Pink Knit Hat

I have been trying to go through and knit projects with yarn I have in my stash, to make room for now things I buy or crafting items I'm going to buy, or presents! So every time I finish a project and I know I'm not going to use it, I post it to friends and family to see if anyone wants to buy it. This is one such project. =]

 Fuzzy and pink! 

It's Moda Dea Tutu yarn. I can't find more for sale in this color anywhere, but I had JUST enough! 

And this is my friend Tiffany, who bought it. She loves it! =]

Christmas Presents!! (That I made!)

This year, I vowed to make almost all the Christmas (and birthday) presents that the hubs and I were going to give. So far, I have pretty much stuck to my plan! So here are the presents I made this year! =]

A sign, painted for my dad - the name of his company.

 

 For my mother and father in law, they love Scrabble!

 An earring holder, for my sister.

 A bamboo scarf, for my mom.

 Penguin stuffed animal, for my brother. (inside family joke)

 Angry Birds Bowling!!! =] Yep, I made it! 

Hand-painted dodge ball, hand-painted 2 liter bottles! For my other brother. This is my mom's favorite gift, she loves homemade gifts and she is still ranting and raving about this one. (In a good way!)

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! =]

Christmas Decorations!!

I love Christmas!! Every year I so much look forward to putting up our tree and busting out the decorations! So here are a few pictures of the tree I decorated (Brian puts up the tree and puts on the lights, I decorate it!) and some other things I made for our house.

 O Christmas Tree!! With our gate that we bought (for cheap!) to go around it, to keep our crazy pets out of it, with our stockings.

 Without the gate and stockings..

I took a bunch of our extra ornaments and fills 3 vases we have with them, and TADA! Centerpieces! They would be on our dining room table, if it was finished yet, but it's not.. =] 

And this is our wreath, that I MADE!! It's hanging on our front door, with an A for our last name! =]

Next year I hope to have a few other decorations around our house, but this is more than enough for now! I love our decorations and will sad for Christmas to be over and we have to take them down. =]

Some Christmas Presents! =]

I gave some Christmas presents a little early (my favorite 8 year old, Maddi, is spending Christmas with her dad so she got her presents early, along with the rest of her family!). So I will be showing the presents that they all got from me, plus Macee's first birthday is today, so I'll show her present too. =]

This is an old frame, turned into an earring holder for Maddi. 

This is an old frame, turned into a Sisters picture frame for Maddi.

This is an old frame, turned into a Jackpot frame for Mike&Becky, with 3 spaces for their 3 little girls! 

This is a pink and purple tutu for Makenna.

This is a pink and purple tutu for Macee.

These are matching hairbows for Mak and Macee. The top and bottom are Mak's. The middle is Macee's.

And this is Macee's birthday present! They are shapes cut out of different colors of felt, so she can learn shapes and colors! 

 Maddi, being silly!!

She loved them both!! 

Macee Lorynn!! 

Action shot! So cute! 

 Makenna Grace!

She loved her "skirt and hay-bows" as she called them! Wore them from bath to bed! =]

So these are the presents I have made so far!! After Christmas I will post pictures of gifts for my in-laws, my parents, my brothers, my sister and what I bought for Brian. I'm also about to post another entry with pictures of our tree and a few decorations. =]

Felt Food! First True Paying Customer!

I have completed my first real order for my first true paying customer and I could NOT be more excited about!! I will be mailing it out tomorrow, but since I am pretty sure she doesn't read my blog (and I have been showing her a sneak peak pic) I think it's safe to post it on here. Yay!!

2 pancakes, 2 eggs, 4 pieces of bacon.

6 raviolis and red pasta sauce. 

1 apple and 1 orange.

2 slices of watermelon.

1 corn on the cob with removable husk.

3 carrots.

6 counting cookies, numbered 0-5.

1 sandwich! Includes -

2 pieces of bread and .. 

1 slice of tomato, 1 piece of lettuce, 1 piece of lunch-meat, 1 slice of cheese.

And one whole pizza!! 

Just a different view of the pizza. 

I'm so happy with how everything turned out!! I am super excited for her to get the food and for her son to get it for Christmas! I'm even contemplating listing all my felt food on facebook for other family and friends to order. Ok, now I'm going to take a much needed break! I spend the majority of my day reading a great book, but I also spent about 3 hours sanding my dining room table and it's FINALLY FINISHED!! I'm going to go buy paint this week!! Yay me!! =]

Scarf for my bestie!!

I knit this super soft and warm scarf for my best friend last weekend. Her birthday was Saturday, and I have been so wrapped up in Christmas presents that I forgot to get or make her a gift. I had told her recently that I would make her a scarf, so I went through my stash and found a great deep red yarn that I love!

It turned out so soft and squishy, I love it!! Not going to lie, I almost kept it for myself. But I knew she would love it, and I told her that if she didn't like it she could send it back to me!! (She loves it, YAY and darn, all in one. lol)

I used to skeins of this yarn, so great! Size 10 needles, it took me only 2 days to completely finish, I had it in the mail Monday afternoon. Not bad for starting it Friday night! Once she takes a picture of herself wearing it, I will post it here too.

I'm alive!!

This is what I had for breakfast, homemade cinnamon rolls. YUMMY!! =]

I have been working my little tushie off sewing all this felt food for an order!! I will post pictures as soon as I send it off. A friend of mine ordered a set of felt food for her son, for Christmas. It all turned out so super cute!!
I had been only working on the felt food, so not that it's done, I have other projects that I'm working on. I'm in the process of making my Christmas list of gifts that I'm getting/making for family and friends. I actually think that besides my wonderful husband, I am making almost EVERY single gift that we are giving this year. I'm super excited about it!! =] As soon as I get this food mailed out, I will be back to post more pictures. I will also get online sometime before the end of the week (hopefully) and post some pictures of my on-going projects right now. More soon!! =]

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!!

I made cinnamon rolls from scratch this morning!! They were so freaking yummy!!!! 

These are fresh out of the oven. I followed this amazing recipe that I found online a few days ago. 

Then I whipped up a little icing using butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk.

My hubby and his friend were both here just as they were coming out of the oven, and at first, my hubs thought that I had just added some things to regular refrigerated cinnamon rolls. He was amazed when I said that I made the from scratch.

I have gotten nothing but yummy noises from both of them as they chowed down on these yummy, oh so yummy, cinnamon rolls! I have already been requested to make them next time friends come over in the morning. =]

Homemade Pumpkin Puree

I made my own pumpkin puree!! It looks, smells and tastes great!! Here is what I did -

First, I bought 3 small-ish pumpkins. These are called pie pumpkins or sugar pumpkins at my local Whole Foods. Plus, they were on sale! Perfect for roasting and puree-ing.

I cut each pumpkin in half, scraped out all the "guts" and seeds. I didn't get all the little stringy things out, but I got the majority of them.

I flipped each half upside down in a pan, then put between 1/4" to 1/2" of water in the pan. I was told to roast the pumpkins in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes. My oven apparently didn't agree with that. The first pumpkin I didn't put upside down in the pan with water, it was roasted at 350 degrees for almost 2 hours and it still wasn't completely tender. The 2nd one was roasted like the picture for 1 hours and 15 minutes at 350 degrees and was closer to tender, but not quite completely done. The 3rd one I roasted like the picture at 400 degrees for 45 minutes and it was perfect!!

Here is what it looked like coming out of the oven. It smelled lovely, the skin was wrinkled and the pumpkin was fork tender.

Both of the halves, flipped over. You can see some of my fork marks. Super soft pumpkin, nice golden yellow color..

The skin almost completely peeled off, I only had the cut it off around the top and the bottom. I cut the pumpkin up and puree-ed it in my blender. I don't have a food processor, but the pumpkin already had so much moisture in it, I didn't have to add any water. It was just a little more difficult to make in the blender, because the bottom of it where the blades are is so much smaller, but the puree came out amazing!!

This is the 3rd pumpkin!! It made a full-sized butter container of puree. Yummy!

These are the 1st and 2nd pumpkins. They were a little more water-based, but still good. I stuck the container in the fridge, waited until it was nicely cooled and then drained the excess water off the top. Yum, yum, yum!!

Here are my guts and seeds! I followed this link to make roasted pumpkin seeds. Great snack!! =]

They came out great!!

I also went ahead and baked with my pumpkin puree last night, but I'm going to do a different post in the next couple days with my own recipe I made up! =]