These past couple of days have been really hectic! I have been helping my husband with his work and it has side tracked me by more than I imagined. Thank goodness today is the last day of crazy (I hope) so this will have to be short 😦
I found NYX Butter Lipstick for $2.98 on clearance at Target, SCORE!! I got the last two left at my Target, Big Cherry and Little Susie. I already have both of these but I know a happy home where to send them 🙂
My Frank Lloyd Wright Membership Card came in the mail and it is more than I expected so simple, so Frank, LOVES!!! We will be visiting lots of his homes this spring and summer and I will love busting this out ❤
My second to last order of the Real Techniques Bold Metals came in 🙂 I am so sad I haven’t had time to play with these 😦 I am only missing the eye liner brush that I didn’t originally buy and regretted. I can’t wait to use the powder brush, the pointed crease for the eyes, and the oval shadow for eyes. I will give my full thoughts in a couple of weeks once I get to really use all of them and test them out.
The last of my Valentine’s Day cards are getting sent out today. Yay! Hope they make it out to the people soon lololol
The weeks have flown by and I completely forgot about some upcoming family Anniversaries and Birthdays that are this week, ugh terrible I know. My mail lady comes between 9-10am, so with little less than an hour time frame I made some quick cards to mail out. This isn’t my greatest work and I didn’t have time to make liners for the envelopes or really jazz up the card, but I documented my favorite thing to do , emboss!
I love Zing powder, it cost $5 at Hobby Lobby, but I always use a 40% off coupon. It has been a slow process to collect a lot of the colors, but I am cheap and with HL down the block the trip there isn’t a hassle to go once a week.
I use my stamp with clear embossing ink pad and put the powder on top, then tap off into my little tray. This tray comes in handy a lot, I used to just a bend piece of paper but it would get everywhere and I would lose powder so this was a great find in the clearance aisle.
See what I mean? With an old paint brush it all gets easily swooped into the Zing bottle.
My favorite part, turning on my embossing tool and watching the “magic” happen. I love seeing it turn from a powder to a solid, it looks really pretty and professional. I keep the tool about 2-3 inches away from the card and move it in a circular motion and once you see it start to change and it turn solid you can move to a different section. When I first started embossing I definitely burned the powder, if that is even possible, but it turned an ugly dry out solid as oppose to the shiny pretty solid I thought I would get. I also didn’t let the powder connect in fear of burning it again so I had little dots and not a smooth finish. I was too lazy to youtube a video when I first got into embossing, but I have now learned and loved to do it.
The one on the right is already embossed and the one on the left is still powder. I am not sure you can really tell the difference in the picture, but in real life you can.
Here is the birthday card, I love the gold color from the Recollections collection because it leaves this beautiful gilded gold color, but I wouldn’t recommend any other color from them. I’ve had a lot of annoying issues with their solid colors, but it may just be me and so Zing is always my typical go to brand for embossing powder and personal preference.
I used markers to color in the cupcake and a little cupcake punch outs to add to the card. Nothing big and really simple easy cards. The whole process took me about 10 minutes to make and now they are signed, sealed, and in the mailbox. Here is hoping they get to the people on time.
When I first heard of Laduree I fell in love. I couldn’t wait to go to Paris and buy myself one of their famous keychains. Sadly the stars were not aligned for me and they were sold out once I got there 😦 I was very sad until we went to Rome this summer and as soon as I saw a girl at the Vatican carrying a bag from Laduree we went there right after lunch. It was a perfect location near all the stores and right by the Spanish Steps. What luck I had, they had 4 left and I immediately got one. I was on cloud nine drinking my tea, eating macaroons, and taking some to go. We made a lot of visits there during our 10 day stay and I miss them a lot lol. Anyways, flash forward to now, where I stare at my keychain all the time. I dare not take it out yet because it was quite a pricey keychain 40 or 50 Euro. I would be devastated if I lost a piece or it got scratched so I take it out time to time and look at it and love it. I hope to get more for every time I come across a Laduree store, but this one is perfect for now.
Now that my son is in school I decided to make the most of my time and make my very own. I really wanted to make a keychain I could use and not be so sad if I lost it or it broke so I looked up You Tube videos and this one was my favorite, mainly for the simplicity.
I gathered my supplies, I ended up messing up my first batch so I made more with different colors. I strayed away a little from the You Tube video and used what I had at home. I didn’t have a mini roller or chopstick so I used an old cake pop stick that worked out perfect. I also had a small circle cookie cutter but the macarons were too big for what I was looking for so I used a small frosting tip I had. I liked the frosting tip better because it curved the top for me so I didn’t have to. I love efficiency so I also didn’t punch holes first then combine them, I just attached the whole thing together and punched away.
Here I am going through the tedious process of making the holes with a toothpick. I think this was my least favorite part.
Once I had a couple I baked them for 275 for more like 20 minutes as opposed to 15 like in the video.
I then added top coat nail polish and can I say they came out way better than what I expected. The pictures don’t do them justice and they are really cute
I attached a couple to my purses so you could get an idea, but again pictures don’t do them justice. They will make a perfect stocking stuffer (Jo act surprise when you get yours in our Secret Santa exchange). I love that you can add any charms to it and make it your own.
We may do a giveaway in the coming weeks, but I want to practice making the macarons all the same size and adding cute bows on them.
If you have questions, let me know, it took me only 2 days to nail the process so pretty easy. I had never used oven bake clay before this and love how easy it is to use and will be making a lot more things with it like little ornaments and charm bracelets.
Supplies needed
-Oven bake clay (I like Sculpey, but didn’t try any other brand so I would use what you can find or prefer)
-a roller
-circle cookie cutter or frosting tip
-superglue
-charms
-keychain holder
-wax paper-I didn’t have a nonstick surface so this made it easier once I cut the circle for them to be peeled off