Felt Flower Spring Wreath

Ok so depsite my post yesterday I guess I have been more crafty than I gave myself credit for. I finished this wreath a few days ago but just have posted it yet. I'm going back to my old format of posting whatever I want on whatever days. This will flow better for me.

So here's the wreath.

I wanted something simple but springy. I picked up the wreath for under $2 and had all of the felt and buttons already on hand. This was super simple, quick and fun. It really adds something to the front door.

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Tasty Tuesday

Another crazy week has gone by and I've been so busy I haven't been able to do anything crafty. My husband pulled his back last Thursday morning so he's been pretty much useless around the house and with Hannah ever since. It's so bad he's missing this whole week of work. I've been taking care of everything, I do not envy single moms with babies, I don't know how they get anything done.

Yesterday was an awesome day though, because we spent it at the hospital waiting for our new nephew to be born. Little Michael arrived sometime just before 7pm, weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. 4 oz. less than Hannah and the same length. Pretty exciting, he and mommy are doing well.

Since I haven't been on here in a while I really wanted to get on and post some brownies that I made last week. They were delicious.

German Chocolate Brownies

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup butter

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup walnuts (usually I would use pecans but I didn't have any on hand)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Coconut Frosting

1 cup sugar

4 medium egg yolks

1 cup evaporated milk

1 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

10 oz. shredded sweetened coconut

1 1/2 cups finely ground walnuts (again I would use pecans, but didn't have any)

Preheat oven 350 degrees

Grease 8x8 pan

Melt butter, add cocoa powder, add eggs, beat well.

Add sugar and combine thoroughly.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together, stir into chocolate mixture.

Stir in nuts and vanilla.

Spread batter into pan, bake 25-30 min. depending on how done you like your brownies, I always got with less time. Let cool.

To make frosting, combine sugar, egg yolks and evaporated milk in a non-stick pot over medium heat. Stir with a wire whisk until yolks are fully incorporated. Add the butter. Bring to boil, let simmer for 12-15 min, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. Add vanilla, coconut and nuts. Cool.

Once completely cooled frost top of brownies, cut and enjoy with cold glass of milk.

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Wildcard Wednesday

Today I wanted to share the first project I did while I was pregnant that got me back to being creative and started my crafty journey.

I really wanted some wooden letters for Hannah's room but I wasn't about to pay to have someone else create them and I didn't want just the plain white letters. So I purchased some woodens letters at Michaels, paint and stencils and made some myself. I thought they turned out great and were alot of fun for Hannah's room.

This is in Hannah's old room before we moved.

New room on a corner shelf.

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Fabric Friday

Today I want to share something I made last week for little Hannah. I didn't end up posting it last week because I got sick and wasn't about to get on the computer.

First of all I want to share my secret for books, it is the public library, surprise!. I pretty much don't buy books unless it's something I know I'll keep forever and use alot, like cookbooks. The library has pretty much every book that I've ever looked for there and usually I can keep them for quite a while and it's free unless I forget to renew on time, ;]. I do all of my library browsing online, I put the books on hold online and then go pick them up. Also if I'm not looking for something in particular I just do an online search at the library and they give me tons of options, that's how I found this book.

It has some really cute and simple projects to sew for baby. So when flipping through I found the tag blankie. I had never seen one of these and thought it was such a wonderful idea. Of course after I made it, I saw a couple on other blogs, but oh well.

Hannah loves tags, anytime there is a blanket or stuffed animal around she goes straight for the tags. I had a fat quarter, some spare fabric and ribbon around, so I decided that this would be my first official sewing project. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and Hannah loves playing peek-a-boo with it.

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Thrifty Thursday

Today I just wanted to share a quick thrifty find. My husband and I are big believers in buying things used and cheap when we can. We are big fans of Salvation Army, Goodwill, craigslist, garage sales, estate sales and sometimes things on the side of the road. I'm so proud of this find from Goodwill. We were there looking for a butter dish for Thanksgiving and ran across this adorable desk. It was only $7 and already the perfect color for our daughters room. Since she is still too young to use the desk I've taken it over as a sewing station for now. I just thought it was so cute and had to share. Being thrifty does pay off.

Now off to start planning Hannah's first birthday which happens to fall on Easter this year! I look forward to sharing everything I do for that special day.

Wordless Wednesday

Shutter Love

Found a cool new linky party

 that I wanted to enter at Trendy Treehouse. It is for pictures, this week's subject is emotions. I've been wanting to post this picture of Hannah with her big brown eyes. She's so full of curiosity and wonderment. Hope you enjoy it.

Weird weekend

Well I've been away for a few days because Thursday I ended up getting a bacterial infection in my throat and by Friday morning I had a fever so I wasn't exactly feeling like doing much more than sleeping. Thank God for amoxicillan (sp?) and my husband I was back up and running, slowly, by Sunday.

We also ended up losing our power Sunday around 4pm and it wasn't back on until 7:20 the next morning. There was some sort of weird wind/rain surge that lasted 5 minutes or so maybe not even that long and blew through our area knocking over big trees and other things. It was crazy but thankfully my in-laws live 2 minutes away so we were able to have a hot dinner and we have a gas stove so we can stay warm without electricity and we have camping gear so light wasn't a problem. What was a problem though was sleeping, we sleep with a fan so it was rough trying to sleep in silence and then we also live in the country so when the power is off it it pitch black so every time I woke up I couldn't see anything and poor Hannah didn't like it either. But thanks to the hard working people at PGE we were back up and running the next morning.

So anyways, my whole daily blogging idea probably won't work this week. I haven't been able to do anything really. But like I said before I knew I wouldn't get to this everyday or maybe every week for that matter. I don't have anything tasty to share today but hopefully as the week goes on I'll have more fun stuff to blog about. Until then I hope you all have a great day. Off to clean and try to catch up  from being down a few days.

THANKFUL THURSDAYS

Hello all, I've decided that Thursdays will be dedicated to Thankful Thursdays, Thoughtful Thursdays or Thrifty Thursdays depending on what's going on that week. Today will be a Thankful Thursday.

Some friends of ours, Jeff and Errin gave us one of the most useful baby gifts that still gets used everyday, a swing. Little Hannah pretty much cannot nap unless she is in the swing or being held. But this was no ordinary swing, it was customized just for Hannah. This was an old swing that they had still from when their children were babies. They could have just given it to us as is and we wouldn't have complained, it still worked great but it had boy colors and Errin wasn't about to let little Hannah use a boy swing, lol. So Jeff cleaned it up and gave it a fresh coat of paint. Errin who must be a master seamstress made a brand new cover with colors that matched Hannah room. The cover fits like a glove, it has elastic string and hook that fit through the holes of the swing so it stays put, it has pockets for removal padding near the head which is awesome for when I've had to wash it, it has holes for the strap and buckle which she made with pink strap, this thing was completely redone and done beautifully. Errin even made a matching patchwork blanket to go with it. The blanket still gets used daily and is currently in Hannah's crib with her at night. And to top it off when Jeff delivered it he brought a brand new pack of batteries to go along!

I wanted everyone to see Jeff and Errin's crafty work and show how thankful I was for this gift.

See how beautiful.

{ Wildcard Wednesdays }

Wednesdays will be dedicated to Wildcard, which means anything goes, or Wordless Wednesdays if I have nothing new to blog about and just want to post pictures.

Today I so happen to have something I want to blog about. I wanted to share a few more things from the baby shower that I haven't posted yet.

The first is the banner that I made. This was one of the first things I made, I was so excited to get started I did it before the invitations. It's very simple, just made from scrap paper that I had picked up from that scrapbooking store that's going out of business while things were 50% off. Then some ribbon. I used zig zag scissors to cut the triangles, my big kick for the scalloped squares and a circle punch for the circles obviously. =] I printed off the letters from the computer.

 One site I want to share is dafont.com, I use them for all of my funky fonts. I am currently using Open Office for my text documents and they have a limited supply of fonts so I just download dafonts free fonts and then I have some awesome fonts. Ask me if you need to know how to get the fonts onto your computer and use them. Back to the banner, then I used the monkey stamp to tie everything together.

Another thing I wanted to share was the advice/tips jar. I got this idea from She's Crafty. It was super cute I just had to do it. I pretty much copied everything with what materials I either had or found at the Dollar Tree. I'm now using the tip jar that came with a lid as a salt container in the kitchen. The white pot which I had to spray paint white is still in limbo for it's next purpose.

Then a better pic of the pom poms I made that never got hung. =[ They were so cute.

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I think that's finally it for the baby shower! 

Hoo are you? #35

This should be fun, I'm Linking up to:

 

1. Do you pay your bills online or through snail mail?
online, I've been doing it as long as my bank has offered it

2. How many email accounts do you have?
2, one too many =]

3. Do you use XM/Sirius, radio, ipod, CD, or etc.. in your vehicle?
I use good ol' fashioned air wave radio and CD sometimes

4.  What shows are sparking your interest on TV right now?
alot, I DVR everything and watch during breakfast, lunch, folding laundry, really anytime I can, I know I'm addicted. Martha Stewart Show, Martha Stewart Baking, The Talk, American Idol, 19 Kids & counting, Wanted II: Adventure Woman, Teen Mom ( I know I know, but I was a young mom and the stories interest me), Blazer games and anything on SPROUT which my 10 month old loves.

5. Name 3 things that you think of when you hear the word "GREEN"!
grass, recyling, St. Patricks day.

{ Tasty Tuesdays }

I want to focus Tuesdays on yummy food that I make. I had some white chocolate chips left over from the baby shower goodies and thought that I would make some white chocolate chip cookies. These turned out pretty yummy. Here's the recipe:

{White Chocolate Chip Cookies}

2/3 cup butter, soft

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 dark brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 ts vanilla extract

1 3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 ts baking soda

1/2 ts salt

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 cup or so white chocolate chips

These also would have been great with nuts but I didn't have any on hand.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla until smooth.

(Always, Always, Always)Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa.

With the beater running, slowly add flour mixture to the butter mixture.

Dough will be very stiff, stir in white chocolate chips. This uses some muscle.

Drop batter by teaspoonfuls, I used a melon baller about 2 inches apart on a silpat or greased cookie sheet. These recipes always call for ungreased cookie sheets and my cookies always stick so I always PAM the sheet first if not using my silpat.

Bake 10-12 min, depending on how soft you like them.

I've also never invested in a wire rack so I just let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for about 5 min and then move them to the plate.

These are very chocolaty and yummy! Enjoy with a cold glass of milk.

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