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Thankful Turkey Craft Tutorial

November 14, 2012 in For the Holidays, Gettin' Crafty

I’m a sucker for crafts. There. I said it. I’ll admit it. I love craft paint, pipe cleaners, googly eyes and styrofoam. Yup… love it all.

So when I was asked to run a staff meeting at work, I instantly thought – “How can I incorporate something crafty?” Haha… No, I’m not kidding. That really was my first thought. I know… I’m pathetic!

I decided we could make turkeys… but not just any turkeys… we could make turkeys to show the things we are THANKFUL for in each other. Yes, now I’m pathetic AND cheesy.

How’d we do it? Well duh – of course I’ll show you how!

Purchase large styrofoam balls (to cut in half for body) and small styrofoam calls (for head). Using toothpicks, attach head to body and paint with brown acrylic craft paint. At first I tried spray paint, but it was melting my turkey bodies! Insane! (and makes me realize I really DO need to wear a mask when I spray paint… no telling what those fumes are doing to my lungs!)
Make the beak – Fold a piece of orange scrapbook paper in half and cut an arrow shape along the fold.
Unfold the arrow and cut notches into the straight end…
…this allows the beak to line up perfectly when folded and ready to glue!
Hot glue the beak to the head.
I had this oversized pipe cleaner on hand (found at Michaels) so I cut about a 1″ piece.
Pull the fluff off one end to expose wire.
Insert the red pipe cleaner under the beak.
Not pictured – hot glue the googly eyes above the beak.

Repeat steps 1-9 to make SEVEN turkeys!

To make the feathers, fold your scrapbook paper in half (so you can cut double the feathers with half the effort). Cut out desired number of feathers and then hot glue toothpicks to the ends.

I did all the prep work at home and brought the turkeys and feathers to work. Yup… it was a LOT of feathers!

I think my coworkers might have thought I was at least 83.5% nuts… but they humored me… and we all walked away from the meeting with a token of appreciation. I had fun reading my feathers and smiled at the things my coworkers appreciated in me.

…and the yellow feathers are blank because they were “my color”. I gave everyone their own color to write on. That way people could identify who the feathers were from. I didn’t want my turkey to be without yellow so I stuck a couple blanks in.

I think this turkey craft would be GREAT to make with kids. They’d have a great time assembling and painting them. How cute would they be on your Thanksgiving table!

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{Recipe} How to Make Beer Bread – aka Eat your Alcohol

November 13, 2012 in Cooking and Recipes

Ummm YUM.

I’m about to share one of my favorite, easiest, tastiest recipes with you. I can’t lay claim on all this deliciousness though… I was bestowed this recipe by a horse-loving mentor named Marnie! She was kind enough to let me ride/compete her horses one summer in college… and one evening she served this recipe to me along with vegetable soup.

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

okay, back then it was probably more like SHUT THE BARN DOOR… or the stall door… but stay with me here…

Get excited ladies and gents….

I’m ’bout to lurn u sumtin…

That’s right… today I’m showing you…

How to Make Beer Bread

Gather your shtuff:

1 STICK BUTTER
3 CUPS SELF-RISING FLOUR
3 TABLESPOONS SUGAR
1 CAN ROOM-TEMP BEER

Then follow these very difficult instructions that will test your culinary prowess (note the sarcasm):

Spray loaf pan with nonstick spray
Melt the stick of butter and pour HALF into loaf pan. Swish around. Yes, swish is my highly-technical term.
Combine all other ingredients in bowl and mix. Note… I’d pour the beer in slowly. Less foam is a good thing.
Pour batter into pan.
Pour last half of butter over batter.
Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Yup…. It’s that easy! Seriously. Most days I flail about in the kitchen… but this. THIS I can make.

The best part is the way your house will smell – freshly baked bread with a hint of beer. …and in my book. That’s just fine by me.

Give it a go! This recipe is just in time for chili season and good ol’ fashioned vegetable soup. I think I just felt my heart smile.

Enjoy! Would love to hear from you if you give it a shot. Leave a comment here or drop me a line on Facebook!

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Cheery Silhouette (re)Prints for the Office

February 5, 2012 in Do it your Dog-Gone Self, Gettin' Crafty, Pups

I’ve been a bad blogger. A bad, bad blogger. I started a new job last Monday and I’m oh-so-excited about it, but it made for a tough week. Trying to get into a new routine, dogs at home all day and officially a commuter once again. BUT – I promise to do better! I just needed last week to get things in order. PLUS – once I get settled in my new position I’ll be able to take the pups with me to the office. Amazing right?! What are the odds that a girl can find not one, but TWO jobs that let her share her workplace with her favorite little munchkins.

So my office…. It needs a little kick. A little personality. A little Dana. I don’t want to go walking int here with armloads of DIY, so I thought I’d play it safe and start little. I have a small shelf in the office above a cabinet that would look cute with a couple little things. Hmmm but what things? Well… you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m OB-SESSED with my dogs. BONUS – everyone at my new office is as dog crazy as me. Being short on time this week, I needed quick and easy so I decided to re-use some of my previous elbow grease. Take a look at this!

Do those faces look familiar? Hmmmmmmmmm…… How about now?

Man… what a difference daylight makes in pictures! Check out the difference between the first and second pics above. Night time…. Daytime…. Literally night and day.

So all I did was resize my silhouettes and print them directly on scrapbook paper as 4×6″ prints. Simple as that! I chose green because that’s the main office color. We even have bright green conference room chairs. Fun right?!

Missed the silhouettes tutorial the first time around? No worries! Here’s the photo editing portion and here’s the printing/assembly! Enjoy!

Have a great week everyone. I promise not to stay away so long. …and once I get some things settled in my office space, I’ll snap you a few pics so you can see where I’ll be spending my 9-5.