Baking day

Yesterday the baking bug hit me! I decided to try out some new recipes.

Banana Oat Muffins

Carrot Cookies

Chocolate Zucchini Loaf

I've also been slowly working on another chair project. It is almost finished and I'm hoping I'll be able to post about it soon!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Penguin Hat

This is a pattern from Repeat Crafter Me.

(http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2012/12/crochet-penguin-hat-pattern.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+RepeatCrafterMe+(Repeat+Crafter+Me)&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail)

Made by request for a dear friend.

I ended up replacing the Pom poms with tassels as I seem to never be able to make Pom poms secure enough and they always pull out. 

If you are wanting to try this pattern, please note I had to make it 2 sizes up then what the pattern calls for. 

MIA

Hi everyone! I haven't been on the blog in a very long time! 

Last month's creative challenge was sculpting and clay work. I had some ideas I wanted to try but our Walmart is under construction. It is being turned into a Supercenter, so everything has moved places and the craft isle shelves were very bare. They had no air dry clay! So I did not complete the clay challenge. I'll get to it eventually.

I have been very busy lately. I have started babysitting again part time. Big Sister is also in PreSchool this year so I have been busy taking her to and from school. Between these things my week feels pretty packed. I've managed to fit in a little sewing and start a new project reupholstering another chair. 

Until next time, take care!

Acrylic Painting

Challenge 6 in the Creative Challenge was acrylic or oil painting.

I could not for the life of me decide what to paint. I left it all month hoping I'd come up with something but the month passed by with no brilliant ideas.

So I decided to take the pressure off and went simple. I pulled out my cheap acrylic craft paint and Big Sister and I finger painted!

Big Sister painted a rainbow. I think she just wanted to use all the colors and that's why she calls it a rainbow.

This is my sunset finger painting. It was nice to re-explore the kid in me and use my fingers instead of a brush. 

Next Challenge is pottery/clay art.

Bread Machine Recipe

I was super lucky to have been given an old bread machine recently. Fresh bread is so yummy, but sometimes I do not have the time or energy to knead and wait for rise times and knead some more.  So I was really excited to try out my "new to me" bread machine. It is so nice to just dump in all the ingredients and walk away until the machine is done its thing!

       

Here is a super simple recipe I have been using:

1cup + 2Tbsp warm water

1/4 cup olive oil (or canola or vegetable oil)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

2 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp yeast

Add ingredients in order listed. Use the setting on your machine for a large light loaf. (Light crust) Or a suitable setting for 1 1/2 pound loaf.

This makes a very light and fluffy loaf of bread. 

Calligraphy

The creative challenge this month was calligraphy.

I actually dislike my handwriting very much, so this challenge was not up my alley. I think calligraphy looks beautiful, but it would definitely take a lot of time and practice to perfect a lettering style and get the right pressure on downstrokes versus up strokes.

We went on holidays this month to beautiful Maui so I didn't leave myself much time to practice for this challenge. I happened to have a calligraphy pen and ink from my wedding. I bought it with hopes of addressing all the invitation envelopes with it, but after writing one and seeing how bad it looked, I did not follow through with it.

I kept the pen and ink though. So I pulled it out for this challenge and practiced the alphabet.

As you can see my consistency is very bad. Especially after freshly dipping the pen in the ink.

I did find a tutorial online if calligraphy is something you want to get into. Check out  this website for a series on how to learn calligraphy in 5 days.

Or if you just want to fake it, here are 40 free calligraphy fonts you can use on your computer.( I like #36.)

 

Old Tire Flower Garden

Challenge #5 in the Creative Challenge is Floral arrangement/Gardening. I have very little experience in this area but was intrigued by a project when I came across a picture in Pinterest. It was a beautiful flower container made from an old tire. 

I knew hubby could get me an old tire from work for free so that's just what he did. I went shopping for spray paint, and when I couldn't find the color I wanted at 2 different stores I settled on my 2nd choice. Then it was off to find flowers. I bought a hanging basket arrangement and transferred the flowers into my painted tire. Here it is finished and hung on the fence!

Here's to hoping I can keep these flowers alive for more than a week! I'm a little nervous!