Argyle frame Fix #3

Hello everyone!

Here is another in my series of 

"fixed frames"

This frame is one I picked up at one of the thrift shops

in my area.  Haven't a clue which one, but I know it was 

cheap.  It originally had a mirror in it, which, of course,

I just popped out.

Since I'm a scrapbooker and like most of us, I have quite

a stash of paper, finding something to cover it with

was no problem.  Because of course this plain black

just wasn't going to work.

I started by laying the frame onto the back of the paper.

I drew lines from corner to corner in the opening, 

so I would know where to cut.

I also marked the corners with cut lines.

Then the fun began.

I brushed on the Mod Podge, covering the entire

front of the frame.

Then I flipped over the frame onto the paper and 

stuck that baby down.

I turned the frame over and made sure the paper 

was smooth over the entire front of the frame.

I then cut on the cut lines that I had drawn.

When I folded the paper over, the corners weren't totally covered,

to remedy that I simply took small pieces of paper and covered the

corners before Mod Podging it.

Here is what the back ended up looking like once 

I got that paper all glued down.

On the corners, I cut those cut lines and neatly folded 

over the edges and glued them down.

I then covered the front, sides and back with a few coats of 

Mod Podge and the frame was finished.

Well except for putting the saw tooth hanger

on the back and cutting the glass.

Luckily, my hubby is a photographer and custom framer

and we have lots of hangers and scrap pieces of glass.

Here it is finished with a picture of Jaryd and Sara with 

my Mom. 

I think it turned out great.

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by today.

Come again soon and see what else I've been up to.

I'll be posting more in my

"fixed frames" series

as well as some other projects .

You never know what I'll be posting about,

so pop in now and then.

Who knows what you'll find.

Have a better than average day! 

Zucchini my new favorite way

Hello blog friends!

Today, I'm getting away from crafting a bit.

I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite vegetables.

Zucchini.

When I was a kid, my Dad used to plant some every year

and it was kind of a contest with himself to see how big 

he could grow it.

When it was nice a big, and I do mean big, a foot long at least,

he'd pick it and we'd have fried zucchini for dinner.

Dredge it in egg and flour and fry it up in a pan. 

That was the whole meal and I loved it.

Haven't had it that way for years, but it is one of my favorites.

This year while watching 

"The Next Food Network Star"

I saw one of the contestants (Eddie) make 

"zucchini spaghetti"

I tried it and it is now my favorite way to

prepare this wonderful squash.

Here's what I started with.

Now just ignore the sorry state of my pan!

I use just a small amount of butter, about a tablespoon.

Tonight I cut up some onion, nice and thin.

I started them cooking, while I went to the squash.

With a peeler, I started to peel.

And I just kept peeling until ti couldn't peel anymore.

This is what I ended up with. 

A huge pile of shredded zucchini.

I added it to the pan with the partially cooked onion.

Sometimes, I used yellow squash with it, or mushrooms,

whatever you like would work.

I added some salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Sometimes I use real garlic, but tonight I added powder.

While that was cooking up, I got out my trusty old 

cheese grater and grated a bit of Parmesan.

I love it and there was a LOT of squash, 

so I was sure to grate enough.

And yes, that is a slice to munch on at the side there.

Told you I love Parmesan.

Not sure if you can see the difference, but that 

squash does cook down a bit and it doesn't take very long.

5-10 minutes at the most and like I said, this was a lot of

squash.

When the squash is finished cooking I sprinkle on the cheese.

YUM!

It doesn't take long to melt, I just toss it into the 

zucchini mixture before I serve it.

And tonight, I had it with a nice steak and baked potato.

It was excellent.

There were 3 of us tonight and yes, we did eat it all.

It was so darn tasty!

I hope you'll try making some zucchini this way,

it's really easy and a little different than the usual,

at least it is for me.

Thanks for stopping by today,

come again soon.  

You never know what you might see

here on 

Kristie Kreates!

Altering with tissue paper. Fix #2

Hello.  Hope you're having a great day!

If you're following my blog you have seen that I 

altered some frames for my son.

Here is the next frame in my "altered frames" series.

As you can see, I got this frame cheap.

I picked this one up at one of my favorite thrift shops

Savers

Check their site to see if there is a Savers near you.

Ours benefits the Epilepsy Foundation.

I believe the different Savers stores support different

charitable foundations.

Now I'm ready to work on the frame.

Notice I took that "insert" out of the frame.

It's made of metal, keep your eyes open for a future post 

concerning that mat.

I started by brushing on a coat of  Gel Medium 

(Mod Podge can also be used, but I happened to have this

handy.  Mod Podge is much cheaper.)

After I got some Gel Medium on the frame, I started

ripping pieces of tissue paper and laying them on the frame

randomly.

I covered the tissue paper with more Gel Medium, 

being sure to stick it down.  

The Gel Medium acts as a glue, be sure it is both under

and over each piece of paper.

I continued this process of adding "glue"

and pieces of tissue until the entire frame was covered.

It isn't necessary, but my perfectionist side came out

and I covered the back and that inside of the window area.

I put a picture of Jaryd's best buddy and his girlfriend 

in this frame.  Had to have some pictures of him for the wall,

he's my "number 2" son.

The funny thing about this one is that after I got the 

picture in the frame, I realized that Brian's shirt matches the frame.

Same colors and same plaid.

Click on the picture and it will enlarge, 

this is true for all the pictures on my blog.

Jaryd's girlfriend, Sara, loved this so much that she made 

a frame using the technique.
Here are some pictures of her frame.

She used the same technique with 2 colors of blue

tissue and one with flowers.

Some white string was stapled to the inside of the frame

for pictures to hang on.

Here is a close up of the frame.  It's so pretty!

Here is Sara with her beautiful frame.

Thanks for stopping by again today.

Keep coming back if you want to see more.

Hope to 'see' you again soon!

Mom

Hello Blog readers!

Today I'm posting something a little different.

I want to tell y'all a little bit about my Mom.

She is the strongest, sweetest, most amazing person 

that I know.

No matter what life throws at her, she deals with it

with grace and acceptance and fights her way through it.

Two years ago this past May, Mom fell and 

broke her hip.  The orthopaedic surgeon

put a rod in her right leg from the very top to 

the very bottom of her femur.

He told her that if she could transfer to a wheelchair

from her bed and not have much pain, he would consider

the repair a success.

He didn't have hopes of her walking again.

Dr. K. didn't know who he was dealing with and 

when I took her for a check up at the 3 month mark,

his jaw dropped when he saw her walking down the hall

using a walker to the examination room.

Mom moved into assisted living 2 yrs ago and it has become her

home.  The staff there are phenomenal.

I think these last 5 months or so have been her toughest time

though.  She had pneumonia and recovered from that.

Then she fell 3 days in a row and I requested that she go to

rehab to regain her strength.  

This is after some of the bruising from the last fall

had healed.

She was there for about 2 weeks and came 

back much stronger and doing great.

On June 22nd, she was sent to the hospital with some

pretty serious problems. She was having some bleeding problems

it turns out she had cdif, which is a pretty serious intestinal 

infection.  She did well though and was sent home after a few days.

She wasn't even home 24 hours before she was sent again to the ER.

This time she couldn't stay awake more than about 10 seconds.

She was totally lucid, but couldn't stay awake.

They feel this was all due to dehydration.

After another 5 days or so, she was moved to rehab

again.  She was there for about 5 weeks

then was sent back home to the assisted living home.

She was so happy to be home again.

Then I got a call that she had fallen and was going to the ER

again.  It turned out that she was fine, they did x-rays and

a CATT scan and everything checked out okay,

so we took her home.  By the time we got her home

it was 4 a.m.

There was a family party the next day.

Great grandchild #10 was being baptized and she was

adamant that she would go to that party.

This would be the first time she was to meet this little

guy and she wasn't going to miss it.

So I picked her up and we went to the party,

where she did great.  You'd never know she had taken

a trip to the ER the night before and had been up most of

the night.

These pictures are ones that I took of her that day.

This is my husband with my Mom in these pictures.

She asked for a straw to be able to drink her can of pop easier,

so I asked my nephew for one.

All he had was this mustache straw, 

but she was game and thought it was pretty funny.

She is such a hoot!

She is an amazing woman and I love her so much.

The best Mom anyone could ask for.

AND do you know she is almost 91 yrs old?

I don't think she looks it, do you?

Here are a few pictures of my Mom when she was younger.

I'm not sure of her age in this picture, 

but I'm guessing she was about 10 yrs old. 

This was Mom's senior picture from high school.

I'm not sure when this one was taken, but I'm guessing

she was in her early 20s.

Thanks for stopping by today and

reading my story and tribute to my Mom.

She is one amazing woman!

"fixing" some frames

Hello crafty friends!

My son's birthday was on the 15th and for part of his

gift I wanted to give him some family pictures.

He and his girlfriend have a cute little apartment

and the one livingroom wall is dedicated to pictures 

of family and friends.

Jaryd wanted pictures for his wall and I decided that I needed

to alter some frames and put pictures in them for him.

The first one I worked on was a plain wood frame that I found

at a thrift shop.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it before,

but it was just a plain old wood frame.

First I sanded it down to take off the finish.

You can see there were a couple little flaws in the frame, 

but that doesn't matter, it will all be covered in the end.

I then painted it with Gold Acrylic Craft Paint

using a foam brush.

After a couple coats were applied and dried,

I switched to Teal Acrylic Paint.

I painted a solid coat on the flat surface of the frame.

Then used a dry bristled brush to add the teal paint

to the sides, giving it a worn feel.

Here is the frame all painted and I love how it turned out.

I put a picture of Jaryd's Godparents in this frame.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Come again soon, I'll be showing you some of the other

frames that I altered for Jaryd's gallery of pictures.