Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cupcakes

I made these awesome cupcakes for a coworker's bday!  I got the recipe here.  Anyway...I sucked at the pretzel bottom part, but I did learn that my oven is INCREDIBLY hot in the back and burns everything.

Camera phone pictures are really lame, but you get the jist.
I made a huge mess with the batter, and for the record, you really do have to put some batter under the peanut butter cups or you'll have a huge messy cupcake.

I ended up baking mine for 22 minutes!  I think they're a bit much, but everyone else seems to like them!

Magnetic Pin Holder

Project pincushion!  Because who doesn't need one?  I wanted a magnetic pin holder like my mom, but my mom told me we could make one that was a lot cuter than anything we could buy.  First order of business?  Get a dish with a thin bottom.  I got a plain white plate from the D.I.  I wanted it to be extra cute, so I used the cricut to make some vinyl dots.

Once I had my polka dots placed, I sprayed the plate with jade spray paint.  Don't try to pull off the vinyl until the paint has had some time to set, it doesn't work well!

To make it magnetic, I glued magnets on the back with some E6000.  This is why it's important you find a dish with a fairly thing bottom, so the magnets will work through it.

You can see where the magnets pulled together- through the glue and spray paint!  Since they love each other so much, I had to space them pretty far apart.  Turned out that five magnets wasn't enough coverage, so I had to add a few more.  The additional magnets required clamps to keep them from migrating to their magnet loves.

I checked the magnetism by throwing some pins on top and decided it was sufficient, so then I cut a piece of felt the size of the indent on the bottom of the dish and hot glued it on so it would slide nicely on countertops, etc.

VOILA!!!

Single Panel Door Headboard

I've been wanting a headboard for quite some time, and when my mom sent me a link to a tutorial on how to build a headboard from a 5 panel door, I knew I had to try! I couldn't find a 5 panel door (besides a special order one from The Home Depot that would have cost $75!!) So I went to restore and found a door with one big panel, got one 10 foot 4x4 from Home Depot, some 1x2, a 10 foot 1x6, a little moulding, a sheet of bead board, primer and black spraypaint.  Whew.

The first order of business was to cut off some of the door so that the panel was centered.

Then I cut the 4x4 in half and measured out where we needed to make the slots for the door to sit in.

I didn't have a stacked blade or a dato to do this with the table saw, so I used a table saw to cut the outside borders of the slots and then used a router to take out the wood in the middle. 

Once both slots were cut, I put some liquid nails in the slots and slid the door in.  To make sure it was sturdy I put three screws through the post and into the door.

I then took my 1x4 and put it at the top and bottom of the door to bring it level with the front of the posts.  

I then used the 1x6 to make the top of the headboard (Nic wanted somewhere to set things.  Whatever.)

Then I put the molding right underneath the top.

Now I have a fully functioning and awesome headboard!  But, I thought it was plain this way so I cute a piece of bead board to fit in the panel and stuck it on using liquid nails. (I took pictures of this step, but I can't find them.)  I filled in the nail holes with some nail hole filler, then we primed it and sprayed it black.

This is the finished product.  I know it's hard to see, but I can't find the picture I took of it before the bed was made.  The headboard is currently living at my parents house-long story-but someday it will live with me!
Sorry for the pictures.  All my lighting was awful and I don't know how to use my camera.  I'll try to find a better one to post!