Clock DIY Make-Over

Last week, I saw a post online where someone repurposed an old clock by taking off the face and painting it. I tried looking around, but I couldn't find that post again. I've been wanting to add a clock to LE's room, but I really didn't want to spend more than $10 bucks on one. 

I casually looked around for a little while. It wasn't until I had to go to Walmart to buy spraypaint (the cheapest place I've found it) that I walked by their clock aisle. Their basic Mainstays brand 8.75 inch wall clock comes in a few colors, and it costs under $4. Add a little scrapbook paper for less than $1. Bingo! A new clock that comes in under 5 bucks.

If you have an old clock that needs new life, or if you're like me and need to revamp a new clock, follow along for the step by step. I'll explain how to do this using thick scrapbook paper as the face of the clock, but with small adjustments to the tutorial, you could use fabric or paint instead. I was able to get this very easy DIY done from start to finish during LE's nap. 

Take a mental note of how the clock hands are placed before you take your clock apart. Flip your clock over and remove the screws that are keeping the face to the back.  Snap out the battery pack, which will remove your clock hands.

Flip the clock back over to the front. Measure the width of the inside. The Mainstays clock face is 7.75in. If the clock face isn't glued in (mine was), remove and discard it.

If you have a Silhouette craft cutter, your job will be super easy (skip to instructions). If not, it will just be mildly more difficult. Print a circle the size of the clock's face (use Microsoft Word or other software that allows you to specify the exact size of shapes) onto the back side of your scrapbook paper. Use scissors to cut out the circle. You should probably buy die cut numbers for the clock unless you are really good with cutting. 

For the Silhouette users:

• Open Silhouette and draw a circle to fit your clock's face. (7.75in for the Mainstays clock)
• Pick a font that you like for the numbers. I used Skia.
• Adjust the size of your numbers until you like it. The 12 in my clock was 2.5in, measuring from the top to the bottom of the 1. 

• Once you get everything to the size that you like, move all of the numbers and extras to the outside of the circle.

• If you're using the same paper for everything, send your paper through the Silhouette on a mat. For thick cardstock, use the pink blade at 2 speed and 33 thickness. I didn't find double-cutting necessary.
• If you're using different paper for the numbers, just make sure you tell the Silhouette which items to cut (e.g. just the circle or all of the numbers/dots)
• Use Mod-Podge, spray glue, or your choice of non-wrinkling adhesive to adhere the paper circle to clock's face. Before adhering, take note of where the 12 is on your original clock. You'll need to be sure that's the top of your new clock's design since that aligns with the hanging mechanism on the back of the clock.
• Paint your cut out numbers, if needed. Apply glue dots or your choice of adhesive to the back of the numbers. Adhere the 12, 9, 6, & 3 (not the dots yet); that will allow you to get them straight. If your clock is like the Mainstays one, there are visible screw holes to help guide you. 
• Poke a small hole in the paper and then push the battery pack through from the front to the back. This will make your paper bend towards the back. Carefully remove the battery pack and reattach it to the clock the correct way.
• Attach the hands the same way that they were originally. For the Mainstays clock, the hour hand goes first shiny side up. Then, the minute hand goes matte side up, and then the second hand snaps in on top. 
• Rotate the hands so that all of them line up at 12. Using the dial on the back of the clock, turn it to 1. Place a dot. Then use the dial to turn it to 2. Place a dot. Continue for the rest of the dots. This ensures that you are placing them in the correct places.
• Place the glass and cover back on the clock. Screw everything back in place. Admire your new clock!

I haven't decided where in LE's room to place the clock yet. For now, it will live with the sock monkey.

S'Mores Cupcakes

Yeah, you don't have to tell me. S'mores have been done. Overdone. If you look even casually at foodgawker or Pinterest, you've seen s'mores cakes, cupcakes, traditional with different candybars, in jars, cake pops, ice cream, cookies, bars, pies, tarts, pudding, pizza, rice krispie treats, popsicles... need I go on? For the love of s'mores, it's time to yell out "enough already!"

But, I like s'mores.  Last week, when I was thinking of what to bring to a house warming party, I browsed my arsenal of recipes, and the s'mores cupcakes done by Trophy Cupcakes kept pulling me in. Plus, we were inviting friends over to sit around our firepit on a gloriously perfect evening the night before the party. Patio + firepit + friends = s'mores. Double Plus, I already had all of the supplies on hand.

Ok, enough excuses on why I chose s'mores even though they've been done a million times before by everyone.

Here's the deal. These were good.

About 30 minutes after these cupcakes came out of the oven, I bit into the not-quite-cooled, unfrosted cupcake and thought, 'mmm, these are good." Then about an hour later John got home, saw my half-eaten cupcake and asked if he could try. He bit into it and said decidedly, "Wow, those are good."

Oh, and I tried the cupcakes out on Friday night using the meringue, marshmallowy frosting from the Lemon Meringue cupcakes that I did earlier this summer, and though it was perfect for the lemon, it was not nearly as good on these cupcakes as the one in the Trophy Cupcakes' recipe. It's smooth and full of marshmallow flavor.


S'mores Cupcakes
From Trophy Cupcakes
Makes 2 dozen (for me, it made 31 cupcakes)

Cake Ingredients
2 1/4 cup + 2 tbs sugar
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup + 1 tbs cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 20 crackers)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
9 oz bittersweet chocolate, as finely chopped as you can

Preheat oven to 350, and line 2 standard muffin tins or spray with cooking spray.

Place your sifter over your mixer bowl. Sift into the bowl 2 cups plus 2 tbs sugar (reserving the remaining 1/4 cup for later), flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Using your paddle attachment, mix on low just to combine.

In a separate medium bowl, lightly whisk the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Pour into the flour mixture, and mix on low until incorporated slightly (so that it doesn't blow flour everywhere) and then increase the speed to medium to mix for 30 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and mix on medium for an additional 2 minutes. Pour in your boiling water. Using a spoon (not the mixer) stir to combine. The batter will be very runny.

In another medium bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup of sugar, and melted butter.

Spoon 2 tbs of graham cracker mixture into each muffin cup (there will be some leftover). Using the bottom of a small glass cup, firmly press the graham cracker into the bottom of the muffin cup, creating a crust. It may stick to the glass slightly. If you have major issues with that, try using a small circle of parchment paper in between the glass and crust.

Sprinkle evenly 2 generous tsp of finely chopped chocolate on top of the crust. The chocolate won't spread much, so even it out with your finger or a spoon at this point. And don't skimp! I thought the chocolate layer would taste a bit out of place here and too raw, but instead, I found myself wishing I had added more of it.

Place both tins side by side on the middle rack of the oven, and bake for 5 minutes. The crusts should turn light golden brown.

Remove from oven and carefully pour the batter into the cups, filling 3/4 of the way (see the image above). Sprinkle the remaining chopped chocolate and then graham cracker mixture over the top of the batter.

Bake one tin at a time for 17-20 minutes, or until the tops are set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached.  Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely, at least an hour.

Frosting 

Makes enough for about 3 dozen cupcakes; I plan on halving this recipe when I make these again, but if you feel nervous about running out of frosting, I guess you should make the whole batch. You can see below that I had somewhere between 1/3 - 1/2 a batch leftover after generously topping 25 cupcakes.

Ingredients
8 large egg whites
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp vanilla extract

In the electric mixer bowl, add the eggs, sugar, and cream of tartar. Place over a small simmering saucepan of water (like a double boiler) and whisk continuously for 3-5 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is getting hot and foamy.

Transfer bowl to the mixer. With the whisk attachment, gradually increase the speed from low to high, beating until stiff, glossy peaks form, 5-7 minutes. Add the vanilla, and mix briefly to incorporate.

Spoon frosting into a piping bag fitted with a large tip (I used 1M). Pipe a generous spiral on top of each cupcake. With a kitchen torch, carefully brown the frosting as much or as little as you like. Trophy Cupcakes opts for the more gentle approach whereas I prefer to actually taste the toasted marshmallow and brown it more heavily.

Leftover frosting

Cupcakes store in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Frosting does not pipe well a day later, so pipe the frosting the same day that you use it. Cover with plastic wrap flush to the surface if not using immediately and leave at room temperature.

Design your own font (tutorial)

Have you ever wanted to turn your own handwriting into a font? You could use it for electronic journaling, digital scrapbooking, spruce up your own blog, and, well, basically anything that you use a regular handwriting font for. Or, you could doodle instead to create your own doodle font. Get creative!

It's relatively inexpensive, easy, and fun. If you use fontifier.com, it's just $9. Their instructions are very easy to follow, but I wish they gave a few tips. I created my first font about 4 years ago, and just recently, I went back for a second shot at it.

You'll need a printer, a scanner, your favorite pen, a thick-tipped pen (like a Sharpie), lined paper (optional), and a photo editing software (optional). 

Here's how you do it.

1. Print out their template on one letter sized sheet of paper.
2. Place the template on top of a sheet of lined paper to help you keep your letters straight. If it's too hard to see the lined paper through the template, try placing a sheet of blank paper under the lined paper to help the lines show up.
   
3. Pick out your favorite pen. Using your best handwriting, try your hardest to fill each letter's space with letters that are the same size, centered, and using the "pips" as the baseline. My first font turned out small (see the example towards the end of the post). If you are using a photo editing software (even Microsoft Paint would work for this), focus more on the handwriting and less on making it perfectly aligned.
   
4. Take a Sharpie or other medium tipped marker and trace your original letters.
   
5. Scan the template back to your computer, saving it as a GIF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF.
6. If not using a photo editing software, skip to number 8. Open your completed template in your photo editing software. Go through each letter to recenter and trim away flaws.
   
7. Save your new file as a GIF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF.  
8. Upload your completed template to http://www.fontifier.com/submit.html. Name your font and preview before buying. If there's a letter that you don't like, go back to your template and edit it.
   
9. Pay by credit card or PayPal, download to your computer, and install the font.
   
10. Test your font and share with others, if you desire!

Here are how my fonts turned out.

The first was just my favorite pen (not traced by a Sharpie). I should have printed my letters out bigger and filled the rectangle more. You can see how much space there is between the letters (especially after the capital T) and how small the font turned out compared to a regular font. At this size, the thin weight is good, but when it's enlarged, it's too puny.

The second one is the one that turned out with this tutorial. You can see how the font size greatly improved, and the weight is good for more applications, though it is still wide.

Experiment and have some fun! 

Here's where I sometimes link up!

One of two completed... Thanksgiving Crafts

I finished up the little pilgrim hats that I said I was going to do for this year. These were inspired by this post at Jellybean Junkyard.

Here's the inspiration shot:

And here's how mine turned out:

These were cheap, easy, and not time consuming! 

Here are the supplies for my version (I bought everything from Michaels):

• One small clay pot for each person
• One 8.5x11 sheet of yellow felt (I used the stiff type and less than half the sheet for all 7)
• One 8.5x11 sheet of gray felt cut into strips across the short side
• Black cardstock or paper
• White pen (mine was a paint pen that I already had)
• Paintbrush
• Hotglue gun and glue
• Scissors 

As you can (kind of) see with Kate's place card, I made them so that the names could be removed for different guests in the future. I went ahead and wrote out some other family members' names on cardstock so that I can keep them all together in a Ziploc.

You can follow Jellybean Junkyard's tutorial for most of it, or you can wing it like I did. It's that simple. One thing I do recommend is keeping a little part of the price tag sticker to put on top of the hole at the bottom of the pot. Then paint over it when you paint the rest of the pot. Good luck and have fun!

Now onto the more elaborate one that I may or may not get to this year since the paper mache part takes a few days.... the cornucopia.

Birdhouse Accessories

I stumbled across some plain wooden birdhouses on sale at Michaels a few weeks ago. They were $1 each, and I picked out 4 different styles. They are lightweight and purely decorative-- definitely not anything I'd actually use as a real birdhouse-- and the perfect accessory for LE's bird themed room.

The plain birdhouses were just too, well, plain, but covered with cute scrapbook paper or paint, they'd be perfect to mount in a cluster on a wall or hang from the ceiling as a mobile. I haven't decided which to do yet.

All of the materials that I used to create them are below. Most of them are optional items I had on hand.

1. Birdhouse
2. Cutting surface (only if you are using a razor to cut)
3. Colorful [super cute] paper
4. Paper cutter (optional)
5. Paintbrushes
6. Razor or box cutter
7. Paint
8. Water (optional)
9. Glue (I didn't have glue at home for the first house, so I made my own with cornstarch and water.)
10. Scissors

All you do is paint the small areas and parts that you don't want to cover in paper. Then, using one of the cutting apparatuses, cut out the paper to cover the sections of the birdhouse. Apply a layer of glue to the house. I watered my glue down and spread an even coat with the paintbrush. Press the paper down firmly and make the creases crisp. Voila! You're done!

I'm on the fence about getting some clear spray paint or mod podge to seal it. They can sit on a shelf if you want. I'll either drill a hole in the back to mount it on the wall or put a hole on the top to string fishing wire through to hang it from the ceiling. I'll post pictures when they are hung.