Coffee floats and fall baking

A weekend off for a bakery worker is a rare and beautiful thing. So what better way to spend it than baking? 

Weekend time also means time to hang out with friends who have more conventional work weeks. I decided a pie was in order. 

Apple cinnamon with rosemary. I got fancy with the maple cutouts but opted not to use my usual egg wash in light of high egg prices. The recipe is adapted from a Rocco Dispirito cookbook. 

I also made a Saturday afternoon treat for all the coffee lovers out there. Coffee floats! 

(Tony's Vanuatu mug and my brand new mermaid mug!) 

A scoop of Haagen das coffee ice cream, splash of milk and some cooled coffee made for a delightful afternoon pick me up. I also want to make some cold brew coffee and try that next time. 

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend! Now for some car ride crocheting on our way to friends and games night! 

Cheers! 

Thursday Thrifting

Haven't posted my thrifting finds lately. I have been trying to be good but I have had a couple of really good days!

Here is the haul from a couple of weeks ago. I collect the pie dishes with the recipes in them, my problem at this point is I don't remember which ones I have! So if it is a good price and I don't KNOW I have it I go ahead and get it. This Raspberry Cream Pie plate was only $2.99. My dream is to someday have them all displayed in my house and any extras or doubles I have can then be gifted.

I also bought the old wooden rolling pin for $1.99. The paint is peeling and the handles are a little wonky but I loved the look of it enough to buy it as a decorative piece. I have seen these types of rolling pins go for way more at antique stores, so I thought for the price it will look awesome in my someday kitchen.

The two cake plates are matching and were $3.99 a piece. Steal! I love cake plates and as I may actually set a date and get to plan a wedding here sometime in the hopefully near future these will be put to good use on a dessert table.

The clear pasta container has been on my radar for awhile. I have a pin saved on pinterest where someone used this type of container to store their cupcakes liners. I am notorious at losing track of cupcake liners, shoving them in strange places and generally either squashing them or not knowing what I have. As I find my stashes around my kitchen and elsewhere I have been adding them to the container and now I know where they all are, what I have, and they aren't getting squished anymore! Huzzah!

Harder to see in the picture is a simple wooden napkin holder. I'll admit right now that I don't buy napkins but hoard them from take out. (Most notably chipotle). We end up eating in the basement in front of the tv a lot and the napkins have just been strewn about on the coffee table. Now at least I have them contained. Baby steps towards classing the place up a bit.

So a good haul all around. Yay for good thrifting days!

Find yourself some treasures lately?

Back to School Cookies

Today is the first day of school here in our district. To celebrate I made some back to school cookies at work.

These were actually 'gift package' cut out cookies. We get our cookies in frozen and bake them off in store. We don't use a traditional royal icing, like I would prefer, but a glossy frosting more used for donuts. It never gets super hard, which makes it delicious, but also harder to decorate. I am taking it upon myself at work to sort of be 'in charge' of the sugar cookies though as we roll into the holiday season. Most times we do 6cts that are simply decorated with icing and maybe sprinkles. I'm hoping to bump it up a notch this year and offer at least some cookie options that really tap into the cute factor. There are some truly amazing cookie artists out there! I am nowhere near as talented as some of them but I vow to continue to try to make cute yummy cookies.

To all my teacher friends: Good Luck with this school year! And a special Shout Out to my fiance who is starting as a Math Corps Tutor!

Shark Blanket

I started my mermaid tail crochet project with a lot of enthusiasm. I was convinced that I would be able to 'wing it' and have it turn out awesome. Well not long after my 'Skein 1' update I was hitting a bit of a roadblock and getting frustrated. That's when my friend Becky posted on my FB wall a picture of a shark blanket from MJ's Off the Hook Designs. Being the crazy person I am I saw it and immediately wanted to make it. I bought the pattern (my first purchased crochet pattern!) and ran off to the craft store to buy gray yarn. I had enough white and red on hand for the teeth and gum details. I had to tweak the pattern just a bit because I did not use a bulky yarn. I used regular yarn and used two strands. It went pretty smoothly but I did end up making the tail 3 times to get the sizing right.

I am super happy with how it turned out. I just took a couple of quick shots before wrapping it up and sending it off to Texas! It got there only a couple days after her birthday. The nice thing about the pattern is that it includes lots of different sizes (baby to adult) and she allows you to sell your finished products as long as you give her pattern credit.

She also has a mermaid tail blanket pattern....I may just break down and buy that as well. Although it is probably very similar to the shark pattern I want to start supporting craftspeople more when I can.

So excited to have finished another LARGE crochet project. Working on more and more and keeping the momentum going. Getting back into hats too now that fall is here (in name if not in temperature). Trying to decide if I can buckle down enough to be part of the Halloween cryptkeepers this year. If nothing else look for a giveaway I am hosting in early October!

Happy Labor Day everyone! And Happy Crafting!

Make do and mend

Just a little Sunday mending. I admit to the bad habit of buying 'super cheap clothes' but I just love the target clearance rack! To make up for this I try to make them last as long as possible. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the mending pile so today I grabbed 3 quick fixes, two broken straps and a popped seam. A little hand sewing later and I'm done! 

I hope everyone else is having a lovely Sunday. I don't often get a weekend day off of work so I savor them all the more. 

Bit of mending, laundry and letter writing so far. Now to scrounge up some lunch and get outside! 

Mermaid Blanket: Skein 1

Well after a hard couple of days at work I have a day off. Pancakes in the morning, Lots of internet reading, crocheting, and going to see Magic Mike XXL with some gal pals. Perfect day really. Now I am doing a last minute load of laundry so I can return to work and the real world tomorrow.

I have the crafting bug HARD and am still riding high after finishing the granny square blanket. I am doing a project for myself this time so I can share more 'in progress' posts without fear of ruining any sort of surprise. Have you seen the super cool mermaid blankets online? There are a few different patterns out there as well. From what I can tell though most of the blankets are 'lapghans' so they just sit on top of you like a blanket. I'm interested in something a little more lifelike. More cocoon. Actual feeling of being a mermaid. Sure I might have to struggle in and out of it or hop around like I'm in a potato sack race but I still think its the way to go. Despite the patterns available I am making this up as I go along. I am trying out different stitches along the way and sort of making this a sampler project. I found the loveliest Red Heart Soft yarn in 'Deep Sea' (perfect, I know) and am not changing colors so I am trying to add some interest and texture with different stitches. It would be a quicker project if I just went with one stitch I'm sure but it feels good to try new stuff on a project that does not have the pressure of being a gift or on a time crunch.

When I found the yarn I bought several skeins and I thought I would share what it looks like after skein 1;

My game plan is to start at the bottom and work up and then return to the bottom to add the fin. Progress is progress. I plan to continue sharing as I go along. Has anyone else made a mermaid blanket of any sort?

Happy Crafting!

Stormtrooper Granny Square Blanket

July already? My word this year is slipping by fast! Today I am happy to share my latest completed crochet project. It is my largest crochet project so far and I am so happy with the way it turned out.

I present to you my Stormtrooper Granny Square Blanket!

I am so excited that it actually turned out! And that I finished it in time for my sister's birthday. That was the goal. I first started this project over a year ago and was hoping to give it to my sister for Christmas. I was making massive granny squares and it was taking forever and I got discouraged and gave up. Like many another project it sat in the corner, a few stacks of black and white squares and no real intention of picking it back up.

But this early spring I had caught the crafting bug again and was determined to pick a large scale project that I would finish. I came back to this idea and had a light bulb moment. Little squares. I know it sounds dumb but by making my squares less than half the size I was going to (I dont know why I started so large!) I convinced myself that the project was do-able and made the goal to be finished by June 30th so I could give it to my sister. My sister is a lover of all things geeky and nerdy but Star Wars is a big one and one that we bond over.

I did seriously consider more 'in progress' posts, but on the off chance she might see this and find out I thought it better to just share it all at once.

Here is a picture of all my finished white and black squares. I timed it out and I could make a square under 4 minutes if that was all I was doing. If I was talking or watching something it was a bit longer. Many a car ride was spent making squares, and many a movie. They are so easy to make I could see this being a great 'filler' project too, between bigger projects and such. Make a  few squares here and there.

Once I had 10 squares of the same color done I would tie them together in little bundles. I have never made a granny square blanket before so I was somewhere between making it up as I went along and looking to the internet for tips.

The idea for the entire project came from a pinterest pin that led me to this great image from Crafster.

Super happy with the way it turned out. I eliminated the white squares around the boarder and after assembling the blanket I did a simple border out of gray. Even with all my planning and working on it I was still finishing the border the day of! I have since pinned several of these grid type patterns. You can also look up 'perler bead patterns' and 'cross stitch patterns' for more options. As long as you have a pixelated grid image you can make any granny square project your heart desires! 

I'm still loving hard on crochet. My next big project is going to be a mermaid tail blanket. There are quite a few patterns and ideas out there. I'll for sure share once I get it started. This one will be all for me so no need to surprise anyone!  

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe 4th of July weekend! 

Happy Crafting!