Rainbow Cupcake Toppers

Our friend's daughter turned three over the weekend and she had a rainbow themed birthday party. Because my friend knows I love making rainbow baked goods, I got tapped to make the cake and some cupcakes. I was pretty excited about it and decided to make some fun cupcake toppers (I got to use my glue gun!). I'd never made them or used them before, but now I'm totally in love with them, and am obsessed with all wonderful things I am going to top my cupcakes with. Seriously, any excuse to use my glue gun!

I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies, so this craft was pretty easy to create.

First I punched some 1 1/2" stars using card stock in rainbow colours (red, yellow, green, blue). Then I punched some 1 1/4" stars in white card stock. I free hand wrote the number 3 (the birthday girl's age), in coordinating colours on the white stars.

Next I used a glue stick to stick all the numbered stars to the colourful stars.

Using regular toothpicks, I used my glue gun (so fun!) to adhere the stars to the toothpicks.

These were simple and fun to make and were a festive addition to the cupcakes.

Slippers for Him and Her

The cold weather hit and so did my urge to knit. I'm always knitting dishcloths, but I really get excited for new patterns in the wintertime. John and I both needed new slippers, so I spent far too many hours on Ravelry looking for a free pattern at my skill level. I found one that looked quick and easy and even found a Knit-along on YouTube in case I ran into trouble.

John got a pair made with Super Bulky (#6) chunky yarn, using one strand of yarn.

My slippers were made with Medium (#4) worsted yarn, so I held two strands together. I had leftover yarn from my Harry Potter Gryffindor scarf, so I made myself some Gryffindor slippers.

Car Cookies

A friend of ours recently got her driver's licence, and I celebrated by making her some car shaped cookies. I didn't have a car cookie cutter, but as with my d20 dice cookies, I made my own. Cookie cutters are really easy and fun to make, and really cost-effective if you want a shape that you might only use once.

I learned how to make cookie cutters from this blog tutorial. I hopefully will do a tutorial of my own here soon, I just couldn't get it together to take photos this time around.

Here is the cookie cutter I made/used:

And here are the adorable car cookies made from my favourite gingerbread cookie recipe:

Knitting Needle Case

I've been knitting on and off for about 6 years now and in that time I have acquired various knitting needles and supplies. I found an old sewing box in the attic and appropriated it as my knitting box. Up until now there has been no organization of the contents, other than all my knitting tools can be found in the box.

A few months ago I spent about $5 on fabric from the ends bin at Fabricland, for the purpose of creating a knitting needle case. The sewing skills in the family belong to Mom, so I gave her the fabric and she proceeded to make me a fabulous case. She didn't need to measure while making this, she just went in with the basic idea of what it should look like and made it happen. My Mom has awesome skills!

My knitting needles, all bundled up

The majority of my knitting needles

I still have various sizes of double pointed needles and circular needles that need a home, and have tasked mom to make a smaller but equally awesome case for them. The long needle case is my current favourite thing in the world, so I am super excited to have a set of two.

Thanks Mom! You are the best!

2014 Beans and Tomato Garden

We planted some seeds last week and they are almost ready to go in the ground. We planted 20 beans (18 came up) and 8 tomatoes (we planted 5 last week and 3 the week before - all came up).

It's still early but I'm already looking forward to steamed green beans and home made pasta sauce. Mmmmmmmm... Can't wait.

18 green beans and 5 tomatoes, started last week

3 tomatoes, started two weeks ago

Cool Evening Summer Project

I used up all my dishcloth yarn earlier this year, which was a great opportunity to buy more yarn. Mom and I both love these knitted dishcloths, so we each bought a big ball of yarn for me to work. The plan is to spend a lot of evenings watching Blue Jays baseball while knitting us a bunch of them (I can complete one in about 3 hours).

The colour Mom chose is called Swimming Pool (blue), and the one I chose is called Psychedelic (multi-colour). If I did the math right, we will each get 12 dishcloths, 6 of each colour. Fun.

1st Year Gryffindor Scarf: Finished Object

I remembered that I loved knitting, so in January I picked up my needles and started working on some projects. I finished a winter hat for John and have now finished a scarf for me. And not just any scarf, this is a 1st year Gryffindor scarf that allows me to show off my Harry Potter love in public. I have a long black coat which easily doubles as wizards robes, so I am not kidding around when I wear this scarf.

I recently wore it to my local library, and I planned my visit for when my favourite librarians were working. They are fun and sassy and are sometimes loud in the library, which makes them even more fun. We always find time to chat while I'm checking out books and they often compliment my coats (which are pretty much all hand me downs, but it still feels good). I walked in and they said:

"So what cool coat do you have today?"

"No new coat, but I made myself this Harry Potter scarf."

"On purpose?"

"Yep" and we all laughed.

I had my normal winter hat on and she said:

"Well I'm glad you have just a regular hat on..."

To which I finished: "Because otherwise I'd just be an adult in a Harry Potter outfit?" Pretty much.

We all had big smiles and then discussed how great it is to be fun and weird and to not have to conform to what "others" might think is cool. It is definitely very freeing.

I''m currently doing a re-read of the Harry Potter series and am halfway through book 7. I have taken to wearing my scarf indoors while I'm reading it (or outdoors while listening to the audiobook). Feels festive and good.

D20 Dice Cookies

I have been playing RPGs pretty regularly this year. Or I should say, as regularly as six adult schedules will allow. We played a continuing story over most of the sessions, with our characters slowly advancing in level. We also did a one off game where I was already high level and got to use a bow that shot four arrows at once. That was pretty cool.

I generally like to bake something for our gaming nights, and this week I finally made D20 dice cookies. After watching the Nerdy Nummies tutorial earlier this summer, I knew they were something that would eventually happen in my kitchen.

The D20 dice cookie requires a hexagon cookie cutter, but I couldn't find that shape at our baking supply store. I found a home made cookie cutter tutorial online, that used folded aluminum foil to make the shapes. I gave it a try and many folds later, I had myself a 5 inch hexagon cookie cutter.

Using a sugar cookie mix, I made the dough and sectioned it into three so I could dye it multiple colours. D&D dice are usually multi-coloured, so I wanted my cookies to be that too.

I rolled the dough to 1/4 inch thickness and used my home made cookie cutter to make the cookies. It made giant cookies! I was happy, as I wanted them nice and big so I could easily decorate them.

Using prepared royal icing, I sectioned my cookie faces into triangles and filled the triangles with numbers. 20 was always in the center. I only had enough dough to make 7 cookies. But they were 7 giant cookies, so that was okay.

 

These cookies were super fun to make, but the best part was sharing them with my gaming buddies. My friend Bryan took this action shot of his cookie while we were rolling up our characters.

We Built A Fort!

And I'm currently sitting in it!

Jena and T got two all purpose canopies for their wedding and couldn't fly them back to B.C., so we inherited them (or are borrowing them 'til they move back to Ontario). I sunburn incredibly quickly and easily, so a canopy or 'fort' in the backyard allows me to sit outside without having to pile on buckets of sunscreen first. It also makes for a kind of outdoor office, which I'm really liking (although I'm sure John would like his laptop back at some point).

All purpose canopy in the box

What's in the box

Lay out all the poles first

Raise the roof!

Tack roof tarp in place

Add leg poles, tie down roof tarp, and secure poles with ropes

Comfort zone established!

Outdoor office - a nice place to write blogs!

Greeting Card: It's a Boy

Friends of ours recently had a baby boy and I made a really simple card to welcome him to the world.

I found some Old West stickers in my stash and just let them do all the work.

Sometimes less really is more, and I just love how this card turned out.

June Blogging Goals!

Holy crap it is June! I had been complaining about the prolonged winter so much that June sort of snuck up on me. June means almost half the year is gone, and that fact is forcing me to check in with myself and make sure I'm on track with where I want to be.

Earlier this year I changed my blog around and got more social with it. I am really happy to have new blog followers and new friends on Twitter and Google+; it has been great to meet everyone. Because blogging is what this is all about, I want to motivate myself to do it more, and my plan for June is to blog every single day. Goal set!

I love blogging, but I'm often too much of a procrastinator to sit at the computer and actually write. So I'm setting myself a real live goal! Thirty days in June = thirty blog posts. I got inspired recently by Ivy over at The Happy Whisk, who set herself a goal and awesomely blogged 36 times in May. Holy crap that is a lot of blog posts! Even when she was tired she did it anyway. That is my plan too!!

To help me reach my goal, I printed out a calendar for June and wrote in potential blog ideas for all thirty days. I am so proud of myself for getting organized and am really excited to post some things I have neglected. I even went through my Blogger drafts folder and found twenty posts in there! Some of them were just titles with no content, but some were actually real posts that just didn't get finished or edited or posted for whatever reason. This 30 day blog challenge will encourage me to get writing, get editing, and get posting!

Also, if I reach my blogging goal, at the end of June I will have over 300 posts on this here blog. And June 2013 will mark the most posts that I have ever written in one month. How cool will that be?!

So please join me over the next 30 days as I chew bubblegum and kick ass* through this Blogging Quest of Awesome!


*I'm all out of bubblegum

Mother's Day Bouquet

Wait, those aren't roses! Those are dishcloths! My mom absolutely loves knitted dishcloths and luckily I just made a whole bunch of them. Just in time for Mother's Day! She was very happy! :)

Happy Mother's Day everyone! I hope you are having a great day!

Growing Dishcloth Pile

There was sale on Handicrafter Cotton yarn recently and I planned on picking some up so I could knit some dishcloths. The only problem was, I already had a tonne of the stuff in my yarn stash, and I haven't been knitting much lately. So I made myself a deal: use up all the yarn in my stockpile and I could buy more. It was a pretty motivating deal, as I have since knit ten dishcloths! I guess I really hate missing out on a yarn sale!

I only have about five more to knit before I get to replenish my stock. I hope there is a sale, as I am excited to pick up some fun new colours!

I love having a pile of these around!

Experimenting with Sushi

In my sushi making experience, I've made and consumed many California rolls (and posted about them here).  I recently became obsessed with spicy sauce and all the joyous possibilities associated with making spicy sushi maki at home.  I have been collecting ingredients over the past few weeks and yesterday it was finally Sushi Fun Day for me.

My morning started with how to videos on YouTube, as I was experimenting with hand rolls and trying to properly prepare the sushi rice (I picked up Rice Vinegar to add to it!).  My morning instructional videos got me pretty excited about the idea of eating a whole lotta yummy sushi!


Spicy California Hand Rolls

I shredded some imitation crab legs and tossed them with spicy mayo (mixture of Hellman's and Sriracha Sauce). So easy to make and super yummy to eat.

Also important were the avocados and cucumber!

I cut my Nori sheets in half and got down to business!  First I added rice on one end and made an indent for the filling:

Then I added my cucumber, avocado, and spicy crab meat:

Then I rolled it up!

Spicy California Inside Out Rolls

Another adventure in sushi for me yesterday was maki with the rice on the outside of the roll.  I wrapped my bamboo mat in plastic wrap and went for it!  I added rice to the Nori sheet and sprinkled it with toasted sesame seeds.

Then I flipped it over and put fillings on the non rice side:

And then rolled it up!

I ended up making a lot of these:

And If That Wasn't Enough...

I also made some smoked salmon and avocado hand and maki rolls, avocado maki, and avocado and cucumber maki.  I put some spicy sauce on some of the maki to make it look and taste amazing.  Not pictured are the four hand rolls John and I ate while I was preparing everything and the countless pieces of maki that accidentally got eaten.

And finally my beautiful plate that was quickly and happily devoured:

I can't wait to make it again!!  And we are eating leftovers for dinner tonight. Yay!!

Out With The Old...

I had an unplanned break from knitting but have been itching to pick up some needles all week. I have friends who have recently had babies or are soon to have babies, so I want to knit adorable baby stuff.  I am a planner and spent many hours this week looking through patterns and thinking about yarn.  I also invested in some knitting supplies, as a pattern I want to knit used some tools I didn't have yet (16" circulars, I am looking at you!). I also picked up some stitch markers, some dpns, and soft yarn.

I tried to start a new project today that involved double pointed needles, and despite my three attempts, I could not get a handle on it.  I realize I need to take a step back; I basically haven't knit in almost a year and am a wee bit rusty.  I was still itching to knit, so I am on task to complete all my outstanding projects (luckily there are only three).  So new and cute baby projects are still to come, but here is what I accomplished today:

Reusable Swiffer Cloth - I just had to seem the edge to complete this.

Top view.  Just ignore how dirty the Swiffer is!

Bone dog toys - seemed and stuffed. I still need to learn proper seeming.

I also made headway on a winter hat I began last February for John.  I am only about a third done, but I am so happy to be knitting again.  Working on all these projects has me really inspired for all the new things I will create.