Rad Linc Crafts

30 things for 30 years

2013-03-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

My cousin celebrated her 30th birthday last summer. My sis and I wanted to make her something different and something that stood out from your normal birthday gifts. Upon browsing pinterest, I saw a pin of 30 gifts for 30 years. I thought that would be perfect. Here's what we came up with:

We found 30 random things that we thought she would like, and we wrapped it up into a gift basket, with cellophane and a bow on top (we added a bow after the picture... sorry). We added a card where we wrote inside all 30 gifts.

These were what was inside:

We did face some challenges:

1. It sounds easy, but after a while it gets hard finding small random gifts. I think the last 10 were the most difficult.

2. We used this small sand bucket to hold all the gifts. Lucky for me, I played a lot of tetris, I was able to get it to all fit, and not be top heavy. Good luck to her if she ever wanted to take it out and fit it back in tho.

3. We put small bottles of alcohol in the mix. Ususally, this would not be an issue, however, when the party was inside a small water park, having alcohol is more than frowned upon. Not a big deal, the weather was cool enough that I could leave it in our car without worrying about melted chocolate.

I'm happy to say that she loved the gift and all the thoughtfulness that went into it. :)

Overall, I'd do a gift like this again. Hope this gives you an idea for the next birthday gift you give. :)

Woodsy Themed Baby Shower

2013-03-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

Early last month, I helped a friend host another friend's baby shower. We asked her to think of a theme she wanted, of which she decided on a Woodsy Foresty theme with neutral colors. There were a few of us working on it together, and everyone did a super awesome job. Here are the results:

Another great party. :)

2013: Our Garden

2013-03-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

This year we're finally attempting the garden that we have wanted to setup for a while now. A few years ago, we had the idea of expanding our garden to cover about 1/3 of our backyard... That's about a 18' x 36' area (I think). Well, the last few years were quite busy... and we just didn't find the time to do it. But last fall, we finally put up our new fence (to segregate our garden from our lawn and dogs), and as of earlier this month, we cleaned it up, built some garden beds, put some weedblock down, and filled the beds with dirt. :)

Here's a look of the garden after we put the garden beds in. We also completely flattened the back side, and made it into a big flat in ground garden area (wasn't done yet when the picture was taken).

Even with the dangers of frost still here (...yeah, I live dangerously like that), I planted a few of the seeds outside, and also began a few trays of seeds inside. I still have a few seeds that I recently bought and need to plant outside.

The good news is as of today, I finally saw something start germinating in the garden. I took a picture of it, but you have to look really close at the first few leaves of my bok choy plants. :) Exciting isn't it!

The indoor plants aren't doing too bad either. Most of the first tray are tomatoes, the back tray are an assortment of peppers, which usually take longer to germinate. I'd like to make a heating mat of some sort to lessen the germination waiting period one day.

Anyway, that's what's going on. :) I can't wait to share some more mature garden pictures and harvest pictures with you guys.

2013 Crafting for Charity: Blanket #2 and #3

2013-02-28T19:07:00.001-08:00

I did it! I took sort of the easy way out and did a couple of quick crochet around fleece blankets, but these are the last two blankets. They are warm and soft and I hope it gives whoever receives them some comfort.

I'm preparing the package and sending it out soon to Project Linus. :)

Note to self: Making the Crafting for charity month = to the shortest month of the year??? Maybe not such a good idea!

On to National Craft Month (March).

Happy Crafting everyone!

2013 Crafting for Charity - Blanket #1

2013-02-15T21:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Make a Blanket Day for Project Linus. I thought it would be a great time to update my status on my goal of 3 blankets.

I first started crocheting a blanket. It was turning out nice and thick. Unfortunately, I ran out of the yarn I had planned to use. I know I could have kept on crocheting with a different yarn, or buy another yarn, but I scratched the blanket as my first and decided on making it a rug instead. Check it out:

So, as of early this week I was at 0 of 3. :(

Luckily, I had a backup plan of an easy blanket to make using fleece. Here it is:

It's a super simple method to make the finishing fringe.

1. Cut the corners (I remove a 4" x 4" square from each corner )
2. Cut strips. I used a piece of painters tape 4 inches from the edge as a guide of how far to cut. In this blanket I cut about 1.5" strips.
3. After cutting the strips, snip a small hole just above the middle of each strip. When you get to the corner, don't share the hole for the two corner strips. IMO, it just doesn't look right.
4. Fit the strip thru the hole from the bottom of the blanket and pull. Now do that for each hole.

And there you have it. Finished and super simple. 1 of 3. I hope to create another one like this tomorrow for Make a Blanket Day. How is your charity crafting going?

Crafting for Charity Month 2013

2013-02-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed, I didn't do the "Pledge for Beanies" this past season. Mostly because I decided that the time of year was too busy for me to make what I could. Upon evaluating it all, I decided on a few changes.

1. I will call it "Crafting for Charities Month" instead of "Pledging for Beanies." This gives more variety on what I might do each year, as I can do Headhuggers one year and Project Linus the next. Spread the Love, right?

2. I decided to change the length of crafting for charities to one month instead of two. This is more on a trial basis. I may consider doing two non-consecutive months.

3. The charity we will support or craft for will change from year to year (reason for name change).

4. The Crafting for Charity month will be in February (at least this year, we'll see how it goes for next year).

With February off to it's start, I wanted to kick off the 1st Crafting for Charity month of Rad Linc Crafts. This month, I will craft for Project Linus. I'll be making various blankets to send to them. I may look make some similar to the ones I've posted before. My goal is to make at least three blankets before the month is over (February is kinda a short month).

I encourage you to join in with the crafting. I'd love to hear who you are crafting for this month. Feel free to send me a message (f t c a n o n AT g m a i l DOT c o m) (or you can post it on facebook) with what your crafting and I'll mention it on one of my future posts this month.

Happy Crafting for Charities. :)

Beaded Wine Glass Charms

2013-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

With a few beads, some memory wire and glue, you can make these simple beaded wine glass charms. I made a lot of these for the wedding and got a lot of complements on them.

What you need:
- Memory Wire
- Seed beads (really small ones for ends)
- other beads for decorations (optional)
- bead glue (I use G S Hypo Cement)
- wire cutters (be warned that the memory wire does damage cutters, so maybe buy some cheap ones that you would use only for this application... at least, that's what I did).

Before you start, you should have a design in mind. Remember that wine charms should be different from each other so people can use them to know which wine glass is theirs.

Okay so here's what you do:

1. Cut the memory wire so that you almost complete a circle, minus a quarter inch or so.

2. Put a small amount of glue to the end of one wire and put a seed bead. Do this to only one end of the wire. The glue should hold the seed bead in place at the end. Lay the wire and seed bead down to let the glue set (ten or so minutes, I think. Just check if it appears set. Full drying time is more like an hour). In the mean time, you can glue down more seed beads to memory wires.

3. Once dry, you can put the other beads on as the design you would like. I like making a big bead the focal point, and the small beads for added color variation.

4. Time to close it up. While holding the beads away from the open side of the wire, apply a small amount of glue to the open end of wire and put a seed bead. Again, put it aside, and let the glue dry (about an hour for full dryness).

5. Once the glue dries, you have your wine glass charm. You should now be able to attach it to the stem of a wine glass.

(optional: you can go back and add a drop of glue at both ends of the wire to give it a little more strength)

Tears of Joy Packets

2013-01-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

People cry at weddings. It's just a fact. For this reason, for our wedding I created these small packets called Tears of Joy. It's a super simple packet that adds a personal touch to the wedding with very low cost.

Here's what you need:

- Clear Plastic Treat bags (6" x 4.5")

- Travel size tissue packs

- Sticker or printed label (with double sticky tape -- I used repositionable double sticky scrap booking tape, but regular double sticky should work fine).

Here's how to assemble the packets:

1. Fill each treat bag with 2 tissues from the travel pack.

2. Fold down the top end twice so the fold makes it somewhere in the middle of the tissue.

3. Use a sticker or double sticky tape with label to seal it closed.

So, really that's all there is to it.

For the labels, I printed them on cardstock. You can also use those Avery sticker labels that can be printed on, or maybe those Hershey Kiss stickers that you can print on.

Christmas 2012

2013-01-05T16:03:00.001-08:00

Hi all! Happy 2013. Cheers to all on another year of crafty goodness.

First off, I have to apologize for my lack of blogging in the last few months. The last few months, as with the majority of 2012 were exceptionally busy. My sister had her baby in October and I had the opportunity to be with her the whole way -- which was an experience in and of itself. My new nephew was born healthy as can be and both momma and baby did great. Afterwards, we decided to have thanksgiving away from my home, but E and I still took care of the cooking... that required a lot more planning than we thought. We also had another gathering at our house with my neighbors. All in all, it was a lot of fun, a lot of cooking, and a lot of planning.

This year, I have made it my new year's resolution to try to blog more. And it seems my friends and family have decided to help me out some with some crafty christmas gifts. :) I love them!

Here are a few of my crafty gifts and in essence a brief look on what might be coming up in the blogs:

First a metal stamping kit with some washers. Exciting stuff. I want to look into making some charms with these.

Not technically a christmas gift, but my friend saw this book at a thrift store and bought it for me. So nice of her. I can't wait to see what I can learn from it.

I've been wanting these books for a while now. I hope to make some really cute gifts for next christmas.

I'm a True Blood fan. :) I didn't even know this cookbook existed. So excited. And this book on Flowers in Wool just looks amazing. Seriously awesome stuff.

One of the best gifts this year has to go to this bundle of fabric scraps. My friend found out that I was getting into quilting and decided to give me this bundle. So awesome!

I've got lots of post ideas still to come. And since we didn't do a beanie challenge this past year, I plan to do something with Project Linus. Stay tuned for that. Thanks again for reading. Until next post.

Washcloth Rose Favors

2012-10-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

We used these for our wedding favors. When I went looking for ideas for favors I wanted something that was gonna be useful to my guests and eye catching. I saw roses created with a baby spoon and a baby washcloth, and decided to expand on that idea. These are using regular washcloths, a small drinking glass, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Materials:
The glasses I used are from Ikea (love that place). (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80094014/)
2 washcloths (one the color of the rose, and one green for leaves)
a dowel (painted green)
hand sanitizer (small ones from Bath and Body Works)

For tags:
Iron-on adhesive,
cardstock (with leave shapes and thanks printed on)
green fabric (for leaves)

1. Fold the colored washcloth diagonally twice.
2. Lay the end of the dowel as shown in the picture, and slowly roll the washcloth around.
3. When you have a couple of inches left, start folding it down while continuing to roll.

4. On the long side of the washcloth, fold up.
5. Follow the fold and wrap the folded part around the rose (as you would if you were rolling up a sock).
6. Position and fix so it looks like a rose.

7. To make the tags, take your printed cardstock (with leaves), and use iron-on adhesive to iron on fabric on the back side.
8. Cut the leaves out.
9. Use a hole puncher to punch a hole.
10. Slip the leaf onto the dowel. You can put a slight bend on the leaf to help it to hold on the dowel, and for looks because leaves have that natural bend anyway.

Final assembly.
11. Attach the hand sanitizer to the dowel. Tape seems to work pretty well for us.
12. Lay out a green washcloth, and fold the top and bottom corner in.
13. Stand the hand sanitizer and dowel above the center of the washcloth.
14. Bring up the sides, hold it and flip the whole thing upside down. This allows you to fix the green washcloth so it fits nicely into the glass. Slip the glass on top.
15. Flip back right-side down. Fix the green washcloths so they look like two nice big leaves or a bed of greenery for the the rose.

And that's it. We got a lot of compliments on these favors.

Oh Baby! Hosting a Baby Shower

2012-09-30T19:56:00.002-07:00

Hosting a baby shower kinda reminded us of planning for the wedding. There was tons to do and great reasons to try things that I've never tried before, and there was fun to be had. :)

As any sister might want, I wanted my sister's baby shower to be spectacular, because she's awesome and deserves nothing less. Unfortunately, there was a lot for me to learn since I'm not really what people would consider a "baby" person. Which is why I'm grateful for the help of great friends and family who helped with many aspects of the baby shower to make it spectacular. I could not have done it without them.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some things from my sister's dragon themed baby shower.

First were the invitations. I decided to go with one of the many diaper invitations that I've seen on the interwebs. I really didn't want to cut each one individually however, because there were going to be 60 invites created (we have a large extended family). So, I used blue card stock, drew the design on the top of a stack of them, taped the whole stack together with some masking tape, and used my scrollsaw to cut them all. A few things I learned from this:
1. I really need to practice straight lines with my scroll saw (sigh).
2. Be ready to assume that the top and bottom card stock will be ruined. So whatever number of cuts you want, add 2.
3. If you're really good (which I'm not, but maybe with more practice), this is an awesome way to cut a ton of paper to a design in one shot (can we say Christmas cards?).

The front of the cards had slits so that the tabs folded into them, closing up the diaper into a neat little package. We added the buttons and the ribbon, and my personal favorite, the dragon tail (attached via a brad, so it swung a little).

In the inside of the card, we glued (tip: use stick glue, not craft glue) a printout of the shower information. I don't have a picture of the envelop, but it had a cool castle printed onto them to add to the theme.

Next, I found some examples of fill-in cards online, and replicated them for motherly advice and wishes for the new prince. We had a book donation (listed in the invite), with a raffle. Each book received got a raffle ticket and we called the raffle number afterwards for a fun prize. The two castles serving as book ends were two wooden bird houses (bought from Michaels), painted and with bags of aquarium rocks inside for weight (we'll figure out something better later). I created feather quills (pens) for people to use to fill up the fill-in cards and the book donation removable labels. Aside from the fill-in cards and book donation/raffle, one of the popular games we played was Gift Bingo (cards made by Emily).

Some of the decorations for the party.
1. A cupcake tower of diaper favors. We folded and pinned small squares of fabric into diapers, wrapped some jordan almonds or mints into a bit of tulle, and stuck it inside the diapers.
2. A coat of arms researched and created by my talented husband which has the phrase "Consilio Et Animis" meaning "By wisdom and Courage."
3. A diaper castle that I built with a working drawbridge. I used wipes packages for the fillers inside, a couple of bottles to hold the book roof up, a sewn receiving blanket for the base, and some washcloths to cover the cardboard drawbridge.
4. Some really awesome soft fabric blocks made by Emily, my sister's BFF.
5. We also used all the onesies for the onesie decorating activity for more decorations (see them hanging in the background).
6. There were also a lot of balloons and crepe paper, and some store bought puffs, and a yard sign (and probably other things I'm forgetting).

One of the many new things I learned during this experience was learning to work with fondant. To me fondant is kinda like working with clay. You can use tools to shape things and you can use a dab of water to put them together (not that you'd need to do that with clay). I found these year of the dragon cupcake toppers on a pinterest post. The tutorial was perfect. I made the dragon toppers a few days ahead of time and let them air dry. We ordered a plain cake from Vons with the words "Welcome Baby" printed on, and before the party, we positioned the toppers right in. :)

One of the fun activities that we did for the shower were decorating onesies. For this, we needed a lot of onesies (tip: get varying sizes (0-18m) so that the baby can use them for the year), fabric with Heat'n Bond Lite Iron-on Adhesive already on the back (ready to be ironed onto the onesie), lots of stencils for designs, fabric pens, cardboard (so pens don't bleed to the other side of the onesie), an iron and ironing board. We bought a cheap clothesline and hung the onesies up with some wooden clothespins (that my sister glued fabric yo-yos to). There were a lot of really creative onesie designs. The cutie pi one was mine. :)

We also set up a photobooth. We had a few onesies against the backdrop for decorations. Here's Elmer trying out the photobooth.

Lastly, we had a Baby Jeopardy competition. Here's the board the Emily made. Everyone had a blast with that game.

Hopefully these have helped you gain some ideas for any baby shower you happen to host in the future.

Piñata Contest: Lego Luchador

2012-09-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Hi guys. This year has just been full of one hiatus after another. I was recently privileged to host my sister's baby shower which happened last weekend. That was the first time I've ever hosted a baby shower... so it was exciting, and nerve-wracking, but it all turned out great. I'll post some pictures of the baby shower soon. This post is supposed to be about the Lego piñata that my co-worksers and I created for this year's piñata contest. Last year, we made an Angry Bird Piñata and won People's Choice award. This year the theme of the contest was Lucha Libre, aka Spanish Wrestlers. Our team decided to do a Lucha Libre Lego Man.

Meet Lego Luchador, the Flying Thurderbird.

The competition was pretty tense. Here were some of the other piñatas.

I'm pleased and honored to say that we won one of four awards presented this year. We won one of two Judge's Choice awards. :) Congrats to the ladies in my team for another outstanding piñata. :)

Quilting Adventures

2012-07-30T22:51:00.001-07:00

In the last few weeks I've decided to try a little quilting. Quilting is something that I've always wanted to try, but have never really found the opportunity to try it, til now.

It started out with my friend asking me if I knew if there was a service that one can bring quilt squares to get assembled. Her idea was that she was going to have her bible study class to decorate squares and to make a quilt for a fellow teacher/friend that is going to have a baby. Since I've been thinking about trying my hand at quilting again and since I had a perfect quilt to make for my sister who will be having a baby soon, I went for it. I went with a simple square checkered pattern and used flannel. I used one piece of flannel for the backing and basically folded it to the front for the binding.

Here's my very first quilt.

Anyway, my friend decided to do an alphabet quilt by attaching the letters using heat and bond adhesive, and doing a blanket stitch with some fray check. She had her students work on the blanket stitch for the letters. They turned out awesome. She gave me all of the fabric and I did the sewing to assemble the squares. The front were squares of flannel with cotton letters attached. The back was fleece, and the binding was flannel. I got to learn how to blind-stitch for the binding. :) Overall, the quilt was pretty fun to make. Here are some pictures:

Some tips that we learned:

1. Youtube really does have everything. :) I found lots of videos on blind stitching there, and my friend found lots of videos on the blanket stitching there. If you want to learn something, check there first.

2. Wash and iron your flannel before you cut and sew anything that will have to be washed. Apparently, flannel shrinks quite a bit. If you're gonna make quilt squares, you don't want them to change size unexpectedly in a wash.

3. Use those Joann's coupons because they can save you quite a bit.

Next thing I want to try??? Rag quilting. Who doesn't love a blanket that gets softer as it ages and gets washed. :)

Flower Pens

2012-06-24T16:27:00.003-07:00

Here's a really easy project to disguise simple looking pens to look like a pretty flower. I made some for our wedding reception and put it next to the guest pages we had.

Here's what you need.

- a pen. I use the papermate ball points. It has to be one where you can remove the top cap.
- a flower (nylon or silk)
- ribbon
- floral tape
- regular tape
- craft glue

Okay, so here we go:

1. Prepare your flower (nylon or silk). Cut to about a half inch stem to the place you want resting on the top of the flower. Sometimes this is the flower base, and sometimes it is about where the leaf is. Your call. Add a little floral tape to the half inch stem so it fits in the pen top cap area. (you may want to test the flower in the top cap before you start wrapping -- like after the next step). Set aside while you set up the pen.

2. Disassemble your pen by removing the cap, and top cap.

3. Use a small piece of tape and tape the ribbon to the pen. The tape should only be on a small part of the ribbon, that can be covered up easily when we wrap the rest of the pen. Notice that I taped the ribbon about a half inch from where the ink part of the pen is. This is because if you put the ribbon too close, you won't be able to put the cap back on.

4. With the end of the ribbon affixed, carefully wrap a layer of floral tape around the pen. This will cover up the slick area of the regular tape, and the rest of the pen to give a little grip when you wrap the ribbon on.

5. Next, (you probably guessed), wrap the ribbon around the pen. When you get to the end, wrap the ribbon perpendicular (so it follows the top edge of the pen). Cut an extra inch, and fold up as shown on the last photo in the image above. Hold this with one hand.

6. With the other hand, take your flower, add a dab of glue to the bottom, and stick it into the hole of the pen (where the top cap once was). Ta da! :)

Pretty simple wasn't it. For show, I took a terra cotta pot that my sister painted, added a small piece of paper in the bottom, and filled it with aquarium rocks. Then, I stuck the pens in. You can probably use colored sand too.

Nylon Flower Daisy

2012-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a really simple nylon flower to make. I used these nylon flower daisies for the flower pens at our reception.

What you need:
- nylon
- stamens
- #24 wire
- #4 ring (or whatever size you want, really).
- stem wire
- nylon thread
- floral tape
optional: if you want to attach a leaf, you'll also need some green nylon and green wire. (instructions for leaf are not included in this post)

Okay, so let's get started.

How to:
For tips and techniques on Nylon Flower making, check out my post here.

1. Wrap the #24 wire around the #4 ring, and twist together where wires meet. Cut the wire so you have a wire petal handle of about an inch. Make 7 petal rings using the #4 ring (or a different size, if you prefer).

2. Daisies are known for their long petals. You can elongate all of the petal rings but holding them all together, and squeezing the wires to form a nice long petal. Holding them all together also gives you more uniform petals throughout the flower.

3. Wrap the petal rings with nylon, and secure with the nylon thread. If you want a thicker look and feel, you can wrap the petal twice.

4. Grab some double ended stamens and fold them in half. Use some nylon thread to attach the stamens to the end of a stem wire, with the stamen ends above the stem wire so that the stem wire is not showing.

5. Attach the wrapped petals around the stamens evenly with nylon thread one by one. It may help to bend down the petals a bit after the first petal is put down. Remember to try to keep the tie line the same as you attach the petals. Also, you don't have to cut the nylon thread between each petal, you can continue to wrap around a few times, attach a petal and wrap around a few more times. After all the petals are attached, wrap the nylon thread several more times up and down the petal handles to secure it more to the stem.

6. Once all the petals are attached to the stem, you can cover up the petal handles and the nylon thread with floral tape. Remember to stretch the tape as you go to let it get sticky. Wrap the floral tape down the stem. If you have a petal to put in, you can attach it at this time (as you wrap the floral tape down).

7. Gently fold down the petals to open up the flower. You can and a slight bend down the middle of each petal to add more dimension to the flower. You can also bend the stem wire a bit so the flower is front facing instead of facing straight up.

That's it. Super simple flower to make. You can add more stamens in the center and make the petals larger if you want a larger flower. Because these were going to go on top of pens, I didn't make them too large. Have fun.

Our DIY Wedding: Part 3 - Mail

2012-06-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

This is the last installment (I think) of our DIY Wedding series. I'm anxious to get started on some tutorials. So, that should be coming soon.

For this last installment, I decided to cover the wedding items that had to be mailed out.

First was the Save the Dates. We actually went rather simple with these. One weekend, we went out with our tripod, and Eric's new camera, and took some pictures with the camera timer, and Eric doing a lot of running. :) We picked one that we liked, did some customization on it using Paint.NET (free software), took the image to Costco for prints, and sent them out. Here's how it turned out.

Next, the invitations. I did all the design work and printing at home. I printed the information on cardstock (cheap at Big Lots!) and bought some corresponding scrapbook paper for the outer cover of the invite. I wrapped it all with a soft mesh ribbon before placing it into the envelope. Here's how it looked.

Once the wedding was over, I wanted to make something special with the thank you cards. Here's what I came up with. Also, I wanted to play with embossing powder and a heat gun. :)

And lastly, the announcements. Since our wedding was on the smaller side and a destination wedding, there were several relatives and friends that we were unable to invite. So, I created these announcements with a "save the date" / invitation to a local family bbq reception.

That's it. :) Hope this helps inspire ideas.

Tutorials are coming soon. :)

Our DIY Wedding, Part 2: The Food

2012-06-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Food! Yup, we love the stuff. :) Here's an overview of the food we had for the wedding, and then some. Except for the cake, the food was made by us, friends, and family. We could not have done it with out them. Okay, so let's start.

First, we had a rehearsal dinner on the night before. For dessert, we set up a s'mores bar. :) We used the flame gel cans that are used for chafing dishes for the fire. We had skewers, marshmallows, graham crackers, and a random assortment of chocolates ranging from hershey chocolate, reeses peanut butter cups, and a variety of ghiradelli squares. Best S'mores Ever!

On the morning of the wedding, I made these cinnamon rolls. I used the allrecipes cinnabon clone, made the cinnamon rolls several days before, but froze them before baking them. On the night before the wedding, I moved the cinnamon rolls to the fridge, and on the morning of, I baked them up. Delish, and super simple. I made the frosting the morning of too, and done!

Okay, so now the wedding food.

First are the appetizers.

- 2 cheese platters (brie, jarlsberg, gouda, babybels, and dubinger, with apples and grapes)

- assorted crackers

- quiche lorraine

- veggie shooters (spinach dip with veggie sticks in a shot glass)

- gravlax (cold cured salmon) with cream cheese

- swedish meatballs

- hot artichoke dip

- french bread slices

Here's a closer look of the meatballs and artichoke dip.

Now for the main dinner. Everything was delicious. The BBQ Chicken was marinated 2 days before and cooked the night before. The Beef Brisket was also made a few days before and frozen then defrosted and heated in the oven on the day of. The mashed potatoes, rice, and veggies were done on the day of (by awesome friends).

- Roasted Mixed Veggies

- Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes

- BBQ Chicken

- Beef Brisket

- Jasmine Rice

- Mixed Greens Salad with homemade dressing

- bread rolls

- wine (toasted head chardonnay, and section 29 zinfandel)

- beer, water and sodas. :)

Okay, now let's go for the sweets!!!
Dessert

- chocolate fountain
- chocolate fountain stuff: strawberries, bananas, other mixed berries, and pound cake.
- heart shaped sugar cookies (super awesome design -- look below for a better picture)
- chocolate crinkle cookies
- oatmeal cookies
- peppermint and vanilla meringues
- coffee

Here's the closeup on the sugar cookies. (Thanks Emily, I still get compliments on them. And thanks for all the other cookies and meringues too.)

Lastly, we had cake. We bought the cake from a local Safeway in the area, and it was perfect, and not nearly as expensive as others we saw when we were shopping for cake. Along with this, champagne, and sparkling apple cider. Mmm!!! We froze a small piece of the left over cake and plan to have it for our first month anniversary, cuz the thought of eating year-old cake doesn't sound all too appealing to me.

Well, that's about it. :) There was a topper that I was working on for quite some time that turned out pretty good, but because of the daylight, it was a bit difficult to see. Here's a picture of it when it's lit up at a place where you can actually see it. Pretty cool, right? It's just too bad we couldn't get it to show up. Oh well.

I totally forgot this last picture. We finished off the night with shots of patron and pickle juice. :) If you like pickle juice, you should totally try it. The pickle juice has an awesome neutralizing effect.

Okay, so that's our food post. :) I intend to prepare one more wedding post on the the stationary. Yup, those were all DIY too. :D Stay tuned for those.

Our DIY Wedding

2012-05-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, Eric and I finally tied the knot on May 12. Our wedding was an intimate home wedding at a rental home in Lake Tahoe, CA. We planned the whole thing in about 4 months and did the majority of the wedding ourselves with the help of some awesome volunteers. Eric did the planning for the food, and setup, while I did the planning for the details and decorations. I thought I'd show off some of our crafty wedding projects. I'll do another post that that covers the food. :)

Both of us are t-shirt and jeans type of people, so the first thing we decided on were that we didn't want to wear dress shoes. So, we decided that Chuck Taylors would be fun to wear, and is versatile enough that if guests were to wear them, they'd have options. We decided that all of the wedding party should wear chucks, and we added onto the invitation that "Chuck Taylors are suggested, but not required". To our surprise, most of our guests showed up wearing chucks. (yay!).

We decided against a traditional guest book and opted for a glass fishbowl, and a mad-lib type of guest book page. We also created a blank one for those who didn't feel like filling a mad-lib page out. We left stickers, and let people roll up the pages, affix stickers, and throw it into the fishbowl. It was really cool. We had some funny responses, but with great advice. We also decided to order a photobook (actually, I got one free as a gift from David's Bridal, where I bought my dress) that we let people sign. The last picture (bottom right), is a pot of nylon flower pens, so people can write on the pages, etc.

Here's a closer look at the mad-lib page.

The rental house we rented had a downstair game room type area with counters all around. We used these to our advantage, and put all of the guest book things on the counter. We created a card box by using an old picnic basket, and using one of our small chalkboards to tell people that it was a cards box. I actually ended up re-lining the picnic basket because the original lining was red, and our colors (if you haven't noticed yet) were green and yellow.

My sister created this awesome candy bar full of yellow and green candy. There were rock candy, lemonheads, appleheads, yellow, green and white jordan almonds, yellow and green jelly beans and m&m's. Yellow and green lollipops, packets of juicy fruit gum and doublemint gum, lemon drops, frooties, sour apple belts, mango and lychee gel cups, and hugs and kisses (with little dot stickers on them - designed and cut out by us). She made these cool circular fan decorations, that I think she found in Pinterest (love that site). Also, instead of making a slide show of pictures, we opted for getting a few digital picture frames, and just letting it run with our pictures on them. It was easy, and let people view them if they wanted, or not, if they didn't. You can see one of the frames at the end of the candy bar.

We also did our own flowers. I watched tons of youtube videos, and learned to make bouquets corsages, and boutonnieres. My mom did the arrangements for the urns that we used for decorations for the ceremony site. For centerpieces (not pictured), we used small bottles and put a few flowers in each. This worked great because our tables were rectangular, so we didn't want tall flowers that would just get in the way, plus this gave us more room for the wine and champagne glasses (important stuff!). And with the rest of the flowers, several of us just had fun and tried our hand at arranging the remaining flowers in the remaining vases. They all turned out really good and really put color around the reception areas. We bought most of the flowers (roses, and carnations) thru costco.com.

For favors, I wanted something that would look great, and would be useful to people after the wedding, so I came up with these. Each favor consisted of 2 washcloths, a small glass, and an antibacterial bottle. I finished it off a tag shaped like a leaf. I'll have a tutorial on this later.

Here are some other random things we had. First we had our memorial candles. I bought two candles from ikea, and two decals from Joann's. The directions for the decals were easy enough to follow. Below the candles is the tray Eric made out of acrylic to hold our veggie shooters. The tray is basically an acrylic sheet with legs, that has drilled out holes. The shot glasses we used for the shooters were small square plastic shot glasses that fit the holes so that people can easily pick up each one. It's actually quite brilliant because it made set up super easy. The middle picture is how our table setting looked. We cut burlap into strips and used that as a table runner, added the small vases of yellow and white flowers, and added a thick green ribbon around the napkin for color. We used the chalkboard paint to create a larger chalkboard sign for the self serve wine bar. Hanging off of the sign is one of the pomander (kissing) balls I posted about a few posts ago. We used them for aisle decorations, which you can sort of see in the picture on the bottom right.

This last picture are some other random projects. I took my old digital camera, added a little label to tell people to "Capture the memories, and pass it on." With fresh batteries and a large memory card, we got some really cool pictures. We designed and printed our own water bottle labels. I also created wine glass charms with little tags that people could write their names on. And lastly, I created little "Tears of Joy" packets, which were small packets with two tissues in them.

A few other things we did was set up a photo booth. We bought an HD webcam, a license for some webcam software, and printed up or bought a bunch of photo booth props. We also bought a small photo printer, hung some fabric for background and voila -- our own photo booth. Everyone loved it! I forgot to take pictures of the setup, but here's our photo booth photo.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the overview of our DIY wedding. It was super fun. I'll get a food post together soon. :)

A short hiatus...

2012-05-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hi guys.

First off, I want to apologize for my short hiatus from blogging. The last few months have been, in short, eventful. Starting in mid-January, my then fiance, now husband and I decided on a date and venue for our wedding -- and we decided to do it all ourselves (with help from some awesome volunteers). I'll blog more about the wedding later. Shortly after my dad, who has been fighting cancer for the past year, had gotten worse. My friends and I made a few monster fighting amigurumis for him, to help fight off the cancer. Unfortunately, sometimes God just has other plans. My dad, the kindest, sweetest, most respected and inspiring man I've ever known, passed away at the end of March, may he rest in peace. We passed on the monsters to help fight other cancers, and to give a bit of cheer to others. Here's the link to the instructions for the monsters: http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=4921&cps=21191

With all of that, plus a wedding to help plan, we were in a stressful and emotional roller-coaster. Anyway, the wedding was last weekend, and it is done with! phew! The wedding was a success, and we are now happily married. My next post will be an overview of the crafty things we did with the wedding. But I thought an explanation of my absence was necessary. Stay tuned for the wedding post coming up. :)

Our Wedding Playlist

2012-05-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here's our playlist from our DIY wedding. An ipod, and some speakers is all we needed. :)

Spring Wreath

2012-03-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

I found the idea for this wreath on pinterest. This wreath is easy to make, tho a bit time consuming. What I like about it is that you can make the base wreath (green grass), and redecorate it easily however you'd like year after year, or even day after day.

So, here's how I made this wreath.

Materials:

- Lion Brand Yarn 320-194A Fun Fur Yarn, Lime

- foam wreath

- craft glue (optional)

- round head pins

- silk flowers (got these from the dollar tree store)

- ribbon to hang wreath

How to:

1. Take the individual flowers off the silk flower stems, and set aside.
2. Use a pin to attach one end of the fun fur yarn to the foam wreath. You can also add a dab of glue. (I put way too much glue in the picture. A pin and a small dab will work great -- or even just the pin.)
3. Wrap the yarn around the foam wreath until the wreath is completely covered. (This is the time consuming part.) For a 12 inch wreath, I was able to cover everything with 2 skeins of fun fur (just barely. I pinned the last end of the yarn to the beginning of the first skein of yarn, then slowly spread the yarn so it covered the foam wreath evenly.)
4. Put a pin thru the center of the silk flower and stick the pin into the wreath in random places. Repeat for as many flowers as you'd like to use.
5. Attach a ribbon.

Kissing Balls

2012-03-11T20:14:00.002-07:00

Thought I'd share with you my first attempt to making silk flower kissing balls, also known as pomanders. I plan on using these to decorate the aisle for the ceremony.

Materials:
- foam ball (whatever size you want to use. The one pictured is 4 inches)
- silk flowers (lots)
- low temp glue gun and low temp glue sticks.
- ribbon to hang up the kissing ball.

Adding ribbon:
1. Using an exacto knife cut a small slit (about the width of the ribbon) on the foam ball.
2. Using a screwdriver, or something flat, wedge the two ends of the ribbon into the slit. In this case, I used two ribbons together.
3. Using glue gun, put glue around the slit and ribbon to help secure the ribbon into the slit.

Assembly:
1. Prepare the silk flowers. We'll only use the buds, so just remove the buds from the rest of the greenery.
2. Heat up your glue gun.
3. Put a little glue in the bottom tip (where the greenery was) of your silk flower bud, and stick it in the foam ball.
4. Continue sticking buds in til you can't see the foam ball.

Tips:
1. It may be helpful to draw lines that you can follow on the foam ball, particularly if you want to mix up flowers and be symmetric about it.
2. Get more silk flowers than you think you'll need (like double the amount). I'd check the dollar tree store, or online for the best deals.

Pledging Beanies - Year 2 Final Counts

2012-03-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

I know it's been over a whole month since the Pledging Beanies are finished. I'm finally getting around to posting the results. For those who follow Rad Linc Crafts on facebook, you know of some of those results already.

Here are the final numbers, with some pictures. :)

Me ---> 10 beanies. My goal was 12, so I fell short a bit. I just have to try harder next year. I did, however, sell 2 beanies to my friend, of which the money will be going to headhuggers.

My mom and sister ---> A whopping 15 from them. Awesome job to the both of them.

Elaine ---> When my friend from my crochet group heard that I was making beanies for HeadHuggers, she decided to crochet this lovely slouch hat for me to donate. Excellent job on the hat. It's just beautiful, and I'm sure someone will love it and appreciate it greatly.

Alicia ---> My friend and co-conspirator from last year's pledging of beanies, joined me again this year. She did a wonderful job finishing 10 beanies. Picture to come soon.

That brings us to an astounding 36 hats for HeadHuggers. I'm so amazed at this outcome. Thanks to everyone who's joined along with this year's Pledging Beanies campaign.

By the way.... Happy National Craft Month! More posts coming up soon. :)

Easy Chalkboards

2012-01-18T19:28:00.000-08:00

Eric and I just got engaged recently (does 2 months still count as recent?). That being said, you'll probably see more things related to wedding stuff in Rad Linc Crafts. One of which are these little chalkboards. We plan on using these little chalkboards for a variety of things such as a fun way to do our "Save the Date" cards, also as a prop for a photo booth, and to label things for our wedding. Other uses for them might be a message board on a door, or a menu planning board. The best part about them are how easy they are to make.

Materials:

- Pre-cut wood shapes. (tho, if you want to cut your own shapes with a scrollsaw, I say do it!)

- chalkboard paint

- other paint for border (optional).

Here's how:

1. Paint chalkboard paint on the wood shapes. Let dry for a couple of hours (or an hour might be sufficient), and put on another coat. I found that using a rag, to put the coat of paint on reduces the amount of lines left by the paint brush. I think you might use a bit more paint, but I really wanted a smooth surface.

2. Once the chalkboard paint is dry, paint the borders (optional).

See, I told you it was easy. :)

Pledging Beanies. Year 2, Update 2.

2012-01-15T19:03:00.000-08:00

Hi all. Happy New Year!

It feels like so long since I've blogged (probably because it has been, sorry). But what can you do, life just gets in the way sometimes. I thought it was time for another update given that there's really only a few more weeks to go to make beanies. Unfortunately, I haven't been super productive in making beanies. About two week before Christmas, I had a total of 4 hats ready to go. Then, a friend saw two that she really liked for her grand-daughter, so I gave them to her. By Christmas, I was down to 2 hats. Since Christmas, I've done a total of 3 more hats and have another started up. So my number is 5.5 of 12 right now. Sigh.

Here are the hats the 3 hats that I've made since the last update:

On better news, yesterday my friend, Elaine, handed me a hat that she made for headhuggers. :) It's a gorgeous slouch hat that will make someone very happy and warm. A big thank you to Elaine.

Here's the hat:

Okay, to the final weeks. Let's do this!