Super Bowl XLVI

Living and working in Downtown Indy has been alot of fun with all of Super Bowl stuff happening. Here are the pics I've taken so far. More to come!

Craft Night!

My best friends in Indy are all old friends from Purdue, and they're all guys. At the moment, all of my guy friends are in relationships with some great girls. I love this because:

1. The farting and dick jokes are kept at a minimum.
2. I can indulge in my ridiculous crafting/projects without ridicule because I now have some partners in crime!

Me and the girls just had our first Craft Night, which we plan to do once a month. Chelsea was the host, and we made yarn balls.

Laurette had made yarn balls before, and this is the example that she brought for the group.

Cute, right? Throw a couple of these in a basket, string several together to make unique garland, or make a large yarn ball and use it as a lantern. Here is how you make them.

Mix school glue or Mod Podge with water in a small bowl, make it fairly watery. Then soak a long piece of yarn in the glue mixture. Blow up a balloon (the bigger the balloon, the bigger the yarn ball, duh). Wrap the gluey yarn all around the balloon, like the girls are doing in this picture.

A couple of tips:

• Before you put the gluey yarn on the balloon, wipe the yarn off a little with your fingers. The yarn soaks up alot of liquid, and it's easier to handle on the balloon if some of the liquid is removed.
• The smaller balloons are much easier to handle than the bigger balloons. I had my heart set on making a big lantern, but after a couple of attempts, I just couldn't get the yarn to stay in place. I settled on a set of little yarn balls. But next time, I'll be ready to tackle the lantern project!

 This balloon was only covered halfway with yarn, to make a small basket.

 Here are all of our creations, waiting to dry.

 We used glasses to keep some of the balloons upright while they dried. Once we ran out of glasses, we started using these plastic mini-cups. Either way works great.

 Look at these loopy circles that Chelsea made, so cute! Try experimenting with different types of ribbons, or even lace.

We then let the gluey, yarn-y balloons dry for about two days. You might need to rotate the balloons once to make sure that they are drying evenly. After that, pop the balloon inside, and then pull the balloon out.

 Here is my finished product!

I haven't quite figured out what to do with them yet, but for now, they are on top of my TV stand.

First Craft Night- success! Except for the whole lantern thing, but oh well :)

New Year, Old Stuff

Sooo...first week of 2012, who has kept their New Years Resolutions? Sounds early to start doubting folks, but most resolutions end within the first couple of weeks of a new year. So far, my resolution of blogging is going strong!

This entry is all about old stuff.... in particular, me.

My birthday was this past weekend. I'm 29, YIKES!!! It's the last birthday that I plan on admitting my actual age. The rest of my birthdays will be the anniversaries of this one.

This year, I decided to cash in on as many freebies as I could. My frugal-ness ends up being a project in itself, and this was no exception. I found this great website that lists all of the restaurants and stores that have birthday freebies. 

For most of these freebies, you sign up to receive emails from the company and they send you a coupon by email on your birthday. Since I work in downtown Indianapolis, it was pretty easy to get some of these great deals. My favorites were Sephora (free lip gloss), Noodles and Co (free entree), and Einstein Bros (free breakfast sandwich).

My birthday celebration started out at Fountain Square Brewing Company, a great new microbrewery in town.

Good beer, cool location in an old Fountain Square warehouse... this brewery is going to do well.

Lindsay and Carolina came to celebrate my bday and sample the beers. Nathan....ruined this picture, haha.

Laurette and I.

Next stop, Revolucion for tacos, and as you see in the next picture, tequila.

After that, New Day Meadery. I'm not totally sold on mead, aka honey wine, but it's still cool place to try out if you're in the Indy area.

After that, it was on to White Rabbit Cabaret for a burlesque show. Little risque, but hey, it was a birthday party! And it was right next to the brewery so we thought "why not?" Well, it ended up being a cool show. If you've never been to an old-timey carabet-type place, I recommend checking it out.

White Rabbit had a photo booth in it, I love those things!

Laurette and Jon

We attempted to fit 6 people in the photo booth. It worked, sorta.

On my actual birthday, my dad and stepmom came to Indy for the day. We had a good time shopping, my stepmom and I especially had fun shopping for crafting stuff at Archiver's. If you like scrapbooking, you will LOVE this store. It also has letterpressing and card making supplies, which is more of my thing. 

I didn't actually work on any projects, but I did want to highlight a great example of turning an older item into a new project. Laurette showed me her cute new purse. Can you tell what it's made out of?

It's made out of old fireman's gear! Yellow stripe and all. I love it, what a great example of how to upcycle old materials. Laurette couldn't remember the name of the shop, but it was one of the downtown shops in the small town of Nashville, IN. Check out your local small businesses, you'll find the best stuff!

**Update- The name of the shop is called Moonshine Leather Co. in Nashville, IN**

Happy New Year!

Hello, blogging world!


It's a new year, which means it's time for new years resolutions. My big one for this year is to start a blog. I've never tried it, so we'll just see how it goes. And if you're reading this, let me know if you love it, hate it, have any advice for me. I'm new at this so I'm open to suggestions.


I decided to make this blog all about the many projects I like to work on. I often get asked to write down recipes or instructions, so this is my way of spreading the project love. Posting status updates on facebook just wasn't cutting it anymore. And if I know that I have to track my progress on projects, it'll make me more accountable to finish them :)


Let's start out with Christmas gifts. My favorite gift that I gave my family and friends this year was homemade lavender and vanilla extract. It is super simple to make.... are you ready for the recipe?


Vanilla Extract

• 1 bottle vodka
• ~10 vanilla beans (I used Madagascar beans, but Tahitian beans also work. You can find these at Whole Foods-type grocery stores, but for price and quality, I recommend amazon.com)
• optional: fresh lavender, orange peels, anything you want to add to make your extract unique.

1. Split the vanilla beans in half, lengthwise.
2. Add ingredients to vodka bottle or separate into smaller glass bottles with lids (I used empty Starbucks Frappuccino bottles).
3. Let the bottles sit in a dark area for 3 months, shaking the mixture every couple of days.

BAM! That's it! Add some stuff to vodka, let it sit, and then you've got extract. Super simple. The vanilla beans will continue adding flavor to the vodka for up to a year, so just keep refilling your bottle with vodka as you use up the extract. Or you can do what I did, put the 3 month old extract in small bottles, slap a label on it, and give it out as gifts.

My favorite present that I got this year was this bracelet from my Aunt Pam.

My grandmother passed away in 2011. She was definitely the matriarch of the family, and the holidays just won't be the same without her. The beads on this bracelet were made from the flowers at my grandma's funeral. The flowers were dried and processed into a powder, then made into bracelets for the women in the family, and tie clips for the guys. My grandma was always a stylish lady, it's very fitting that I have a piece of jewelry to remember her by. I love it, what an interesting way to make a new object out of something meaningful.


My second favorite gift is my Silhouette Cameo!!

It's a digital cutting machine, similar to the popular Cricuit machine. The major difference is that the Cricuit uses cartridges, the Silhouette hooks up to your computer like a printer so you can design whatever you want. And you can cut cardstock, vinyl, fabric, whatever. I probably haven't sold you yet on how amazing this thing is, but believe me, it's AMAZING! So many cutting projects to come....


But for now, my New Year is being spent with my sick dog.

Somebody decided to get into the garbage during the holidays, and is now paying severely for whatever she ate. Now I have to play doggy nurse to make sure she stays hydrated and out of the vet office. I hope she learned her lesson!


Later!