Come Spin the Wheel of Love

Have you started thinking about your sweetheart? It's time to do a little bit of planning. You have one month from yesterday to think of how to tell your loved ones how you love them. I am not a card maker and there are way more qualified than me to be telling you how to make this card.

Hi Peggy.

But here's the idea. I saw the photographed Menu Wheel on Design*Sponge. And, honestly I didn't think much of it. It was designed for a wedding reception as the menu. Cute but I didn't think I had to make it. Then I saw this design on You Are My Fave where Melanie had taken the above design and transformed it into an invitation to a baby shower. This is where I fell in love. And when I thought I fell in love I thought of Valentine's Day and I've been waiting to share it with you.

Melanie thought her invitations were too homemade looking but I think they are adorable. Now, she said to email her if you were thinking of making them for tips but I didn't do that. And, I didn't follow the instructions at Design*Sponge either.

I just gathered my materials and went for it. So gather some supplies. I had Valentine's Day paper, poster board, little cardboard hearts, scissors, some heart, heart brads, glue, a compass or something to draw circles.

I drew a circle using the compass. My pink paper was thin so I glued it to poster board for more support.

For the second sheet of paper I just eyeballed how big I wanted it to be in reference to my first circle. I wanted to leave about a quarter of an inch on the edge of the large circle so I could write the beginnings of a message there. I used the cardboard heart below as my arrow.

I tried using two hearts as the shape for my window but I didn't like the way it looked so I just cut a regular window. Then cut one last smaller circle and a heart. Centering the hearts proved to be a bit of a challenge but I'm not one of those perfectionist people so I just assembled it as close as I could get it. The cardboard heart on the side points to the beginning of the message.

The second part of the message will show through the window you cut. Now both Design*Sponge and Melanie printed out their messages and glued them to the wheel. But, I like the homemade charm of it and just wrote the messages in marker.

So on the edge below I wrote, "You make me happy when..."

The second part of the message is revealed in the window...

Assembling the front part of the wheel to back part with the brad was also a little difficult and mine spins a little caddywampus but that's okay. It made me laugh.

So, what will you be telling your sweetie this Valentine's Day?

And, you've seen three versions of the wheel card... a menu, an invitation and a Valentine's Day card... what other great ideas can you share with us?

Signing off until tomorrow...

Pucker Up

Is it too early to talk about Christmas decorations? I mean, all the retail stores started putting their stuff out before Halloween so, do you hold a firm position that you will not think about Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving?

If that's the case then you can gather up your supplies and make this after you've stuffed your faces with turkey and fought the Black Friday crowds. Oh, I do hope you will open your hearts to today's crafty project because I have been waiting and waiting to share it with you and I can't wait anymore!

You may or may not know this about me but I'm a blog addict. There I said it. I'm not trying to recover from it. I embrace it. And, I steal all of their great ideas. (Insert evil laugh here.)

Okay, not really steal because I am giving them credit. And they put it out there for us, right?

Brief background. This past summer I saw a Pomander Ball on a design blog. There was more than one and they were so beautiful. I googled "How to make a pomander ball" and watched a video. I was in love but really, I don't have a reason to make a Pomander Ball with real flowers on my budget. Pfft!

Then, the wonderful folks at Once Wed shared a tutorial on this Pomander Ball and my dream was alive once more! This I can do. And it won't die. And while there's is beautiful all in brown, I really wanted to see it as mistletoe so I can chase my boys around with it and kiss there sweet little faces. Or, maybe you're just one of those lucky types that will just be able to stand under it whenever you want your sweety to kiss you.

Let's get ready to pucker up, shall we?

Gather your items:
5" Styrofoam ball
roughly 7 yards of seam binding (or ribbon or fabric)
roughly 4 pages of 12"x12" of card stock paper (I used two different colors. The light green was a glitter page. The dark green was just a regular textured page.)
A flower punch
Straight pins with the round heads on them. I lost count but I used somewhere between 140 - 150.
A ribbon
Scissors

Punch about 70 flowers from each of your card stock colors. Just consider it a little arm workout. Set them aside.

Take your Styrofoam ball and your binding and start wrapping around the ball. Secure it with a pin. It's a bit tricky at first. You have to figure out a criss-cross pattern but it will probably be easy for you.

I left a little seam binding at the top but wished later I had left one fluid piece that you use to hang the ball with. Just pin it in place.

Now the fun part. Take a flower of the dark green paper and a flower from the glitter paper and thread them on to the straight pin.

Then stick that into the Styrofoam ball. As instructed I started in the middle and made a line around the ball but I think if I do it again I might start at the bottom and work my way up so the bottom is really full.

I placed my flowers pretty close together. I wanted it to be full. I may have used more than 140 flowers. I lost count.

Once I got the ball full of the flowers, I adjusted the flowers so that the petals were offset and stuck a second pin to keep them from moving. This is where we go astray from Once Wed's design. Mistletoe has lots of white berry's. I added three large pins in some flowers and 2 large and one small in others. Willy nilly, all random like.

Ooh! Isn't it pretty? Take your ribbon and make a bow. Attach the bow to the top. Just tie it on.

Hang it and stand other until someone gets the hint.

Maybe I need to make a 3" mistletoe ball and whip it out when I see someone cute. That doesn't scream desperation, does it? You could do this for any special occasion you're having. A baby shower with pinks or blues; Reds for Valentine's; Pastels for Easter; Wedding showers in the brides colors.

Okay but wait. Today is your lucky day. They're so easy to make I'm giving this one away. One entry per person. All you have to do to enter is to go to the comment section and tell me this:

Describe your favorite kiss.

All entries should be entered by 8:00 pm CST, Saturday, November 21st. The winner will be announced on Monday.

Snack Throwdown Updates:

We begin voting today for our favorite dish in the Tortilla Challenge. And Katie has the poll up for voting for the next ingredient. And, I trust my HLA team will correct me in the comment section if I'm wrong.

Signing off until tomorrow....

It's All How You Fold It

Happy Monday everyone. Cheryl here. Did you see that Derby Race? 2nd biggest upset since the Derby began. I don't know about you but I was like, "Who the heck is that horse?" We also had a ton of fun with our own Give-away Derby. I think Tera was our luckiest winner of the derby raking in the most wins and it's not over because I know the Beeny's still have to count that large piggy bank of money. And today, I offer you a craft project easy enough for anyone.

A couple of weeks ago Claudia gave me a piece of paper that showed you how to fold a mini booklet out of one sheet of paper. I promptly misplaced it my cavernous purse but it stayed in my mind. I remembered the basics of it, figured it out and I want to share it with you today. I'm a visual learner so I've included lots of photos to help you follow along. This is a great solution for a fun card or an activity for the kids. Here we go... the instructions will be above the photos.

This is the template. You will draw, print out or apply stickers on. You content will be only on one side of the paper. The Page #'s below indicate which way is up on each of your pages.

Here are the three booklets I made. I used my computer and the Publisher software to insert my pictures. You could easily glue pictures, draw on or write fun messages on the pages. Get creative.

To begin, fold your page in half long ways so you can see 4 pages of your 8 page booklet. Below are my 3 booklets.

And then fold that in half again so you can only see 2 pages.

Here's a tricky part. Fold it in half again. If you think your pages are too thick you can fold each side towards the middle. I creased mine in each direction. You'll have an accordion fold down the long side of the paper at this point.

This is where the magic happens. Take an xacto knife and cut the paper between the middle four pages. Don't have an xacto? Remember when you would crease paper and then add a little bit of spit to get it torn. Gross. I know. Never mind. Dig out the xacto.

Here's what the hole will look like. Just cut the middle section out.

Now fold it back in half long ways and let the middle section poke out like this below.

Pinch it together and fold the pages around so that the front page is in the front...

And voila! Your very own Mini Booklet! Can't you see your kids making something special for their teacher? Or a special card for Mother's Day? Or a creative card for a friend?

Very easy and super creative. Even you can do it! What do you think? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Do you have an easy, creative solution for something else? Feel free to share it with us today. Or, just report in and tell us about your weekend. What did you do for the derby? We want to hear from you.

Announcements:
Taste of USA begins today! Don't forget to go and vote. Where do you want to go?

Claudia- did we get a winning cookie on Friday for Fancy Flours Cookie Challenge?

Signing off until tomorrow...

March Madness Monday

Good Monday Morning Highlowaha! It's Heather here with another round of March Madness.

Selection Sunday has occurred and we all know if our team made the tournament. All the sports fanatics are gearing up for the first weekend of March Madness and meanwhile here at highlowaha we are engaged in our second week of March Madness tournament action pitting creative teams against one another for the hottest creative ideas of the past year. Last week we saw Team Iowa and Team California breeze through to the second round of the tournament. This week will determine what two other teams will make their way to the semi-finals.

Over the month of March these eight teams will put their most creative ideas, products, websites, resources, recipes, and more on center court. While each team has a winning line-up of ideas, they are only allowed to present one star idea at a time. We, the spectators, then get to vote on that day's M.V.P... or as the case may be, M.V.I. The team with the winning idea then advances to the next round of play. So it goes until Monday, March 30 when we face off for the championship game.

Remember that YOUR vote determines which team advances. We had a great round of voting last Thursday and I'd love to see that same energy as we decide who moves on today. Will it be
Cleveland's Creatives or Texas Tidbits?

Google Text
Have you ever called Directory Assistance (411) to get a phone number or address? That cost big bucks every time you press those three little numbers. There’s a new number in town that will get you the same results, but it’s free! Are you looking for the phone number or address of Ben & Jerry’s in Arlington, Texas?
Use Google Text! Simply send a text message with the name of the business you’re searching for followed by the city and state to 466453 (GOOGLE) and you’ll get a text message with a reply. Go ahead, try it…we know you want to! Best of all, it’s free (or the cost of texting if you don’t have it in your phone plan).

***OR***

Hungrygirl.com
Hungrygirl.com is a really cute web site for us hungry girls. The founder has a cookbook, and she has a FREE daily email newsletter, with great tips and diet tricks. EVERYONE should subscribe to it! She gives great substitutions, and has re-worked many recipes. She is also getting ready to come out with a new cookbook of 200 under 200. 200 recipes under 200 calories each.

Some examples of her wonderful recipes, most of which are single portions, are:

FAKE FRENCH FRIES – made out of butternut squash baked on a cookie sheet

ALFREDO SAUCE – made with laughing cow cheese

PIZZA – cute individual pizzas made with a crust made of crushed up Fiber One Cereal and some egg beaters made into a flat crust browned in a small skillet. Add toppings and voila!

How to Vote: Simply go into the comments section and enter googletext or hungrygirl.com, voting closes at 7pm CST.

Announcements:

Follow the Rainbow: Have you sent your rainbow to Surprise, AZ for our Suprise, Surprise stunt? If not you probably have time if you get it in the mail today. Don't forget this is a patch yielding event AND you'll have the chance to win an awesome prize along with it. Just drop any kind of homemade rainbow in the mail to Julie Schnepp 16630 N. Reems Rd. #1064 Surprise, AZ 85374

Take the Cake: The picture you see to the right comes courtesy of a fantastic highlowaha reader in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately it is the only nomination we've received for the Woman who takes the cake award. So...don't forget this is a fun, free way to honor a woman who truly does take the cake. Send your nominations no later than this Wednesday, March 18th via email to highlowaha218@gmail.com. We can't let Claudia win or she'll be baking a cake for herself.