American Girl doll crochet tiara

I made this cute crocheted tiara for my daughter's American Girl doll and it was really super easy to do.It took less than half hour to do.
This pattern came from Carrie Piper. Here is her link:Birthday Tiara

My daughter was thrilled needless to say.

Craft room re-do

It took me all week with all the stuff on my bedroom floor and lots of backpains in order to get my office/craft room done.Yay!

 My crochet area.I put the yarn and thread in blue and black fabric bins.These bins were given to me by my daughter's bf.Thanks DB!

 My scrapping area

 This is my little sewing supplies area

 I used wallpaper pieces and lined the front of the plastic organizers.

And of course, you all know that I repurposed this old filing cabinet.I still have to fix the label area.

Repurposing a filing cabinet

So my darling hubby got two filing cabinets from a storage unit and he wanted to throw them away.I begged for them and finally, he relented. He just cannot see what I would want to do with filing cabinets! Well, this week I got help in taking them inside the house.I gave my little daughter one(who plays teacher every single day!) I have as yet to work on hers.
Well, here is what I did to mine in my office/craft room:

I cleaned it out and put some good ole elbow grease. Finally,I took some wallpaper we had remaining from years ago (no,I hardly throw away stuff-some of you know what I mean). I then stuck the wallpaper on both sides with Mod Podge. Good old Mod Podge-always there for me..haha!

Then,I used scrap circles punchouts which I had laying around.I'd punched these out with a scalloped circle punch. The paper is wallpaper-hehe. Then I Mod Podged those to the front.All because I am too lazy to take an X-acto knife to cut the handles out from a rectangle piece of paper.I love shortcuts, don't you?

I still have to give a final coat of Mod Podge to really seal all those circles in and put some labels on the drawers but here are some of the pics:

 

American Girl crochet outfit

So this past week,I have been crocheting after so many months.I tried a pattern for an 18" doll clothing and used it to make this cute outfit for my daughter's American Girl doll. The hat was pretty simple to make.The vest turned out into a coat.The purse needs a bit tweaking.I just played around for a slip on shoe for her. My proudest moment is when my little one said, "You are the BEST mommy ever!" Awwwwwwwwww...

Easy Peasy Shredded Chicken

If you want to make chicken soup, chicken and dumplings or chicken salad and like your chicken shredded finely, then this is a neat idea for you. I found this tip on Pinterest a few months ago- shredding cooked chicken in a blender!

First of all, I washed and seasoned the boneless chicken breasts accordingly. The breasts were cut into chunks. I let this marinade for about half hour.Then,I added some water to the seasoned chicken to steam it down. That liquid which is now a chicken broth was used for my chicken and dumplings which I made today.

After the chicken had cooled down, I added a couple chunks and shredded them in the blender. All it took was 5 seconds in the blender for it to be finely shredded. After shredding, I used some in my chicken and dumplings supper. The rest I divided into two parts. One part,I added mayonaise for a chicken salad which the kids can use as a sandwich to take for lunch to school. Then, the other part, I put in a Ziploc baggie to go into the freezer for future use.

As you can see, the chicken is already seasoned prior to cooking.

Just 2 chunks and 5 seconds in the blender.

All shredded and ready to go

Upcycled can-yarn wrapped

 I have so many inspirations from Pinterest and took some time off my routine to get into some crafting. One of the inspirations was a rope covered can. Well,I did not have rope but I did have yarn.I took some plastic canvas yarn, a tin can and hot glue gun and made my upcycled craft.

I just hot glued the beginning of the wrapping and then wound tightly around the can.I would put a dab of hot glue every now and then.Note that you have to keep pushing your yarn up so that there would not be too many spaces between each round of wrapping.

After finishing,I thought it was a bit too messy looking so I got some white grosgrain ribbon scrap and hot glued it to the rim. And since I was practising crochet hearts, I made a couple and hot glued it also onto the can and put a pearl bead on each heart.No rocket science.Now, that is the kind of craft I like!

I threw some colored Sharpie markers in the can.It can also make for a neat vase.