Spontaneous Moment #48: Homemade Cards & Groomsmen Gifts

My fiance was trying to come up with a way to ask his groomsmen to be in our wedding. I went online to look for a cute card, but they were all $6 or $7 PER CARD... and when you're asking eight men to be in your wedding, that quickly adds up.

I decided instead of buying a card, why don't I just make them for him. So I came up with the idea of making a tuxedo jacket. I also decided that we should give them a small gift with the card as well. Cue the booze!

How to Make a Tuxedo Card:

Tools:

• Black card stock
• White shiny card stock
• Puffy paint (use your wedding colors)
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Bone Paper folder
• X-acto Knife
• Paper Trimmer (makes all the difference in the world)
• glue

Instructions:

Take your black cardstock and slice the paper in half.

Measure your cardstock into thirds. Make sure the sides are half the size of the middle.

Use the folding slicer on your paper trimmer. Create your two folds.

Grab your bone folder to make a clean fold on the paper.

Now it's time to make the flap (aka the lapel). Take your ruler and measure the sides. This way you'll have even sides. I made mine 3x6.

Once you figure out the measurements, use the folding slicer with your paper trimmer again.

Fold your papers together to make sure it all looks right. If your two flaps fold completely. To give it more of a 3D look, you can add an extra  fold on the side (as seen below on the left portion of the card).

Now it's time to make your pocket. Take your xacto knife and lay your right fold out flat. Slowly make the shape of a pocket. I don't cut out the top of the pocket because it's going to be covered by the "pocket square."

Get your scissors. Make two cuts into the lapel.

Use your ruler to make it even on both sides.

Take your card and put it under something heavy for an hour. I usually place it under a stack of magazines or a laptop. This will set your card.

Now it's time for some puffy paint action! First squirt your puffy paint on a piece of scrap paper so that that any excess doesn't mess up the card. Now take it and make a square design on your card just above your pocket you cut out. Let it dry.

While the puffy paint sets, take your white card stock and cut it in half. Now measure the dimensions of your card and make sure the white is same size as the inside of your card. Use the paper trimmer to cut out the size. Grab some strong glue (I use Elmer's extra strength glue stick) and glue around the edges of the white cardstock. Press down the white card stock.

Time for the finishing touches! Last but not least, take the puffy paint and draw a bow tie and buttons.

 

My job is done! Now it's up to the fiance to do the hard part-- asking his men. 

 

Now on to the fun part, the gift!

I love a good wordplay. Since we decided to give them booze as a present, I thought why not ask them to "take a shot" at being a groomsman. The only request was that I don't girly up the gift too much. As much as I wanted to make a pretty, colorful design, I made it as simple and manly as possible.

Tools needed:

Hole punch

Large circle punch

String

mini alcohol bottle

This is how they all turned out:

They were either mailed or hand delivered in small bags to the men and they all said YES!

Spontaneous Moment #47: Home Sweet Home Artwork

My fiance and I recently moved into a new place and wanted some new wall art to help spruce up our place.

I didn't want to just go out and buy an expensive painting or artwork, but rather have something that is more meaningful.

Here's where Pinterest comes into place. I turned to the website where I'm a loyal pinner and started searching for ideas. I kept seeing these pins for places that people have called home. The only problem is whenever you go to the actual link, the website says, "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist."

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I decided I wanted to create a canvas of every state that my fiance or I had lived in. 

I'm going to figure this out myself. So let the crafting begin.

Tools:
Canvas
Paint colors of your choice
Contact paper
Scissors
Paintbrush

I only bought four primary colors (red, blue, yellow and black) and then mixed them together to create other colors.  I find it cheaper that way.

Instructions:

I drew the state on contact paper and then cut it out and stuck it onto the canvas. Some of the paintings were going to be multi-colored so I went ahead and painted the canvas before placing the contact paper on top. Smooth out your contact paper on the edges to make sure there are no air bubbles.

I pressed a book on top of the contact paper for an hour. This will keep your paper pressed down during the painting process. You don't want any paint to be able to slip underneath the contact paper and ruin your masterpiece!

Now it's time to paint around the contact paper. Let it dry and repeat twice so that your final product has three coats of paint on it.

Painting Washington, DC

 I didn't paint the entire canvas. Just the area that would cover the contact paper. I then painted my border.

Painting West Virginia

Add your top coat. It's important that you add three coats of paint otherwise you might see the color underneath.

Let it sit for a day before peeling off your contact paper. I made the mistake of peeling off my contact paper and some wet paint got into my state outline. I had to repaint and fix my mistake.

 How they turned out after drying.

 Finally hanging up and bringing light to that white wall.

 

Our respective home states hang over our sides of the bed.

Spontaneous Moment #46: Cat Mat

As much as I love my cat, she can be a huge slob when eating her food. It's as if one of her extra curricular activities includes competitive eating. So instead of constantly having to lay down paper towels and vacuuming, I'd make a nice little place mat for her.

Speaking of my precious angel... she has also been a little terror to my yoga mat. I'm embarrassed to carry it outside of the house. She has five different scratching posts and toys sprawled around the house and yet she finds my yoga mat to be the best cat scratcher. 

So why not re-purpose my yoga mat? Two birds, one stone. Right?

My workout gear

My cat's masterpiece

My poor yoga mat

Look at the little rascal get at it

Get away from my yoga mat!

Well let's get too it. Times ticking. The yoga mat isn't getting any use just sitting there. So let's use it in some other form.

CAT PLACE MAT

Materials:

• Old yoga mat (or use cabinet liners)
• Scissors
• Xacto Knife
• Tape

Instructions:

Print off an image of the fork and knife. Cut them out place them how you'd like them to look.

Roll out your yoga mat or whatever material you'd like to use to create your place mat. Designate what are you would like to cut out.

 Place where you want to place your utensils. Make sure all the silverware is even.

 Take the tape and carefully place it under the utensils so they stay on nice and tight.

 Thankfully there were lines on my mat so I was able to cut it evenly, but make sure you measure before you cut out your place mat.

Clearly my cat is a fan already and I'm not even done.

 Grab your Xacto knife and start tracing around the utensils.

This is how it should start to look:

The final product:

 Time to put this bad boy to use:

Spontaneous Moment #45: White Bean Chicken Chili

 I'm recently engaged and wanting to feel better about my body before the wedding. Part of my New Years resolution is to eat clean. Let me tell you, after making this recipe, clean eating never tasted so good!

It's freezing outside and that means it's soup and chili season. So in order to get in the spirit of clean eating while staying warm, I cooked up some white bean chicken chili.

 WHITE BEAN CHICKEN CHILI

Ingredients:

• 6 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups cooked shredded chicken 
• 1 bag of dried white beans
• 2 cups salsa verde
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 2 tsp. ground cumin 
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 pepper
• Toppings: diced avocado, fresh cilantro, and lime wedges.

Instructions:

Soak beans in water over night.

Pour beans into a crock pot. Toss in chicken broth, salsa verde, green onions, cumin, garlic and  pepper. Stir together and cook on low for 6 hours.

After six hours, put shredded chicken in the pot, stir, and cook for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve with diced avocado, cilantro, lime juice, and add some pepper on top.

Adapted from Gimme Some Oven.

Spontaneous Moment #44: Portion Control Pie

Have you ever been served a giant slice of pumpkin pie and thought "I'll just take a few bites. I won't finish it." The next thing you know, you look down at your plate and the entire pie is gone.

That's me. I get served a slice that feels like it's 1/4 of the pie and I always lick my plate clean. So here's a simple pie recipe that will feed your dessert appetite, but won't eat up your calorie count.

PORTION CONTROL PUMPKIN PIE

Ingredients:

• 1 15oz can of pumpkin (I use Libby's 100% pure Pumpkin)
• 1 12oz can of evaporated milk (I use Nestle Carnation)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, allspice, & ground clove)
• 3/4 cup sugar (or substitute it for 5 packets of Truvia)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 boxes of ready made pie crust (I use Pillsbury Pie Crust)
• Biscuit cutters (I use Sur La Table stainless steel cutters)

Directions:

 Preheat your oven to 350.

Take your cupcake pan and spray it with Pam.

Unroll your pie crust and use your biscuit cutter to cut your crust. I use the largest cutter. Press pie crust into cupcake pan.

Unroll the pie crust.

Cut your pie crust and place in cupcake pan.

Combine all your dry ingredients. Beat your eggs and then mix them in with the pumpkin in a bowl. Add the dry ingredients and evaporated milk. Mix well.

How it should look once everything's combined.

Fill pie crusts to almost full.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. To make sure they're done, poke a fork in the center of one of your pies. It should come out clean if it's done.

I like to top mine with with some frozen yogurt or a little fat free whipped cream.