Whimsical Flower Arrangement

I just love it when I actually finish something I've been meaning to do for awhile.  And, in this case, awhile means a few years.  These were meant to go in my daughter's nursery.  She just turned 3.  Luckily they still fit in her room.

I had this leftover floral container from a previous arrangement that we had received for our wedding (we just celebrated our 10th anniversary.)  I really liked it so I didn't want to just throw/give it away.  When we decided to loosely base our baby girl's nursery on a garden, I thought I would make a floral arrangement to go in there.  I found the long stem gerber daisies and quickly envisioned a Suessical floral arrangement.  I opted to leave them long and floppy.

By the time I actually got around to finishing this project it was Easter so I easily found some Easter grass and stuffed it around the base.  I am amazed that most of it is still there.  Every once in awhile I'll find a stray piece on her floor, but for the most part she leaves it alone. 

Finally all it needed was a ribbon tied around the base and, voila!

Tip(s) of the Week

In my quest to achieve baking perfection (yeah, right) I have learned the hard way that not having the right tools, or not following the directions precisely, will often end in sub-par if not disastrous results.

Hello, Obvious.

If you are like me, you are too busy to read the directions thoroughly, let alone follow them, right?  And if you are like me, you avoid buying the tools you really need thinking that you will just make do with what you have, right?  Or maybe it is just me...

Anyway, on the outside chance that I am not the only one out there who suffers from impatience or cheapskate -ness, here are a few things I learned from my summer of baking that have made a big difference in how my baked goods are turning out.  (Again, hello, obvious.)

(1) I got a sifter.

It was actually a Christmas present from my mom who was with me in Spoons & Spice when I saw one and said, "You know I really should get one of these."  Lo and behold, on Christmas morning...

Anyway, it only takes a few seconds longer and does a much better job at making sure my dry ingredients are nicely de-clumped.  It does a much better job than Martha's "whisk to sift" trick.

(2) I started using this (yes, I know, another plug for Crisco...):

to do this:

When the instructions say "grease the pan" I always just cheat and use the spray variety.  It's a lot faster, after all.  However, one time I broke down while I was making zucchini bread and actually greased and floured the pan (as I was instructed to do) and the crust of this particular bread was SO delicious!  It was well worth the extra time and effort.  So, since then I have taken a few extra minutes to grease the pan and I have never been disappointed.  Plus, as you can tell from the picture, I have help from little hands as well.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I discovered something about myself this summer while on maternity leave: not only do I love to bake, I need to bake.  There are so many links between cooking and science as it is, it's ridiculous.  But Baking and Chemistry are, in my mind, the same thing.  One small error and you could blow a room up (or in this case, end up with two hours wasted on a disastrous batch of baked-goodness.)  It's that kind of suspense that has me keep trying again and again until I have success.

I also discovered that my sweet daughter likes to bake, too.  Her favorite part is licking the spatula, of course, but she knows she has to be an extra good helper to get to that point.

I found this recipe on the cardboard overlay for those Crisco baking sticks (SO worth the extra cost to have that stuff premeasured for you!)

These are arguably the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made/had.

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 3 dozen

3/4 c. shortening
1 1/4 c firmly packed light brown sugar
2 T milk
1 T vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 c All Purpose Flour
1 t salt
3/4 t baking soda
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c coarsely chopped pecans (optional) (If nuts are omitted, add an additional 1/2 c chocolate chips)

Heat oven to 375.  Beat shortening and brown sugar in large bowl at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in milk, vanilla and egg.  Stir in flour, salt and baking soda.  Blend in chocolate chips and nuts.  Drop by rounded measuring tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies or 11-13 for crisp cookies.  Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet.  Transfer cookies to cooling rack. 

Mixed Media

Have I ever mentioned that my mom is an artist?  Like, a real artist.  Oil paints, watercolor, you name it.  She is so talented.  I've always aspired to dabble in the world of fine art but the most I have ever done is watercolor. 

I found another Spark-related picture in my photo-decluttering. 

This time it was from Donna Downey's mixed media class and I would definatlye place it in the "fine art" category.  It was absolutely my favorite class that we did there.  (Which is funny because it was also the only class that we were late too and I just had to kind of jump in and figure out what the heck everyone else was doing.)

Basically we used a gel medium to adhere some regular old tissue paper to a canvas.  Then we used pan pastels (I think faber castell?) and stencils to make the hearts.  Then the rest of it was really up to us.  I felt that last year was really a turning point for our family in a lot of ways so I chose colors to express that.  I LOVED how she had us finish with those swirly stamps.  Donna Downey is amazing and I am so lucky that I was not only able to meet her, but to take a class from her. 

 

 

This is the last of my Spark projects that I have a picture of.  Did I also mention that they cancelled Spark this year?  Truth be told it probably wasn't the best year to go, both time-wise and financially (I forgot how expensive having a baby is!!)  But looking through these pictures has really made me want to go back.  Where else would I have had an opportunity to take a mixed-media class from the expert in person?! (She's from back east, I think.)  Or felt soap?

 

By the way, it's one of the only things I've made that I actually display in our home.  I also asked for a set of pan pastels for my birthday last year but I have yet to use them.

 

Also, the craft room is making major progress.  I am so excited!!

 



Tip of the Week

If you read my personal blog (and have for awhile) then you might remember me talking about my hubby two-toning the paint in our new house a long (like, a long, long, long...) time ago.

While I'm on "my mommy vacation" I've been going through all of my old pictures that I was going to add to a blog "someday" and found these. 

(Actually, the top picture was taken right at the end of his painting project, like, a year and a half ago and he never actually painted the doors until we were finishing my newbies nursery.  Having the doors off in a craft room makes it easier to see all of my stuff.  Which is why my room downstairs may never have doors on the closet.  Anyway.)

(Also the before picture was taken during the day and the after at night.  Also I had the foresight to take the after picture before all of the tractor decals went up for newbies room.)

Before:

 After:

I think it is an amazing difference!  We bought our home as a spec home so we had zero input into how we wanted things.  Luckily, we liked 80% of how things were.  Obviously, or we wouldn't have bought it.  I loved the wall color at first.  It is that sort of dark clay color that is so popular now.  Plus it has that old-world-plaster-type finish.  But it was all monotone and after living here for a few months, I realized how dark it was and we felt like we were living in a cave.  The obvious solution was to just two-tone it (i.e. paint the trim and doors semi-glossy white.)  I don't remember it being terribly expensive.  And it seemed pretty easy.

I say seemed because I actually didn't even lift a finger for the entire project. 

I'm grateful my husband likes to paint so much.

Anyway, an easy solution to drab paint: try two-toning!

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!