Post Christmas Wrap-Up

Christmas is over now and I am back to work and life is back to normal. Not that I wouldn't mind another week of vacation, but since I spent most of it lazing around or geocaching and almost none of it accomplishing things, it is probably for the best that my break is over.

I vaguely recall that I may have promised to post pictures about the things I was making for Christmas. I am not sure what prompts these strange actions, but I suppose that I might as well show you the pictures that Chantel was nice enough to take. :)

Project 1 was the clay ornaments. I wanted to make some salt dough clay and cut out ornaments to decorate. Steps one and two were easy enough.

Step three caused us some pain. By us I mean Chantel, Autumn and myself. We are all fairly creative and at least somewhat crafty, but our ornament decorating skills were very, very entertaining. We each ended up with one that we are embarrassed to admit to making. Chantel gets off easy on this though, since she says that anyone who asks about it will be told that her two year old made it. :) We learned one valuable lesson, though. Glitter not only makes things better, but it does a great job of distracting you from a really crappy coloring job.

Project 2 was the lotion bars. I found the recipe for these a while back and though they would be super-neat to make for Christmas. I enlisted some help (thanks girls) and we got cooking. Literally. The process for the bars is super easy. Heat stuff until melted, pour in molds and wait until it is hard again. Ta-da!!!

Melt one part shortening, one part beeswax, and one part vegetable oil in a double boiler.

Stir in a small amount of your choice of essential oils for a nice scent.

Pour the melted mixture into molds. (I have an insane amount of cupcake tins, and they are a really nice size.)

Let set until cool and solid. Also, remember to label them, or you might mix up the different scents. I actually thought of this while doing the second batch, yay me!

These turned out really great. They are slightly greasy when you rub them on, but it feels nice once it has soaked in. They smell really great, too. We made a violet batch, a vanilla batch, a violet jasmine batch, and and orange batch. We ended up with a total of 36 bars, or 12 each, out of a pound of wax and the equivalent weights of shortening and oil. I gave away a bunch of mine to people for Christmas, but I still have several. :)

Project 3 was a spur of the moment idea to make little tulle tutus for my 3 year old niece. I did not have a pattern, but I dove in anyway. It's not as bad as it sounds, they didn't come out quite like I had envisioned, but they still looked nice. I made each one with 2 different colored layers of tulle and a wide purple ribbon (blanket binding is so great for hiding edges you don't really want to try to hem). I made all three of them for about 7 dollars and 2 hours of work. And she loved them. She loved them even more when she found out what they were.

Project 4 (the final project) was an earring holder for my mother-in-law. She mentioned it in her Christmas list and I liked the idea. Years ago, my grandmother made earring holders for each of my aunts and I remembered her idea and thought that my mother-in-law would really like it. The ones my grandma made were a bit frillier, but I didn't think that would be quite right, so I went really simple with this. The basic idea is you take an embroidery hoop and stretch a piece of lace over it and then embellish. I hot-glued a cord and some beading along the edge, which also helps to keep the lace in place. I then glued some little enamel roses I had in my craft crap along the top, just to dress it up a bit. All done. The way it works is to slip the hook or post of the earring through the holes in the lace and then put the backs on on the back side. She really liked it. She liked it even more when I told her what it was. :)

That is all for my Christmas projects. For once I actually finished everything I wanted to get done. And on time, too. Go me!

p.s. I forgot, there was a project 5, but I never got any pictures taken. I bought some glass beer mugs and etched them for my husband and his father with their last initial. I made the stencils in a different font for each of their sets and made 4 mugs each. The etching was pretty easy, but cutting the stencils was a giant pain. It is a good thing they really liked them.

Christmas Projects

Yet again I have high hopes for craft projects for this Christmas. There are several things I want to make for gifts, for friends, and for snacking.

I am going to make a set of salt-dough ornaments, for myself, and probably for a lot of other people. I am not sure I even did this when I was little, but I have an urge to use my cookie cutters, even if I don't make cookies with them. The pack of cutters came with a clay recipe on the bottom. I hope they turn out well, then I can give them out to my family and they will have something made by me on their trees.

Another gift to make for my friends is a set of lotion bars. I found this idea on the linked blog and love it. The are a solid bar and rubbing it with your hand melts is enough to spread on your skin. They can, of course be customized. I have a couple of friends coming over to help and we will make a bunch of them for gifts (and for ourselves). I will post pictures of the process.

Cookies. I don't know what types yet, but I love baking cookies and I want to come up with a few that people aren't used to. I think I have talked the girls at work into doing a cookie exchange for Christmas, so I will hopefully have several really great kinds without have to bake such a huge variety myself. If anyone has a great recipe or just a favorite, please share it. :)

Finally I have a couple of crochet projects that I need to finish up. These aren't really for Christmas, but I need to get them done. A few months ago (read: lots of months ago) I promised some friends a "craft it forward" gift. I have finished one and have two more almost done (including yours, Laura) but there is one that I have not even started and I am not sure what it is going to be.

That is a lot to accomplish in the next month, but I think it will be fun. I will try to be good and post lots of pictures of all of these things as they happen.

Long time no see...

I know that I have not posted in a long time, but I have a good excuse. I have a new hobby...and a yard...and a garden...and a husband...and friends. :)

Let's start at the top. My new hobby is Artist Trading Cards, or ATC's. They are neat little portable art. The idea is to create a piece of art, in whatever media you like that will fit into 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The simplest way to start is to use a playing card for a template and decorate that, although it looks nicer if you use card stock as a base. I haven't bought any cardstock yet, so the playing cards will do for now. You then decorate it by drawing on it, creating a collage, embellishing a picture, or whatever you can think of. You then trade your creation. That's it. Simple and fun. A card can take as little as an hour or two to create. I am participating in a yahoo group for ATC's called ATC World. The people on ATC_World participate in swaps, which are organized trades in which you make 5 or 6 cards on a particular theme or method and then send them to a moderator. The moderator will the give each person in the swap a card from each of the other people. So, you send in 6 of your cards and get back a card from each of 5 or 6 other people. Nifty way to do it, and it saves a lot in postage. I have participated in one swap, which I mailed off this morning, with the theme of the Green Man. The cards were definately a freshman effort, but I really had fun doing it. I cannot wait to see what I get back from everyone else. I signed up for another swap that ends the 30th of this month, and made those cards up yesterday. I think there are also a couple of other that I will do that are due in the next few of months.

As for my other hobbies, I was trying to get some letterboxing in before my friend left for Mt. Rainier for the summer. She works up there developing curriculum and studying the volcano and loves every minute of it. The program also hosts an exchange with scientists in Japan, so she will spend next summer at Mt. Fuji. So so cool. The sad part is that now I will not see her for the next two months. Very Sad.

Shane and I have been squeezing gardening and yard work into what spare time we can scrape together. My yard is looking decent, but needs weeding. The bulb beds are all bloomed out and need to be weeded and have the leaves trimmed back. My veggies are being slow, so I may have to add some more tomato and pepper plants to augment what is looking to be a fairly small crop. I envy Bethany her lovely plants. Hopefully it will all come out right in the end. At least my potatoes, onions, and rhubarb are doing really well. Also, the cherry tree is getting very close to being ready to start picking. This is going to be a big job this year and I will pay in cherries if anyone wants to help. :)

Other than that, I have been super busy at work for the last few weeks, so my weeknights are spent winding down. Over the weekend, Shane and I went to dinner with my boss to visit and hang out. Shane and my boss really get along well and they love to talk about lab stuff.We went to a really good Mexican restaurant in town. Yummy. We spent Saturday clearing out the garage, using a chemical cleaner on the floor, and sealing all the cracks. Whoever built this house did a crappy job on the concrete work. Tonight Shane will be spraying a sealant over the whole floor and when that dries we get to start in on the modular shelving system that he is building along one whole wall for storage. Yay! I am so excited to have real storage.

So, in the near future I have cherry picking, card making, shelf building, visiting with my family and Shane's and above all relaxing in the sunshine whenever possible. Oh yeah, and Ren Faire is the end of the month...if I can squeeze it in :) For now I am off to eat the yummy stew I put in the crock pot this morning. See ya.

Lately

I have been very lazy lately. I seem to have done no blogging, little housework and lots of lying around watching TV, which is a feat since I do not have TV (hooray for Hulu). Shane is out of town this week at a training seminar and I have made all sorts of promises to myself about the things I am going to accomplish before he gets home.

So far, so mediocre. I worked on my embroidery last night, which I am woefully behind on, which was good, but then I got tired of that and watched hulu and played solitaire for way too long and then couldn't get to sleep early as I wanted to, so I am super tired today. Poor Chantel had to deal with a lot today. On top of being tired, my allergies have conspired to make me lose my voice, so she had to do pretty much all of the phone work in the office. Poor Chantel.

I had planned to get up and clean the kitchen this morning, but that did not happen, since I forgot to set my alarm early and was too tired to wake up on my own. So, I say to myself, I will do it tonight. Ha ha ha. I am so tired right now that I will have accomplished a lot if I manage to make it home without falling asleep on the freeway. I just want to make dinner and climb in the recliner with hulu and my book. I am also thinking about running by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard on the way home. That would be naughty, but it sounds good. I might not though, since I have brownie fixings at home. Brownies require mixing and baking and cutting, so much effort. Sigh.

Ok, enough whining. I will drive everyone off and have no followers. ;) So, the plans for the week are still cleaning and working on my embroidery and cross-stitch. I also would like to get the garage emptied out and clear the laundry closet. I want to clear out the closet, because one of the girls at work is giving me a washer and dryer! Yay! I know it sounds nuts not to have one, but it was a money thing, as in, they are expensive and the laundromat is cheap. But for me, convenience counts. So, since these are free, Shane can't complain. The garage needs to be cleaned out because when Shane gets home we are going to clean, patch, and seal the garage floor and the driveway. Whoever patched it last did a crappy job. Crappy. Once the floor is done, we are going to be building in shelving and storage cabinets along one whole wall of the garage. Shane is planning storage for canned goods, my crafts (although I am still arguing for the spare bedroom closet to be craft land), Christmas stuff, a bunch of books we don't have room to shelve, and all the other assorted crap we own. I am excited to be getting everything organized, but I never look forward to the work it takes to get there. Oh well. It will be nice when it is done and I don't have to shift through stacks of boxes or dig around in a dark closet for the fabric I need or the suitcase I am looking for.

Other than cleaning and clearing, I hope to get out and find a letterbox or two this week with Nikki. It has been a couple of weeks since we have gone. I also need to get a journal to set up for my letterboxing notebook and finish all the notes that go with the boxes we have already found. I would like to make the journal kind of like a scrapbook, with notes and pictures of the boxes and the fun we have hiking or driving to them.

I also need to get the lawn mowed and some weeding done in the veggies and bulb beds. I have no idea if I will manage all or any of this this week, but I can dream. Cross your fingers for me and I will come back in a few days and let you know how it went.

Work and Plans and Stuff

The plans I have made for the new year are going fairly well I think...at least some of them are.

I am doing a lot more reading now and some of the books are even educational. I will post a list later of what I am reading and what I think of it, but for now ... I want the big one! I checked out a book called 30,000 Years of Art. It is giant and pretty and I could seriously maim, if not kill, someone with it without trying too hard. I will weigh it one of these days and measure it and shock you.

Other than that, I have been riding my exercise bike and will be starting the South Beach Diet again this weekend. It will be hard to do the worst part without Shane around to be my enforcer, but at least he won't have to listen to me whine. For those of you who live in a cultural vacuum or just don't pay attention to this sort of thing, the South Beach Diet is, for the first two weeks, basically no-carb and no-fat. After that it is just low-carb and low-fat. This is very difficult for me, since those are my favorite types of food. So I suffer ... but I have not learned to suffer in silence. Poor Shane. But, as I said, he will be out of town for more job training and will only have to listen to me when he gets home. I think that I will only do Phase 1 for 1 week this time, since we are going to Idaho with my in-laws the following week and this is not the easiest diet to do when travelling. I will still try to stick to it as well as possible, and we will be doing lots of normal cooking since the condo has a full kitchen, but I don't think I can be 100% faithful to the rules. And in case you are curious, the reason I do this even though I hate it is that it is effective. Yes ... a diet can be effective. Although, I believe they prefer to view it as a lifestyle change ... but I just keep changing back after a few months. While I am following the rules, even if it is only mostly, I lose quite a decent amount of weight and can keep it off. Last summer I did it for about 2 months and lost 20 pounds. I only gained it back over the holidays while I was being a disgusting pig and living on candy and the cookies I baked. Naughty. But I want to get back on track now. I have gained back about ten pounds that I want to get rid of again, plus the 20 left that I did not finish last time. My goal weight is 150. I will keep you informed of my (hopeful) success.

While in Idaho I will be working on the embroidered quilt squares with my mother in law and, hopefully, some new knitting patterns. I may get a set of circular needles and learn to make hats and socks. That would be super fun. It may wait until we get home though. I also plan to take a cross-stitch kit that I have been working on forever. I pick it up and do a little and get side-tracked and put it away and repeat that once every few months. I am progressing very slowly, but it will be gorgeous when it is done.

Work is proceeding along as normal and we are all waiting to find out what the new owners of the business have planned. I work for a small lab and we were bought by a large company that employs 1,400 people and has labs all over the east coast and Midwest. This means there are lots of things they may do to improve our operations, but it also means that they will take their own sweet time doing anything. So many vice presidents-in-charge-of and so much paperwork and so many conference calls. Ugh ... I am glad I am not the manager. I am merely the lowly secretary in charge of faxing this to him and mailing these to them and keeping track of conference calls and appointments and so on and so forth. Busy times, but hopefully all the fuss and nonsense will pay off for the lab and our clients.

On an exciting note, in the next few weeks our garden will start sprouting. We spent several weeks in the late fall planting 2 large bulb beds. The bed by the house is all irises, which won't be up for months yet, but the bed by the road is full of all sorts of different bulbs. Some of them will be blooming next month, which means I am going to start watching for tiny green points to start poking up soon. I promise lots of pictures. This makes me want to read The Secret Garden again ... I think I will read it tomorrow. Yay!

Enough relaxing...

I have gotten off work early the last three days because we are so slow and the weather is bad, but I have accomplished very little in all that free time. I ordered some books for Shane's Christmas gifts and came up with the answer to all my puzzling about what to get my mother-in-law. But that is all. I still have to think of more ideas for Shane and figure out the ordering for his mother. So, I have to stop being so lazy and get going.

I need opinions...any ideas for my hustband? He likes to read and play games and be outdoors. The best I am coming up with right now is a new game for him. I am afraid that is not very original, but at least I know he will like it.

For my mother-in-law, the story goes like this: Shane suggested I come up with a gift that would let us spend more time together and work on a project or craft. I love this thought, since I don't think we get to see them often enough, especially considering they are only two hours away. So...the idea I came up with is that I could buy a set or two of pre-stamped quilt blocks for us to embroider and then quilt into a lap quilt for her to use, enjoy, and think of the fun we will have. I really like this idea, but I thought of it awfully late and I cannot seem to find the blocks anywhere in town. I can order them online, but I want to make sure that it is a good idea first. I have not quilted before, but I do like to cross-stitch and embroider and I want to make sure that it sounds like a reasonable project for us to do. My mother-in-law is also pretty good at embroidery. If you have any good online sources for this type of project, I would appreciate it. The only sites I am coming up with right now are JoAnn's and Herrschner's.

So, I am off to search the net some more and then go and wrap another present in the pretty paper I got after Christmas last year. Yay for clearance.

Gift Baskets are done!

I have finished all of the gifts that have to be made except one and bought nearly all of the others. The gift baskets came out great!

I am very pleased that my idea was as good as I hoped it would be. I picked out a cookbook for each basket, crocheted some dishcloths, added cookie cutters, a spoon rest, the apron I made, and a couple of -kitchen whats-its. The mix-in-a-jar stuff was really easy to put together. I made up a jar of brownie mix, oatmeal cookie mix, cocoa mix, and Russian tea mix for each basket and also added a jar of the pear butter we canned this spring.

I am also very pleased with the aprons I made. I did not have a pattern to use, so I just copied the shape of the apron I have and used bias tape to trim it (thank you Bethany!). So pretty!

So, that is what I can accomplish with a five day weekend. I took vacation time that I needed to use up before the end of the year and stayed home Thursday and Friday. I finished most of the work on the presents and some of the household chores I wanted to get done. Saturday we were going to have people over for game night, so I finished my chores and got ready, but it started snowing and my friends were understandably hesitant about risking themselves, their children, and their vehicles on slick, dark roads. My friend Nikki did come over and we had dinner and watched a couple of movies and then it took her over a half hour to make the ten minute drive home. Yuck. So, Sunday was a lazy stay at home and watch it snow day. I accomplished nothing and am completely okay with that. This morning, my husband climbed back into bed after shoveling the driveway and told me the freeway south of town was closed, which meant neither of us could get to work. So, yay for another day off, but I was starting to go stir-crazy. Shane decided to brave the roads in town to go see a movie with a co-worker of his who also could not get to work, so I had him drop me at Nikki's apartment, since she was on a snow day and bored too. We watched movies, had burgers, and played with some beading kits I picked up at Wal-Mart. She made a really cool necklace that she plans to wear tomorrow and I got about halfway through a really complex necklace that shows great promise. I will post a picture if it comes out well. I hope that the roads will be clear tomorrow, since I will have today's work as well as tomorrow's to do in the morning and I really need to get the Christmas packages shipped now that they are completed. Cross your fingers for me.

I can knit!

Well, sort of anyway. I managed to do about 5 rows of what will become a scarf last night in the class. After casting on about 5 times for practice. It was a lot of fun. The class was just for beginners, so I didn't have to feel silly asking to see something again or needing help figuring out exactly what I just did that left such a funny pattern in the yarn...wanna know what I did? I yarned over. Yes, I am a crocheter. No, I have no idea how I did it. Oh well. I like knitting. For now it takes a lot of concentration, and I am not sure I have it down 100%, but I will keep practicing and hopefully get much better at it soon. Yay me!

And isn't it the prettiest yarn...yay me!

Oh, I almost forgot, go to Charity Grace's page and look at her beautiful idea for a banner for the holidays, I think I may make several.

Knitting!!!

I am so excited!!! To prove that, it took me four tries to spell excited correctly. Not even my fingers can wait for their treat tonight. :) Tonight is my beginners knitting class. Yay! I am very excited about learning to knit. I love crochet, but there are some projects that just look better, go faster (I hope), and will be easier if knitted. For instance, I don't think it would work to crochet mittens. I might be wrong, but I just don't see that going smoothly. Crochet is great for things like that afghan that I promise to finish after the dishcloths, also easily crocheted, that I am making for the gift baskets.

I am sure you all know just what it is like to have a dozen projects in the works, and then, just to irk your husband (not really, but I am sure he thinks so) you find something new that you absolutely have to try. There is the afghan, the Christmas projects, the counted cross-stitch in the closet, the fishing pole case to sew, and a million other little projects that I have around the house, in one state of completion or another. And now I am going to learn to knit and add a scarf to the pile. I certainly don't mind. My point of view is this: I am not always in the mood to cross-stitch, or to crochet, or to drag the sewing machine out. And some things are definately not portable. I like to take projects with me to work for free time and on car trips, although I tend not to work on them much in either situation. Nothing ever works out quite like I think it would, but the option is still there.

To summarize, yes I am adding yet another thing to the list of my skills and to the even longer list of my projects. I don't mind. :) I will try to post a picture when I get home of the scarf in progress. Although I am sure you all either know how to knit or know what a scarf looks like, I will be wanting to show off my newfound skill...hopefully. ;) Wish me luck!

Costume Pictures!!

Here are the promised pictures of the costumes that I made for our birthday party!

Nikki's blue poodle skirt and my gold flapper dress.

I am so proud of these. I am far from being a seamstress, but I had fun doing these outfits and they turned out really well, if I do say so myself.

The weekend is winding down

I accomplished some things that I had planned on this weekend, but not everything. The biggest thing that did not get done was the spaghetti sauce/salsa canning session. Shane worked today and we had to work on the garden yesterday, so there was no time. Hopefully we will be able to make that happen next Saturday. My friend Nikki might come help if we do.
I did get quite a few of my other tasks done. Yesterday we ran errands and put in a lot of bulbs in the bed in front of the house. We still have some more to go in and another bed to prep, so for the next few nights, Shane will work on it once he gets home. I made four batches of pear bread today and have a ham in the slow-cooker for dinner (and lunch and dinner and lunch and dinner--it's a big ham for just two people). I ran around town some this morning and found a birthday present for Shane and some yarn for my afghan and some Christmas projects. Yay for yarn on sale!!
Right now I am trying to convince myself to go out and prep the bed for the next set of bulbs before Shane gets home so that we can get them in the ground quickly, but I am being very lazy and haven't been able to talk myself into it yet. I also need to charge the batteries for my camera so that I can post some pictures of my projects and the gorgeous fall colors that are showing up in my yard.
For now, I will tough-up and go out to dig for the bulbs and hope that Shane gets home early so we can get them all done before it is too dark.

Time flies

So, lately I have been really busy, but I am not sure that I have accomplished anything. I got some more pear butter finished, although it ended up a little thinner than I wanted becuase it was getting late and I needed to get it in the canner so I could go to bed. I have also been working on a crocheted afghan that I started ages ago when I wasn't very good at it. I am still not great, but I am faster now and can do quite a bit without looking at it since it is a beginners pattern and just a lot of chains and doubles. I need more yarn for it though, so I have to go hunting this weekend and hope I can match at least the type of yarn. I don't have any hope for the dye lot. No biggie.
Tomorrow after work I am going to go cheer on a bunch of kids I don't know in their homecoming football game. My friend Nikki teaches science nearby and she is uber-involved in extra-curricular activities. Mostly I am going because I love football and haven't been to a game in a year. So sad. So I will go freeze my butt off and cheer my lungs out. Then Saturday Shane (my husband), Nikki and I are going to make a bunch of spaghetti sauce and salsa and can it. I can't wait. I always complain about how much of a pain canning is, but I put up with it because I love the food that I get without any trouble at all for the next year.
The only other news I have right now is that I am excited because I signed up for a beginner's knitting class at the local yarn shop. Yay!! I have wanted to learn to knit for a long time, but I don't know any knitters and I did not really want to try to learn from a book. So it's very exciting, but the class is not till Nov. 11th. I guess I will just have to work on finishing up that afghan until then. Wish me luck on finding the right colors of yarn.

Recent History

Lately I have been very busy, which is why I thought a blog would be interesting. The biggest thing recently was the Birthday Party. My friend Nikki and I both turned 28 last week and decided that it had been far too long since we had had a birthday party. After some deliberation, the decision was made to have a costume party the weekend before our birthdays. Costume making ensued. :) A week before the party Nikki finally decided that a poodle skirt was her dream costume and I sewed her a cute one out of light blue felt with a white poodle applique. I made myself an awesome 20's flapper dress in gold and black and cut my hair short to complete the look. Friends, games, and ice cream cake made for a great evening.
Since then, the biggest part of my busyness has been a flurry of canning. Our house came with a cherry tree and a pear tree in the back yard. The cherry did not cause us too much trouble this year due to a lack of proper spraying, but the pear produced more than enough to make up for it. My husband and I each took a lot of pears to work, but we still had several boxes of pears left. These sat ripening in the garage until last week, when they would wait no longer. I canned a few quarts of pear halves and this week I am making pear butter for canning. I have got 15 pints so far and may do another batch. Other than that I will be making pear bread and pear kuchen, both of which are yummy and both of which freeze well. Pears for everyone.
This weekend, once the pears are done, we plan to buy a few boxes of tomatoes at the produce stand and make a bunch of salsa and pasta sauce to can. Yummy!
As the holidays creep (or sprint) closer, I am sure that I will only get busier and busier, but it should be fun busy.