valentine chocolate strawberry waffels

I was shopping with my little one for a school party she is having the other day at Foodlion. As we were pushing the cart around getting stuff she was dancing in front of me and she said stop mommy we have to make this. I said what?? I want pancakes with Nutella and berries.
But that's not what I had in mind. First she has been whining for a couple of days for strawberries and they were on sale 2 for $5. Second instead of pancakes I decided that waffels would be much easier to clean up. Finally I opted for the cheaper store brand hazelnut chocolate spread in place of the Nutella.
This morning I got out the waffle maker from the deep dark corner of my cabinet. I pulled out some pure, unrefined, cold pressed 100% organic coconut oil because let's face it that's were all the benefits of getting coconut oils are! I used the coconut oil to coat the waffels maker and used a box of instant waffels mix with some vegetable oil (I'm not perfect!!) and made a batch of waffels. I am sure you can use your favorite waffels recipe and it will come out great! I took the waffels I made threw them into the toasted to get them crunchy slapped some of that delicious chocolate spread on them with some yummy strawberries, stacked them up and loaded them with whip cream! let's face it if your gonna treat yourself why not do it for breakfast and have all day to work off some of those extra calories?? anyways hope you enjoy and have an amazing day!!

Flower Vase

I took some of those neat little paper flowers, an old pickle jar, some lace and a few of my dried flowers and got this little beauty from it all!

Mug Rug

grey flannel

I had this old shirt lying around that I saved for a pillow making project. I haven't been to the store lately to get stuffing to make a pillow so i decided that I would use one of the sleeves to make a mug rug.

 I started by cutting off the sleeve and stitching up the all the open places. I put a thin layer of white felt that I had in the middle to help it become stiffer and to have something to help it absorb the condensation that usually comes off my mason jars when i drink ice coffee.

 I wanted to give myself something to cheer me up in the mornings because I can get pretty grumpy. I decided to make a little flower with some of the seams that i cut off when I was cutting the shirt up getting it ready for a pillow.

I sewed the seams together in a spiral and then sewed a button on top cut out some felt leaves and hot glued the flower and the petals to the end of the sleeve. It took me a few tries but I finally got the look I wanted and this is what I ended up with.

I was happy with how it turned out. Maybe next time I add some writing with embroidery floss. I think that could be cute. Til next time.

Paper Bead Rollers

 Yesterday I was super happy to find two brand new paper bead rollers in my mailbox sent to me from Paper Bead Girl (you can also find her on Facebook and Etsy).

 And this morning as soon as I got up I couldn't resist putting a dent in my paper collection.

 I rolled off and on all morning.

 I had a ton of fun using the paper bead rollers. The green one was my favorite!!!

 See isn't Paper Bead Girl nice? I not only got two rollers but two plastic templates for different bead shapes as well!!!

 Next time I post ill be trying out these bad boys!! But for now I am gonna go back to trying to do some more craft stuff!

Thanks for reading.



© April 2013 Brooke Kaminski

my thrifty upcycled projects

 Today I wanted to post some of the projects that I have been working on this past week .
I started paper beading thanks to Paper Bead Girl, you can also find her on Facebook and Etsy.

Anyways a few months back she held a contest for some supplies and I won! I finally got around to trying to make some of them and this is what I got so far.

 Last summer I found some great garland on Etsy for sale and decided I would give it a try. They are tons of different paper garland strands on Etsy in every color shape and size For Christmas my family gave me a gift card to Michale's Arts and Crafts. I used it all up buying knitting supplies and yarns to make a blanket. But i got one of their awesome 40% off one regularly priced item coupons. So I went out a bought a circle punch (I love circles). In my continuous effort to be more green I decided that I would use old bill envelopes (I have a million). On some of the envelopes there are these great patterns and I thought that with a bunch of different ones all mixed up it might turn out pretty. I think it did. 

 I got to work punching and sewing the circles together. These are just some pictures of my finished work.

This was my first attempt at knitting. I love the colors, textures and feeling of yarns that are just meant for knitting. I decided that after one of  my visit to Gift and Thrift in Harrisonburg that I would start a scarf (that's an easy first project). I got this pink yarn for only  $1 at Gift and Thrift months ago a put it away with the rest of my unfinished projects. I had the grey already and they looked like the same kind of yarn so why not use them together. The scarf is for my niece's birthday she is turning five. 

 I needed to do something about all these strings.

 So I weaved them back in but thought since I really didn't like the way the finished ends looked I would change it up.

 I folded over part of the end to make a pocket for my neice's small hands. Isn't that cute and it will keep her hands warm. 

Upcycled paper bag to basket

 So after months of not having the internet at my house I thought I would share with you some of the projects that I did over the last six months or so. This project came from another project that I have in my to do pile. I took the handles off the paper bags I have been collecting and saved them convinced that I would eventually make a basket. I saw on knitnook.net and I posted it to my Pinterest page. you can look me up my user name is brookekaminski :-) follow me here

Anyway here are the pictures I took while making the basket.

All done isn't it cute!!

pintrest detox bath

So a couple of months ago I read about this detox bath on Pintrest and decided to give it a try. (It's posted on my health, beauty and fitness page) I tried it today and altered the recipe a little bit cause I didn't have enough of everything for my bath which is a little bigger than your standard bath tub. I took two bottles of Hydrogen Peroxide $.88 at Wal-mart, three tablespoons of ginger and about two cups of Epsom Salt. Filled my bath with hot water and sat in it for about 20 minutes. Couldn't go longer than that today cause i felt another headache coming on and I just gotten rid of one this morning. But when I got out of the bath i got a whole bunch of dead skin off and I felt so much better. It was one of those really awesome relaxed feelings you get after you work out. So now to sit and replenish my body with some water :)