My Christmas Dress

I'm sorry the picture is blurry and not full length, but this is the Christmas dress I made. I actually started it about 2 weeks before Christmas and (seriously) finished it Christmas Eve morning. It is red crepe-back satin with little silver flecks. It is a very simple princess-line dress with 3/4 sleeves and a v-neck. 

The thing that made me happy about it was that it fit without any alterations. This is the first time that's happened since I can remember. Losing 15 pounds has been a real ego-booster. Now I know I can pretty much make any pattern from this company (sorry I can't find the pattern) in this size (I'll admit it's 16, but in off-the-rack sizes that's like a 12 or 14) and have some success at it. I'd like to start making more of my own clothes again, and it will be nice not to be frustrated!

Okay, not a craft but...

 

Who could resist a face like this?

My cat Nutmeg wore this hat for about an hour and it didn't seem to bug her. My daughter took this photo with her cell phone! (Okay, photography IS creative.)

A gift for a friend

 

Our friend Patty really loves candles. I've seen some clever votive candle holders made on various blogs with thrift items. I picked up the two glasses (for wine? I'm not sure) at the Salvation Army store for about a dollar. I had some sticky snowflakes that are meant for decorating candles, but never used them. The glitter is from Martha Stewart. I also glittered the bases. I already had the ribbon. So, for less than $5, including the candles, I have a one-of-a-kind gift to give my friend!

Don't you just love the clever ideas that are out there?

Fun with a Santa Beard

We went to get our tree tonight. I made a felt Santa beard for Katherine, who had a lot of fun with it! BTW, I have deleted the site where the pattern for this is, so if you know of it, please lmk and I will give credit and a link!

Another Cookie Recipe

 (This is also a reprint from my old blog. I thought about it 'cause I made up the dough today.)


SPRITZ COOKIES AND A HINT:

1 C butter, softened
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 Cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Colored sugar for decorating

In a bowl, cream butter and sugars. Beat in egg and extracts. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture.
Fill cookie press and press dough 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Decorate, then bake at 375 degrees for 6 minutes, or until edges just begin to brown.
Cool on a wire rack, then enjoy or freeze for later.

Now, my hint: get some zipper type bags and measure out your flour, baking powder and salt. Label the bag! Do this for any cookies you plan to make, and you will have all your messy dry mixes ('cause you know flour makes a mess) ready when you want to bake. You can use quart-size bags to measure out your sugars, too, and put this right down into the flour bag. Another mess taken care of ahead of time!

And another hint: use your weekly 40% off coupon for Michael's or A.C. Moore or Joanne's and get yourself a good cookie press if you don't have one. Wilton makes a nice one. Trust me on this, you want a decent toy to play with, not some piece of junk that is hard to 'press' and will only frustrate you. Consider it an investment! Oh, and something else: I had a battery operated cookie press and hated it. You had to squeeze it really hard, so what was the point of the batteries? Go for the old-fashioned, non-electronic, squeezey handle one!

A Favorite Cookie Recipe

 Truly one of the most delicious and easy cookies, ever! I have also heard them called Butternut Balls and Mexican Wedding Cakes.


MELTAWAYS

Butter Nut Cookies

1 Cup of butter(please don't use margarine--ick!)
1/4 Cup of sugar
2 Cups of flour
1 Tablespoon (yes, that's a Tablespoon) vanilla
1 1/2 Cups of chopped nuts--I like walnuts, but pecans would do if you can swing them
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. (Yes, that's 300, not 350.) Cream the butter. Add everything else except the powdered sugar. Roll into balls about the size of a walnut. Put on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 35 minutes.
Let them cool until you can handle them (they'll still be a little warm) and then roll them in the powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

PS--if you ever read my old blog, "Sorta Frugal," this is a copy and paste from that. But yummy is worth repeating!

Simple Xmas Decorating Idea

 

These poinsettias are made from red felt. I downloaded a free printable from online and cut two patterns from it. You could even do it freehand. Just make one layer with 6 petals (they are kind of flame-shaped), then make a second layer a bit smaller with 6 petals. You could get ambitious and add a few green leaves, but that might be too thick to fit behind the knob.

Cut a small slit in the middle of each piece, remove the knobs on a cabinet, then attach the flower behind the knob.

Red looks great on a white background, but you could think about snowflakes for a dark cabinet! You could even make those out of cardstock, since there's a lot more cutting involved.

This is the first of my Christmas decorations to go out. I have too coordinate with my boys to get all the boxes down out of the attic, which I plan to do ASAP! Good thing Thanksgiving fell early this year (hope you all had a Happy One!) because it gives us more time for Christmas decorating!

Giraffe head

Yes, his ears are off-kilter. In the words of the great PeeWee Herman: "I meant to do that!"

Actually, I didn't. But sewing in the ears and those horns was a pain in the you-know-what, so they stay as they are. Nothing in nature is perfect, anyway.

I don't know if you can tell, but the back of the head is in two pieces. This creates a 'pocket' that the top of the neck will fit up into. (The neck isn't stuffed yet. I just tucked it in there to show what I mean.) I'll have to hand sew it shut, obviously. 

The google eyes I bought turned out to be way too big, so I'm going a size smaller next time I hit Michael's.

I would say Mr. Giraffe is 90% finished now! 

Turning A Giraffe Neck

 

Not a real giraffe, of course. It's way too hot to visit the zoo, LOL! (Nearly 100 here on Long Island.)  I'm making my nephew a stuffed giraffe for Christmas. I have found that when you are turning a long piece of fabric, sometimes a simple ruler is your best tool! You can really push it into the tube and the corners are perfect for pushing out the corners.

I made a muslin of the giraffe to work out how he'd go together, before cutting into the faux fur. I've got some notes I jotted down, like: "attach the neck to head and body so that the seam is in the back and the mane is in the right place!" He's my own design and I will show you each step as he goes together. I think John will like him! 

On the crochet front, I did all that early in the morning before it got too hot to handle yarn. I even stitched together two more hexagons for the snowflake afghan and wove in some loose ends. 

This afternoon, I actually did two quick rows on a square for a new baby blanket, about 50 stitches total, before I said, 'no way.' Too bad yarn makes your hands sweat. It really is more of a cool weather craft, but who has time to wait until fall?

Back to the mane: I simple basted a strip of brown felt onto one side of the neck, then sewed all 3 layers. Then I clipped along the mane to make it fringey. 

Have a nice weekend (I seem to only post here about once a week, terribly blogger that I am) and stay safely cool!

Channeling My Inner Nerd

Making things out of duct tape is such a Poindexter thing to do. But there are so many nice colors and patterns of the stuff how there, how long can you resist? 

I made this little thing by tracing an "Extra Gum" packet onto duct tape 'fabric'. The gum pack closes with that tab, but I don't have a utility knife handy so I punched a whole in the tab. Right now I'm just tying it shut with yarn, but I might figure out something better to do.

There are a lot of places to learn how to make duct tape wallets and more. I think you could use this particular idea (probably not original, but original to me!) for a cute little sewing kit. Or maybe you could find a pad to fit inside it and some mini gel pens? I think it would make a cute stocking stuffer!

More on the Snowflake Afghan

As of today, this is where I stand on my daughter's snowflake afghan:

One finished corner 

Eight completed hexagons

Fifteen stars

For a total of 24 out of the 43 or so hexagons I'll need to complete the blanket. I might actually get it done this year!

Oh, and since it is a Christmas gift, my cat Melody graciously volunteered to stand in for the "Partridge in a Pear Tree."

(PS--pay no attention to the trash that fell on the chair. I didn't see it before I took the picture!)

Christmas in July

Fourth of July is Monday, so of course I'm thinking about Christmas. I have been working steadily on a snowflake blanket to give my daughter for Christmas. Today I counted that I have 9 snowflakes and 9 more snowflakes with borders. That makes 18 out of about 43 that I need. I hope to finish this by this Christmas, but it can always be a "First Christmas" gift after their wedding next year, too!

This is from the December 2009 issue of Crochet Today magazine. It is slightly different in that I did not do the picot edging. 

Christmas Eve

Here I am in my vest. Everyone thought it was pretty. I honestly finished it about an hour before the party started.

Our get-together was a great success. Our friends and neighbors really liked my hors d'oeuvres (sp?) and Mike's scungilli and sauce was a big hit.

The kids gave me some nice things: a gorgeous pen with a barrel full of Swarovski (sp? again) crystals, a Jeopardy! game for my Wii and they will take me to get a new lounge chair. I'm so happy--mine is falling apart and really hurts my back when I sit in it. They figured it would be better to have me try it out, and I agree. (Mike and I exchange gifts Christmas morning--next blog post.)

Our guests brought some nice gifts and goodies, too. I have way too much yummy stuff in the house--a lot of it will go into the freezer. I didn't get on the Wii on Christmas day, but I did use it Christmas Eve.

Will blog again soon...about Christmas and the quiet day afterward when there was nothing to do but snuggle inside and listen to the blizzard that's hitting us. (Typing this Dec 26, btw)

Outfit 98% finished

Here are some pics of the vest I've been working on, with the blouse I bought. I will wear it with the darker blue side out on Christmas Eve. As you can see, I did not put buttons on it. I want it to be reversible. I think the upper version would be nice to wear either to work or out with Mike when I don't want to get overly dressed up.

Come to think of it, I never get overly dressed up!

BTW, the 2% left is to just close up the opening at the hem where I turned the whole thing inside out. I might put a silver ribbon on it to tie it closed, but that's not a definite.

A little ornament

Here is a simple ornament I made a few days ago. I threaded some beads with wire through an empty thread spool. I tore fabric into a strip and cut it to fit around the spool, then used some of the strip for a bow and a hanger. If you can see a little bit of silver at the top of the spool, that is part of a jewelry finding that is some kind of closure for a necklace or bracelet. I've got all this jewelry-making stuff I never use so it puts it to good use.

I cut a picture out of my oldest son when he was about 18 months old. All this is stuck with glue dots, but you could probably use a glue stick or just plain tacky glue.

You could probably figure out a version of this for kids to make, too. It goes together very quickly!

A few lessons learned

1. While it is a great idea to premix your dry ingredients and keep them in labeled bags, it is NOT a good idea to mix brown sugar with cookies. I needed to mix crushed Nillas with brown sugar and butter for the bottom of toffee bars. When I went to get the mix, the brown sugar had turned hard as a rock overnight. At least I hadn't yet blended it together so it was pretty easy to remove all the sugary boulders.

2. Just because a pan seems to be 9x13 doesn't mean it is. It is a good idea to measure your pans ahead of time. I put my cookie/brown sugar/butter crust in a pan I thought was the right size and it was too big. Probably 11 by 18? So I had these big gaps and not enough 'base' to hold the toffee layer. Therefore, my toffee did not break into nice chunks. In fact, it is very crumbly.

3. Crumbly toffee tastes really good.

Cookies yet again

I made some eggnog cookies this weekend. They are from the "Butterscotch Eggnog Stars" recipe but since they have neither butterscotch nor star-shapes I renamed them. I tried to get the link but apparently you need a code to get to that part of the site. I would bet there are a lot of eggnog cookie recipes on line, though!

The goat, horse and dove cookie cutters came from a local thrift store years ago. I want to set them apart from my sugar cookies so I plan to ice them rather than using colored sugar. I think they'll look cute, but right now they're in the freezer.

I hope to get several more kinds of cookies done this week. I was going to make toffee yesterday but my daughter still has my 9x13 pan. It had lasagna in it, a gift for my future s-i-l. I have to call her so she can bring it by before work today. She goes in at 1. At least I already have my ingredients mixed and ready to go!

Christmas is less than 2 weeks away...aaaggh!

Another Gift Made

When I was a little kid, I just loved miniature versions of 'real' items. It was fun pretending to be a grownup and playing 'house.' Does anyone play 'house' any more?

I bought a huge box of grocery toys on the after-clearance rack at Target last January. There are about 100 pieces of various food, including the cute brand-name ones you see above. It cost me about $3.

I don't know any parent that would appreciate having to pick up 100 little toys, so I'm dividing it up. I made one grocery bag and filled it for the kids at work.

This one is for a little girl who just turned 3. Her aunt is my daughter's maid of honor and her mom is a bride's maid. I have babysat both Julianna and her cousin Angelina over the years.

The bag was super simple. You just need 2 pieces of felt. I cut about an inch off the top of each piece which I used for the handles. The bag is simply sewn on 3 sides, with the bottoms squared off.

All told this cost less than $2 to make, but I think Julie will enjoy 'shopping' for her pretend groceries!

More cookie dough

Today I mixed up dough for Butterscotch Eggnog stars. Actually, they won't be stars. The idea is to cut a smaller star out of a bigger one, then fill the opening with chopped up butterscotch candy. Then it melts and you get a stained glass effect. Very pretty, except I don't have two different star-shaped cookie cutters that fit together. And I really never have much luck with those 'stained glass' cookies, anyway. So I'm going to make any shape I want--maybe a bunch of angels--then I'm just going to sprinkle chopped up candy on top and press it in while it's still warm. I think that could work. I might also do regular colored sugar. The dough is really delicious, you can really taste the eggnog.

Now, did you ever have something to do that is so stuck in your head that later, after you've done a bunch of other things, you are convinced you did it already? I had Light Karo syrup on my shopping list and I would swear I bought it. So I went to make Salted Peanut Rolls this morning and couldn't find the stuff, anywhere. Now I'm not so sure I did get it--unless it rolled under the car seat. But then, I couldn't use it if it's been out in the cold anyway. So all I did this morning was make the base for the cookies--crushed up peanut butter sandwich cookies mixed with butter then pressed into a pan. Sort of like a graham-cracker crust.

Oh, well, at least I have all the ingredients ready to go when I do either find, or buy, that syrup!

I've been working on a lot of projects lately. Here are some hats I've recently crocheted.

Mr. Bunny and Liony-Piony are wearing my own creations, made from scrap yarn. Bun's hat would fit an adult and Lion's hat is sized for a child. Liony-Piony was not too happy when I woke him up to model (yes, he sleeps--he even snores) but, being a cub, he doesn't have much of a roar yet.

Mr. Bear is wearing a creation from AllFreeCrochet.com called "Snowy Ridges." This is also adult-sized. Here's the link if you want to make it:

http://www.allfreecrochet.com/Hats/Snowy-Ridges#

In the cooking/baking department, I mixed up the dough for spritz cookies yesterday. That is a project for this week. Today I made Swedish Meatballs--emphasis on the 'ish.' I did not have some of the ingredients so I'm hoping the sauce (which I'll make closer to Christmas Eve) will make them taste right. Mainly, I was missing allspice and cream. Not sure if the allspice is necessary. I just subbed cream cheese for the cream. We'll see how it goes. They sure smell good!