Monthly Archives: January 2012

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Tutorial Tuesday #6: Recipe Time! Cookie Dough Dip

I was wondering what I should do today for Tutorial Tuesday (you’d think I would post, oh, I dunno, in the morning?!?!) and fell in love with The Best Cookie Dough Dip.  Original post can be found here.

Ingredients

  • 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup toffee bits
What to do
Cream together cream cheese and butter.  Add all remaining ingredients and mix until well-combined.
Serve with graham crackers or apple wedges. 
Voila! Party snack! (or you know, I hate myself comfort food) lol
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KurtzCrafts Giveaway! Fabric! Papercrafting!

I decided it’s time to do a giveaway! There will be two categories you can win from: papercrafting or sewing.  I will be giving away $20 worth of fabric and $20 worth of papercrafting supplies, probably paper, embellishments, things of that nature.  I’ll post pictures here as soon as I go through my stash. 

To be entered into the drawing, follow my blog and “like” KurtzCrafts Etsy Page on Facebook, then comment on this post, preferably with whether you sew or do papercrafting.  I will use good old random.org to decide the winning commentor (commenter?). 

You must follow my blog and ”like” my facebook page and comment by January 31st at 11:59 pm to be considered in the drawing.  If you repost this drawing on your facebook, twitter, or pinterest, comment again and you will be entered twice. =)

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Too Much Fabric? Never!

My husband believes that I have too much fabric that I will never use.  Which is totally not true! In an effort to passify him, I’m offering fat quarters and charm packs hand cut from my fabric stash on my yardsellr. 

I am trying really hard to keep my crafts separate, so I don’t confuse buyers.  Jewelry will be sold on yardsellr and style.ly, and fabric will be sold on yardsellr.  Sewn, crochet, and papercrafts will be sold in my etsy shop.

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Tutorial Tuesday #5 More About Ideas than How To’s

I’m on an organization kick this month! I’ve received newsletters from the scrapbooking and sewing authors that I subscribe to, and everyone has been all about organizing! If you’re following me on Pinterest, you’ll see my repinning of some awesome organization (and maybe I’ll pin the pictures I’m about to share with you there too)

Keep in mind that you have to be invited to join Pinterest, but if you aren’t a member, I would be more than happy to invite you!

First, a simple tutorial to get your baker’s twine and other string under wraps!


 Alright, you will need your twine or string, a pair of scissors, and a small piece of cardboard, I like to use the cardboard they package behind stickers and embellishments.  It’s a little flimsy, but servers our purpose perfectly.
Cut a small rectangle.  I prefer 2 inches by 1 1/4 inches, so it will fit nicely in my plastic divider boxes. (shown below)

 I make small notches and cut out a little, so the twine won’t slide off the cardboard.

 Here is my twine, wrapped around the cardboard, notice I created a little notch to thread the end of the twine through.

Here they are, nestled in my plastic divider box, which used to hold scent sampler candles from Partylite.

I bought this awesome little three tier rack at Wal-mart for $6.95!
Notice on the top tier, those ribbon spools are sitting little clear plastic containers.  What are those plastic containers? When you buy “sticks” of crisco, they come in those with foil on the top.  Wash em good and tada! organizers!

There is also the cut off bottom of an orange juice container on the second shelf (bright orange)

These Halloween Brads were too cute, but the package was too big to fit in any of my organizers, so I cut the rows into strips! Voila! Now they fit!

The clear little jars you see to the right of the picture came from one of two places; mineral makeup samples that I tried from everydayminerals.com, or they came from eBay, either way, they are considered makeup sample jars.  They come in two or three sizes, and the two smaller sizes fit perfectly in stacks in my organizers.

I didn’t know what to do with my quilting rulers (and I could never remember where I put them last!) so I tied ribbon through their little holes and hung them here in my crafty corner! Next to them is my Fiskars fabric cutter, also tied through with a lil ribbon.

Behind the rulers, the fleur de lis designs are rub on decals that I got at Joann’s on clearance.  I think four rows of four are on a sheet, and multiple sheets in a pack.  I don’t know if they still have them, they were on clearance.

Hopefully today’s Tutorial Tuesday has given you some good organization (and recycling) ideas.  If you have some great ones to share, please do! I could start a whole blog series on organization! Maybe Organize Your Saturday or something of the sort.  Happy Crafting, and thanks for tuning in.  =) 
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Tutorial Tuesday #4 Guest tutorial Meeshi Sense

Disclaimer: Please forgive me if I don’t make any sense today, I’m fighting a cold, and it is beating me up mentally.

My good friend Sam over at Meeshi Sense and I have been embarking on a blog journey in tutorials.  Since I love her long exposures (and my sick head is ready to go back to bed on this tutorial Tuesday)
I decided to spring this on her at the last minute that I use her long exposure tutorial. 

To read more, and submit your entries from the tutorial, go to Meeshi Sense’s Blog

Without further adeu, here is Sam;

Evening readers! Happy tuesday, it is a wonderful new day and each day is an oppoturnity to learn. Tuesdays seemed as good as any other day to run tutorials on questions I get a lot about photography and more specific some of my processing.

One of the most common questioned images I have are my night photography. I’m often greeted with confusion as to how I achieve the stable, well lit, clear images in such low light situations. This inquiry always makes me smile, not because it’s a bad one but because its one familiar to me before I started my serious research on the craft some years back. I enjoy being able to sooth the inquiries in others minds that rattled my own, and its soothing to myself to know that others are on the same page.

Long exposure photography is a basic process that can lead into a complex process pending on your visionary goal.
We will start out in the shallow end with our water wings on. The various possibilites with long exposure night photography can be overwhelming if you were to take it all in at once.

You will need the following.

DSLR camera.
Sturdy Tri-pod.

-Position yourself in an area of traffic at night. Set your camera up on your tri-pod and compose the image as you see fit.
-Go into custom functions in your menu. If you have the option to reduce noise for long exposure images you should turn that option on now.

-For those of you who don’t want to deal with manual mode and controlling both shutter and aperture you can set your camera to shutter-priority mode on your dial. (TV on your dial on a Canon).

-Set your exposure to 30 seconds. Click your shutter and stand away from the camera to avoid shake from your body.

It may take up to a minute for your camera to display your image if you enabled noise reduction, otherwise thirty seconds after your shutter closes you will see your image.

For more results (you will want a wireless remote or a wire trigger)

-Turn your dial to M for manual.

-Set your shutter speed to BULB. Its past 30 seconds. The end of the shutter sidewalk.

-Start with your aperture set at 9.0 (adjust your aperture up or down to see what affect it has on your photo).

-Set capture mode to remote if you’re using a wireless remote.

For wireless remotes just click your button once and it opens your shutter. Canons usually display a timer ticking away the seconds your shutter is open. I know some models of Nikons do not offer this option so a stop watch might be useful, I’m uncertain about sony’s and other makes.
-When you want to close your shutter (finishing the photo) click your button on your wireless remote again. Wait for your results.

For a trigger when you go to take your shot you want to slide your button into the lock position and when you want your shutter to close unlock that button.

I hope to see lots of results from this tutorial. You can email any photos you produce as a result from this tutorial to meeshi.sense.pho@gmail.com

IMPORTANT for submissions: Title your email Tutorial Results + title of tutorial. Your submission will be posted on the MSP fan page in a tutorial album for all to view and comment on!

Thank you for your participation and enjoy!

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Quilt Show

I am just kicking myself.  I didn’t share my quilt show pictures with you, and it is killing me!  I visited this quilt show sometime in 2011 (the exact date escapes me) in Brighton, MI. 

Sorry the pictures are crappy, I only took my phone in, thinking they’d kick me out with my poor Nikon.  Nobody likes my poor Nikon.  She’s going to get a complex soon! 

Again, I appologize for the poor quality of these photos, they just don’t do these beautiful works of art justice.  If you recognize your quilt, please let me know so I can put your name by it.  I didn’t think to look hard at the labels. 

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Tutorial Tuesday #3: Recipe Time!

Hello Hello and Happy Tuesday!  Today I decided it’s a recipe day!  My husband picked up some pork chops from Meijer yesterday, so today I’m doing porkchops, carrots, and potatoes in the crockpot!

My recipes are not an exact science, so please excuse my portions and measurements.
(Polish Grandma, she was a pro at eyeballing measurements)

3 porkchops (the hub eats two, I usually eat one)

1/2 bag of baby carrots

8 golden baby potatoes, halved (we’re potato people around here lol)

tablespoon teriyaki marinade

italian seasoning

curry seasoning (I like the yellowish orange variety, it’s fairly mild)

2 bay leaves

1 cup water

dash of milk

salt and pepper to taste

I usually cook crockpot meals anywhere from 4-6 hours, starting on high and ending on low.  If you are going to set it and leave for work or go shopping, I suggest leaving it on low all day. 

I’ll post a picture of it later, when it’s done and my camera battery is done charging.  lol I really need a second battery…