Holiday Nails

I've been keeping my eyes open for the holiday nails slowly popping up online, and I've found some where for you. Also, if you want holiday glitter but can't find it anywhere, make it! Mix red and green glitter (and maybe some gold) and you're all ready. I know that's what I'm going to do :).

I especially love the squiggly trees on the thumbs.

A regular french tip outlined in stick/glue on gems.

Snowflake nail art stamps

Put thin strips of painters tape over white base coat, then paint red over and peel off :).

Use tape to mark off half your nail.

Gorgeous french tips!

Tape off parts of your nail for each color, add top coat.

If you have lots of patience.. tacky winter sweater pattern!

Glass Photo Ornament tutorial

First, let me say this. If my mom, or Mark's mom is reading this.. Step away from the computer! My dad doesn't have a computer (I know, right?!) so I don't have to worry about him. This year is all about home made gifts, and this is one of the tutorials I want to share with you. I have a few others planned but for fear of discovery I cannot post them until after the 18th.

I made these darling ornaments for the holidays and they're fairly easy to do.

What you need:
Glass cabochons/flat marbles (mine are sizes 40x30. If you don't know where to get these, check out etsy. There are hundreds of listings for these)
Strong liquid glue
Hot glue
Ribbon/string/beads
Photos
Pretty paper/xmas cards
And preferably, glitter. Cause what's the holidays without glitter???

How to:

First thing, make sure your pictures are tiny enough to fit under the glass pieces (I got my photos printed at one of those Kodak instant kiosks that have the option to put 4 or 9 photos on a regular 4x6 sheet to ensure they're tiny).

Choose where you want to lay the glass down, and coat the picture in that area. I had some laminating stickers that I put on the picture so the ink wouldn't run (I hoped it wouldn't the first time, and when everyones faces melted into ugly blobs I had to peel the glass off and print more pictures..) Cut the piece out. I cut out a hole on paper so I could see exactly where I wanted to lay the glass.

Glue the glass down to the picture and press down hard to remove all the excess glue and any air bubbles.

You can do 2 photos, but what I decided to do was one photo and a little message and the year on some holiday colored paper. (A perfect use for some of those paint chips lying around..)

Now glue both sides together! Let them dry really smooshed together good. One option is to add the loop now. Cut some ribbon and stick it between the layers so that when everything is dry, its all ready to go.

Once those are dry, if you didn't add the loop in the previous step, get out the glue gun and hot glue the ribbon/beads around the seam. Make sure to put a loop at the top so that it can be hung. I used glass beads on wire, that I hot glued around with an extra blob at the top that I covered in glitter.

Embellish with charms, bows, glitter to your liking and it's all ready!

If you plan on putting this tutorial anywhere, or making your own, I would love to see! Just, as always, do not use my tutorials for commercial gain. :)

Random Tutorial Generator

Okay, I stumbled upon the greatest website ever. In history.

Its called the 'Random Tutorial Generator', and when you click the button (which is actually a button, adorable!) Someone's blog pops up in another window with a tutorial they submitted.

I have been finding new, wonderful things to do and read all day. Though I must say, a lot of the links that come up do not interest me, and there are others that are not my style nor are within the areas of crafting and DIYing that I like to do, its still fun to see new things to find inspiration where you would least expect it.

Want to see what the site has to offer? This is some of what I've found so far..

Must make these!

Tutorial found here

Tutorial

I make these all the time, they're so easy and look so great. 

Super Chewy Cinnamon 'Roll' Cookies (Recipe)

All day today I had the urge to make something sweet. And I really wanted cinnamon rolls, but I also really wanted cookies. And I don't have a rolling pin.

So this is what I came up with! Cinnamon 'roll' cookies.

Cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Nummy dough!

Using a standard cookie recipe, I rolled the dough into balls then cut a tiny slit.

Inserted a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and becel (no butter in the house for baking, boo!) and smooshed the sides back together. Then I put them in the oven.

They came out oh so tasty, and because the mixture in the middle, they're oh so gooey and chewy. And amazing. Now to try and not eat them all tonight..

On a side not, has anyone seen the thing on pinterest where they say you can grow green onions in a cup of water? Works surprisingly well, and surprisingly fast. They grew about a foot in a week and a half!! And that's while sitting next to a window half the time with frost/snow on the other side. Though I must say this. They were softer than traditional 'fresh' green onions, didn't have as strong of a smell or taste. I'm guessing they'll only grow for so long before there is absolutely no nutrition left to them since they're not getting anything from soil. Still, it was an interesting experiment. (It also became the home for a spider for a little while.. Little guy probably thought he was outside, right by the window and all..)

Look at those beasts! I only added water up to where it turns from white to green, and topped it up once. See those tiny little dead sprouts near the top of the glass? That's how high they were when I put them in there. 

Peppermint Heaven

I have a confession.. I have an unhealthy obsession with mint in all its forms. I want everything in a mint alternative.

Then one day I stumbled across a website called 'foodgawker' and their peppermint section. Oh. My. God. Go to this link for the full (and ever updating list), or check out my favourites below.

Peppermint Patties

Icecream.. Oh my gosh yes.

Peppermint simple syrup and cocktail recipes.

Mint. Freakin'. Oreos.

Brownies with peppermint bark topping

Flavoured sugar

Xmas tree shaped bark. Great as a gift don't you think? 

The picture isn't pretty like the others but don't forget my mint hot chocolate!

Super cute rice crispy balls. 

Is it possible to overdose on mint? I hope not but I think I'll find out.

Nail Ideas

I was going through some old photos tonight looking for pictures to use in an upcoming tutorial (need a few more supplies then I can share it!) And I came across these pictures I had of some nail art ideas and thought I would share.

Start with a gray base coat, then go over with black horizontal lines, and then gold. I love this style of nails and the best part is that you can do it with your bad hand sometimes better than your good one! Its allowed to be messy, it looks better that way! And how amazing would this look with red and green sparkles over white? I should pick up some new polishes for some Christmas-y nail ideas.

I started with the same gray base coat, then drew graffiti styled letters with a white paint pen, followed by outlining them in black sharpie. Should have been a black paint pen but I didn't have one. Topcoat to hold it all together and I had cool graffiti nails that said my name.

Double french tip nails from the craft show last week. I used the french tip stickers to make the lines on my nails (a couple millimeters lower than where the nail bed ends to make my nails look longer than they were) and did 2 coats of purple, and when that was dry, peeled the stickers off and freehanded gold stripes following the same curve. Topcoated twice to smooth down the glitter bumps.. These nails are so classy looking, and you can go with any color combination for whatever you're doing.

Dinosaur Skeleton Necklace Giveaway!

I was surprised to see how many people love dinosaurs as much as I do when I posted my necklace tutorial here.

So I thought for December I would have a contest. During the month, leave a comment on this post telling me what you would like to see more of on this blog (tutorials? personal? recipes? photography?), or what song/artist you're listening to lately. At the end of the month, I will use a random number generator online to choose the winner, and mail it to you!

Contest details:
Anyone can enter, but if you're underage make sure someone knows about the contest and approves of it. I don't want anyone to get in trouble for giving a stranger their address.

When a winner is chosen, I'll make a post as to who it is and send off an email. If I don't hear from you in 48 hours with your information, I'll pick another winner.

For extra points:
1 point- Tweet this message 'Rawr! I want to win the dinosaur necklace with @thisiskristina from www.TamedRaven.com!'
1 point- Join my facebook page. If you're already a fan, leave a comment and I'll count it.
1 point- Share the 'win me' picture from the facebook group.
1 point- follow the blog.
3 points- Blog it with the above picture and a link to this post, then leave a comment with the link to your post.

Fairly easy, right? Good luck!