)
toasted rice cereal
freeze dried strawberries (i used trader joe's freeze dried berries, see picture below)
freeze dried raspberries

line a 9"x12" rimmed baking sheet with parchment.
melt the chocolate (i used the heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water method).
pour in some toasted rice cereal and stir it up (look at me, trying to be different). i just eyeballed the amount, but it was probably at least 2-3 cups.
spread the white chocolate/rice cereal mixture into the prepared pan, and smooth into an even layer.
sprinkle more rice cereal and the freeze dried berries all over the top, until evenly covered.*  let the bark set- you can speed it up by sticking it in the fridge for a little while. break or chop the bark into pieces.
package it up alone or with some other homemade treats.

*the freeze dried berries are unsweetened and rather tart, but i think that the tartness helps balance the intense sweetness of the white chocolate.  i found that one 1.2oz bag of each berry was more than enough for for one batch.  quite a lot of the berries had been crushed into powder on the bottom, and i also sprinkled the powder all over to add color and texture contrast.  

ways to rid yourself of 30 yards of felt #6: make coasters

a little over two years ago, i found myself with an abundance of leftover felt.

even though i have technically moved six times (not with all my stuff, mind you) since i wrote my last felt post, i still mysteriously find myself with a box full of felt.

it's absurd. i know. you don't have to tell me.

i was, however, grateful to have this box of felt when i found myself itching to sew my first project in san diego. something easy. something useful.  something i needed.    

like coasters.

i drew a pattern on a piece of paper and cut two pieces of different colors of felt.  i cut a hole out of the top so the bottom color peeks through, and then sewed them together.

although i'm just making these for myself, these might make a cute stocking stuffer idea or just a small homemade gift for a friend. 

just throwing that idea out there.   

thanksgiving

craft therapy

i've been flitting across the globe like a directionally challenged wild goose in the past two years, and this year has been exceptionally intense.  i am hoping this next stop will be a place i can call home for a little while, even though i still have a long way to go in piecing my life back together.   

between reorganizing my boxed up life for the next big move, i couldn't help but unpack some of my supplies and sneak in some craft therapy (aka, procrastination).  it may be a while yet, but i have hopes that i will have many uses for the new clearlytangled stickers, tags, and fabric labels that i spent an afternoon creating. 

i printed my stickers on full sheet labels, and will punch them out using my 2-inch fiskars circle punch (one of my favorite craft investments of all times).   i plan on doing the same for my cardstock labels, with an additional 1/8" hole punched in the top.

i designed a few different size variations of my color-fast fabric labels, mostly hang tags, which i find the most convenient and time-efficient for projects, since i can sew them right into the seam.  however, i still made a small stack of labels that have to be completely stitched in separately.  you know, just in case. 

i printed these on color-fast printable fabric.  they come in 8.5"x11" sheets that you can stick straight into your inkjet printer.  to make them color-fast, the sheets have to be rinsed and heat set. i have generally had solid results with these, and while they aren't designed to be used for frequently washed items (supposedly detergent will cause them to fade very quickly, perhaps even immediately), i actually haven't had much problem with over-fading yet.  i did, however, have some new issues with bleeding ink and the fabric wrinkling up through my mom's printer feed, so i think it greatly depends on the printer you're using.   

now they are neatly packed and stored away, patiently waiting to discover their purpose.