Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Here I am!!

Hello everyone! I'm still here. Just as a side note, anyone else having issues with blogger tonight? Took me a couple of tries to get to dashboard and a few more tries to get to a new post page.. I better make it worth it huh?
First up, last week I didn't get squat done. Oh well! I've gotten one thing done so far this week and I'm very close to getting a Christmas present finished (whoo hoo). I made the circle pouch from Erin's tutorial.


It turned out pretty good I think. The only thing was that the whole circle ended up being smaller than the half circles... even though I measured.. Oh well. It wasn't terribly hard other than sewing a circle, which I've never done before. The other thing I'm working on is a sketchbook cover for my nephew, he's really been into drawing lately so I thought it would be cool. I'll show that tomorrow, when it's all done.
Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving?? My eating schedule was all messed up for like 2 days, plus I felt like I was eating all day on Thursday. And ever since then I feel like I've been eating like crap.. leftover pie and ice cream, brownies, cookies..plus if I don't have that sweet I just keep thinking about it.. I really hate that, and I don't usually eat that  much junk.. tonight I buckled down and had an apple instead of the junk
(1 me- Junk 0). After Thanksgiving I needed to use up some leftover turkey so I made up some little pot pies.

It's it cute? Does it make you think, I'd love to make some but I bet it's hard..Nope! Easy! Here's what I did!
1. Get some cooked turkey or chicken, cut it up.
2. One can of cream of chicken soup, put it in a pan and add some milk. I added maybe 1/2 cup, just enough to make it more like what's in a pot pie but not soupy (I didn't measure). Cook it for a bit.
3. Add the meat.
4. Add some veggies, I used what we had in the fridge, carrots and peas. I cooked fresh carrots but you could use canned (drained) or cooked frozen.
5. A tube of dough, I used the croissants but you could use the biscuits too. I separated it into 4 pieces, this would be two triangles smooshed together.  Flatten them out, maybe like 1/4 inch thick. Make it big enough to line the tin and have some hanging over .
6. Get out your giant muffin tin (or regular one if you don't have the biggie). Oil it up with something so they don't stick. Put your dough into the muffins.
7. Once your soup/meat/veggies are all heated up, scoop it into the muffins. This made 4 because there were 8 triangles and I paired them up so that makes 4. I had no left over pie mix. Then you just flop the corners over the top and make sure there is a little hole there for the hotness to come out.
8. Bake them according to your dough. Since everything else is cooked you don't have to worry about the other stuff..
9. Then eat them up. These went into the freezer so I don't know if they are yummy but I mean you can really make them taste bad. I'm not sure how I'm going to cook them after taking them out of the freezer, but I'll figure it out.

Last up for tonight, I found (again) a lovely blog called Pink Stitches. I'm not sure even how I found her, maybe from another blog (remember how I said I hop and then can't remember who/what/when etc.). She was having a great little giveaway for a $25 credit to a lovely little Etsy shop called As Hue Wish. Guess what?? I won it. I'm pretty excited because those wrist warmers are super cute!! She has a blog too, you can find it here. I had fun checking out these blogs the other night. I'm thinking about a necklace and some wristers or maybe two necklaces.. Yippee!!


Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 It's not Thanksgiving until you draw a chalk turkey on the patio !!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Lots'a waiting and not much to show..

Finally.. right? It seems that my desire to blog about stuff has also left with my crafting mojo, but here goes. This week has been a lot of thinking and not a lot of doin'. I've planned out the notebook cover so I guess all I need to do it get to cutting and making. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually. I did manage to get the other slipper done, so I have a pair. They were a little small for me so my Mom adopted them.

The one looks bigger but I think it's because the elastic is looser on that one.. They are just two layers of fleece, so they are pretty fluffy. Pretty nice around here, as you can see we have wood floors, in the whole house except for one room we don't use, and the kitchen. so we have cold feet in the winter.

The other thing I've managed to get done in the past few weeks were these scrubbies/round washcloths. I decided I needed some. You can't really tell but they are a super light pink cotton that I scored at the Goodwill for a whopping 99 cents!

The little one about 4 inches and the bigger ones are about 5 inches.

After I finished those guys I thought I would make a square washcloth but I got two rows into it and I though, "hey, that would make a cute bracelet" so that is what I made. I had a great button that I knew would be perfect! It worked out pretty good because there are two spaces to put the button through so if it needs to be tighter. Happy accident!


I kind of like it. Don't have a clue when I'd wear it but it's cute. I have some sparkly yarn that I got for my birthday so I might make a few with that, just for fun :)  I'm really going to try and get some stuff done by the end of this week, my goal is two things. That seems doable. We are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving so I don't even have to put on regular clothes if I don't want, and I only have to work tonight for a bit so I should be able to get two things done in the next three days. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, unless you live somewhere that doesn't celebrate or already did, have a great rest of the week.. And here is a turkey picture. I mean I have to put one up right?? The one with her head up is Momma turkey and her baby who is not a baby anymore. I took this last week. Have a good one!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Totally random but in list form...

Today I am going random. I have nothing crafty to post about. I did make a slipper but haven't taken any pictures. I kind of hate making anything for the feet, because you have to make 2 of them..I sometimes don't have the attention span to do both. I digress.. here are the random things, I will try to at least keep them crafty.

1. I've decided I need a hooded cape. The backstory here is that I was really in love with the "Scoodie". Have you guys seen these? It's basically a hooded scarf, hence Scoodie I saw it on Happy Zombie, there is a tutorial and everything there. So anyways, I never made one. Today I was checking out Sew Liberated and she was doing a giveaway for an e-class. And the lady that hosts it was wearing this little capelette and I was like "I need to have one of those!!". So I might make one. It isn't very practical for MN mostly because I think I would freeze but I still love it a lot :)

2. I have so many things I'd like to get done for Christmas gifts. I had planned to start very early, about a month ago. But then my mojo flew off and now I'm thinking about things but just never doing them. I knew that I would be starting work again coming up after Thanksgiving so I was trying to get stuff going before then because I'm not sure when I'll be working. I guess I still have a week and a half to get some stuff done..

3. I made pizza in a frying pan tonight. Never done it? Try it, it's fast and tasty. I saw it on a local show, this guy used pre-made pizza dough and just fried it up. I didn't do it that way. Here's what I did.
-Get some Betty Crocker pizza dough, you just add water. You could homemade too.
-This stuff is sticky, so I floured it a bit and split it in 1/2 while in the bowl.
-Put some butter or oil in the frying pan and put it at medium heat ( I used butter but next time I will use oil because it handles the heat better), put your hunk of dough in there and press it out.
-Cover it and cook it for a few minutes, I flipped mine when it was brown on the bottom, also the crust will look kind of done on the up side, dry, like how a pancake gets.
-Flip it over, admire it. Then put the cheese on (it needs the heat to melt), cover it again till the cheese melts, then put the sauce and toppings on and cover it again till it's hot. I'd say you could get away with doing it regular style with the sauce first because it gets hot enough to melt the cheese. I kept checking my crust during this part because I didn't want to burn it, I don't so much love burnt food.
-Then eat it. It was so good.

4. I have no clue why I numbered my random things, does that make them less random? Or more randome because I felt the need to give it a number and add it to my list??

5. I really love Thanksgiving. I don't eat myself into a coma though, I hate that really full feeling. Makes me feel like I'll never eat again or that I might get sick.. Not cool. It also makes me miss my Grandma and Grampa, I loved going to the farm for holiday. I probably griped about going when I had to go but I wish that I could do it now. sigh..

6. I need some new blogs to check out. So leave me some links, they don't have to be crafty, just ones you enjoy.

7. I had to take a writing break to see if  "Steal the Bacon" was a real playground game. Yes, it is. Kind of like capture the flag. They had to have a debate about it on the news.. Apparently nothing else important happened today that they had to talk about some Canadian school banning "hard balls" on the playground.

Last but not least I'm going to post some links of the things I want to make.
*Ear bud holder, or just plain cute little zip pouch - Tutorial Here @ Dog Under My Desk
*Notebook covers from V and Co.
*Awesome pillow from Maybe Matilda over at Little Lovelies
I'd love to make that pillow but I probably never will, but I thought it was cool so I had to share..
If you're still reading after all this THANKS!! maybe some other day I will have some pictures to post, or at least something more entertaining.

Friday, November 11, 2011

A letter..

Dear Universe,
I'm writing to you today to ask where my Crafting mojo has gone? It seems as thought I have completely lost it! Have you seen it? Last week I had so much that I did a project everyday. This week I have managed to start (yes, start) one thing. I tried making a scarf (4 different ones actually), but I just wasn't feeling it. I have so many things I'd like to get done. Did I abuse the wonderful gift you allowed me to have? Do you sometimes take it from some and gift it to others so that they can get things done? I have one simple request. Please allow me to have some (only some, I'm not greedy) of my mojo back. Just enough to get me through.

Thank You,
Miranda

Bah! you guys ever just loose it? I've lost it. Here's hoping you haven't and that I get it back. Have a great weekend. I might go ice skating, outside even! We have an awesome outdoor refrigerated rink, it's something like the biggest in the nation (I think). Hope you all have the chance to do something fun! 

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A scarf....

That I don't really like...


 Reason #1: It's really short!
 Reason #2: It's kinda wavy, where I want it to be not wavy..
I like the look of the scarf, I like the yarn, I like the stitch. But I haven't "cut the cord" yet so I think I might take it out and start it over or start something new.. I used this tutorial to make it. It's not hard and it works up pretty fast. I made the mistake of starting with a foundation row of just single crochet. I should have just started it according to the pattern and then added a single crochet border after I was all done.  I used a smaller yarn and a smaller hook and it came out very short (even though I added some extra chains). My chain was originally a lot longer but the increases and decreases that you use to make the stitch really ate up the length. Oh well, I only wasted a few hours on it and since I can't really do anything the way the tutorial/pattern is written it's always a crap shoot if something will work or not.
Is anyone else still totally messed up from this sham called daylight savings time? I mean really, I'd rather go to work (if I had to actually go to work in the a.m.) in the dark and have it be light out when I got home then have it be light at 7 in the morning and dark at 5pm. I was really messed up for about 2 and 1/2 days.
Speaking of jobs I found out when I have training (or re-training) for my other job, it will be about a week and a 1/2. It's a good thing too because I need some money, especially since I had to spend $300 to be some new glasses and sun glasses. Any one else out there have to buy glasses, man I hate shopping for glasses! You would think that after 20 years of wearing glasses it would get better, but it doesn't (not for me anyways).

Monday, November 7, 2011

Wowwee!

So what I have to share for right now is the fact that I won something from Sew Mama Sew! I don't know if you all go there at all but it's a great place to find all kinds of tutorials. This month they are doing a bunch of tutorials each day for things you can make for Christmas Gifts. You can comment on the posts and be entered to win stuff EVERY day. I don't even really remember commenting on anything :) When I checked my blog stats this morning I saw  that some of my traffic was coming from SMS. I clicked the link and it was to the winners page. I won a book all about machine and hand sewing, how cool is that? I love books so I'm cool with it. I also learned how to "tag" something on Facebook so that I could be entered to win a $20 gift certificate to Sew Mama Sew (yeah, they have a shop too). And in case anyone wants to find me on FB (I don't use it much) leave it in your comment and we can be "friends".  I'll be back later on to show you the scarf I've been working on.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

A little birdie told me...

That today's post would include birds! So here they are! I made these little guys last week and haven't gotten around to posting them until now.
Yellow and says "JOY" on one said and "2011" on the other

Pink and says "2011"

 
 Turquoise and says "LOVE" on both sides

These little birds are Christmas ornaments, they don't have hangers because I haven't decided what to use.. any suggestions? I used this great tutorial to make them. I used some Sculpey that was at least 12 years ago..That stuff hold up. It's been sitting around for that long and it was a little hard to get it conditioned (I had to use two hands) but after a few minutes it was all ready to go. They were simple to make, took me maybe 10 minutes per bird. Strangely enough the first one took me about 5 minutes but the second and third ones were harder!

The project that I finished today are two small (3x4 inches) handwarmers. They are filled with rice. Last year I made a rice heating pack thingy (I dunno what else to call it!!) and it's really great. I don't know how long these will stay warm but it gets freakin' cold here so anything will be better than nothing.

I thought (stupidly) that I would make them with channels so that the rice would stay in place instead of just settling to one side or another. This made it hard to fill, it took me longer to fill one little pack than to cut and sew both of them.. I would have made the stitching shorter so that it would be easier to fill.. Then I made the little envelopes they go in.

In other news, today I actually went out and did something today! I know, right? I went bowling with my sister and nephew. It was pretty fun. Today is my sister's birthday and she invited me. Happy Birthday Sissy!

I'm trying to think of a project to do tomorrow, I feel like I need to do one more to complete the week. I think that I will make some of the small fabric organizers that Pink Penguin put up for 12 Gifts of Christmas. They seem like they are pretty quick and easy.
I also have to mention that I now have 13 followers! I say that on the dashboard and I was like "holy crap, 13, when did that happen??" So I'm off to go check out those two blogs! I'll be back tomorrow and I'll have stuff to link up for Finished Friday :) Waa hoo!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Project Roundup!

Ok, here we go ya'll this is what I've gotten done this week (starting Monday thru today)
First up: This little thing. I used this tutorial to make it. I found it while following the 12 gifts of Christmas blog hop. Which was full of great things by the way. I'd encourage everyone to check out all 12! You can find the links to them all on the tutorial page.

Ok, the green is a sold green, it looks pretty weird in this picture. I took it after dark and had to adjust it so, it looks wonky. And the left side IS straight, not wonky.. I'm not that great at taking pictures of stuff.. so..it is what it is :)
I really love this white fabric with the flowers! I bought it at Joann's like 2 years ago and haven't used any of it until now. I'm not sure what it is, but they had it in purple when I was there last month so I snatched some up. It's expensive though $8.99/'yard. I realize that there are fabrics out there that are A LOT more but to me it's expensive.

Next up: A new and improved iPod case! I'm pretty excited about it, it has velcro and a button hole on the bottom for the headphones. I made the buttonhole a little small but it works, I just have to work it to get the jack in.

The blue fabric is from Hancock, I don't know what it is because I only bought a little and there is no name, the grey is more of my Kona scraps.

Last up: I made this little guy.



Now there is a story here so if you don't want to hear it you can just skip past this part :) Cheree over at The Morning Latte has been doing giveaways of some great owl pincushions, you can see them in a bunch of posts over there. I enjoy her blog she has crafty stuff, food stuff, decorating stuff..all kinds of goodies..So anyways, I decided that I needed to have an owl pincushion (you know I love my owls) so last night I decided to draw it out and get at it! Cheree used a pattern she bought, and since I don't have any extra money right now, I couldn't justify buying the pattern, even though it was only $6.
All of these projects used up scraps and stuff I already had, so it worked out pretty well. I have a few other things I'm going to get done this week, while I have all kinds of craft mojo! I'm feeling pretty good because I've made three things in three days, I'm not sure that has ever happened. Tomorrow I'm going to post some cool bird ornaments I made and what ever I manage to get done tonight!! I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Tomorrow, there will be a real post!

Last week disappeared somewhere into outer space..I managed to get nothing done last week. It's kind of sad really.. that I couldn't manage to get even one thing done.... Well, I've made up for it already by starting and completing 2 projects and starting and hoping to finish a third tomorrow. Since I'm being lazy I'm not going to get the SD card from the camera in the other room. Tomorrow will be a picture filled post-o-rama! Rocket back over then and check out what I've been up to.