Have you tried...

At Spark last fall, one of our classes was on felting soap.  Totally random.  It was also probably the class I did the worst at.   P.S. that is supposed to be a flower on top.  I know...

The technique basically involves taking this super-fine wool and wrapping it over and over again around a bar of soap using nothing but your hands and a basin of water.  It sounds easy but it was kind of a pain because just as I would get it in place, it would start to unravel and I would have to start over.  But my hands got really clean.  Which was probably a good thing considering I did a lot of painting and mixed media that weekend.

Anyway, I tossed it in my bin of soaps and such and kind of forgot about it until a few weeks ago.  I decided that I would never give it away and it was just sitting there...so I figured what the heck and started using it myself.

Supposedly the wool is supposed to act as a natural exfoliant or something, but to be honest I can't really tell a difference and, although it lathered extremely well at Spark while I was making the darn thing, it hardly lathers at all when I really need it to :)

So my review: skip the felted soap and pick up a loofah instead.

Moving In

I may or may have not mentioned that my Awesome hubby built a pretty neat room for me.  The recent birth of our little boy necessitated turning my previous hobby room into a nursery (at no complaint, seriously.)  I just planned on waiting until we finished our basement and doing my projects in the kitchen or something.  The husband said he would finish a room for me.  Like I said, my hubby is Awesome.  Here is what remained of my old room.

Right now my new room it is literally just a holding room.  After we moved into our new house I didn't really take a lot of time to sort things out; I just threw everything together for the time being.  This time I am taking advantage of (what I hope is) a final move to my craft cave.  I sorted everything into 4 piles: general craft, scrapbooking, sewing, and tools.  I emptied everything and was left with a fifth pile: storage and organization.  This is literally going to take me my entire maternity leave just to go throught all of this stuff (how on earth did I collect so many things?!?!)

This is how you occupy the attention of an almost 3-year old while you work.

We kept the same color scheme as the rest of our home, but I finally got wood floors!  You have no idea how hard it is to find things I drop in carpet.  And I drop a lot of things.

Here is the future concept for the room.  My husband is going to build a built-in desk that wraps around 2 sides of the room.  On the blank wall (right) I suppose we'll put some kind of couch or seating.  Underneath the large desk shelf will go filing cabinets and more storage drawers.  My favorite part of the room?  The drop down desk for our kids to play/craft at.  My second favorite part?  A permanent area for my sewing machine.  As it is now, I am constantly getting it out every time I need it and I think this stops me from using it as much as I want to.  And next to that will be an office for our family to share.

I am so excited to watch this project come together.  I'll post progress on this blog!

Birthday Card

Here's the card I made for my hubby this year:

Two of my favorite things: baker's twine and buttons!  I have yet to find an easy way to adhere twine to cards.  Anyone out there have any suggestions? 

Also, I was trying to find a tree stamp but realized I didn't have one so I ended up just freehanding this one.  I don't think it turned out too bad, but I will definately be looking for a tree stamp now.

I also consider this a temporary farewell post as far as crafting and cardmaking/scrapbooking go.  My husband just finished an AWESOME new room for me in our basement to turn into my craft room.  I will post more about it (along with pictures!) later, but lets just say that I am taking this opportunity to completely overhaul my inventory of crafting goodies.  So for the next few months, that will be my free time project.

Baked Fudge

If you follow my personal blog then you know that I made it a goal in January to make a decent batch of brownies this year.  This recipe actually wasn't part of that quest, but these turned out somewhere between brownies and fudge so I guess they could be considered a candidate.

They taste more like brownies but have the consistency of fudge.  They are...oddly delicious.  But they are also chocolate and that's all that matters.  Recipe follows.

Baked Fudge

Makes 30 square
Made in 40 minutes

Melt 1/2 c butter and 3 oz. chopped unsweetened chocolate together; gradually beat in 2 c sugar.

Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.  Add 1 t vanilla extract.

Sift 1 1/2 c flour with 1/8 t salt; add to chocolate mixture along with 1 c chopped walnuts.  Stir well.

Grease a 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan; spread batter evenly in pan.  (I think in hindsight I would try to bake them in a foil lined pan.  I've found it is so much easier to remove bar desserts this way.)

Bake at 350 for 30 min or until done.  Cool and cut into about 30 squares.  Can be frozen.


The consensus was that they were really tasty.  But I just don't think they meet my standards of the ideal brownie (i.e., the ones my mom made while I was growing up) so I will continue baking brownies.

Turkey Breakfast Tacos

Two back stories:

(1) I LOVE breakfast for dinner; especially on Sundays.  My mom made many homemade biscuits, sausage and eggs for dinner after church growing up through when my husband I and lived with them for a year.

(2)  Awhile ago my husband suggested we cut back on the amount of red meat that we eat.  I have to admit, most of my best recipes call for ground beef so I thought this would be near impossible.  It has been a fun challenge to substitute different things for beef.  Turkey is an obvious choice and it is so easy to find now.  Our favorite local store has even begun stocking their own turkey which is a moneysaver over national brands.  I could not tell a difference in this recipe between the turkey sausage and regular sausage.  Delicious all around!  (As far as cutting back on red meat: I don't know how much of a difference it's made health-wise, but I don't miss it at all.  In fact eating red meat now tastes a little strange!)

Ingredients:

Turkey Breakfast Sausage

12 large eggs

1/2 t salt

1/2 t black pepper

1 c cheddar cheese, shredded

6 large tortillas

In a large non-stick pan, crumble and cook turkey until no longer pink.  Remove from pan.  Wipe pan clean and reserve for cooking eggs.  Break eggs into a large bowl and whisk until yolks and whites are well blended.  Season with salt and pepper. Pour eggs into reserved pan and scramble until desired doneness.  In order, top each tortiall with turkey, cheese, eggs and salsa. Fold and serve.

"BLT" Salad

This recipe is fantastic!  Even my husband (who, shall I say, is less enthused about salads than I am) thought it was delicious.

Serves 4

Made in 10 minutes

10 slices turkey bacon

1/4 c each buttermilk ranch salad dressing and plain greek yogurt

2 T water

5 oz bag salad mix (I used the Spring Mix)

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

1/4 c thinly sliced red onion

4 slices whole-grain bread, toasted, cut into bite-sized pieces

1.  Cut bacon into small pieces.  Cook in a large skillet as package directs.

2.  In a large bowl, whisk dressing, yogurt and water until smooth.  Add salad mix, tomatoes, onion and half of the bacon; toss to mix and coat.

3.  Transfer to salad plates; top with remaining bacon and croutons.

Camping with my Sweetheart

Just as I used to be a little OCD with my cardmaking, I was naturally the same with my scrapbooking.  EVERYTHING had to be done in chronological order.  This made it pretty difficult to get past, well, junior high school.

The best thing I could have done with my time was to just scrapbook as I could and do the pages in no particular order.  I do still have all of my pictures boxed up according to year, but I randomly pick one box to work on (2002) and I just finished the whole thing!

I didn't chronologically scrapbook the year, either.  I just randomly picked pictures and would finish those and move on to some new ones.

This layout, titled Camping with my Sweetheart,  is about our camping trip we took with my family just before we got married.

It's fun (and wierd) to see a younger version of ourselves.  It's also interesting that, 10 years later, we still go to this exact same spot to camp each year.  The fishing is just as good now as it was back then.

I don't normally scrapbook on really busy patterned paper, such as I used on the right.  But in this case, I think the continuity of pictures on the bottom, along with the solid background on the left helped make it less distracting. 

It's also fun to use newer products on older pictures.  I remember going to the scrapbook store with my friends and everything was so limited (and generic.)  Things have definately changed!

Also, I should specify that I am done scrapbooking 2002 except for our wedding.  That is going to be a project all on its own!