More Baking

I know this doesn't look like much. That is because I had almost devoured it before I realized I should probably take a picture. They are from the most recent Family Fun magazine... and you should just go make them right now. The hardest part? Waiting for them to cool off!

Last fall, Trader Joe's had this beer bread mix in their stores. It was yummy... all you added to the mix was a bottle of beer, dumped some melted butter over the top, and baked it for an hour. I haven't been to Trader Joe's in quite a while (it makes me sad - the closest one is in MA, and we were supposed to go down there this weekend, but Ben and I were sick. :( ), and I don't think they have the mix anymore, but I figured I could find a similar recipe online, and I was right! It is so delicious, and we had it with chili for dinner tonight. Now that I know how easy it is to make even without the mix, I will certainly make it more often... I think it would be good with stuff in it too, like cheese, or hot peppers.

Cupcakes!

I made a watermelon cake and ant cupcakes for Ben's birthday cookout.

The ant cupcakes were inspired by a book my Mom and Dad got me, called What's New, Cupcake?

Banana Cupcakes, with Cinnamon Honey Cream Cheese Frosting, which I made and brought to my new job... They were devoured.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting... I cheated and made the cupcakes from a mix, since making them from scratch intimidates me. It's actually not the making that scares me, it's not being certain that I picked the right or most delicious kind of chocolate to make them with.

More Hummingbird Cupcakes... these and the chocolate ones were made for the Girl Scout's Bake Sale. I made a lot of cupcakes. :)

Tie-Dye!

T-shirts... and cupcakes!

Living off the Land.

One of my favorite things to do when we are in Maine is to eat the stuff that grows on and lives around the island. All sorts of seafood, plus berries, wild peas, rose hips (which sadly, were not ripe yet when we left)... Euell Gibbons would be proud.

Gabe and I harvested a bunch of mussels and cooked them up with some wine, tomatoes and scallions one day for lunch. They were very yummy, and the only thing that was missing was some crusty bread to sop up all the broth with.

I also managed to pick enough blueberries (without Ben eating them first) to make some blueberry muffins.

Also very delicious, they didn't last too long. And the recipe used came from this cook book:

The 1950 edition! It's had a home on a shelf in that kitchen for 60 years. :)

I'm back!

Another project I did with my neighbor's daughters was custom brownie cupcakes! We used a brownie mixed, and I scooped the batter into cupcake liners. Then we got out a whole bunch of yummy treats (cherries, marshmallows, chocolate chips, caramel sauce, sprinkles, coconut, pecans, etc.), and customized them all!

Mine, before baking:

I didn't take any after baking pictures, oops, but rest assured, they were yummy! And a great activity for the kids , too. It kept them both entertained for about an hour. :)

We were in Maine for the last 2 weeks, so not a whole lot of crafting got done (though I did do a lot of my other love, reading!), however I did work on these embroidery hangings while I was there. They are Jenny Hart designs, and I think they look very sweet hanging up in the kitchen.

I did finish one thing before we left which was the first of three valances for our kitchen windows:

It helps to conceal the ugly blinds lurking beneath. 

Organization! And a garden update.

What lurks behind these bright red doors? Pandemonium and chaos?

No longer! This is my baking cabinet, and this level of organization has been a long time coming.

While I'm missing a couple things, like a large flour container for my bread flour, I am pretty pleased. It gives me a great sense of calm to open it now. 

Ahh, organization. If Gabe and I ever get around to getting married (next fall, I believe) I very well may register at the Container Store or something, that it just how much I love organizing things. :)

And now, the garden update you've all been waiting for.

Sadly, it failed. Well, it's my fault, really. I re-potted everything, and then stuck it all outdoors. But since this is Vermont, we have late frosts. And my poor little plants didn't make it. Well...

A tiny little pea plant did! I dumped everything into a compost pile, and the guy who mows our lawn mentioned to me the other day that there was a pea growing in it! So it was harvested, and Ben and I ate one pea each. Very yummy! I'm not too sad however, as we have been enjoying the CSA share that we purchased this summer. 

New Pajamas

The top two sets were a special order for my friend Ashley (gifts for kids she babysits for) and the bottom one was a birthday gift for a family friend's newly 3 year old!

Kid Crafts

I have had the pleasure of watching my neighbor's two little girls recently. I am pretty sure that I should've just given birth to a 6 or 7-year-old child, because they are so  much fun!

We did tie-dying, which I am now addicted to! So much fun! We all did shirts, and a pillowcase, and some onesies. The most exciting part for me was that the kit I bought came with enough dye for 2 sessions, so as soon as I accumulate more t-shirts, onesies, socks, anything white! I will do it again! And the next time I will realize that they are really serious when they tell you to wear the gloves, since the pink color just finally washed off of my fingernails yesterday.

We also painted rocks, and wooden birdhouses I bought at JoAnn's. The rock painting was also super fun - I could've painted every rock in the yard! Salt dough beads were also made and painted, but not photographed. Can I open a summer camp or something?

And we baked! Blueberry-Peach Crisp. Yummy and easy. They're coming to hang out with me again a few days this week, and I'm having fun thinking up new activity ideas. :)

Jam!

Ben and I went strawberry picking with some friends a couple weeks ago, and needed something to do with our vast bounty.

I decided to try making freezer jam, since I really love strawberry jam, but feel a bit too intimidated by the actual canning method (lots of boiling, worrying about botulism, etc.)... maybe someday, but not today!

I picked up the pectin and some "special" freezer canning jars at the local grocery store. Other than that, all that was needed was a TON of sugar, and the berries. It was very easy!

And I yielded 9 yummy jars of jam. Minus the cost of the actual plastic jars, they cost me about $1 each... which compared to the $4/jar I spend on jam at the store is a pretty good deal.

And I used enough pectin! My jam jelled... and has been enjoyed on many sandwiches and english muffins since!

I also used the remainder of my leftover pectin to make some hot pepper jelly... the verdict is still out on that one. It didn't jell within the week the pectin said it might take, so I threw it in the freezer anyways, and have yet to try it.

Ben's Room! Again!

I have been doing more crafting for Ben's room! I made this bedskirt for his crib, which finally matches the rest of the stuff in his room, and is actually long enough to hide the stuff under the bed. I also made this "fake quilt", called such because the "quilted" fabric is really just one piece of fabric.

See? I think it's cute, and matches the farm theme of the room. Maybe someday I'll be bold enough to actually make him a real quilt!

Up next for his room? Farm-animal-izing this light:

 

And making a cow print pillow for his "lounge" corner:

Lemon Cupcakes

Occasionally, I do make cupcakes that aren't from Martha. Often I don't have the ingredients on hand that she wants me to use, or I think she's doing something the hard way. I usually turn to the internet for recipes at that point, and found one I liked from Better Homes and Gardens.

Yet these cupcakes almost didn't happen. I was making them to bring to a friends house a couple weeks ago, when the weather was REALLY hot, so I decided to make them the night before, since running the oven in the middle of the day didn't seem like it would be the best idea. It was 9:30 pm, and I had the batter all mixed, the oven preheated - and the power went out. I put the batter in the fridge, hoping it would come back on, and 13 hours later, when it finally did, that batter was yucky. Thankfully I still had enough of all the ingredients on hand to make another batch. That's one of the things that I like so much about baking - you can take a common set of ingredients, and combine them (with the addition of a few other things unique to each recipe) and make so much! I always have those basics on hand, and since I love lemons more than the Pope loves Jesus, I had plenty of those too. So the cupcakes happened, and they were yummy.

I used a melon baller to take out little pieces from the middle, and filled those with lemon curd, then added the cream cheese frosting.

They would've looked cuter with some yellow sprinkles on the top, but I didn't have any on hand. They were quite good though, nevertheless.

New Crafting Space!

My crafting has been on hold for a bit because I have been organizing my new crafting space! Gabe built this for me for Mother's Day, and while it's not completely finished (I have to put the edging on the unfinished edges), I figured I would post a picture anyways.

It now resides in our basement, which is not the most cheery location, but it will be nice to not have to clean my stuff up all the time, and to have everything in one place!

Ben's Room!

I've been redecorating Ben's room. Out with the sweet pastel frog set, and in with something more boy-ish.


I love farm animals, so that's what I decided to go with. I think it will last him a while, at least until he can decide on his own if he wants a robot room, or a monster truck room, or something like that.


These wall hangings were made with some 6"x6" canvas panels that I bought at Dick Blick.


The animal silhouettes were actually from a Martha Stewart project (animal silhouette pillow), and worked perfectly with a little resizing.


The tractor and barn silhouettes were found with the help of google image search. :)

And finally a "matching" switchplate cover. Mod Podged fabric onto a plain plastic cover. I also plan on using this fabric as trim on his new bedskirt when I finally get around to making it.

Super Hero Cape!

This was made as a birthday present for a friend's little boy whose name starts with J. :)

I love the lining fabric! I have some left over, and may use it as part of a quilt, if I ever become motivated to make one. :)

2 Small Projects

Hello, clothespins!

We recently (finally!) got ourselves a clothesline. And because I tend to do Ben's laundry only about once a week or so (that kid has too many clothes) there are a lot of little shirts, pants and socks to hang up at once, so I need a lot of clothespins. I wanted something cute to hang them all in, so I made this little bag out of some of the leftover fabric I had from my stupid bag (which I actually use everyday). It wasn't very well thought out, but it came out ok never the less.


These hand towels were a last minute addition to a friends wedding gift (which also included a motion detector hand soap pump, and some Vermont Organic hand soap). It was fun to play around with all the different stitches on my machine, and while they're not perfect, I think that they're cute, and will hopefully be appreciated!