"snakes. I hate snakes"

This is what I kept thinking while doing this little project.  Remember Indian Jones?  Actually, I was thinking the same thing about hot glue gun glue that does that stringy, webby, thing all over.  Am I the only one this happens to?  Anyhowsers, I pinned this neat, but kinda creepy snake wreath thing a few months ago.  Thought if I was going to do it myself, I'd better get on it, since Halloween is coming up hard and fast.

Here's my version:

First, get a wire wreath.

Then, get yourself some snakes.  Lots of them.  I ordered mine from Amazon, but misread the description and ended up with snakes littler than I anticipated.  But I'm cheap and wouldn't have sprung for bigger snakes anyway.

The requisite hot glue gun...

Start glueing.  The first row is the hardest, but I just worked my way clockwise and stacked and twined my way around (and around and around)

Probably took me 30 minutes and a couple of glue burns.

 

The pinterest one is sprayed black, but I'm grooving on the multicolors.

Whatcha think?

how to skin and gut a tomato (a tutorial!)

So my mom said she stopped reading my last post at "peel and seed tomatoes".  Lots of you felt the same way.

Here you go, another tomato tutorial right on the heels of the last one.  Hope it helps!

You are going to need: a saucepan of boiling water, a bowl in the sink of ice water, a trash can, and a knife.

First, core a few tomatoes (I do five at a time; it's a manageable number for me, but gets the job done without taking all day).  

Drop them in the boiling water for about half a minute.  

   Take them out of the water and plunge them in the ice water. 

As you take each tomato out of the ice water, you'll notice the skins are coming off.  Help that process along a little as needed, but it kind of does itself (yeah!).

Last step; stand over the trash/compost bin, aim the cut end down and give 'er a squeeze.  The seeds and gunk squish right out and you can toss the rest in the food processor. 

Bam, done.

Go forth, and beat up a tomato..

Well that was easy. a tutorial

Valentine headband and gloves

So there I was at JoAnn's the other day and gloves and headbands were a buck.  Why would I not buy them?  I needed something Valentine-y for the girl child, and thought they were a good place to start.  And if my little project was a complete disaster I was out--a buck. 
I do have to give credit to Etsy and Yastikizi for the glove idea.

Valentine's Day is coming; it's not too late to try to do this.  It probably took me a total of 20 minutes to make up the headband and gloves.  So here's the tutorial, such as it is.

Step one:  get a headband, gloves, and a square of red felt.  Bring home.
Step two:  cut out some various sizes of felt heart shapes.  I figured out the correct size for the gloves by, well, cutting a couple hearts in half holding them to the palm of the glove (told you this was easy).
Step three:  for the gloves, I put each one on my hand, placed the half where I wanted it, and held it in place while I took off the glove.  That's about the trickiest part of the whole project.

Step four:  pin the heart halves to the gloves, get yourself a needle and thread and baste around the each half, obviously making sure you only have one layer of glove when you're sewing.
For the headband, arrange some of the various size hearts and tack the center of each heart to the band with a needle and thread.  I put the headband on after a few, noticed the blank spots, and stuck on a couple more.

Step five: present gift and prepare to be loved!