day six: thirty days of photo fun

the mini album for the photos :)

day five has dawned and it is time for another p365 challenge.  today's challenge was repinned from the pinterest gallery onto my whimsy board and is from the delightful blog a feathered nest.  i've seen lots of these floating around pinterest, but the pretty graphic design of this one captured my heart!

the modified list for an nz winter!

the original challenge was for the first of june and is from the states so included summer photo's for a couple of the days ... so that it would work for me here and, given this challenge started 15 days ago, i figured i may as well try some of my own graphic design and make my own with the changes required for it being winter in new zealand ...  ok here is todays photo: self portrait ... my favourite, not!

photo for day one of the challenge

Then it occurred to me, what am i to do with 30 photos .... well what does any scrapbooker do with photos for a mini project, she makes a mini book to house them and that's exactly what i did.  its a little 6 x 5 album with mdf cover plates my sweet husband made for me.  i am using bo bunny's gypsy collection of paper with embellies from a number of makers ... all of these things are available at my favourite scrapbook store, scrapbook.com :)

goodies to play with, including some of the flowers i made
on day 4 of my p365 challenge :)

so for the next 30 days, not only will you be given a new creation from pinterest, you will also see the daily photo and its little page in the mini album ... you know ... because i don't have enough to do ;)  however,this won't be a master class in scrapbooking by any stretch!

outcome: if this were any other day, i would NEVER take a photo of myself, and that's what i am loving about this challenge i have set myself, i am totally going to places i would never have gone before ... figuratively speaking :) today i took a photo of myself and whipped up a small, very simple mini album, for me that's awesome and therefore, so is day six of the p365 challenge.

thank you goes to a feathered nest blog for providing a wonderful idea and jumping off point for this creative challenge, i really look forward to completing it over the coming month :)

... the carrots are still coming, but not till saturday! tomorrow we will delve into card making!

day five: dated wall art

the finished product, ignore the frame!
our bedroom is currently green, can you tell

day five, only 360 projects to go and its sunny outside!  todays pinterest creation comes from my must have art board and was pinned from the gallery from andrea steed's website (so many great creations you should check it out!). she calls it dated design wall art, which is totally apt, given the dates are all relevant dates for your family.  i loved individualised art so this was right up my ally! she gives you a great link to a version you can fully customise and even have it sent away for printing ... how cool is that.

unfortunately, i live a long way from the states so the chances of me getting the print today were slim! so in the spirit of my p365 venture i decided to create one myself and print it out at home on photo paper!

the start of the process

i found a frame in the shed and, after blowing away the large amount of dust on it, decided it could work with a repaint.  my first job was a light sand followed by a quick paint with opotiki (dulux colours of new zealand), then a thick coat of tim holtz distress paint called peeled paint (green), that then followed another coat of opotiki because the green was too much ... are you still with me!  Yeah, the frame painting was an adventure all on its own ...

yet another layer

in between the layers of paint was drying time and during these times i played on my computer working on the art to put into the frame of layered paint ... really should have just purchased a nice cheap black frame, next time!

the finished file right before printing!

it should be noted here, i am not computer savvy to a point where i can walk up to the computer and know exactly what i need to do to achieve something.  i don't have photoshop and i don't know how to use publisher (yet :)) so this was done in powerpoint ... yes ... i know how to use powerpoint!

what you need to know:

• i used five 1 x 7 tables to make this wall art, which i then lined up vertically, this gave me the flexibility to have the size gap i wanted between each birthday
• i created a table for each birthday and put each number into a different cell ... why? all numbers are not created equal, just like my family some of us are wider that others! so every cell was set to be centred meaning when the tables were lined up vertically so were all the numbers regardless of their individual width (i feel your pain zero ;)
• i added some decorative vines and coloured each birthday to match our bedroom as that is where this art is destined to hang.
• printed out on glossy photo paper to get that nice polished look, add a frame (preferably one you didn't have to paint three times) and you are good to go :)

outcome: definitely going to do this again now i have a template! figuring out how to sort the number width issue took some time and drove me a little insane :)  however, this is probably to do with my lack of computer skill as opposed to anything else ... now i have the knowledge, there's no stopping me.  in fact, my sweet mum is next on my list! for her, i am going to do one with all the grandkids birthdays :)

thank you so much to andrea steed at a.steed's.life for wonderful wall worthy art that you can totally customise!  if i lived in the states, i would totally use andrea's option and use her customised version available at zazzle.com. 

and for tomorrow ... think carrots :)

day four: five petal fabric flowers

my version of fabric flowers from circles!

day four and we are set to make fabric flowers from circles.  the inspiration comes from my gift wrapping and gift ideas board on pinterest from bete bazzi's flickr photos. the photo does a fantastic job of showing how to create these little gems.

material and fiskars circle template

while the kids were having their morning tea, and as their maths was all sorted for after morning tea, i though i'd make good use of my time and cut out some circles for the flowers. i used my fiskars circle template to trace some circles onto the material. well ... i cut out my five circles, folded them, and put a gathering stitch through them, 12 minutes later and i had the most beautiful flower!  i still had time before i started the kids off with their maths, so i used a different size to make another one, and 10 minutes later i had another little gem!

the assortment of flower centres i found

ok, then i had to take a break and give my kids some mathematical teaching!  lunch came and instead of eating, i made flowers of all different sizes, found some great centres for the flowers from my scrapbooking stash, and also started layering different sized flowers together with hot glue to make bulkier ones. if you don't have a fiskars circle template, fear not, just use a glass or a jar and trace round that :)

it should be noted my muscles were not big enough or the fabric i used was too thick to have no gap in the middle, so thats why i have used centres on all my flowers, but actually i really like the look of them. i originally thought these would be fantastic for attaching to gifts, but the options for these flowers are endless!

i couldn't help it, i had to put one on a gift!

what you need to know:

• i doubled my cotton for the gathering stitch so i could pull it harder and not risk breaking the thread, 
• all the centre's were hot glued on including the brads, a great place to this type of craft supplies is scrapbook.com
• all were sewn with white thread, after the first one i realised you couldn't see the cotton at all so there was no need to change thread to match the fabric
• i plan to use some of these flowers on pollyanna's plain t'shirts, for those ones i will use embroidery thread for the gathering stitch and use sewn in buttons for the flower centres so the flowers don't fall apart in the wash!

outcome: its like heaven for crafty people and you don't even need skills or machinery. the options for these little beauties are endless, bunched together on top of a present, layered for cards, hot glued to headbands, scrapbook layouts, clothing accents, all of the above and more :) the are easy, quick, timeless, and versatile ... seriously, i could not want anything more!

thank you bete bazzi's for a great visual explanation of these fabulous little flowers, it was awesome and so are they!

day three: mixed mushroom spaghetti

mushroom spaghetti pasta with penne pasta instead!

day three (sunday, 12 june) and the inspiration for my own mushroom pasta dish comes from the family feedbag blog and was repinned from the pinterest gallery onto my recipe must dos boards.

the yummy mushrooms, cut and ready to go

it is sunday night here, and while i had planned to make this recipe most of the day as my p365, i was missing a few of the ingredients, but not the most important one .... the mushrooms (thanks to my darling mum).  you see i had already been to the grocery store yesterday and spent way too much money on food, and then, late last night was informed by my sweet husband we were out of milk and dish wash :( so down to the grocery store i went, yet again, to stock up on milk and dish wash ... i went very early this morning so we could make our morning coffees.

two things you should know about me are: i don't do well in the mornings and i also require coffee to function at an adequate level.  so being at the store that early and without coffee, i didn't even think to make sure i had all the ingredients for today's mushroom spaghetti quest.  the thought of going back for groceries for a third time this weekend did not amuse me, so i made do :)

the altered ingredient list

so you will note when you see amy b's beautiful recipe, it didn't have ham, spinach, parsley, or feta dip in it. and it was made with spaghetti pasta not penne rigate! this is what we had on hand instead of the cream, the spaghetti, and the tarragon. as for the spinach, well that was my contribution to getting my children's daily dose of green vegies into them :)

outcome: so, so delicious, and really easy. i usually stick to one pot wonders (this used two), so i really branched out of my comfort zone with this recipe!  it was totally worth it, an awesome recipe

thanks to the wonderful kitchen of amy b at family feedbag my family totally enjoyed their dinner, from me to you i thank you for sharing your obvious talents in the kitchen :)


just as a side note: we are all caught up now with the first three days of my p365 venture and unlike the first three posts that were all made today, subsequent posts with now be made daily with that days attempts to make, bake, or create something i have pinned onto my pinterest boards ... kia kaha

day two: sprocket pillows

my finished version of the sprocket pillow

day two and its sprocket pillows from the cluck cluck sew that i repinned from the pinterest gallery onto my general crafts board.  these just looked so cute and my daughter (pollyanna) surely needed a pretty throw pillow for her bedroom ;)

lucky for me when i purchased pollyanna's bed linen a couple of years ago, the linen came in coordinated cloth bags and this is the material i used, along with some white quilting material i had purchased years ago for the future when i become a quilter ... do you follow!  yip the quest to become a quilt still burns brightly it just hasn't happened yet!

awesome pattern from allison harris at cluck cluck sew

the pattern is free from cluck cluck sew and so with great gusto i stepped forth into pillow making with my stanley knife (unfortunately i don't yet have the quintessential quilting tool, the rotary cutter), my mum's sewing maching (yip that babies got to be 30 plus years old), and my material, plus two 10c buttons.  this project did not break the bank!  as i was using only the best tools, i decided to make the large version!  lucky for me allison harris at cluck cluck sew, provides the most awesome and straight forward instructions and i even managed to get the front looking pretty darn good ... even if i do say so!

the front of the pillow complete!

outcome: awesome and pollyanna loves it.  huge thanks goes to allison harris from cluck cluck sew for her free and very easy to understand sprocket pillow pattern.  it was a joy to make and i am not the most confident or skilled sewer by any stretch of the imagination :)

thank you cluck cluck sew for your sprocket pillow post

day one: peanut butter brownies

my version of the peanut butter brownies

ok day one was this yummy peanut butter brownies from the blog sweet as sugar cookies and repinned from the gallery onto my recipe must dos board on pinterest.  the picture looked so yummy and brownies and peanut butter are two of my families favourite foods! given i will need loads of their support over the coming 365 days, i figured it was a good idea to get them on board now with some yummy food.

you can see by my brands no expense was spared ... not!

the recipe is super simple, it called for a brownie box mix but i used the usborne apple tree farm childrens cookbook brownie recipe instead.  its a super simple recipe with no expensive or out of the ordinary ingredients so it fitted the bill nicely today! the peanut addition you blob on top only requires eggs, sugar, flour, and of course peanut butter mixed together with a spoon ...

outcome:  these were super duper easy and REALLY yummy, i would happily give them as a food gift and at the same time they are a great recipe if the kids want to bake in the kitchen ... totally making these again :)

thank you sweet as sugar cookies for your peanut brownie recipe post

a new beginning to my good old blog

my first post with my blog reborn as my personal venture into pinterest 365 (p365).  this blog will document my quest to attempt one of the beautiful recipes, crafts, or diy projects found on pinterest each day for 365 days.

it was a cold winters day, a friday when it occurred to me i needed to make the most of all the amazing talent and creativity available on my new addiction, pinterest .... a challenge is what i needed to get motivated and turn the beautiful eye candy i was pinning into reality .. and that is where my personal quest has come from.  so on friday, june 10 i embarked on my year long journey.

three days in and all is going well :) however i also realised i needed a way of documenting my journey so as not to lose the motivation and that is where this blog comes in. this blog will be my diary of the journey and also provide me the accountability i will no doubt need during the year to keep going.  if you are going to, or have started a similar journey i would love to have your company and we can cheer each other on.  if you are here because you support me as a pinterest addict and want to see my attempt to create other peoples beautiful projects, thank you ...

so let the year long journey begin :)