Wintertime Crafting Fever

When it's cold outside it puts me in the mood for making things, so I dusted off my crochet hooks, and crafting cupboard and got to work.
The day after Thanksgiving the girls and I made charm bracelets-

Miss B has become somewhat of a Harry Potter Fanatic
so hers featured her two favorite people in the world
(the world of pretend anyway)
Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley.

Miss K likes all things Big Sister likes, so along the same theme
hers was of her favorite HP character Hermione.

Very distinctly having a mind of her own on all things, Miss M wanted hers
made with Olivia the Pig, which has become one of her favorite shows.
She LOVES Olivia, and I have to admit the theme song is pretty catchy.

Some cute little crocheted baby boots for my newest niece.

A fun Turkey hair clip for Miss M to wear on Thanksgiving.

A little Ballerina Bear Ami for my Niece.

I wanted to display the kids art work so I came up with this fun project,
it has their picture, name, and a list of their favorite things.

Flowers for Miss M's hair/headbands, this are very quick,
easy and addictive to make, kind of like chocolate.

She wanted to see how many she could get on her
headband, silly girl :)

A place was then needed to put all the newly crafted hair lovelys.

Since it is winter I thought a few new hats were appropriate-

Miss M's Sock Monkey Hat
I love sock monkeys <3

Miss B's hat, she is to "old" for silly hats :P

Miss K's Sleepy Owl hat-

And seeing how the Boy is in his first year of middle school,
I thought it best to not to torture him with a cute new winter hat ;)

Miss B's birthday gift for one of her HP Fanatical friends,
it's nice that there is someone other than me that she can discuss all
things Harry Potter with. My ears get tired.

So that's what I have been up too, that and trying to figure out a good menu system. If any of you have one that you use and love I need tips.

On a more serious note, my Husband is doing well, great actually, he is now officially considered in remission for this episode. And is feeling pretty good most of the time. Thank you all so much for your kind words, thoughts and prayers, they are much appreciated. We are getting things figured out now, and it's starting to feel like we know a bit more what to expect, which helps alot.

So I give in to a little Obsession once in a while....

That's perfectly normal right???

My Mother-In-Law asked my a couple weeks ago if I knew how to crochet the top to those hanging dishtowels, I don't know what their politically correct name is, and I had no idea but I knew they didn't look to hard. So with the help of Google I came up with these tutorials

http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/towel_toppers.php

and with their help I became obsessed with making these fun, and totally functional, little beauties.

Now after I had made a few of these I began to wonder if I could do this in the bathroom, some how my bathroom hand towels are always on the floor.


And it did!!! Now as to whether they keep the hand towels off the floor we will have to just wait and see. Hand towels aren't my only obsession, did you notice the monkeys in my bathroom?? Yep, they are all over the house :)
While in my search I also came across these-

which I also had to make :)
Here is an awesome tutorial for these, it made the whole process Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazzeee as Miss M likes to say-

http://treyandlucy.blogspot.com/2009/12/hanging-dishtowel.html

Talk about your perfect 10 minute gift :)

More Amigurmi Fun

Here are another batch of Ami's-


I had to make a monkey, I <3 href="http://www.crochetme.com/media/p/88885.aspx">CrochetMe

Better Homes and Gardens

Free Ami Patterns

Ami List

Needle Arts

Woman's Day

WolfDreamer

Gourmet Amigurumi

These are a few of the sites where you can find free patterns for Ami's :)

And the Krafting continues

I am hopping on quick to put up a picture of Miss M's latest T-shirt dress.
I used the top of a cute t-shirt that she had out grown, I added a couple pieces to make it longer and trimmed off the sleeves and added a ruffle- and Wahla!


She has been dancing around in it all day :)

I am also adding a picture of Miss K's robot

and robot's friends Momma Bird and Baby Bird


and my favorite- Mr. Turtle

I have been crafting and sewing like crazy, it's awesome.
I did find some time to do a bit of cooking also, here is a picture of my go-to rolls-

This recipe can be found here- at AR. It calls for a bread machine to make the dough but I just use my Kitchen Aid. This is my favorite roll recipe, I have used this one a lot.

Last week I tried my hand at making Pretzel Baguettes-
Aren't they pretty?!? They were so much fun, they tasted and smelled fabulous, there are a lot of steps but they are really simple to make I got the recipe from HERE.

And onto Dessert, I saved the best for last-

Flourless Chocolate Cake with ganache and raspberry whipped cream.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Ingred;
4oz good chocolate broken into pieces (I used an extra dark chocolate)
1/2c. butter
3/4c. sugar
1/2c. powdered cocoa
3 eggs beaten
1t. extract of your choice (I used raspberry, but vanilla would be fine)

Heat oven to 300.
Prepare an 8 inch spring form pan, cut a wax paper circle for the bottom and grease the bottom and sides.
In a med. sized glass bowl melt together the chocolate and the butter.
Whisk in the sugar, cocoa and vanilla, when it has cooled a bit whisk in your eggs.
Pour into your prepared spring form pan.
Bake for exactly 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes then remove the pans sides and cool completely .

Ganache-
1c. dark chocolate chips
1/2c. half n half (or cream)
1/2t. vanilla

Put the chocolate in a glass bowl.
Heat the cream in the microwave just to the point of boiling.
Pour the half n half over your chocolate.
Let set for 3-5 minutes, whisk together, whisk in the vanilla.

I let this cool in the fridge until barely warm then spread over the top of my cake.

Raspberry Whipped Cream-
1c. whipping cream
4T. sugar
1t. raspberry extract
1/4c. raspberrries

Whip together the cream, sugar and extract until solid peaks form. Stir in the raspberries and serve over your cake.

This is the first time I have ever had flourless chocolate cake, it was wonderful. When I was looking for recipes there seemed to be 2 ways to make it. This recipe follows the quicker method. I am going to try the longer more involved method next time to see how they compare.

Sparse and Few Between

I may be slow at posting for awhile I have a few things that I am trying to get straightened out, that are cutting in to my blog time, darn real life world!
Mainly car trouble, make that 'cars' trouble, also I am getting signed up to go back to college next fall when Miss M starts kindergarten. So I am getting all my paper work figured out and trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up, no matter what Peter Pan says I guess we all DO eventually have to :)

I have also been getting back into crafting and that is taking up a lot of my time, but I won't complain about that because I am enjoying it. I made the girls some t-shirt gauchos , skirts,& hair bows-

And I have also become addicted to making these little guys-

Amigurumi Pig -AKA- Pinky

Amigurumi Hippo -Aka Baby Hippo

Which are starting to take over my house, they are so cute. I will try to get some tutorials on here for these guys, maybe when I finishes the other 4 I am working on.
So between the crafting joy, and the craziness of my life right now I may not be on the computer as much. I hope everyone is having a great week, I am soooo glad tomorrow is Friday cause I am ready for a little break :)