Saturday, December 10, 2011

Cookies, cookies, cookies....and a cute kid.

Today's advent activity was to make a Christmas treat. Check out what we made today...
  We made these cookies a week or so ago but I never did get around to telling you all about them. They are sinful. It's a cookie in a cookie. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the inside, they just didn't last that long. Each cookies is the equivalent of three cookies. Two chocolate chip cookies with an Oreo cookie sandwiched in between. These cookies are HUGE and so very very yummy.
The cookie idea's came from here and here....once again, Thank you Pinterest.

And because I was taking pictures of the cookies, this boy thought he should have his picture taken too. I love this boy, snotty nose and all.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Stocking Stuffers

 I made these fun stocking stuffers for the girls. The top one is for Munchkin, it's a marble maze. the marble is sewn in between two pieces of fleece and then I have sewn a maze on the fabric. The idea is to push the marble from one dot through the maze to the other dot. Another brilliant idea inspired by pinterest.
The other two are obviously a checker game and a tic tac toe game. This is an idea I have had bookmarked for a long time but had forgotten about until I discovered pinterest and started pinning all of my book marks. The pieces have Velcro on them so you can play this on the go. To keep all the pieces together you just pull up the drawstring when you are done and it makes a cute little bag to carry it all in.

Sweetpea's Christmas gift

I stayed up way to late sewing. But I was on a roll and I just couldn't stop until it was all done. Sweetpea loves to bake. She asked Santa for a cook book. But long before that happened I had scoped out some tutorials to make some oven mitts, chef hat and apron(this was even before pinterest, but don't worry I have since pinned them there too). And then while I was sitting at my table selling my creations at the local craft fair last weekend I saw these adorable aprons hanging across the way. I knew then that I had to make one, especially because they were asking WAY to much money for them, and seriously I have the skills and fabric to make it. I used the this pattern for the apron but I rounded it out and added the pleated ruffle around the edge.
 And here's a look at the other side of the apron... reversible...how fun!
I can't wait to see her in it!! It's always so hard for me to keep all this a secret. But time is flying by and it will be Christmas day before I know it. I'm hoping I'll have time to do all that I have planned.

Munchkin's Christmas Gift

I made this puppet theater for Munchkin on Wednesday night. I got the idea from...and I know you'll be surprised...Pinterest. When I saw it I knew it was the perfect thing for her an me. She loves to make any two objects come to life and they can all talk together for hours on end. I have found a few new puppets at a garage sale a while back and if I have time I'll make a few original ones too. The best thing about this puppet theater is that you hang it up in a door way with a tension rod and when you are done you just take it down and fold it up and it basically takes up nothing for space to store. The other best thing about it is that everything, yes EVERYTHING that I used to make it, with the exception of the thread, was given to me over the years from various donors.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Advent activities

Here's some of the fun stuff we've done so far or our Activity advent I posted about previously.


On December 1st we made paper snow flakes. Aren't they pretty?

On Dec 3rd we were supposed to make a Christmas craft, but we were in Lethbridge all day watching dad play at our high school alumni  basketball tournament. But we managed to make up for it the on Sunday. We made pretty borax crystal ornaments(you can find the instructions here).


On Dec 4th we decorated our Christmas tree. So pretty.
(I'll try to get a better picture when the sun isn't shining in my window)

I'll keep you posted on the other fun stuff we'll be doing through out the month.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

My favorite discovery on Pinterest so far

OK, this may or may not be an exaggeration...but I believe I just discovered the most amazing thing on Pinterest.

Wait for it....


DIY microwave popcorn! That's right. Popcorn in just minutes with out all the extra crud that is in each microwave popcorn bag. I haven't owned an air popper for....well I haven't ever owned one. We have always made our popcorn in a kettle on the stove, or used microwave popcorn(why, I don't know). But this, this is amazing. All you need is a brown paper bag and 1/4 cup popcorn(Squawkfox.com says to use 1/2 cup, but when I did that my brown paper lunch bag exploded and I had popcorn all over the microwave). You simple put your popcorn kernels in the brown bag, fold it over twice, and put it in your microwave for 3 minute. Just as you would any microwave popcorn, it is done when the popping has slowed to two or three pops per second. There are also suggestions on how to make your own gourmet toppings. Today we added some melted butter and then sprinkled on some cinnamon and sugar, I've never seasoned it this way, and I don't know why. It was delicious.

If you want to make your own microwave popcorn and delicious topping just click right here and you'll be on your way.

Food Friday: Quinoa...if you haven't tried it, you should try it like this

I've heard so much about Quinoa(pronounced 'keen-wa'). But until recently I haven't tried it. I was afraid. I didn't know what to do with it. If you don't know what it is you can read about it here. You cook it just like you would rice. It is high in protein and is said to be the new super food. It can be used as a rice substitute, but that is not all, it can be used in just about any kind of dish.
Last week we made it into a kind of "oatmeal" using this recipe(I hate real oatmeal so this was brave for me). It was quite tasty, and I would absolutely eat it for breakfast like that.




But then I found this picture when I searched "quinoa" on Pinterest.
It looked absolutely yummy! So of course I pinned it and then added the ingredients to my shopping list. Tonight I made them. They. Were. Delicious. 
Everybody loved them and wanted seconds. I didn't change anything about the recipe so you can just go over to Eating Well...Living Thin and get the recipe yourself.

To go along with it we also had these deliciously sinful cheesy ranch potatoes and a very healthy green salad. The meal was delightful all around.

Now seriously, you need to go out and find yourself some quinoa and try these, you won't regret it, I promise!

Monday, November 28, 2011

The Count down begins...soon

I saw this cute idea for a Christmas advent on Pinterest(where else?). It's just a cute glass bowl(I used a pretty crystal vase) filled with matchboxes that have been covered in fun Christmas paper. You can put what ever you want inside. For this year I put a different fun activity for each day.

Here's our list.
  1. Cut out paper snow flakes.
  2. Watch a Christmas Movie and have popcorn.
  3. Make a Christmas Craft.
  4. Watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.
  5. Decorate the Christmas Tree
  6. Play a board game together
  7. Seek and Find a special Christmas gift and open it.
  8. Make Christmas cards to mail.
  9. Go to the Ward Christmas Party.
  10. Make a Christmas treat.
  11. Build a fort and have dinner in it.
  12. Make a candy Nativity.
  13. Make a Christmas craft.
  14. Read Christmas Stories.
  15. Attend the School Christmas Concert.
  16. Watch a Christmas movie and have some popcorn.
  17. Make Christmas Cookies.
  18. Go Christmas Caroling.
  19. Go Look at Christmas lights around town.
  20. Go Sledding (or do a Christmas craft if there is no snow).
  21. Have a sleep over under the Christmas tree.
  22. Build a snowman(or play a board game if there is no snow).
  23. Watch the live Nativity in Lethbridge.
  24. Have a Christmas Fiesta with the Forsyth family.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Oh my

A whole week has gone by and I still haven't finished the Cuddly Creature Tutorial that I was going to post. We had a rough week here. Two sick kids, a lack of a husband for most of the week and very little sleep. Not fun. But soon, I promise, I'll have it done to share with you and you'll be able to make your very own creature to cuddle.
The original Cuddle Creature...it has since been very well loved and cuddled.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Food Friday: My favorite meal this week

On Monday I made the bestest meal of the week. It was a hit with everyone at the table.
On the menu was ( I didn't think to take actual pictures, so you'll have to live with someone else's this time)

Chili Almond Asparagus
-Oven Fried Drumsticks(the original recipe I found on allrecipes.com but see below on how I have changed it)
-Roasted dill potatoes
-Chili Almond Asparagus (I found this recipe on Pinterest...really are you surprised?) And let me tell you this was to DIE for!!!! This kids didn't eat this, they opted for a regular side salad. But veggies are veggies so let them have the salad.
-Baked apples with sweet vanilla milk for dessert.


Oven Fried Drumsticks

  • 2 cups low fat sour cream
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 6 chicken drumsticks
  • 6 bone-in chicken breast halves, with skin
  • 4 cups crushed cornflakes cereal
  • 4 tablespoons crushed dried rosemary**
  • 3 teaspoons dried sage**
  • 3 tablespoons garlic powder**
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • **Instead of using separate herbs and spices I used about 6 tbsp(maybe I didn't actually measure accurately) of poultry seasoning and a little extra garlic powder.
  • Directions

    1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place a cooling rack on top of a large cookie sheet. Spray the rack with vegetable cooking spray.
    2. In a medium bowl, mix together sour cream and minced garlic. In another bowl, stir together the cornflake crumbs, rosemary, sage, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Coat the chicken with the sour cream mixture, then roll in the cornflake mixture. Arrange chicken pieces on top of the cooling rack.
    3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, until meat is no longer pink, and juices run clear.

This is a favorite at our house. It also makes really really yummy chicken fingers!!


The roasted potatoes are my kids favorite way of doing potatoes. Here's what I do, it's really very basic, but they are so yummy.

Roasted Dill potatoes(forgive me for no real measurements...and no picture)

6 potatoes, cut up in bite sized pieces
Splash of olive oil
Seasoning salt
Dill seasoning(I have a Pampered Chef seasoning that we love...but it is almost all gone)

Place potatoes on baking sheet. Add oil and seasonings and stir to coat. Bake in oven warmed at 400F for 30-40minute or until golden brown. I usually stir them after about 20 minutes or so so that they get nice and toasty on all sides.

For dessert we had baked apples. I didn't have any ice cream or whip cream to go with them so instead I made some sweet vanilla milk( I just made this up on a whim but it turned out really nice)

Sweet Vanilla Milk

In a sauce pan over high heat bring 1 1/2 cups whole milk, 1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 cup sugar to a boil, reduce hear and let simmer for 20 minutes. serve over baked apples. 

It was the perfect touch.


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sew Pretty Pillows




For Sweetpeas's birthday this year(a few months back) I made her this woven ribbon pillow. I saw a tutorial for it over at Ros Made Me. I knew I had to make this pillow. Good thing there was a birthday coming up. Sweetpea was turning 9 and she loves stuff like this. The best thing about this was the only thing I had to buy was the pillow form. I had all the ribbon, the zipper in the back, the back fabric and the interfacing all in my stash, which really isn't surprising if you were to see the size of my stash.



Fast forward a month or so. I was sewing these patchwork wristbands to sell at the School's Fall fair when Baby girl asked me if I'd be able to make a pillow like those wristbands. I told her that I certainly could, and that it was a good idea, I had never thought about it.


Now lets talk about last week. I created this pillow for Baby girl, it will be a Christmas present. The fabric is mostly scraps left over from a skirt I made for myself once. Baby girl once asked me if I had enough fabric left over to make her a skirt too. But I didn't. However I did have more than enough to make a fabulous pillow. Once again I had everything on hand except the pillow form....which, as you can see, I still don't have. I think she is going to LOVE it, because seriously, what is there to not love about it?

I suppose I should think up or find some cool pillow to make for Munchkin. She might feel left out. Good thing I have a whole lot of fun pillows pinned on Pinterest to inspire me.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

It's dead

Possibly one of the saddest days of my life came and went yesterday with the news that my sewing machine could not be fixed. When the sewing machine fix it guy called to give me the news, I thought I might actually cry. I loved my Janome. As my graduating from university gift my mom and grandma pitched in to help me buy this fabulous machine. We bought it used with a price tag of about $750. It had so many fabulous functions that I have become accustom to. I learned to sew on my mom's Janome (she is still using it 20+ years later). So there was no question in my mind that a Janome was the machine of choice. I could go on and on about how much I loved that machine. I sewed my wedding dress on that machine. The cost to replace it with a comparable machine is $800-1100. I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a sewing machine snob. I want a Janome. I know there are other really good machines out there, but still to buy one that is comparable the price is still near the same....so where in the world am I going to find $1000 before Christmas? It's not likely to happen. Thankfully I have already had a few friends offer me their machine to use. I think I'll take up an elderly friend of mine who saw my sad status on Facebook and called to offer me her Bernina. She's much past her sewing years so I won't be interrupting her Christmas projects. And I know that Berninas are a good machine. That should get me through until I can figure out what I'm going to do and where I'm going to find the money to do it.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Theme for tonight's dinner "Quick and Easy"

Here is another recipe I found on Pinterest.
It's called Mama's Amazing Ziti.
ingredients
  • pound 95%-lean ground beef
  • cups shredded carrot
  • 10 3/4 ounce cans reduced-fat and reduced-sodium condensed tomato soup
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • ounces dried cut ziti pasta (about 2 1/2 cups)
  • tablespoons snipped fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil, crushed
  • teaspoon onion powder
  • teaspoon garlic powder
  • cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (4 ounces)
  • 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (1 ounce)
directions
1.In a 4-quart Dutch oven, cook ground beef and shredded carrot over
mediumheat until meat is brown. Drain off fat. Stir tomato soup,
the water, uncooked ziti, dried basil (if using), onion powder, and
garlic powder into meat mixture in Dutch oven.
2.Bring mixture to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and cook about
25 minutes or until ziti is tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in fresh
basil (if using) and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle individual servings
with Parmesan cheese.


It was quite yummy. The only thing I changed was to add a little bit of seasoning salt and a bit of Italian seasoning because I felt that it needed a little something. But the best part about it was how quick and easy it was to put together(especially if you have a food processor to shred the carrots and you already have ground beef browned and in the freezer). To go along with it I made some of my make shift, super easy, garlic bread sticks. I use a recipe I found in our Sommerfeldt family cook book for quick pizza crusts(it's really just a baking powder biscuit recipe).

The original recipe looks like this

4 cups flour
6 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup milk
2/3 cup vegetable oil(I almost always use butter or margarine instead)

Mix all at one until dough leaves sides of bowl. Knead until smooth. roll out into pizza crusts.

This is more or less what I do for the garlic bread sticks. First of all I cut the recipe in half

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup margarine
2/3 cup milk(or just enough to make dough moist)

mix flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and margarine until crumbly. Add milk until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Roll out on to baking sheet as you would for pizza crust.(I have a pampered chef roller thingy that allows me to roll the dough out right on my pampered chef stone pan...LOVE both of them). Spread margarine over dough. sprinkle with garlic powder and some Garlic Plus seasoning. then sprinkle with your choice of grated cheese. Bake in oven at 425F for about 12-15 minutes. Cut into strips and serve warm.

OK, now honestly this is a really rough recipe...I'm terrible at actually measuring things. And I never set the timer for this....I just put it in the oven and pull it out when it smells done and the top is nice and toasted. The kids love this. Another note, the kids and I all preferred shredded mozza on top instead of fresh grated Parmesan.

Been gone gone gone, been gone so long, been gone gone gone so long...

WOW, it has been along time! Welcome back me. To give you an idea of just how long, this is what my baby boy now looks like....

Well as you can see since while I was away I decided to change my blog name. I realize that this may cause some link problems....I didn't take that into consideration before I changed it, but Oh well, it will be like starting from scratch.

I've been busy busy busy the past coupe of weeks creating new and fun things, so I thought that maybe now would be a good time to start sharing again. I have recently discovered Pinterest, which has been the source of all my inspiration for nearly everything that I do lately. I have plenty of new posts to share. Some how I will try to make the time to post in between all the cooking and sewing and such. There's just so much fun stuff I want to share.

So stay tuned.
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