What can I craft this Tuesday? Jolly Rancher Vodka

"Pssst...I've got a secret...Santa's coming." That phrase makes me smile just about every year. Right around this time, maybe a week or two earlier, my mom starts telling me this. It's like a highlight of the year. 

In case you've been procrastinating gift buying, like my husband, here's a last minute project you can make today that'd be ready for gifting on Christmas next week. I made it for my brother for his 28th birthday back in November. He hasn't tried it yet but it's sure to be delicious.

Here's what you need:

1 large bag of Jolly Ranchers

5 glass swing-top bottles (buy at Hobby Lobby when they have the half off glass sale)

1 handle of the cheapest vodka you can find (I used Fleischmann's)

Here's what you do:

Step 1. Wash all your swing-top bottles with hot water and let air dry as you're going through the next step.

Step 2. Unwrap each and every single jolly rancher in the bag. You should end up with about twelve of each flavor and possibly a hand cramp. If not, no biggy. 

Step 3. Add about eight candies of each flavor to separate swing-top bottles. I did twelve and I think it was too many.

Step 4. Open your cheap ass vodka and using a funnel, pour in the vodka until you hit the bottom of the bulb at the top. This is very exact. Not really.

Step 5. Set it and forget it. For about a week. You don't need to shake them. But let's face it, it's fun and feels rewarding. Here's a couple pictures of what'll happen. You'll know it's ready when the candies are no longer visible and the corn syrup it was made from is no longer coating the bottom. Gross, I know.

that one of the right is vanilla beans in vodka

the morning after I put it together

then I shook them 

Step 6. Wrap and give those bad boys away. Or enjoy. Either way.

Do you have any left to shop for? Does anyone you know fit the bill for this gift? Any last minute things you're trying to put together?

What can I craft this Tuesday? A Long Distance Mug

As much as I love a good alliteration, Tuesday Thriftovers wasn't working for everything I wanted to do. It's restrictive and I didn't like it. So I'm renaming Tuesdays. Don't worry, it's all the stuff you would've gotten anyway. Here's today's post:

I'm not sure what's gotten into me, but I'm all into Christmas right now. I've already gotten presents for my mom, my sister-in-law, and I've started on my nephews. I saw this really neat pin a while ago and I knew instantly I wanted to make it for my best friend. Since she doesn't read my blog (yet) I can post it here well before Christmas time. As I mentioned before I'm going to add more pictures of my steps so you can see the progress at each step.

I started with two plain white mugs I picked up from the dollar store. I had a black sharpie, black sharpie paint pen, and red bic permanent market on hand.

I wanted it to look and with Colorado it's not hard because let's face it, it's a box. New York is a bit trickier. No matter, I printed out pictures of each state and used my superior scissor skills to make templates. I held down the Colorado template because it was four straight-ish lines. I taped down the New York in order to keep it steady.

Here's the result. See, Colorado is totally a box.

Then I added little hearts as to where we both live. She lives in Denver, I live near Albany. You can see the map on my monitor that I used to put the hearts in the general vicinity of where they are actually.

I found this quote that I love and it always reminds me of our friendship. "Together forever, never apart. Maybe in distance but never in heart."

Then I threw these bad boys in my cold oven to set the ink and mesh it with the glaze.

I set my oven for 400 F and let the mugs heat up with the oven. Then I set my timer for 30 minutes and went back to work. After the 30 minutes I turned off the oven and let the mugs cool down with the oven.

 

After they were cool, I wiped them down to make sure I didn't screw up the ink was truly set. While working on this today I found a great post with some tips and tricks for crafty on mugs, plates, etcs. Now I wait for Christmas so I can send it out! I'll package it with tea, some honey sticks, and a note of love to her!

I'll leave you with a picture of us from my wedding. Love you Christina!

Another one lost

Internships at GE are coveted. A lot of students in the Capital District apply. A select few get in and generally they're pretty good. On my team we always have two interns - one for Pension support and one for S&SP and Family Services support. Unfortunately for us we only get to keep them for a year. Yesterday one of those years was up and we lost a terrific intern.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole alongside my coworker Stephanie. Out of the three interns we interviewed, I thought she was the best. She had been in banking, went to school for accounting, and she seemed like she was ready to learn.A year later, she's made a great impact on our team: improving processes, making reconciliations more efficient, and really making my job a little easier because I NEVER have to worry.

Tuesday was her last day. I typically work from home on Tuesdays but when she texted me I knew I had to be there to see her off. I wanted to give her a token of my appreciation, so I used some Pinterest inspiration and on hand document frames to make her an inspirational white board. This one was black metal but it had some dings in it which made the silver shine through. Good thing I have my Martha Stewart paint!

 

Again, I covered my lap desk in plastic wrap (I swear I'll use more of it for that board than I will on food). I took the metallic Martha Stewart paint and using an "X" type brush stroke on leftover fabric from a previous project. I did a few layers to make sure the dings were covered. While that was drying (sorry, I apparently didn't take a picture of the painting step) I took out my button/string collection. This is just a collection of all the buttons/strings that any of mine or my husband's clothes come with. Typically if you buy a button up shirt it comes with extra button - so in the bag they go. 

I looked for white buttons because I thought they'd go well with the silver. I also had about 8 inches of silver ribbon from some random craft in college and a whole roll of white ribbon. I cut two pieces of white ribbon and used about half of the silver to tie three quick, cute bows. With 3 buttons I was set to go. Hot glue gun in hand - the ribbons and buttons were quickly attached.

I wanted to give Nicole something more than just a white board so I looked for a quote that was inspirational but not overdone. I found one by Pamela Vaull Starr that said "Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal." I chose Artistamp Medium for the larger words and Appleberry for the others. Together I think they look really neat.

I know Nicole grew a lot in her role as an intern and I hope she continues to through her experiences in NYC. Best of luck!

Since I think my steps are generally straightforward I'll include just the cost of materials:

Supplies
1. Document Frame - $2.99
2. Martha Stewart  Metallic Paint (Polished Silver) - $5.48
3. Copy Paper (500 Sheets) -  $3.72
4. Hot Glue Gun - $5.97
5. Buttons - Free with purchase of any button up shirt!
6. Spool 'O 1/4" Ribbon - $1.99 (look at Hobby Lobby when their ribbon is 50% off)

Total cost for the project considering percentage of paint, paper, ribbon, etc used is probably close to $3.15.

One year down, so many more to go

Yesterday marked our first wedding anniversary. A longer year than most (366 days) but I wouldn't have spent any of those days differently. I love Ryan and I'm so glad to have him as my best friend and partner in crime.

Traditionally, the first anniversary is the paper anniversary. Since we're kinda broke, I decided to make a couple things that I found on Pinterest. I'll cover one today and the other tomorrow.

At first, I was going to come up with 365 things I love about Ryan. I would have then put them on Post Its and then stuck them around the apartment. After trying to come up with 365 reasons why I love him, I quickly gave up. I mean, I love the guy - but it's hard to put everything I love about him in words. Then I found this blog about putting 52 reasons on a deck of cards. 

First, I wrapped my kitchen island with plastic wrap - it's brand new so if I put paint on it I probably would've cried. I then laid out the bicycle deck with 56 cards (52 playing cards, two jokers, and two with the rules of Texas Hold 'Em). There was some white semi gloss paint laying around and I managed to find a foam brush to boot!

I kinda "white-washed" the face of all the cards with one coat of paint (it's thick paint but not thick enough to cover it in one coat). The cards curved up with the wet paint but flattened as they dried. I did two coats on each side of the Texas Hold 'Em cards so I could use these as the front and back covers of the notebook.

Then I set out to come up with 52 reasons why I love this guy:

It was pretty easy. A few of my favorites include his laugh (you'd have to hear it to understand), his ever present smile, and the way he always makes me feel absolutely beautiful. So I put them all in Excel - which is perhaps my favorite MS Office application. I put a plain box border on all the boxes (which were 168 X 271 pixels in case you were wondering). I also used three different fonts to add some variety to the pages - not sure he noticed but I knew.

Once I printed all of them out, I used scissors and incredible patience to cut out each box. I hate doing repetitive things and often mess up if I do it to much. But I made sure to get all the black border so I had a thin white strip of paper outside each box. Once they were all done I went to town with a glue stick and glued all the reasons on the face of the cards. Because I didn't do a lot of rearranging once they were on the card (I tried to stick them to as center as possible) so I was able to put heavy things on top of them (ie binders, 3-hole punches, and staplers) to help the items dry and stay together. I gave them about 45-60 minutes. After that I hole punched them. I used the jokers to find the best hole punch positions - I threw them out afterwards. One in each corner. There was no way to set up my hole punch to do that (at least not that I know of) so I did the following 4-5 cards at a time.

After that I covered several items (lap desk, old VHS taps, empty boxes, etc) with plastic wrap. I laid out all the cards again and modge podged them to make sure they had a nice glossy finish on the face side. This is NOT necessary and I'm not sure if I would do it again. Although I probably would - but you don't have to. Why the move from the kitchen island where everything fit to random flat items? I almost had my husband convinced I was making a notebook of sorts at the beginning (when I was "white-washing" the cards) but if he walked into the kitchen and saw me modge podging cards with random things on them I'm pretty sure he would stand there and read them rather than be suspicious of why I wouldn't let him in the den. He knew I was making something for him but he was a good enough sport not to ruin my surprise for him.

After the cards dried I used 1" binder rings through the two holes to bind the little notebook together. From what I saw in form of reaction - he started reading it while I was in another room - Ryan liked it. This is what the finished product looked like:

Here's a breakdown of the products, cost, and steps:

Supplies
1. Bicycle Cards - $1.50
2. Foam Brush (for value pack) - $1.89
3. Leftover wall/molding paint - $0.00
3a. Acrylic paint (substitute for 3) - $4.99
4. 3 Hole Punch - $16.84
5. Binder Rings - $1.88
6. Modge Podge - $9.00
7. Glue stick (pack of 3) -  $1.17


I'm sure you have a few of these things sitting around the house (especially if you're a crafter but I'm including the prices just in case your new or don't have them and want an estimate). I base all my prices on Amazon - but you can probably find it cheaper at Wal*Mart. I'll link a product if I get it from a specialty store or if I found it at an amazing price.

I had a few of these things laying around so the total I spend for the project was the cost of the binder rings and modge podge. But I have rings left over and pretty much the whole thing of modge podge for future projects.Total cost for the project considering percentage of paint/modge podge/binder rings/brushes used is probably close to $5.00.

Steps
1. Plastic wrap a large flat surface (like a counter or kitchen island).
2. Lay out all cards in single layer.
3. Using leftover paint (or acrylic) lightly coat the face of each card using the foam brush.
4. Apply a second coat to jokers about 30 minutes later (cards will bend but should flatten out as they dry!). Rinse out the brush so you can reuse it!
5. Allow the cards to dry for a couple hours or overnight.
6. While the cards are drying - come up with 52 reasons why you love the person!
          a. Think of physical attributes (nice eyes, cute butt, sexy legs?)
          b. Think of personality (funny, kind, your kind of crazy?)
          c. Think of quirks (snore, snort when laughing, talk to themselves?)
          d. Think of what they're passionate about (math, books, beer?)
          e. Think about how they treat you (make you laugh, make you feel gorgeous, always brighten your day?)
7. Write out the reasons (or use the computer) on white paper with a border (if you want).
8. Write out a title and dedication for the notebook ("52 Reason Why I Love You..." "Happy 1st Anniversary")
9. Diligently cut out each reason and the title.
10. Using the glue stick, coat the back of each piece of paper and place it centered on the dried cards.
11. Lay out all cards and place heavy objects (like books) on top of the cards.
12. Allow the cards to dry for about 30 minutes.
13. Using the 3-hole punch, punch two holes on the left-hand side of the face of the cards (one at the top, one at the bottom - see pictures above).
13. Plastic wrap a large flat surface again and lay out all the cards.
14. Coat the face of each card (where the reasons are glued to) with a thin layer of modge podge.
15. Allow the cards to dry for 1 hour.
16. Place the cards in order (or randomly) and hook through the binder clips.
17. Done! Present unwrapped or with a ribbon around it (I used some leftover streamers that I had).