The Best Strawberry Pie Recipe!

Hi all,

I just wanted to share with you this week an old family recipe for strawberry pie.  Mom said the recipe was smuggled out of the old Happy Steak Restaurant years ago.  Originally, the recipe was for 8 pies, but it was calculated down for a 2-pie recipe. 

We've made it for practically every Christmas, Mother's Day, and holiday in between.  Too good not to share with others.  Here is the link to the Strawberry Pie PDF on Google Drive:

 

And if anybody can tell me why it shows up like this, let me know and please give me instruction on how to fix it.  I don't know enough, sometimes.  I'd like to make it easy for everyone to get.  Thanks!

Enjoy!

Bookcase Backing

Hubby and I got a $27 dollar bookcase from Walmart when we moved into our new house.  We have come to the conclusion that we have waaaaay too many books, but we don't care.  With both of us being avid readers (and me a librarian), we have little hope of keeping our books under control.  We recognize that.  But we try to keep organized by purchasing cheap-o bookcases every now and then to hold our book collecting habit. 

Except I don't like the look of cheap-o bookcases.  They look.... cheap.  See here:

 

Pretty boring, right?  The books are beautiful (remember, I'm a librarian, so all books are beautiful to me--but these are especially nice)--but the bookcase still looks cheap.  Because it is. 

 

Sooooo......

 

Lots of bookcase makeovers come across Pinterest and, of course, I had to try something to pretty it up.  I found the wrapping paper at Hobby Lobby--it is of a nice quality, I think.  And it was the perfect design.  I wanted something subtly present.  Yeah, yeah, that's an oxy-moron.  But I'll take an oxymoron anytime as long as it gives me these results: 



I didn't change much--just the wrapping paper to the backside of the bookcase to make it pop.  And I removed a few books and rearranged my knickknacks.  I used scrapbooking adhesive to stick it to the back of the bookcase.  Logically, I should have done this before I put together the bookcase--I think it would have much easier than trying to measure and cut and trim with an exacto knife.  But I didn't have the paper yet and I needed the bookcase ASAP.  Plus, I like a challenge. 

Except not really.  I just purchase 2 more bookcases in white with the intent to do the same thing.  But I'm not even bringing them in from my car until I have the backing paper I want.  :)

Thoughts? 

~Jana Lynn

Finding the right paper flower... to be made from comic books...

So, here we have paper flowers made out of comic book pages and construction paper:

I was tasked to make some paper flower arrangements for a co-worker's bridal shower that involved comic books.  We had a few donated comic books and we ended up making approximately 140 flowers.  It takes one comic book page per flower.  I only had about a week and a half, so I knew I need something that could be created fairly easily on a mass level--I had helpers, don't worry.  We needed something that looked natural, but was still whimsical looking with the comic book paper.  I scoured Pinterest and tried a few different styles at first.

This design was supposed to be a daisy, but it looked very robotic to me.  Not a very natural look:

Then I tried this design.  It is how I usually make tissue paper flowers, a design which always looked gorgeous with tissue paper, so I thought I would try it with the comic book page.  Unfortunately, the comic book paper is way, way too thick for this design.  I ended up ripping a lot of the paper trying to separate the layers.  Just way to hard and time consuming: 

Then I found this little rosette design on Pinterest.  It was exactly the flower I was looking for--easy to make, quick, and natural looking.  And it still looks like a flower: 

The sample on Pinterest was a bouquet of yellow flowers made out of different shades and designs of yellow scrapbook paper. 

Here's how you do it:

Cut a wonky circle, about 6 inches in diameter.  You can make them bigger if you want, but I was limited to 6 inches since that is the width of the comic book pages.  I used a page from "The Tick" comic book.  I would also suggest using the most colorful pages possible and also cutting off any white edges you might have. 

 

 

 

Once you have a slightly misshapen circle, cut a spiral to the center.  Make that cut a little wonky as well, full of bumps and lumps and curves.  It will give texture to your petals.

 

 

Then, roll your spiral in a somewhat tight circle.    

 

 

Wind it all the way to the center piece of the spiral.

 

 

Then the fun part...  Let go of your flower and let it form itself in the palm of your hand.  It will unwind and naturally form a flower shape.  

 

 

Put a big old glob of hot glue on the bottom circle (this was the center of you spiral) and stick your spiraled flower form right in the middle of the glue.  Don't burn yourself.  You can see the dried glue in the center of this pink and yellow one below:

 

 

For the stem, I just used pipe cleaners (a.k.a. chenille sticks) and taped them on.  If I could do it all over again, I would have hot glued the stems on the bottom of the flower.  Some of the buds fall off the stem--scotch tape doesn't hold it on so well.   

 

For the vase display, I painted regular old glass jars that we got for a buck at Michael's with this Martha Stewart frost glass paint.  It turned out really nice.  I think one coat looks really nice.  I tried a second coat on one of the vases, but the paint leaves a rough texture, so when I put on a second coat, it didn't paint on as smooth.  So the one layer was plenty, I think. 

 

It's a nice frosted look:

 

 Then we just decorated with a ribbon and put about 18 flowers in each of these vases.  They turned out so pretty! 

Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Smart remarks? 

Thanks for reading!

-Jana Lynn

Christmas Card Spelling Challenge

Okay--let's get it out at the beginning.  I misspelled the word "Slightly" on this cute card I made.  Chances are you may not have noticed.  I didn't even know until I had shown it to all my coworkers, the ladies who were card making with me, and my mother.  Then I show my husband and he's like, "You misspelled slightly.  But don't worry, honey.  It's still cute."

Do'h!

Anywho, even with the misspelling (which I will fix), I think the card is pretty cute.  I made it a few years back from a Christmas card package of pre-cut foam that I picked up at Target.  Pretty simple, but there would not be enough letters to make multiple of the same card in the kit.  It came with multiple snowmen and an assortment of letters, so there are lots of different ways to change up the design.  All in all, a fun little project, despite my spelling error.

-Jana Lynn

Memory Page on Publisher

A Memory Page.  It's kinda hard trying to fit a year's worth of memories into one publisher file, but here is our first year.  This is another idea from Pinterest, I think.  The page is a memory page that lists all of our activities, likes, travels, and such that we did during our first year of marriage. 

 

Here is "Our First Year."  (Sorry for the blurry computer shot...I don't know how to publish a PDF to the web yet, so I am going oppa ghetto style by taking a picture of the document from my computer screen.  But you get the idea.)

 

 

It's been fun reminiscing over our first year together.  It's feels so long ago.  (It's not.)  I finished the second year, but there may still be a few edits to that one.  I hope to add these to a scrapbook one day, or maybe a journal. 

 

-Jana Lynn, Life With a Grin

Anniversary Inception Pictures

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I loved it.  This is our 2nd Anniversary Inception picture--a picture within a picture within a picture.

Before I print them (probably right before next year's picture needs to be taken), I will crop and edit them a little and decide which one I like better.  I'm leaning towards the first one, only because there is glare on the photograph we are holding in the second shot.  I even took out the glass, but glare still showed up on the picture. 

I really, really love this tradition.  And I really, really, hope I don't ruin it by missing a year. 

 

-Jana Lynn, Life With a Grin

 

Stencil, Fantastix, and Cat Eyes

Hi all!

 

My first crafty post here...  of course, it is a scrapbook project.  As much as my mother tried to get me to love sewing above all else, my true crafty love is scrapbooking.  Don't worry, though, mom.  I still love sewing.  Just not as much as scrapbooking.  Here is my final 2 page spread and I will tell you how I used the tools to create it:

 

 

So cute, right?  I love looking at my wedding pictures and these pages turned out to be some of my favorites so far of my wedding album. 

 

My sister-in-law got me a few scrapbooking supplies this past Christmas and I love them.  Among other things, I got this lovely stencil (which I forgot to take a picture of before I used it, hence the brown ink):

 

 

She also got me some cat eye ink pads, which you see here, and these interesting little tools called Fantastix.  I'd never hear of them before: 

 

 

The Fantastix worked like reusable markers, where you soak up ink from your desired color of ink pad and then dob the ink onto your stencil.  I loved the result:

 

 

But they were a little troublesome to work with sometimes.  Let me explain.  There were very vague instructions.  I had to look up how to use them on the internet and even that was a little sketchy.  You see the part of the branch that is dark, dark brown?  That was when I tried soaking the Fantastix in water first.  All that did was soak my paper and make my ink extra dark.  No bueno.  So I pulled out another Fantastix and began afresh.  I taped down my stencil onto the paper I was inking onto to hold it steady. 

Another note about the Fantastix--they don't seem very reusable to me.  Even after washing them out immediately after using them, there is still brown and blue ink in the tips of them.  Am I doing it wrong?  Anybody know? 

Here's my art after I removed the stencil (with a nice finger shot in the bottom corner...oh, well) :

 I then used a "Believe" stamp with the brown color box ink and stamped it onto a wooden tag. 

 

I also wanted another saying on the other page on a wooden tag, so I hand wrote the word "eternal" with my permanent brown marker in as close of a copy of the "Believe" stamp as possible.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I inked the edges of some of my corresponding paper using brown cat eye ink and put it all together with some flowers as embellishments. 

I think it turned out fabulous.  The background 12x12 paper is from a pearl colored elegant stack, and the 8x8s are from a stack I picked up years ago that I use off and on.  I like that there are several different patterns and textures and the coloring is just lovely. 

I'd love to here suggestions on using Fantastix markers if anybody has a better way of using them.  Thanks for reading!

-Jana Lynn, Life With a Grin

My crafty life.

Hi all!

I fully expect no one to read these blog postings, but it is a fun way for me to share what I am doing in my daily crafty life.  I am crafty and I always have been.  Some things come easy for me; others I have to work on constantly. 

Mom got me started with sewing when I was little.  I received my very first sewing machine on my 7th birthday.  Mom really wanted me to love it, so when I screwed up on a project, she would pick out the mistake for me with a seam ripper.  By doing that, I wouldn't get frustrated with my project.  She got rid of the mistake and I would keep sewing.  She learned that little trick from my dad's mom.  It keeps the little girls loving sewing.  :)  And it worked!  I love sewing. 

Over the years, I picked up painting among a variety of skills, but I am definitly no Rembrandt.  Everything takes practice.  I also began scrapbooking when I was about 16 years old.  I have done lots and lots of pages over the years, following the trends like the change to 12 x 12 paper size, and the rise of stamps, stickers, and embellishments.  I got a cricut machine 2 years ago for Chirstmas, but I don't use it to its potential.  I love fancy stickers.  My first post after this will be a scrapbooking page spread I recently completed for my wedding scrapbook.  I got some new tools, so I thought I would review them a bit. 

So, if I do get a reader or two, besides my mom, I would love some feedback.  I hope your day is going great and you can face life with a grin!  :) 

~Jana Lynn, Life With a Grin