Let's Craft Something!

Sorry about the lack of updates so far this week.  Our router went out on Sunday afternoon and we haven't had time to replace it yet.  (Again, I'm cheap and trying to figure out if the router is salvageable.)  I'm stealing Zach's internet for a little bit to go ahead and post this.

That's why I haven't done any updates this week.  I'm so sorry.  I haven't forgotten you, I promise!  I've just had terrible luck with technology lately.

Happy August, everyone!

Alright, guys and girls, I mentioned on Wednesday that I was trying to start meal planning for myself.  I say myself because I'm a vegetarian and I would honestly never have a clue how many to cook for if I even did plan something that I could omit the meat.  That's neither here nor there, though.

I'm starting meal planning (or hopefully starting it) to help myself lose weight.  Like Zach pointed out, the less time I spend dwelling over what's for dinner, the less time I would think about food, so the less hungry I would be throughout the day.

Meal planning is also a great way to budget if you're trying to watch your spending.  It's also great for families with children so you don't have to hear that infamous "What's for dinner?"  Whatever your reason for meal planning, I'm sure it was difficult to begin with, but has made life easier.

I admit, I'm a fan of hand-writing things.  I know it's easier to type it -- at least for me -- but I remember more if I write it by hand.  When I ran across printable meal planners, I was happy.  (Because, of course I also like things to be cute.  Duh.)

Of course, if you want to be fancy, you can always make a pretty little display.  I like this one with chalkboard paint because it's reusable.  Although, why is Sunday missing?  Maybe that's a fend-for-yourself day.


Me? I had just planned on doing something simple like this planner from Grace Got Healthy for right now.  At least for while I'm just planning for myself.  I've found that I don't need a snack between breakfast and lunch, nor after dinner.  If I do grant myself a dessert, it's just a fruit, though.

You can find plenty of printable meal planners and how people use them on Pinterest.

I also found that there were a few on Microsoft.  I was looking for "planner" because I doubted they had meal planner templates.  I was wrong, though!  If you don't find one you like on Pinterest or through Google, you can always make your own by tweaking the templates in Word.

Do you guys meal plan?  What method do you use?

Hey, look at that.  I'm adding a little more to the headpiece.  I do mean a little.  It's a tedious process working with clay.  It may not be to you, but to me it is.  I'm always a little more cautious than I probably have to be, but I really don't want him to break.



I sprayed some nonstick cooking spray on him to make sure my little clay ball didn't stick to him.  I shaped a half circle in the little indention, scooped it out, and baked him.

Once he was baked, I put a coat of red on it.  (All around, bottom and everything.  I didn't want to risk it showing.)

I took some super glue and glued him in place.  Ta-da!  A starfish with a gem-like-thing.  I debated on adding glitter to make it a little more shiny, but I think that I'll go over it with a clear coat of nail polish in the end for that shiny effect.

After that came the really tedious part.  I say really tedious because I don't know how to do this part without letting the bits air-dry.  I have to do a circle around the gem, and two little legs that go between the legs of the starfish.  I tried doing this all in one piece, but I just couldn't see it happening.

I did the two little legs of the gem holder by themselves, but with the rest of it already baked, I was afraid to put it in the oven.  I would cry so hard if it shattered right now.  So my little legs are currently air-drying.  Once they're dry, I'll add the circular part of the gem holder.

Is it starting to come together yet?  And clues on what it is?  I hope so.  I can really see it now that I have the gem in place!  (There again, I know what the end result is, so I guess that's kind of cheating.)

Alright, so this is something else I'm working on starting for myself: meal planning.  Zach and I have been saying we were going to lose weight for far too long and I really want to force myself to get motivated and do it.  So, I'm trying to find a way to make a weekly meal plan for myself, but it's proving to be pretty hard to do.

Do you guys do this?  Have any tips for me?

I like lame titles, forgive me.

Remember how I was talking about being all excited about my friend's Harry Potter themed birthday party?  Well, it finally happened.  I raided her Facebook page for pictures because I'm too lazy to upload them from my phone and she had more.

There was a cute little Platform 9 3/4 sign outside the door.  When we got inside, we exchanged our keys for a ticket on the Hogwarts express since there was alcohol being served.  (And hey, who's a better taxi service than Hogwarts?)


We got sorted when we got there.  There was a special chair for the sorting, ribbons to denote our houses, and the Sorting Hat told us it would be more fun to use a spinner to sort ourselves.  I'm making a sad face because I got Slytherin.  The birthday girl was the only one who got to choose her house since she had a Ravenclaw tie.

Have you ever had a last minute gift to come up and no suitable wrapping paper?  Or just someone who you cannot find the perfect wrapping paper for?  I have.

I have gifts on the mind since Heather's Harry Potter Party is tonight.  While I didn't worry about not having suitable wrapping paper this time, I thought it was a good idea to share with you since you never know what will pop up.

Have you ever thought about printing wrapping paper?  Yeah, from your computer.

Now, of course, I wouldn't recommend this for big gifts simply because of the cost of ink.  Granted it would build up over time, but if you just need a quick bit of wrapping paper, why not just print it?  It sure beats going to the store for it.

The website I was thinking of has been taken down, but of course Pinterest saved the day.  There are also plenty of results on Google.  I would think that you could also make your own just as easily. (Maybe with a little help from Pic Monkey?)


Trinkets in Bloom has this great tutorial for actually making wrapping paper if you have time in advance.  This would be adorable for Christmas time!

So there you have it.  If you're in a bind, just print some wrapping paper!  If you have to wrap for a lot of people and the price just adds up, you can always make pretty paper yourself.

This is what I was planning on posting last week when I had that terrible day-long migraine.

Do you remember my Freebie Friday that was about making your own porcelain dough?  Well, there was a reason that I shared that with you all; I had recently searched for it for an upcoming project/costume.  I'm still afraid to spoil the surprise because I think it's pretty original and awesome.  I'll hopefully be posting some of Zach's as we work on his.  I don't know if Heather and Mike are going to be sharing any of their photos.

So, consider this the beginning of my hints.  I decided to work on a headpiece that will hopefully make my character a little more recognizable as herself.  We're steampunking the original characters, and Zach was a little afraid she wouldn't be as recognizable in the garb, so I'm trying to take extra effort to incorporate things associated with her.  I know this sounds really cryptic, but I hate to just reveal it and ruin the surprise for those who don't know!  Bear with me, please.

First, I made the dough.  I didn't have enough for the complete recipe, so I halved it and so far I have plenty.  It took maybe half the ball to make this much.


I tried drawing a template for the starfish, but it always ended up looking wonky, so I scrapped it and tried using a star cookie cutter.  It looked even worse, so I free-handed one.  Amazingly enough, it worked!  And it looked pretty darn good, if you ask me.

I baked it for an hour in a 170 oven (which is as low as my oven goes) and left the door cracked.  I took so many precautions because I really didn't want this little guy to crack.

I let the oven cool for maybe another hour to where I wouldn't have to use a potholder -- mostly because I was afraid rapid temperature changes would crack him -- and sat him on top of the oven.  I let him sit there for about 2 more hours to make sure he was good and dry.


After raiding our paints, I found a buttery yellow acrylic paint and did a nice few coats with a paintbrush.  After that dried, I took a toothbrush with a chocolate paint to give nice, coarse strokes.


I let the brown dry and then used the toothbrush to flick yellow specks on him.  Unfortunately, in my attempts to make it even, I accidentally did more than I liked.  So, I let him dry again and painted a light layer of brown with my fingertips.  That allowed for some little streaks and covered the bright yellow compared to the chocolate color.

I liked how the layering of the specks under the brown gave him a more porous effect.  I wanted to press a sponge into him before baking, but it didn't quite work out.  He dried quicker than I thought and it ended up just mushing him, so I decided I'd try to achieve that with paint.

He's not quite done yet.  I still have another layer or two of dough to put and bake on there, but he's coming right along!  I feel like this was the hardest part of my pretty little headpiece and the rest should fall in place easier.

Sorry about the image quality... I just took the images that I uploaded to Instagram and posted them here.  I've had an unfortunate case of not-being-able-to-look-at-the-computer-screen-too-long due to my headaches.  I've also been unusually tired.  Maybe I need to get blood work to see if I need to up my Synthroid dosage...again.  Sigh.

Anyway, that's your clue for the week as to my costume!  I'm not going to say yes or no to any guesses, either!  Hopefully it will get to be glaringly obvious for those of you in the anime/video game fandoms.

Well, once again, I have failed to look into technology as much as I should.  I've been taking it for granted that after I schedule a post, it automatically publishes it.  I would be wrong.  I will henceforth remember that if I schedule a post, I must then click "publish".  There's my mental note to myself on that.

My life seems to have calmed down and resumed its regularly scheduled programming now.  I've been attending the some of shenanigans with Zach's family as they did their family vacation.  Monday we went to the water park.  Tuesday they went horseback riding -- which Zach and I missed it, though.  Wednesday morning they went canoeing, but running water isn't quite my bag; if something is living in the water such as fish, I don't much want to be in there with it.  Wednesday and Thursday, they went on a camping trip, which really isn't my bag, either.  They got back on Friday and we went to the river after lunch and went jet skiing on one of his mom's coworker's jet skis.  Saturday was for relaxing and they went to the movies to see Turbo while Zach was at work.  I would have gone, but my terrible migraine's have come back.

Sunday, we celebrated mom's birthday with my grandparents.  Monday we're going to dinner for mom's birthday.


Oh my... This was the free cake that came with her birthday dinner.  It was huge.  Three layers deep and it had to have been from the biggest pizza pan they had.  It was gargantuan.  Those are peach slices for reference, by the way.  The best part about this diabetes educing cake is that it's on the menu for three dollars.  WHAT?!

As for crafting, I'm still working on my headpiece.  Wednesday will be your first update on it and you'll get to guess what one of my costumes will be!  People are starting to get on my case about sewing because there isn't as much time as I would like between then and now.  They seem to forget my powers of procrastination.


This week is also my friend Heather's birthday and we will be attending the shenanigans with her in Tennessee later this week.  I'm super excited because she's having a Harry Potter themed party.  Now, I'll admit that I haven't read all of the Harry Potter books.  Shocking and saddening, I know.  I was reading them as they came out, but during one of the breaks while a book was being written or published, I started Lord of the Rings.  After that, Harry and his friends seemed -- well, childish.  I dropped the series and ventured on to more adult literature. Since her party is Harry Potter themed, Zach thought it only suiting for me to marathon the movies, and I agreed with him.  We just finished Deathly Hallows Part One tonight.

I'm planning on doing that poo-free post soon!  I think I'm going to do a special Tuesday or Thursday post for it so that I don't mess up my regular programming.