Book Pages Wreath

So here is the project that I worked on the last week and a half. I made a wreath using book pages and I am not going to lie. I just hung it up yesterday and I am loving it. It turned out so great!

Here is the tutorial on how to make it:

You need a book, I got a book about 400 pages long at the dollar store. I didn't want to use any of my books, I like them too much! Rip out some pages, I think I used a 150 -200 pages or so.

Start off by cutting out a circle in the pages, I used a bowl to trace my circle, so about the size of the width of a average bowl. Then You cut the circle into a spiral as shown in the picture above. Then roll up the spiral to form a kind of flower shape. Start rolling from the outside of the circle and keep going to the inside of the circle. Start out small and tight and then make your circles bigger as you go, glue it all together with your gun it all together at the end. I suggest gluing as you go as well so that it doesn't all unravel when you get done. I also tried using Elmer's glue cause I always burn myself with the glue gun, but the elmers didn't dry quickly enough, so it didn't really work so I took out the trusty old glue gun and used that and it worked so much better and I actually didn't burn myself this whole project, not too badly at least.

Once you have your pages rolled into flowers, take a brown stamp pad and rub it along the flower's edges to give it a burned edges look.

Now make llike a hundred more flowers!

Next I took a large cross stitching hoop (is that what it is called?) as the base of my wreath. You could use a styrofoam wreath too, but I had the hoop so I decided to use that and it worked out pretty well.

Wrap a few of your book pages around the wreath to start out with. Now take the flowers and glue them on the wreath. I did them on the top, then put more flowers on the sides of the wreath. I tried to make them all kind of face the front of the wreath so you could see them. Once you have all the wreath pretty much covered, I made some small flowers ( I used a cup to size the circle) and I put the small flowers in any empty spots to make the wreath more full.

Now top it with a pretty brown bow and you are done.

The rolling of the flowers is pretty easy but it really does take a long time, It took me about a week to do them, and I did them most of the day while I was working... So it is definately a project that takes time, but if you know that it will take some time, just do it on your down time when your watching t.v. or something.

I also wanted to put something in the middle of the wreath. So I got a wood P at the craft store, and so I painted it with some brown paint, sanded the edges down and hung it up with more ribbon in the middle of the wreath.

So I am thinking.... a giveaway soon perhaps???!

Well this blog is awfully close to 50 followers! I am so excited. Thanks to all of you who are following. It definately makes me want to blog more when I know more people are reading. I hate writing if no one is reading anything, its like whats the point?

So to say thank you for all of you giving such a great listening ear I thought I would do a giveaway once I got to 50 followers. What do you think??

Laziness and Warm French Dip Sandwiches

I have been so busy lately. Okay, maybe busy isnt the right word, I guess I have been LAZY lately. Really I like havent even wanted to like do my hair or makeup lately. I think its because of winter time, I am going to blame it on the snow. And to all of you out there across the U.S. who think you get a lot of snow, you are wrong! Utah gets the third highest snow fall in the nation (so said an article on Yahoo! that I read a few days ago) Colorado gets the highest and Utah is only like a inch below them on average, so we get a ton here!! And I hate the snow and the cold. It makes me not want to do anything. So these last couple weeks I haven't done anything. So that is why my crafty posts have been a bit far apart. Plus I finally got done with this other project that you will see next week, and it took me forever to get done!

But anyway, here is a quick recipe for French Dip Sanwiches.

I love French Dip Sandwiches, they are so warm and toasty and great for winter time.

And these are sooo easy to make.

1 pckg Lipton Onion Soup Mix

1/2 lb Roast Beef

Provolone Cheese

Rolls or French Bread

Make the onion soup mix according to directions on box.

I just get Roast Beef in the lunch meat secion, prepackaged, cause I am cheap, but it works. You can get some good roast beef at your grocer's deli. Once onion soup mix is almost done, pull apart pieces of roast beef and put them into the onion soup mix cook until everything is warm. Now with slotted spoon take out roast beef, put it on bread, I guess for French Dips you should use french bread, but I used my roll recipe cause I love those rolls.Place Provologne cheese on top of roast beef.  Now in shallow bowl or cup pour in onion soup and use that as your au jus and dip sandwich in that.

Perfectly delicous and easy!

They also have au jus packages in the like seasoning aisle, where they have the gravy packages and the taco seasoning stuff, but I haven't ever tried them.

So this makes a great dinner or lunch for you on a cold day!

Mine is the sandwich with no cheese!!

Pom Pom Tutorial

Wanna learn how to make cute pom poms?? I am obsessed with pom poms right now, they are so much fun, and you can put them anywhere, you can use the pom pom technique for wreaths, hair clips, decorations to like frames, and cards and scrapbooks like I showed you the other day.

Step 1:

Get your fabric and then cut out a flower shape. It doesn't need to be perfect at all! You can also do circle shapes or square shapes, they all work. I like the flower shape the best cause it makes a lot of dimension in your pom pom, but honestly it takes longer to make. Cut out a gagillion (its a word...) of these shapes, probably around 12-15 depending on how big you want your pom pom to be.

Cut out a piece of felt in a circle. This piece is what you are going to make the base of your pom pom out of, you want it to be a little bit smaller than what you want the end result to be, the pom pom grows, and if you cut out a big circle of felt, you are going to have to make a huge huge pom pom. So go small!

Step 2:

Fold up your little flower or circle shape. So fold it in half once, and then fold it in half again, so it should look like this at the top:

And then have a point at the bottom. Put a little dot of glue at the bottom of the point and glue this to the center of your felt circle. Do this a million more times and eventually you will get your pom pom.

Sorry I didn't take any pics of a half done pom pom, I was doing this while I was working and kinda forgot...

Here is the pom pom! I love it.

Once you are done you will want to kinda poof it up so it all blends together, and you may even have to add a couple more of your flower shapes to it to fill in any gaps you wanted.

Melt In your mouth buttery rolls.

Oh my goodness I can't even begin to describe how much I love these rolls. They are my most favorite rolls ever! I don't even remember the last time I actually bought rolls at the store, after these rolls I just cant do it. Neither can my husband, he aboslutely loves these rolls. Like really he gets so excited whenever I make them. And they are sooo easy! They are also from Ms. Betty Crocker and her fabulous cookbook. She never fails!
( I have included the regular recipe and the bread machine recipe below )

Dinner Rolls

3 1/2 c. All purpose Flour or Bread Flour

1/4 C. Sugar

1/4 C. Butter or Margarine (softened)

1 tsp Salt

2 1/2 tsp yeast (or 1 package)

1/2 C. very warm water (120-130 degrees)

1/2 C. very warm milk (120-130 degrees)

1 large egg

Butter or Margarine melted if desired

1. In a large bowl, stir 2 Cups of the flour, the sugar, 1/4 c. butter, salt, and yeast until well mixed. Add warm water, warm milk and egg. Beat with electric mixer on low for about one minute. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute, stir in remainding flour.

2. Place dough on ightly floured surface. Knead about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Grease large bowl with shortening. Place dough in bowl, turining dough to grease all sides. cover bowl loosley with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size.

3. Grease bottom and sides of 13X9 " pan.

4. Gently push fist into dough to deflte Divide dough into 15 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball; Place in pan. Brush with melted butter. cover loosley with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place for about 30 minutes or until dough has doubled in size.

5. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Now I have never actually made them that way, all that kneading is just not for me. I guess if you have one of those awesome Kitchen Aid mixers they have a kneading blade and will knead it for you, but I don't have one of those, so I use one of the loves of my life, my bread machine!!! One of the best birthday presents ever! Thank you husband. Haha for my first birthday that we had since we had been married I asked for that machine and my husband did not want to get it for me, he said he thought it was a lame gift. But I had always wanted one, and I love that little machine. It is so amazing. So here is the recipe if you want to be lazy like me and let the bread machine do all the work.

Dinner Rolls (Bread Machine)

3 1/4 C. Flour

2 Tbsp Butter (softened)

3 tsp yeast

1 C. room Temperature water

1/4 c. Sugar

1 tsp Salt

1 egg

butter or margine melted if desired

Place all items except melted butter i bread machine in order directed by the manufacturer. Select Dough/manual cycle (don't use delay cycle) Once the cycle is done, remove dough from pan and continue with steps 3-5 above.

I also put butter on them after they are done too.

I still need a good recipe for wheat rolls though. I love these rolls, but with the white flour they aren't super healthy, I want a healthy alternative to make once in a while... Any suggestions??



Valentine Pom Pom Cards

Yesterday while I was working, I made a couple Valentine Day cards

I have a few special people I wanted to send some cards to to wish them a happy valentines day.

I hope they like them.

Just made the cards from cardstock, added a cute pink paper and a fabric pom pom.

The pom pom tutorial will be coming next week!

HERE IS THE TUTORIAL FOR POM POM'S

Chile Verde Burritos

This is a recipe that comes from my dad's family.

These burritos are soo good. And easy to make.

I gave them to the hubs to eat for the first time and he was in love!

Chile Verde Burritos

2lbs Pork, cubed

1/4 C. Flour

3 Cloves Garlic, minced

2 Cans Original Rotel

1 can Green Chiles

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 Tbsp Corn Startch

2 C. Water and 2 tsp Water

6 Potatoes

Flour Tortillas

Mozarella or Cheddar Cheese

1. Slice potatoes thinly, in pan cook potatoes with a small amount of oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until potatoes are cooked through and soft.

2. While potatoes are cooking, get ziplock bag, pour 1/4 c. flour in baggie, add pork in bag and shake until the pork is coated in the flour.

3. Heat about 1 Tbsp oil in pan, once it is pretty hot, pour pork in the pan and cook pork until pork is cooked through and browned.

4. Once pork is cooked, pour into the pan with the pork 2 C. water, rotel, green chiles, and garlic.

Bring to a boil. If the misture is too thin, add corn startch to thicken. I find that this works best by putting the 1 Tbsp corn startch with 2 tsp water in a baggie, with your fingers work the corn startch mix in the baggie until it is mixed and there are no lumps (this prevents lumps in your sauce and works absolutely great in gravy)  pour corn startch mix in the sauce mixture, mix and simmer sauce for about 5 minutes.

5. Now get your tortillas, put in some potatoes, pour in the chile verde sauce and add some cheese. I like to add the chile verde sauce on top of the burrito too.

I am sure there are tons of versions of chile verde out there, and maybe mine isn't too authentic, but I really love these, they are easy and so good. Hope you like them too.