Project {Dollar Store} Accessory: Challenge #2 – …And a Little Black Dress

Today I am working on finishing my projects for Project {Dollar Store} Accessory: Challenge #2 and the above is my is the bling I chose to accessorize a little black dress, although in person the gold around the rhinestones is not as noticeable as it is in the picture. 

The challenge this week is to:

• Choose a favorite piece of jewelry from your collection and use it as inspiration for your challenge pieces.
• Create a pair of shoes and an accessory of your choice.  You don't have to make shoes from scratch, you can embellish or make over an existing pair of shoes (which is what I am doing).
• The shoes and other accessory should both work together with the inspiration piece, and will be paired with a little black dress.

It is still not too late for other to participate if they would like and  Dollar Store Crafts will be posting a linky to link up.  

Here is a link to the creations from last week if you would like to check them out.


Happy crafting!

Italian Cream Cheese Herb and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

This is for  Mom's Crazy Cooking Challenge where there is a theme each month and the mission is to use a recipe by a fellow blogger, make it and post it.  This month's theme is Mashed Potatoes and I picked this recipe from What's Cookin Italian Style Cuisine.   They turned out very creamy and spicy, but recommend cutting down on the cayenne as they do have a bite after you have taken a bite.

This easily made 6-8 generous servings.

Ingredients:
5  medium white potatoes
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
4 tablespoons sour cream
3 tablespoon cream cheese or Philadelphia Italian Cooking Creme
1/2  stick butter
1/2 tsp parsley or cilantro
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp oregano or Italian seasonings
1/4 tsp basil
Dash of cayenne pepper
1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup milk, heavy cream, half and half
Non-stick spray coating

Topping (optional)
1/2 stick butter
1/2 -3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 to 3/4 cup Shredded mozzarella or Italian blend cheese

Bring water to boil and add a few dashes of salt (optional).  Peel and dice the potatoes until tender over medium heat until well cooked (test with a fork) - takes between 25-30 minutes.   Drain and return to pan.

Mince garlic (I used pre-minced) and measure out spices

Measure out butter, sour cream, cream cheese and parmesan.   I had a buy one get one free coupon for the Philadelphia Cooking cream cheese so I used that in this recipe.

I didn't have a heavy industrial mixer, so I started out using a blending mixer, adding a little of the milk at a time, but ended up going old school on it and used a potato masher until smooth.

Spray a baking dish with non-stick coating and preheat oven to 375 degrees

Transfer the potatoes over to the baking dish

For the topping, in a separate bowl put the bread crumbs and butter and melt the butter (I put it in the over for a few minutes) and mix together until crumbly.

I used to fork to sprinkle the topping on the potatoes.

Sprinkle the mozzarella or Italian cheese blend over the top. 

Put in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes until cheese is melted.

I served ours with a country fried steak, but What's Cookin Italian Style Cuisine indicated she serves this with ham, pork or poultry and leftovers are great to use in croquettes or topping for a Sheperd's Pie.

Be sure to check out everyone else's recipes at the challenge.Mom's Crazy Cooking Challenge

PROJECT {DOLLAR STORE} ACCESSORY CHALLENGE - WEEK 1

As I posted yesterday here Dollar Store Crafts has a challenge to correspond with Project Accessory.   The challenge was to create a belt, a necklace and one other accessory to go with a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans based on items from a thrift store (or in my case, using the materials I found in my garage).

I decided I would go with sort of a car theme and for a busy Mom or babysitter on the go.  Sadly, just like on the show, I ran short on time and ended up sacrificing quality for just getting the job completed.  Doing this gave me a whole new appreciation for what shows with these sorts of competitions go through as they make it look fairly effortless.

THE PURSE

I will start with the third piece as I like how it turned out the best.  I used the license plate, the purse and the broken Hot Wheel.  I cut down the purse at the bottom and flattened it and cut off the straps and attached one of them to each end instead of the sides.  On one side I glued the license plate and added 4 brads for decoration and to help hold it on the bag.  On the back, there was an ugly spot where I removed the bow that had been on the purse, so I glued the broken Hot Wheel to cover it up, and it also gives the purse a different look depending on what side is facing outward.  I used velcro inside and glued it in to hold the purse closed.

THE SCARF/NECKLACE

I used the t-shirt to make the road and turned two of the cars into pins to use on the road.  

The other items used were thread, yellow fabric paint on the necklace and velcro, pin backs and E6000 glue on the cars.

For the cars I wanted to make it so the pin could be taken off the back and the car to still be used as a car.  The idea was to be able to take off the necklace and have it double a  race track to entertain a tot at Dr.'s office, visiting a relative, etc.  

If I had to it to do over, I would also use larger pin backs as I think it would lie down straighter when pinned, but I used what I had on hand.

THE BELT

The belt is made out of one of the straps and the snaps of of the purse and the wheel off of the model car.  The other components are thread, aluminum tape from the hardware store and E 6000 glue.

How to here.

Check out  Dollar Store Crafts to see what Heather and others have made.

Happy crafing:)

PROJECT {DOLLAR STORE} ACCESSORY CHALLENGE

 

I am late to the party, but one of the blogs that I follow,  Dollar Store Crafts posted a challenge based on the show "Project Accessory" where the first week the designers had to 15 minutes to grab stuff from a storage unit to create a necklace, a belt and one other accessory.  

Here are the rules:

"Our Challenge

• We will each start with a plain white tee and a pair of jeans, which we can alter if we wish.
• We will each create a necklace, a belt, and an accessory of our own choosing, and make them into one cohesive look.
• Since we don't have a storage unit to raid, we will go to the closest approximation we can:  the thrift store!  We get to pick one thrift  store and spend a maximum of $10 (before tax, since that varies from place to place).  No time limit on shopping, in case there are kids in tow...  You know how that goes!
• The contestants on the show had access to a wall of embellishments, so it's only fair that we get to dig into our own stashes.  Each item that we make for the challenge must be made up of at least 75% thrift store items and no more than %25 stash materials.
• The contestants had 2 days, but they also have no other responsibilities outside of the challenge.  Since we have lives to maintain, we get a week.  We'll post our creations for this challenge on Friday, November 4."

Everyone is welcome to play along with us as well!  Stop by next Friday and see what we made, and share your looks with us!"

As the deadline is tomorrow, I didn't have time to shop and raided my non-stash storage area, the garage where I seldom venture anymore.  I found the above items which I may or may not use on my project:  

• An old license plate
• Stained t-shirt that was going to be used as a car washing rag
• 3 Hot Wheels (one broken)
• Wheel off a scale model car 
• Purse I got from a free box at a garage sale a few years ago and never used and never got around to donating to Goodwill. 

I plan on spending $0 for this challenge.

If anyone wants to join in,  please do so and let Dollar Store Crafts know as well as myself as I would love to check out your creations!