Faux Fry Box made from heavy weight scrapbook paper. Love this as a party favors idea. Of course, you could make these for all ages, for either sex. Just change the paper, throw some candy in it or whatever, and there you go.

I found these instructions at Hewlett-Packard's site for fortune cookies and gift boxes. I especially love the idea of fortune cookies and they're so easy! You can even print the different patterned paper they use for their projects if you want it, or just use it as a guide with your own paper.

HP also has party printable invites and complete party kits, including pirate and princess themes. They include everything from banners to eye patches to treasure chests like the one shown. Pretty cool!

Log into your account, under Settings at the top, select Application Settings


Select Notes, then click Import a blog

That will take you to a page where you can enter your web address or site's feed address.


Finally, your data will load. DON'T FORGET TO CONFIRM at the bottom of the page.


Thanks to Blog Spot Tutorial

I happened upon Hemi*Housewife on the Craftster forum and really love some of the ideas she has.

Here's some kid's cars she re-did. I just think they're awesome.






This Pig Rug may not be your taste, but you have to admit it's thinking outside the box.

This week's art round-up is from Rive Magazine, including altered art Collage work by Alexander Korzer-Robinson:


I have done something similar a long time ago so, of course, I'm drawn to it. Mine (below) is actually an altered cigar box with a paper bag book, complete with removable shaker brain and trap door.

















Chadwick Tyler's Photography:

I love old glamor and the fact that this series of photos is haunting only heightens the appeal for me.

Printed tights by Studio m + o:

I wouldn't have ever thought to try and purposely put veins on my legs before, but there's something wrong about it that I love.

Record Silhouettes by Carlos Aires:



I also had to include this stop animation video by Bang-yao Liu:



Typically, I don't like adding videos but I did stop and watch this and was glad I did. At first I thought "who has time to do this?". Then I thought "I do" and yet I don't use my time doing anything as creative.

This googly eye pic gets my vote for funniest because I often wonder why the world can't be just a little bit more fun, like something from the movie Toys. So, this is as close as I get:

I'm sure my fellow obsessed Harry Potter fans have already seen the movie, so they know. For those who aren't so enthused that they could actually stand to wait to see it, I'll say this, hopefully you didn't make the mistake I did of re-reading the book right before you go.

While I'm sure I'll appreciate it more the next time I see it, the first time around was tainted by the humongous holes in the storyline. Now, I realize these are long stories and need to be edited for the big screen; but, at the very least, an extra 30 minutes could have been added to the movie to make it 3 hours, not unlike similar movies of such grand nature. Secondly, a scene that was added could have been cut to include scenes that actually existed in the book, scenes that were much more important than the scene that was added for absolutely no reason.

I had originally thought the added scene was done in order to add more action to a story that didn't include a lot of fight scenes. This theory, however, was blown to pieces when I realized that the one big action scene the book did have was cut. Why? Can someone explain this to me because I can't understand their reasoning?

This, on top of cutting so many of the memories that Dumbledore shared with Harry, leaves me wondering how J.K. could have approved this. It seems to me that these were very important things to include, especially for people who haven't read the books and don't know what's going on.

Not just for the sake of those who hadn't read the books, but for those who had, so many of the things that would have made for a more interesting storyline should have been added. For instance, I think that one of the most important parts of this book was getting to know more about Tom Riddle's back story. That, and I think that the end fight scene, along with the reactions to what has happened, at the end, were some of the things I was looking most forward to.

On top of cutting things and adding others, they changed things for no reason. Luna played a bigger part than she was supposed to. Not that I don't like Luna, but I didn't understand why she was in scenes she had no place being in.

Oh well, you can't please everyone. I don't think I was the only one who felt this way though because usually people always clap at the end of Harry Potter. This time, there was only like 2 people. I'm pretty sure those are the 2 who haven't read the books and didn't know to be upset. Mind you, this all being said, I do plan on seeing it again while it's in theaters. I think I always feel this way after I first see it. I'm still a huge fan!

Ever since I made my voodoo pincushion, not unlike the one shown, I've been a fan. Pincushions can be creative and they are sooooo easy, two of my favorite things.

Sugar Skull Pincushion. I love sugar skulls. Though this looks more intricate than I could pull off with needlepoint, they have a digital version that could just be printed on iron on sheets. The template's only free until July 26th, so get it quick!

Flower pincushion- This looks like it could be a good use of little scraps you may have collected here and there.

The Purl Bee has "very easy Pincushions". It's one of the better sewing sites I've found. They have a lot of projects that look easy, but still super cute.



Eyes, now that is both sick and funny...another two of my favorite things. There are a ton of good ones here. They don't have tutorials, but they're great inspiration.





I like the idea of incorporating something other than fabric, like with this Truck Pincushion

Here are some photos from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, to be released in 2010:







The cast will also feature Alan Rickman (Snape from Harry Potter) as the The Caterpillar, Christopher Lee as Jabberwock, Stephen Fry as Cheshire Cat and Crispin Glover as The Knave of Hearts.

Today, in case you live under a rock and were unaware, Michael Jackson's memorial service was held. I found it touching and bawled through a great portion of it. That may sound silly to the few who weren't fans, but I was amongst the thousands of fans for whom Michael Jackson was an idol. People, let alone artists, like Michael do not come along often in this world. I can't think of anyone still alive who holds a candle to his all-around greatness.

More than any of the performers or speakers at the service, I was completely moved by his daughter Paris. I know what it is to lose a father and I'll tell you it doesn't matter what bad things other people say about them; to a kid, a parent is everything.

While there was so much positivity amongst the sorrow, I have to say I made the mistake of recording it via ABC News. While it was bad enough, and I tried to let it go that they had Martin Bashir commenting the night he died, I was appalled at the fact that they made this mistake twice.

After what Martin Bashir did to Michael Jackson, he should be hiding under a rock right now. The gall it takes for him to be commenting, like they were on good terms, after he completely betrayed Michael for the whole world to see. I am horrified...horrified!

Secondly, with all the recaps of everything that is Michael, I keep seeing Jamie Foxx's asinine statement, "We want to celebrate this black man - he belongs to us - and we shared him with everybody else.". Michael wanted to breakdown the color barriers. Things like this go against everything Michael spent his life trying to do and to overcome. After Jamie Foxx's racist comment about Miley Cyrus, maybe he should shut up for awhile.

My husband and I went and saw Public Enemies with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. For anyone who doesn't know, it's about infamous bank robber, John Dillinger, back in the 30's.

While it follows both Dillinger and the agent trying to stop him, Melvin Purvis (Bale), it is mostly told from the "bad guys" point of view. Thus, we get to know Dillinger and begin to root for him. Of course, this being a true story, you know it doesn't end well. However, you can't help hating the people who take him down.

It took place during the depression, when regular people cared little about businesses getting ripped off. In fact, the public routed for Dillinger much like the viewers do.

J. Edgar Hoover was in charge of the FBI at this point and when Dillinger became the Public Enemy #1, fleeing from state to state, national laws were put into place where none had been before. So, in a way, it changed the way crime was done and how it was punished.

I thought the movie had an interesting cast, with all kinds of familiar faces popping out of the woodwork. Johnny did great, of course. This wasn't his typically, off the wall movie, but it was solid.

Personally, I love watching movies about this time. Tommy guns and gangsters, that's good stuff. If you agree, then I highly suggest checking out PBS's site on the facts about John Dillinger's life.

With my previous post, you can see I displayed what code to use to create meta tags. Now, usually if you try and cut and paste HTML code into a post, it won't show up. However, I found a site that makes it really easy.

All you have to do is take the code you want to use and paste in the top box here, hit "enter" and it will give you what you need to paste into your post.

Meta tags are what's going to help people find your blog on search engines like Google, and Yahoo, Swagbucks, etc.

You're going to want to follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your blogger dashboard & click the 'layout' button
   
   
2. Click on the 'Edit html' tab
   
   
3. Look for: <b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>
   
   
4. Under it, add the following:

<meta content='DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='AUTHOR NAME HERE' name='author'/>

DESCRIPTION HERE: Write your blog's description
KEYWORDS: Write the keywords that help identify your blog
AUTHOR NAME: Write the your screen name

Save and there you go. It should be as simple as that.