Funtastic Friday #227

FUNTASTIC FRIDAY #227 LINK PARTY

Interested in hosting a link party? We’re always looking for bloggers to join us as party hosts. If you’re interested, get in touch with me or one of the hosts. The party guidelines are super easy.

Meet the Funtastic Friday Party Hosts

We’d love it if you followed us on social media.

Sherry @ Olives & Okra | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | Google+ | BL | SU |

Donna @ Two Chicks and A Mom | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | BL |

Heidi @ Building Our Hive | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram |

Michele @ Coastal Bohemian | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | Google+ |

Kristie @ Love My Little Cottage | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | Twitter |

MOST VIEWED

Unique Mother's Day Gift Ideas @ Savage Sister & Mister

HOST FAVORITES

Michele's favorite - DIY US Map Heart Pillow @ Flamingo Toes

Heidi's favorite - Cactus Sugar Cookies @ Bird's Party

Kristie's favorite - Farmhouse Décor: Jar Flower Holder @ Ann's Entitled Life

Sherry's favorite - Blueberry and Goat Cheese Crostini with Thyme and Honey Recipe @ 5 Minutes for Mom

Donna's favorite - No Fry Fried Ice Cream @ Cincy Shopper

If you were featured, take a second and tweet.

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If you’re linking up and joining the party, please grab a button or link back to “Olives & Okra” or one of the party hosts (copy and paste the code below the button onto your blog text tab or text widget):

  If you’re a featured blogger, please grab a button to place on your blog (right click on the image and save the image to your computer):

All contributors who link up to the Funtastic Friday link party can join the Funtastic Friday group board on Pinterest. Follow me on Pinterest and leave a comment below that you would like to be added. We will also share your post on social media if sharing buttons are readily available on your post. Help grow the Funtastic Friday Link Party. Tweet about the party, please!

[bctt tweet="Add your link! The #FuntasticFriday link party is live!" username="olivesnokra"]

Disclaimer: By submitting a link to this blog link party, you are giving me permission to share and/or feature your blog post and image on social media and on my blog, Olives & Okra. All links shared will either link back to the blog hop (linky party) or to your blog.

Funtastic Friday 227 Link Party Rules

1. 1. Post as many links as you like
   2. Family friendly posts only
   3. Old posts are welcome
   4. We greatly appreciate comments.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

With love and gratitude,

Michele

Find me partying here all week, at these link parties, with some great bloggers.

If you are in Myrtle Beach come on down and visit us at the Coastal Bohemian Studio or Follow us out on Facebook, Pinterest , Instagram, Linkedin, or Bloglovin .

Spicy Chicken Salad w/ Pickled Celery

2 chicken breasts chopped 

1/4 onion diced

1 tsp hot horse radish

1 Tbl Supreme Chicken Wing Sauce

2 stalks of pickled celery (diy below)

1 cup mayo

1 cup of  diced cabbage 

salt and pepper

 Let's start with the pickled celery trick .

 Whenever I find myself with a roomy pickle jar and some extra celery I chop up the celery and let it pickle in the brine in the refrigerator. Sometimes, I throw in some raw carrots too. The celery is a great pickled vegetable and I'm upcycling my pickle juice. I never thought I'd hear that sentence.

Chop the celery and the cabbage. I like a fine chop when I make my salads.

 I use boiled chicken but you can use roasted chicken too .

Add the mayo , the hot horseradish and some of my favorite Supreme Chicken Wing Sauce. Salt and Pepper to taste .

A sprinkle of  bleu cheese along the top would have been really perfect. Serve with a crusty baked pita bread and an extra swizzle of the hot sauce.

This is one of our new favorites.

With love and gratitude,

Michele

Find me partying here all week, at these link parties, with some great bloggers.

If you are in Myrtle Beach come on down and visit us at the Coastal Bohemian Studio or Follow us out on Facebook, Pinterest , Instagram, Linkedin, or Bloglovin .

May Challenge - Using Stamps for Mixed Media

Bring on the Crafts — A Craft & DIY Blog Hop

On the first Friday through Sunday of each month, a group of DIY and crafty bloggers join forces. Together with hosts Marie from The Inspiration Vault and Habiba from Craftify My Love, they bring you the #BringontheCrafts blog hop. Each blogger creates a fun craft or DIY project to share that follows a monthly materials theme. May's theme is Stamps! Each blogger chooses their own craft to make as long as they love it and it uses Stamps in the project.

Our May Co-hosts

Jenny at Cookies, Coffee and Crafts Heather at Glitter on a Dime • Marie at DIY Adulation • Michele at Coastal Bohemian • Beverly at Across the Blvd • Gail at Purple Hues & Me

Join in on the fun! If you'd like to participate next month, you can request to join our Bring on the Crafts Facebook Group. Next month's theme is Fabric!

Not a blogger, but a creative mind none the less!? Don't worry, Share your awesome creations in our Craft Cult Facebook Group. This is also a great place to ask craft & DIY related questions and find inspiration for your next project.

Now let's see all of those amazing Craft and DIY Projects!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

With love and gratitude,

Michele

Find me partying here all week, at these link parties, with some great bloggers.

If you are in Myrtle Beach come on down and visit us at the Coastal Bohemian Studio or Follow us out on Facebook, Pinterest , Instagram, Linkedin, or Bloglovin .

Using Stamps for Mixed Media Art #HomemadeStamps #DigitalStamps

Stamps enhance my life, and by that I mean they enhance my playtime with art. That's why I was so excited about participating in the May Stamp Challenge at Bring on the Crafts 

Today I'll show you how I use DIY stamps and digital stamps in creating artwork, artist trading cards, printable papers and for art journaling.

One of the things I do to relax is create collage pages. Read more about them here. I can create and create as many as I want and just stock pile them for future use with digital stamping and then print multiple custom designed papers for printing for all of the above mentioned artwork. 

Here's a recent example. 

First I scan some collage work or background art. Always save at 300 dpi. You should see this option when scanning or printing.
Here is a scan from a recent night of crafting. 

 Once I have them scanned I can I use my windows photo editor to cut them to size and edit them for whatever I need.

Stamping DIY- This red and orange one used a homemade stamp. I used some small cut pieces of wood around the studio. (I'm sure you can find some small pieces at the cutting area of Lowes and Home Depot for free). Using #DollarTree fun foam I just draw a design , cut it out and using #Aleene'sTackyGlue , adhere it to the wood. Let it dry overnight. 

I'm planning to make feathers and leaves and more!!!! You can use ink or paint with these DIY stamps.

Now I'll show you a few digital stamps I use on my backgrounds working with Publisher. Search Free Digital stamps to pull up websites that make them available for your personal use.  Additionally , you can follow my Digital Stamps Board on Pinterest.

After I create my scanned backgrounds I bring the jpeg file into Publisher to add my digital print over the top. 

I sized mine full page here but in the end you can choose the size you want to print

 Some digital stamps don't have a transparent background but you can do that in the format tab of Publisher. Just take a peek at this screen shot to see the drop down . 

 You can see here that I chose to make the white background of this digital print transparent. Now I have a great digital stamp border for my background images.

 Pull it to size and save as a jpeg. 

 Next I added a scroll work digital stamp to the four corners of this small collage. 

Save as a jpeg. 

 Here's the before and after. 

Go ahead and download this for your own personal use.

Here is the digital stamp I used to design this paper. 

I found it at http://www.clipartbest.com/clipart-yckzxXXcE

You can also download  the same design with the transparent background here. Just right click on the image and click save. 

I hope you feel inspired to create your own digital artwork using digital stamps and custom made stamps.


With love and gratitude,

Michele

Find me partying here all week, at these link parties, with some great bloggers.

If you are in Myrtle Beach come on down and visit us at the Coastal Bohemian Studio or Follow us out on Facebook, Pinterest , Instagram, Linkedin, or Bloglovin .

Trick for Remembering to Take Your Vitamins

I have struggled and failed my entire life trying to remember to take my vitamins everyday. I have kept my vitamins on the counter near my coffee in order to remember to take them first thing.
It's just, the thought of opening up each of those bottles takes too much time.  (Back of hand to forehead in a dramatic fashion.)Keep reading if this sound familiar.

I picked up these travel pill cases at the #dollartree, to store some tiny seed beads for crafting , of course, and it occurred to me that I could travel with my vitamins in one of those 7 day compartments just like they advertise it. 
LOL. 
I'm a little dense sometimes.
I travel often and so I decided that I could stick one of these in my pocketbook and try to remember to take my vitamins. 

IT WORKED! 


At home I wouldn't take the time to open up all those bottles to get the vitamins I needed, but traveling with this little 7 day sexy,cylindrical,  easy open container has literally changed my life. I felt like Wonder Woman and Super Woman taking my vitamins everyday. 

Now, I keep this traveling vitamin/pill container next to the coffee pot and magically I look forward to taking my supplements. 

Bonus -I can get a 2 week supply in there and so I only have to fill the vitamins up 2 + times a month. 

The container takes up 1.5" of space on my counter so it's not a big messy eye sore. 
























Some days, it's really the little things that make a difference.

I hope this helps someone out there take there vitamins!                                                          Make sure to leave me a comment and follow along  on the blog. 



With love and gratitude,

Michele

Find me partying here all week, at these link parties, with some great bloggers.

If you are in Myrtle Beach come on down and visit us at the Coastal Bohemian Studio or Follow us out on Facebook, Pinterest , Instagram, Linkedin, or Bloglovin .