Chocolate Dipped ANYTHING!!!!!

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels or whatever...

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a while.  It has been hit and miss with me but the holidays are over and I  should be getting back to a better routine now.  I promise!

Anyway...

So these are one of the simplest treats to make. And it seems to me that everyone loves a little sweet and salty treat.

I use different chocolates depending on what I have in the house. If you are looking for ease of use then the chocolate bark is for sure the easiest. If you only have choc chips in the house then you will have to add a little extra fat to the mix to make it nice and smooth for dipping, I always reach for the crisco. (I haven't used it but I think butter would work ok, you may just have to use more since butter is less dense and has water in it.).

Now grab you double boiler (don't have one, a metal bowl over a pot of water is really all you need.)

Melt your chocolate.  Watch it closely as chocolate can burn, and no one wants that!

Now dip away...

You can decorate them with whatever you want, sprinkles, nuts, chocolate swirls, whatever...

Everyone will LOVE them and how much easier can it get?

Some of my favorites are chocolate dipped pretzels and chocolate dipped biscotti. (Biscotti is one of the easiest things to make! I will post the recipe soon, I promise!)

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Crystal Wine Bottles

DIY Crystalized Up-cycled Wine Bottles

Yeah, yet another way to up-cycle wine bottles. How can you not love that?

These are so simple to make and look fabulous on the counter

All you are going to need is an empty wine bottle or 2, Epsom salt, and mod Podge (does anyone see a pattern here, do I do any craft without mod Podge, I think not...).

Anyway, so, first you need to paint the bottles with the mod Podge,

Sprinkle the Epsom salt on the sticky bottles,

And let them dry!

Ta-da, ta-da!

So cute. And they look great on the counter for my upcoming book club. I am going to have a hot chocolate bar. Isn't that fun? I am super excited about that. I will show you pics after I have it!



Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

Holiday Decorating Week and Cheap and easy Christmas decorations

Easy Peasy Cabinet Door Decoration

Now lets kick off easy holiday decorating week.  I am really getting into this weekly theme thing.  Maybe it will be a trend (probably  not, but a girl can dream!)

I recently went to a holiday party where the host had the cutest decorations. This one was my favorite and I just had to do it at my own house.

All you need is a roll of ribbon and gift card boxes. I got mine at the dollar store, a 4 pack actually. These were left over from last year too. The woman I am copying actually had the traditional red bows in the middle of hers but I didn't have any of those.

Just tape the ribbon in a "t"

and paper clip the box in the middle to look like a tag.

I liked this so much that I'm pretty sure I will be doing this every year!

Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Lil' sis

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Pajama Pants

Easy DIY Jammys...

Ok, I don't know why but for some reason making pants has always been intimidating to me. I have been a bit nervous but I came across a blog that had an excellent, easy to follow, super quick tut!  It's mycottoncreations.blogspot.com and here is her tut for the pants!  These are so easy to make you can seriously throw them together in about 20 minutes!

Here are their old jammys that I used as patterns!

And here is just before I started cutting!  Just line up your jammys, leave room for seams and hems, (and add a little if the ones you are measuring are last years model and may be a bit short)


Seriously, it is sooooo easy I ended up making a pair for ALL the kids in he family and even one adult.

Then I decided that stretch pants must be just as easy so I made about 20 pairs of those too! (It's about all that little one will wear. I can't get her to wear jeans to save her, or my, life!). I used the same tutorial, just used a pair of her stretch pants for the pattern instead of baggy jammy pants.

here is where I found the tutorial! How can you not love these! Aren't they fabulous? And you can whip them up in about 20 minutes, and that's including cutting, sewing, and hemming (the Bain of my existence!). All you need is some cute fabric, a pair of pajama pants of your kidd-o's for the pattern, and some elastic, sooooooo easy.

I think the kiddos are going to love these. I am so excited to give them to the girls, I may even let them open them on Christmas Eve, we'll see though...



Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Scrap Fabric Owls

Scrap Fabric Owls

I was so excited to make these.  I LOVE getting rid of, using up, getting to use all those scraps I have been saving!

All I did was make an owl pattern (if you don't want to brave making your own im sure you can find one online to print off.)...

Cut out two pieces, one for a front and one for a back piece...

Start blanket stitching together, don't go all the way around, you are going to have to stuff it...

Stuff the owl with a small amount of pillow stuffing...

And finish your stitch!

Now for the eyes and beak I used felt but if you want you can even use some smaller scraps of fabric, but I will leave that up to you of course!

I layered the different colors of the eyes and sewed them together too with white thread to give it one more layer of color and texture.

And Ta-Da!  Aren't they so cute, and I love any project that uses scraps.  You could add a name and date and use them as tags on your gifts this year!  What!  You heard me.  LOVE IT!


Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook, ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Apple App Magnets

Apple App Magnets

You know, the ones you have on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or whatever apple product you may have. There are a couple techies in my family and I am a little excited to give these out as stocking stuffers this year! Woot woot!

So, all you have to do is print these babies out on card stock...  Here is where I got the original idea and printables.  If you haven't ever checked out her site it is FABULOUS!  She is at Infarrantly Creative and I love her a little bit!

Glue them onto some old fridge magnets you Have lying around (you know, like the one from the front of the phone book, or last years calendar from the local clinic. Whatever you have).

Trim them down to the right size...

Throw some mod Podge dimensional magic on top and viola! Done-ski!

Now sand the edges to make them look nice and finished...

And done!

Seriously so excited to give these out!


Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

Entryway Decor

My New Entryway Decor

I can't tell you how much I love having this space to decorate as I please for the holidays. A week or so ago I finally put uph Christmas decor for this wall and I am so happy with how it turned out!

First I put my decorations up that I wanted on the shelf,

Then I strung some cotton balls on white thread and hung them from the top. See, easy peasy rice and cheesey! (Oh, yeah, I went there.) and I really like how it turned out! I think the snow in front of the windows added a nice touch to the ambiance.

Anyway, what does your prime decoration real estate look like? Do you have a special spot you always put things?


Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Gift Week Kick-off and Homemade Map Coasters

DIY Tile Map Coasters

So, i would like to officially kick off DIY gift week. These are all things you can make with minimal amounts of time easily, so get out your mod podge, your glue gun and your sewing machine and get ready!

First i suppose we will start with these simple coasters. I have seen people that these out of old 4x4 tile and thought, what a great Christmas gift. So I got to work.

I went to the local habitat for humanity store (here its called the Restore) and picked up about 16 plain white 4x4 tile.

Then I got a Montana map (cuz' that's where I live) and mod podged the map to the tops of the tiles.

When it was dry I cut the map so it fit just to the edge of all the tiles and mod podged again.

I wasn't happy with the results, some of the paper wrinkled (to do it again I would have used the spray mod Podge)

Then, since I wasn't happy with how the tops looked, I put an epoxy based resin on top of the tiles. This also gave them a nice glossy, store bought finish.

And I LOVE them! I am so excited to give these as gifts to the family! I really think they are going to love them! They are too got be a great, thoughtful, useful gift!



Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.

DIY Up-cycled Christmas Bulb Wreath

Up-cycled Christmas Bulb Wreath

So I have seen these all over town and on Pinterest and in the stores and I just had to have one but thought there was no way I was going to pay for them so here you go. I saw this great tut to make one and got super excited! It's at:

Here is what I did:

I didn't have any metal coat hangers so I used just some old wire I had and some I my old Christmas bulbs.

You are going to be so excited at how easy this is, seriously!

Now all you have to do is string them on...

Make a loop...

And hang it.  You can use any bulbs you have on hand, old or new, glass or plastic, whatever you have.

Now here is what I learned from my wreath:

If your wire is too thin it will not hold a nice BIG circle, your wreath will be oblong.

If you try and pack them too tight they will pop off, so be soft!

And if you can't fill it all he way, it's ok, a bow goes a long way.

And that's it, how simple is that, right?


and I am so in love with it, you have no idea, I made 3, just sayin'.



Thanks for stopping by everyone, come back and visit us again soon,

 -Sarah

 We love that you stopped by and cant wait to see you again soon! If you liked Yuen Yarn, check out some of our older posts, Like us on Facebook,  ,visit our ETSY shop or come see our website www.yuenyarn.com.