Glitter Heart Bulbs...

 Here are all of the bulbs in 6 different colors...

 My heart tree...

It's almost Clover Day and I'm just posting my Heart Day crafts... yes I'm a little behind! So you know how all the rage at Christmas on Pintrest was the glitter bulbs? Well I had these cute heart shaped bulbs and thought it would be fun to try them out.  Josh and I hate how dark it is after we take down all of the Christmas decor... and in our "former" life we used to have a tree for each of the holidays... we even had a NASCAR tree... oh yeah it was pretty awesome! So I decided to bring the Heart tree out again this year... I love how the bulbs turned out.  Seeing how the white one dried... I think I would really try to get a thicker coating of the Pledge wax on the bulb and make sure to really get the glitter a little more heavy as well... you couldn't see through them ~ but a little more might not have hurt.  Have you used the white glitter before and what would be your suggestions?

Wood Roosters...

I was contacted by the designer of Wood Creations to see

if I would do a tutorial for their blog followers... I was stoked!

So I went to their store and picked out the wood I wanted

to paint... and here is my tutorial!

 First I sanded and penciled off where I wanted my beaks

and combs to be on each of the roosters...

 Next I cut out the patterned paper for each of the roosters ~ cutting off where the beak and comb would be...

It won't always be perfect... but I like the sanded look so you can take off any "hang-over" with sand paper or emery board.

I did add some black chalk to the yellow paper and red to the

black ones... (I pretty much ended up sanding it off in the end)

I just think it's easier to do it before it is on the wood.

 I painted each of the beaks and combs with acrylic paint...

I do a minimum of 2 coats

 Next I painted all of the other wood pieces... 

I use an old flower pot filled with chili beans to hold my

round pieces for drying...

 After I had the roosters painted I thought...

these would be so cute with vinyl dots... one in red and

one in white and the other just left plain black...

I think they would have been super cute that way too!

The problem was I was not very careful with the red and gold

paint since I knew that I would be putting pattern paper

over the top...so maybe for the next set I do I will try that.

Also... I'm very OCD (actually it should be CDO since it

should be alphabetized too ;-)

so you don't have to take the time to paint the whole front

of the roosters ~ you can just do the edges...

 Then it was Mod Podge time... I like to put it on both the

wood piece and the pattern paper...

Line the paper up the best you can (again you will probably have a little "hang-over" and that's easy to sand off). I like to use a

roller to get any bubbles out and also to seal the edges good.

 I finished adding the paper to all 3 roosters.

I usually wait about 5 to 10 minutes for the Mod Podge

to dry before I start sanding.

I also thought it might be fun to use some Fun Flock on the beaks and combs... you can see the dimension it gives to the beak...

(the beak on the right has been covered)

 Here is what the bottle of Fun Flock looks like...

For easy clean up... I get a piece of paper to put under

my project... then I brush over the spot I want the Fun Flock 

to stick to with an adhesive (I used Mod Podge) and

sprinkle it over the top. I usually apply it pretty heavy ~

then pat it gently into the adhesive.

After a few minutes you can tap the back off the wood

and the excess will fall back on the paper and then

just pour it back into the jar...

 Since my kitchen is mainly black... I started adding red

accents and I love it... so I wanted the roosters to have red

wings... I just could not find a pattern paper in the color of red I wanted... so I decided to use the Fun Flock on them... well they are feathers after all... they should be soft ;-)

They would have looked better if I had painted them red first...

but again I didn't think about that until after the

Fun Flock was on the them.

I attached them with E-6000 glue and let them dry...

I added a black jewel for there eyes (usually my projects all

have green eyes but I thought the black looked better).

Add some ribbon and tulle to the bottoms and look how cute!

They were a little too tall for my spot under my cabinet... but they

are going to look even cuter up on top of my cabinets (I have to wait until my son gets home from work to put them up for me).

The wings look funny in this picture ~

but they don't look like this in person...

 Thank you for letting me share my rooster project with you...

A big thank-you to Kerrie and the Wood Creations staff

for creating such cute wood pieces to keep every crafter happy!

Please Excuse The Dust...

I woke up this morning to my blog full of Photo Bucket images saying that the band width had been exceeded... and I paid how much for my make over?  So I decided it's time for a do-over of my own! Please bear with me while I play with all of the fun templates.

Wood Roosters...

I'm doing a guest post over at the Wood Creations Blog 

showing how I made these super cute roosters!

Farewell To The HJ...

Here is a picture of my going away cake... some of you know that the last year has been pretty tough on me and has taken a tole on my feeling like doing anything crafty... Guess what... that chapter is now closed and I am off on a new adventure! If you want all of the "details" you can find them here.  To those of you who have written words of encouragement I want to tell you thank you! It was your kind words and love that helped me make it through a very difficult time! Here's to some fun crafting projects and a new chapter! Happy New Year everyone! 

Huggies!

Chocolate Covered Christmas Pretzels

Bagged and ready for delivery...

Warming the chocolate...

Note the jar Josh is pulling the pretzels from

Getting their chocolate coating...

Some had sprinkles...

Some had more chocolate...

The production line...

They were stacked everywhere...

In keeping with the Johnson family tradition of chocolate covered pretzels... we bought 2 of the big containers from Sams Club that had cute stars, trees and bell shapes (see top picture) for about $8.00 each plus about 8 pounds of white chocolate and in a matter of about 90 minutes we had over 1,200 of those bad boys completed and ready for delivery!

We are getting better with the "production" each and every time we make them. This time we decided to melt the chocolate (we bought 2 pound blocks instead of the chips) in the microwave first and then put the melted chocolate into the frying pan (it was on low) we found that this makes the chocolate stay warmer and the pretzel don't end up "swimming" in the chocolate because most of it will drip off and back into the pan... and we didn't have to keep re-heating the chocolate on the stove in the double boiler.  After they were dipped we put them on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet and moved over to the "decorating" section of the kitchen.

Our next big ah-ha moment was with the decorating bags. I had previously bought bottles (they looked like smaller ketchup bottles you use at a ballgame). Kendra would put several Wilton Candy Melts into the bottle and would microwave them until melted... stirring them constantly and sometimes they would burn a little because it was taking forever to get them to melt completely. This time I bought the Wilton Decorating Bags (I think there were 10 of them for $4.00)... these worked like a charm.  Kendra put several Candy Melts in the bag... zapped them for the time called for and then would "massage" the bag until all of the Melts were melted completely... then she snipped a very small piece off of the bottom and voila... the perfect decorating tool! (it's better to take just a little snip off ~ you can always snip off more if you want later).

Josh thought it was taking to long to just decorate each individual pretzel and decided they should just sweep across the whole tray with several passes back and forth with each of the colors. With this new idea they were much faster decorating than we were dipping and honestly... they looked just as good as when each one was done on its own!  Some of the pans Josh and Kendra used just the sugar sprinkles and others they did just the Candy Melts and on some they did both... they all looked so festive and tasted so good!

The pretzels would have set up a lot faster had my mom not cranked up the temperature to 86* in my house. Apparently when my mom and dad first arrived (Kendra and I were both running late at work and Josh was in the shower) my mom decided that it was a little "chilly" so she proceeded to crank up the heat to 86*... She claims she didn't hear the furnace kick on... so she just keep pressing the "up" button.  Josh was the one who noticed how hot it was getting and discovered that it was 86*. He first accused me of cranking it up and then my mom started laughing... she knew she was busted! Needless to say it gave us all a great laugh for the evening!

I hope that you and your family have at least one "fun" thing to do in the kitchen that everyone can do together... oh and don't forget to have your favorite Christmas carols playing in the background... you will be making memories for years to come!

Merry Christmas!

 

Dallas Cowboys Whoo Hooo Towel

I had bought some white flocked heat transfer material over a year ago and finally decided it would be fun to make me, Josh and My dad a whoo hooo towel for the Cowboys games.  I already had saved the star and the logo on my Silhouette... I just measured the places I wanted the flocking to go and cut it that size. I have never worked with flocking before and it would have been a snap had I used normal material... but all of the "loops" on the towel as well as the "lint" is not the easiest or best medium to adhere it to. I did really like how they turned out though... hopefully it will bring us better luck than we had yesterday!

Dallas Cowboy Clothes Pins...

The front of the holders...

The back of the holders...

Dallas Cowboy chocolate covered pretzels...

My dad and his brothers have been Dallas Cowboy fans since their very first game. My cousins and I all have the strong Cowboys ties as well. At our Johnson Reunion this summer I asked my dad and uncles, Darrell and Ace, to bring their Cowboy jerseys for a "photo shoot". I thought it would be cool ~ and being the awesome uncles they are... they humored me! You can see the complete photo shoot here.  I wanted to make them something fun to display the pictures... and this is what I came up with. 

I painted the cloths pin two coats of silver... I traced the special Cowboy star paper and used Mod Podge to adhere it to the wood. The white paper was added to the top (I'll never admit this... but you can have too many stars) and the white was the perfect pop he needed.  I wished the picture showed the sparkles on the papers better... then I added a blue jute-like material for the final touch. I attached two pictures of them together ~ a front and a back... just like they are posed (top and middle picture ~ right pin). You can soo tell they are brothers! I have different pictures in mine (top and middle picture ~ left pin). Since we had the Sunday night game... I thought it would be fun to give them each a bag of Cowboy pretzels to enjoy for treat time during the game.

 

Fall Centerpiece...

Another one of my mom many talents... flower arranging! She surprised me with this for my kitchen table... I love it!

Cowboy and Halloween Pretzels...

 The cute bag filled with treats...

 Halloween Pretzels...

 Dallas Cowboy Pretzels...

My dad and the cool Cowboy Pretzels...

In keeping with holiday tradition we made our super tasty pretzels. One of the girls at work found these cute football pretzels and thought that I should have them. Mom and I dipped with dad and Kendra were the decorators... Josh even joined in on the fun after he got home from work.  We put the pretzels in these cute bags and I made a cute pumpkin tag by cutting two of the pumpkins and sticking them together (the eyes and mouth would have fallen out... by putting tape over the back of the eyes and mouth and putting the two together you couldn't see the tape... OCD I know... but it looked cuter!) a little chalking to add some depth and they were ready to go.