April Crafts!

I’ve been creating! I’ve been creating! I just haven’t been good about posting them up in a timely manner so while I am on vacation (Myrtle Beach, SC) I thought I would catch up a little. Here is what I have made in April!
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These were for the altered bottlecap pendant. You were only required to make 1 but I was inspired and made my partner 2. The top one was used with some aluminum roses and an old finding from a grab bag of vintage items I got from a flea market ages ago. The bottom one I painted a blue flower white and used alcohol ink to color it but when I diamond glazed it, it lightened the color but it totally works! The L was made using faux enamel.
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These items were made for a different kind of Easter basket for the Zombies, Aliens, Monsters, Vampires and Robots group. Bela and Frank are rubber stamps that I stamped on glitter and glued on a Tim Holtz fragment. The stuffie is obviously a vampire rabbit. I wanted to show the back because I also made the tail. I finally used my Clover pom pom maker!easterluckyparcel.jpg
I think these were made for an Easter lucky parcel, I can’t remember! I printed out the Easter vintage tags and used my Silhouette to cut them out. I made 2 magnets with a Tim Holtz fragment and a bottlecap.
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These were made for part of a Mother’s Day mini lucky parcel. One of my partners favorites is the Addams Family. I saw Morticia and Gomez earrings on her Etsy favs so used that for inspiration for the top one (bad photo!). I bought the tv bezels a while ago and finally had an opportunity to use it!

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I signed up for a swap NOT on swap-bot! {gasp!} It was a crafty peep swap on Strumpet’s craft blog. My partner likes flowers and bright colors so I ran with that! For the card, I used my Silhouette to cut out the flower. The felt flowers (Sizzix die that gets used a lot!) as magnets and an A heart pendant. I also made her these following 2 pendants but will talk about it below.
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I discovered this new technique on Lisa Pavelka’s website and wanted to give it a go so these 2 were actually “testers” which turned out to be my favorites over the other ones below. I especially love how the glitter came out in the moon burst zipper pull probably because I was just being free with it.
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The glitter really sparkles but I took a bad photo of this. This was the main pendant I made for my partner and funny enough, my least favorite. I had to put a lot of layers on this and I still wasn’t completely happy. Oh well, at least my partner got the other pendants and felt magnets.
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Using the same technique, I made this for my MIL for Mother’s Day.
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I made this one because I like the graphic. I still have it so may just keep it for myself.

Easter

Easter turned out to be a beautiful day so we had our first BBQ and dyed eggs outside. It was a nice day!
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Getting started with the dye kit. I know I could have made my own dyes but the kit was cheap and a no brainer.
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That was the egg Sienna dyed in school and she was fake eating it because she doesn’t eat eggs.
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I think the colors came out nice! Sienna’s playing with them here.
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Skippy is saying “what’s going on up there?”
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The chocolate lollipop was from school and the Godiva was from my Aunt Helen (they were super yummy!)
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Wha?
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Inside the Godiva

Stuffed Mini Book

I joined a stuffed mini book swap last month and it was so much fun! Basically, it’s a 3×3 book you make out of a 12×12 piece of scrapbook paper and makes 3 pockets to put things in. I really put a lot of work into it and I believe my partner enjoyed it. Her profile said she likes flowers so I kinda ran with that theme!
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All Tied Up. I glittered a chipboard frame for the front
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Pretty Thick book!
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Front and Back covers with a made with love charm
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White embossed the flowers and painted it with twinkling H20s (sadly the photo doesn’t really show the shimmer)
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Used some glittery stickers and glued a fragment on top of a Georgia O’Keefe flower I printed and stamped cherish
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My favorite spread! I used the nine fold explosion and used floral wire to put the flower in the middle. I really like how it came out! The flower was actually sent in my mini book from my partner!
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I used copper embossing powder for this stamp and used distree stains to color in the flowers
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Another flower pop up that was so fun and easy to make!
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Final spread. Had to use my silhouette at some point! I used pop up dots for the flower.
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The stuff I included in the pockets. Some paper flowers, metal flowers and the links on how to make the 2 pop ups.

Into the City

During the middle of Sienna’s spring break, we went into the city to have lunch with Peter, or as Sienna calls him, Uncle Peeder. Sienna really enjoys riding the subway into the city although she pretty much asks if it’s time to get off at every stop (starting from the 2nd stop from our house!)
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Entertaining ourselves while waiting for the train
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Checking out the scenery outside

Pete and I both enjoyed the short rib pierogies at Veselka last time so we decided to go back. This time I got the meat combination because I knew I could give Sienna the kielbasa portion of my meal. Pete also gave me one of his short rib pierogi (thank you Pete!).
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They gave out wikki stix, a nice change from the standard crayons.
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Pete showing off the bracelet Mike made him for their 1 year anniversary! The dark beads are made of the roses Pete gave him from their monthly anniversaries! (Cute AND crafty!!)
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My meat combo sans kielbasa (off to the left on Sienna’s plate)
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Pete humors me by making goofy faces when I take his photo
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Stuffed!
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We stopped by Sundaes and Cones for ice cream afterwards.

Pete had to go back to work after that so I decided to check out the newish playground at Union Square. Of course, while we were still eating ice cream, Sienna had to go to the bathroom. We hightailed it outta there and I was hoping to be able to make it to Whole Foods to use their bathroom. I realized we probably wouldn’t make it so we stopped into the Amsterdam Billiards. I usually don’t like to do that but they were really nice and accommodating.
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Notice how she is wearing a t-shirt now? I knew she was going to be hot in the long sleeved shirt even though she was so adamant on wearing it. Good thing I brought a short sleeve shirt for her to change in! But she was still hot…(it was a beautiful day!)
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I told Sienna she shouldn’t be doing that out in the open! HA!

China Max

My friend Jana has been raving about her and Allen’s favorite Chinese restaurant to me for a few months now. Yves was a little leery to accept any of Jana’s restaurant recommendations given the long list of things she won’t eat (bananas and beans being 2 of them!) We finally went with them to sample it for ourselves a couple of weeks ago. So it is now official, China Max is delicious!! Jana’s raving of their fried pork dumplings is justified! Their favorite waiter, Jimmy (whose name they didn’t know until I asked that night!) is very attentive. When he realized that Sienna also liked the maraschino cherries (as does Emma and Leah), he brought out her own little dish of them!

So we ordered the fried pork dumplings (very plump, not greasy and delicious!), sesame beef (the beef tasted like good quality beef, big, thick pieces!), happy family (chicken, beef, shrimp and scallops in a brown sauce) and fried rice. The portions were pretty big. They also have a sushi bar, which Allen always orders from. He offered me 2 pieces and I have to say, the sushi tasted very fresh! Melt in your mouth fresh! Jana says they always order the same things so don’t even look at the menu and don’t even have to tell their waiter because he knows! Jana always gets the combination chicken with broccoli and fried rice. Since she never eats the egg roll, Jimmy no longer brings her one and doubles up on her rice instead. I forgot what else they got but after Jana saw our sesame beef, she said she was getting that next time.
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Emma and Leah share some hot and sour soup
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Pork dumplings
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Happy Family (they give a lot of scallops!)
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Fried Rice
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Jana’s chicken with broccoli
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Their other dishes
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Sienna really likes the beef!
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My fortune?
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Because of conflicting school schedules, the kids don’t see each other as often so it’s nice that they got some play time after dinner. They are playing with their “magic sticks.”

Can’t wait to go back to China Max! I wouldn’t mind some pork dumplings right now!

Dim Sum and Date Night

Here’s the 2nd in a series of food posts. I went to dim sum with my parents and aunts in Queens on the first day of Sienna’s Spring Break. I forgot to take note of the name of the restaurant but they were having a weekday special where all the dim sum was $2. Needless to say, I stuffed myself and I actually did not eat much dinner later that day! There were the usual standard fare (none of Yves’ favorite-funkore-probably not the correct spelling!) and then a few different items. Chow fun noodles, fried chicken (never actually saw fried chicken at dim sum before), some crab meat dumpling wrapped in rice and muscles with a cheesy like topping. Everything was pretty tasty.
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Chow Fun
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“I’m gonna eat you don tat”
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Fried Chicken
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Crabmeat with rice, this was eh
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Mussels with cheese like topping. The mussels were good, the topping not so much.
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Sienna thanking Aunt Helen for the stuffed dog (among other toys she got from her!)
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I really dug these lamps
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Sienna asking who I was taking a photo of!

The next night was date night! We dropped Sienna off at grandma’s and grandpa’s and headed over to The Burger Bistro. You get to choose every aspect of your burger, from the bun and meat and cheese and toppings! I was tempted to get the lamb, as I do love lamb burgers, but since it was our first time there, thought it better to see how they make their beef burgers. We started off with one of the special appetizers, frito pie. Basically nachos with frito chips instead of nacho chips. The waiter really played up the dish but it fell short of expectations. Oh well. Thankfully the burgers made up for it! It was huge! I got beef with cheddar, portobello mushroom and bacon on a whole wheat bun with a side of frizzled onions. It was very good. My only complaint was that the bacon were crumbled into bits. I much prefer they were kept in strips. I’m not sure what Yves got and I didn’t get a good photo of his burger. Definitely beef and probably bleu cheese!
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This didn’t warrant the $7 price tag and I hate when places use sliced cheese melted over nachos!
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Can you tell how huge that burger was? (I did not eat breakfast the next morning!)