HOW TO HAUNT YOUR HOUSE BOOKS 1-3

HOW TO HAUNT YOUR HOUSE BOOKS 1

Check out my new post on http://salemdarkhallow.blogspot.com

Dark Hallow for Halloween books how to haunt your house and see what wonderful creepy things you can create on a budget. The project in these books will have you feeling like a Hollywood prop expert in no time!

Remember

Have Fun Doing What You Love

            and 

Love What You Are Doing!!

Repurpose Glass Jars, To Vintage or Not

I love finding new uses for things that are usually  trashed.I have saved jars,plastic containers with lids  and boxes.The list goes on and on.i am not a pack rat by any means ,the things I save have a clear purpose in my mind.If they do not get used at some point I do trash them.The net has been a source of great inspiration to me.I use it like a library and feed my mind of new things everyday.

Now that being said lets move on to what I have always wanted to do.... make my own vintage looking jars without paying an arm and leg for them.

I can still see my Grandmother Cason's cook house with it's cement floor and long bench tables that we all sat around on family gatherings.She was a mother of 15 children and I forget how many grand and great grandchildren.  When I was growing up there was never a lack of playmates.The cook house was large  and hot in summer and cold in winter.I can remember looking inside the shelves   and finding coffee cups that had filters right inside the cup to strain the coffee grains(no coffeemaker just steep and strain) .

The depression coffee cups and the colored jars. Depression

 glass was given out free at many store even movie theaters.Some was included in food package like toys was in cereal and crackerjack boxes.This was to entice the buyer to purchase the product .After all during the Depression  times was hard and the poor people had no money to wast on pretty dinner ware.The pretty colors and etching on the depression ware gave them pretty dinner ware to use. If you would like to know more about the subject I have included some links.You might be surprised at the things you can learn about that time period just by looking at the products that were used .

Copyright © 2008 by National Depression Glass Association 

http://www.ndga.net/articles/whatisdg.php

Copyright© 2006 - 2012 - SuzieMax.com
http://www.suziemax.com/Depression-Glass.html

Hazel Marie Weatherman, copyright 1974.

http://www.mindspring.com/~reyne/dg.html  Now mason jars  were colored blue and a few other colors  because it was said that the darker the jar’s color is, the longer the food lasts. Today the jars are used not only for food but as a decorated accent for the home.Had we only known that the things from our past would be the treasures of our future we each could have carried a link to our family roots that could be shared with our children.

 Hazel Marie Weatherman, copyright 1974.

http://www.mindspring.com/~reyne/dg.html

 Now mason jars  were colored blue and a few other colors  because it was said that the darker the jar’s color is, the longer the food lasts. Today the jars are used not only for food but as a decorated accent for the home.Had we only known that the things from our past would be the treasures of our future we each could have carried a link to our family roots that could be shared with our children. 

Copyright © 2012  The Inglenook Decor. 

Now I will share the links I found on how to color your own jars below.Remember you don't have to limit yourself to mason jars.I save pickle ,mayo,fruit,and just about any other jar that catches my eye.

Lets begin exploring the diy  art of jar color !

 First thing to remember is that these methods are NOT intended for food use.If you want color jars for food use you will need to purchase color jars.

If you know of a way to color jars that are safe for food use ,please share with us .I always love learning something new.

1. HispanicallyEverAfter has a great tut for coloring jars .Nice pictures and clear directions.

http://hispanicallyeverafter.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/diy-color-tint-glass-jar/

2. Chicken in the Road is  another tut.In this one she goes in great detail of the failures and successes of dying the jars. I found this tut of great help in information .If you never look at another tut I would recommend  this one be on the must read.

She has a very nice imagery of the process and as a visual person this was right up my alley.

Do read the full post and not skip right to the tut.It has very good information .

http://chickensintheroad.com/house/crafts/coloring-mason-jars/

3. DIY: Tinted Mason Jars in Rainbow

By 

Liz Stanley

Another nice image  tut 

http://www.momtastic.com/diy/168908-diy-tinted-mason-jars-in-rainbow

4 Craftaholice Anonmos 

has a tut on creating permanent dyed jars basically the same as the others except she uses Crystal Gloss Enamels  to color the jars.

COPYRIGHT © 2012 CRAFTAHOLICS ANONYMOUS

5.Last but not least is creative little daisy blog site.Another great image tut .I love the little jars!So cute

.http://creativelittledaisy.typepad.com/creative_little_daisy/2010/06/have-you-priced-vintage-blue-canning-jars-lately-wanna-make-your-own-really-cheap-.html

there you have it.Several sites to get you started on creating those vintage jars at a fraction of the price.Even if it is not the actual ware from my childhood it still brings back those fond memories of my childhood that are long past.Families grow and move on,mothers ,daughters ,sons and farthers all have families of there own and if we don't hold to our past we lose a little bit of our future.So tell the stories and save that scrap of past to hand down to your children and most importantly make those memories .Sometimes memories are all we are left with,save the good and lose the bad.

Remember

Love What You Are Doing 

and 

Do What You Love!

Photoshop Free Commercial Brushes, Download and Save

brush examples

While in the process of making domino and scrabble tile art I ran across some interesting commercial free Photoshop brushes. That's right, I said FREE COMMERCIAL USE. It always excites me to see people sharing their talent for free. While I do understand the effort and time it takes to craft something and the need for money it is always nice to see the willingness to share with those just starting out/limited resources.

That's why I decided to share while it was fresh in my mind.

Today I will show you where I found and how I store my free brushes for easy access.

It's important to make sure that the brushes are free for commercial or personal use and even if the site says they are does not necessary mean that they are. It is a bit tricky. Usually if I find free brushes I will send an email asking for permission before using the brushes. Just explain what you are going to do with them and if you are using them for commercial or personal use. Usually they will say yes, but have some terms of use. Simple and safe. I also save the email they send in 2 file naming them Permission for commercial use and Permission for personal use.

(all images are clickable to enlarge for better view)

Google search 

Another way is to search Google (use different search engines for more findings) for free Photoshop commercial brushes. Then chose a site to visit and make sure to read the terms and the post to see if they are just hosting links to these free resources. 

Hosting site

hosting site
Hosting free brushes does not give them the right to the brushes. They are just providing you with brush links they found online. Still good resources but no rights for you. Most times clicking the brush link will take you to the owner's site once there you can search the terms or contact them to get permission.Then there are those that have their own site that states free commercial and personal use right on the page for you to easily see.

free commercial; clearly stated
click for larger view

What I like to do is go to the terms of use page and read it. Then I use snagit

(A screen capture program http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-features.html) To capture the terms of use. 

snagit program

If you don't have this kind of program you can use your print screen on your computer. After I get the image I crop it and save it with the sites name in a folder I created on my desktop named Permission for commercial use. 

terms of use

Never combine personal and commercial use folder. The reason being I want to know fast if I can freely use commercial brush and don't want to waste time re-finding that information.

That done it is time to now save the actual brush itself. Click on the download link in the site, it may be a zip or a abr. file.

zip or download opt
click to make bigger

If offered these choices choose the one you want to use, I like zips because I can store them to a disk . That way if I crash my computer I have a back up of these brushes in zip format. I will leave that for another day another blog lol.

Now you have chosen what methods to download these brushes you want to save them in the commercial use folder you created on your desk top (or where ever you want the folder to be) changing the name to the brush tittle

saving and changing name of file
Once you have it saved I go one more step . I like to capture an image of the brush then crop and save it with the brush exact title. 

saving and renaming image jpeg

I do this because I want to be able to know what the brush looks

 like .That way I am not loading every brush until I find the one I wanted. Loading a lot of brushes slow my PS down a lot .So this way saves my space and my mind lol.

That's it. I now have a folder with my free commercial brushes that store the terms of use (covers you for the use of these brushes) as well as easily finding the right brush for the project.

I hope this helped someone and sorry for the large visual but as you know I learn better with visual so I blog visual!

Now go on and find those brushes and organize them! Then create something you love!

 

Remember

Do what you Love

And

Love what you are Doing!

Pinterest a Curious Cats best Friend

I found Pinterest a while back,not sure how I found it,weather I was told or just searched and it came up.Either way I soon realized that this was a great resource for my curious mind.Unlike search engine this allows you to see  pictures,and as we know I am a visual person.This has been a gold mine for me .

click for larger view

Here you can find things a little easier because other people are pinning things to their board, this allows easy access to things I find interesting.This is not a search engine at all.It does not pull up all the web pages and such .

click for larger view

What this does is allows you to find what interest your by allowing you to see and repin other's finds online.You can start your own board and make pins of your own.To me this allows me to save something I find interesting and allows me to 'save' it without having to bookmark the site.If you are like me I hate bookmarking because I am lazy and do not name the bookmark for what I was interested in .Therefore I can never find the site or image I booked marked it for in the first place.

click for larger view

I also have a problem with saving things to my computer and then forget where I put them. Pinterest has allowed me a fast easy way to save all the sites that I want to re find fast and easy.All I have to do is go to my board look up the interested site and that's it.When I click on the image it takes me to that listing on my board and then I just click once more and it opens the website that image is on.That easy.I  love it !

click for larger view

 If you want to find something like old looking tables and such ,you can type it in the search box on the top left of the pinterst  page and anything anyone has placed under the word old will come up for you to view.From there you have a vast resource of others that have already searched the web for the same things you have.You also get the added benefit of finding things that you might not have thought to look for.
You can add Pinterst to your blog allowing others to see what you find interesting.They have made it easy by  allowing you to create your own button to add to your site ,people can follow your boards to keep up with what you find as well as you can follow others so not to miss something someone out there that shares the same interest you have ......Millions of other people finding and sharing things for the love of exploring. 

click for larger view

 What a great world wide web we have, a library right at your fingertips.Just waiting to bring what you most what right to your screen.Learning and exploring  can only get better from here!
Join all of us on (http://pinterest.com/ )Pinterest and start pinning today.You will be happy you did!

click for larger view

Remember
Love What You are Doing
and
Do What You Love!

Homemade Caramel Recipe

caramel in a can

I have made caramel in the past.Stood over the stove and stirred for what seemed like hours.

It is a long ,hot,sticky mess  that taste heavenly. But rarely made because of the expense and long process, right?

Well imagine my excitement when I came upon this simple method on Pinterest.

I thought...no way is it that simple.

Yet it was. As I have been told this is not a new method,but I wanted to share this with you so if you never heard of it(like me") you can make some as well.

First this is a soft dipping caramel not hard.If you want hard there is only one way I know of to make it.....stand over the hot stove.but if you want to dip apples or anything else then this is the recipe for you.

First some things you will need

crock pot

any size can sweet condensed milk

water

Directions

place your sweet condense milk in the crock pot,fill it with water until it covers the can.Turn it on medium and place lid on top.

Now go sit down and relax.

8 hours later take the can out (careful it is very hot) and place it in the refridare 

can right from the fridg

Leave it in there until it is completely cold or overnight .

take it out and open it to see all that soft caramel .

Sweet caramel right in the can!

Place it in a container and that's it.

simple,sweet and no mess.

Remember all crock pots cook different so try to 

remember the time when you make 

it.Record how long it took on what setting  so you can 

get it  just the way you like it.

Also I like to leave mine in the container and place back

 in the fridge for about 2 

days.To me it seems to taste better and get

 smoother.Again this is to your taste.

Who knew a treat like this could be that simple.

Now go and make your family (or yourself) happy and 

make some caramel!

Remember

Have fun doing what you love

and

Love what you are doing!

Photo Light box tutorial from Luthien

image is the property of Luthien

 I have often wondered how Luthien took great images of her art.They are very professional looking and inspiring.I love her work very much.So when I saw this tut she had on devantart i was so excited!She shows you how to make a light box like the one she  uses. Above is the image of   Luthien s   finished box and as you can see it looks very simple to  make. I am in the process of finishing my box .Mine is different than hers as I used the materials I had on hand.It was modeled after hers and so far it works great here is a image i took with my simple camera.(remember I have not finished mine yet.)

As you can see I still have some things to 

solve on mine but they took better pictures than I get with just my camera and house light . If you want to make one head on over to http://luthien27.deviantart.com/#/d4j6hu8

no flash

and follow the tutorial 
And if you do make one give her a thanks on her comments .
You can also visit her on her blog at http://www.alteredalchemy.com/ and view the great art she makes !  She sells  on esty as well.If you are interested here is that link http://www.etsy.com/shop/alteredalchemy

with flash

Now go build your light box and take some great pictures!!






Remember 
Have fun doing what you love
and 
Love what you are doing!