Day 66: I FINISHED A KNITTING PROJECT

I finished my knitting project.  I am stalled on the closure or if I will even use on.  It is SOOOOO soft (baby alpaca, oooh, aaaahhhh) and I love the little shiny sequins that could almost be missed.  I might add some sleeves after consulting my knitting guru.  These pictures make me look a bit frumpy, and at 9:30 at night, I don't desire to have more pictures taken.  I am just glad my project is done.  I always feel good after a longer project finishes.....but now what?  My mom is in town this week as it is her spring break and we are sure to craft and bead some.  Stay tuned for shiny projects this week!  My mom always has shiny projects!

Day 65: MICE! and I knitted all day....

I had dreams of posting my knitting progress, but despite my best efforts, I am about 4 inches from finishing the whole project.  So you all can see it in its gloriousness tomorrow.  For today, the only other thing I accomplished (besides bed rest for screwing up my back with ambition) was making mice cookies (from the Martha Stewart Cookies app on my iPad) with my own two little mice.  If you look closely enough at the mice my kids made, you will see somewhat of a freak show....there are some with wings, almond spines like a dinosaur, and one poor unfortunate mouse has two heads and no rear end.....not good.  My little mice look pretty square in comparison....very square indeed.  The red tails are because I refuse to actually eat licorice flavored stuff.  Bleh!

These are the only allowed guests in my kitchen of the rodent type....all others better be prepared to deal with my very lazy cats......or me and my antiquated screaming and broom bashing....sorry.  I have two irrational fears....mice....and dentists.  The are irrational, I know.....but my childhood cat was a great mouser and used to try to train me by bringing half dead mice into my lap....or worse yet, bestowed upon my pillow while I was sleeping......thank you Sylvester....but EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Day 64: Bummer Back Day

I did make an enormous egg bake for a baby shower (25 people celebrating Baby House/Gritton), and I did make a card for the momma to be, and I did mange to pull my back with the activities of the morning. So blogging a cute little project is OUT OF THE QUESTION! No pictures today as the computer for doing that sort of thing is in the basement, so iPad notes are all I can offer today......how about I share my recipe for egg bake!?!?

Ingredients: (keep in mind that i don't measure and this is really my Grandma Gibson's recipe with a fe changes)

9 eggs
1 1/2 cup moo juice (milk=)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp mustard powder....i just sprinkle
1/2 cup cream cheese, softened or whipped (this is my addition since a chef in the family showed me how to keep scrambled eggs moist by putting in cream cheese right at the end)
Sometimes i add other spices, chives, oregano, paprika, chili powder, just about anything goes

Beat all of this mess together and pour into a 8 by 8 pan (you can go larger, but i like deep eggs...they are usually more moist)

Add in three slices of bread (I prefer pulling off small chunks of crusty French bread)

This is the time to put in additives....mushrooms, onions, chopped cooked bacon or sausage

Sprinkle with 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese of your choice (i usually use the full two cups that come in a typical bag of cheese)

Cover and refrigerate overnight (the egg mix needs to soak into the bread....it will expand some so be sure you aren't filled to the top of your pan, or use a bigger pan to hold all your additives)

Bake covered with foil at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to one hour....make sure the center is set, but not dry......then eat.....YUM!

Tomorrow, I will add a photo of my knitting progress. Does this count as a creative day?

Day 63: Thrifty Glass Plates

 I bought these 8 glass plates (salad sized, not full sized) at Value Thrift for $0.69 each....and then used a 25% off coupon that my friend Kristin had for use on Thursdays.  They weren't nicked or scratched at all, and I added flowers (cut out on my CRICUT) to the bottom of each plate in a variety of blues patterns.  All of the papers were also double sided as I think the bottom should still be pretty.  I used my usual Diamond Glaze, and went to town!
 I decided that the flower wasn't enough on its own.  The papers on top were mostly subtle prints, so I added some glitter too.  YEAH!  GLITTER!

This is my son's bead sale that he set up in the basement this evening.  I bought a seed bead ring he made and a couple of other beads too.  He is too funny.  The store is now "clost" for the evening.









Here is a picture I took of a plate held up to the light on the ceiling fan....pretty interesting.  I might do something with that......things that make you go hmmmm......






I am also linking up here to feature creative blogs this weekend!

Day 62: Value Thrift Store Skirt-to-Purse

  I made my maiden voyage today to Value Thrift Store and found many new OLD supplies to tinker with. I will post them as I go...my project tonight was taking a cute little "crotch" skirt (and YES it was THAT SHORT) for $6 and turning it into a purse with three large pockets. I lost a lot of my glitter as I was working with it, but I will just get my glue on tomorrow and fix that problem! I will also add some big decorator snaps to the inner pocket so two of the three pockets will up up on the side too! The skirt came lined with a simple brown fabric, so I didn't have to line it myself! I will likely add some embellishments over the next couple of days too! On to the little jeans "crotch" skirt tomorrow!  More thrift store make-overs to come!  Thanks again, Kristin, for the field trip today!  It was a great day!  NOW I GO TO SLEEP!   ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The bag is much more brown than it looks in the pics....the button really does match it, I promise!

I love pockets!  So rather than have one wide purse with the only pocket, I folded the skirt in half and now it is small, cute, and has pocketSSSSSS!

Day 61: Pottery Field Trip and Knit Madness

Today, I showed up for my pottery class (I usually take Tuesday nights with Sandra-my-favorite-pottery-teacher, and found the late night class to be too hard on me so I switched to Wednesday mornings with Sandra-the-same-teacher-as-my-favorite-Tuesday-night-teacher) and they said, "Hey, we are going on a field trip to Northern Clay Center." To which I reply with enthusiasm SQUEEEL WITH JOY!  I am then completely worn out less than two hours into the field trip, but I wanted to share these two potters' work with the masses.  If you are potters or just love pottery, check out their sites!  Well worth the gander!

I am having problems uploading pictures tonight....something about having used up my allowed space????  I probably have to go in and re-size all my photos already in the blogs since January 1??  Okay today (March 3) I got one picture up, but I also have to wait 24 hours before the larger deleted photos are really off of my file and then I can replace them with these re-sized ones.  BAH!  Learn something new every day!  Okay, later same day, all pics are up! =)

Steven Rolf, River Falls, WI

So, my two web links are:
Steven Rolf's work at http://www.scrolfpotter.com/Gallery.html
Michael Wisner's work at http://michaelwisnerpottery.com/section/163949_Michael_Wisner_Pottery.html

I saw a cake plate of Steven's that I would make cake every day just to use!  It looked and felt like wood, was light weight with substantial visual weight.....I love LOVE the flow of his pieces....but still pretty tight like I like it!

Michael's work on display at Norther Clay Center was closely related to those shown on his website.  All of those patterns are craziness with the geometry and the folding around shapes.  I just wanted to rub them like a worry stone!!!!!!

Baby Alpaca Fiber with this LOVELY string of copper sequins worked in.....I can't wait to finish it!

I also have an excellent photo of my knit-in-progress which I can't post either....but it is not 10:39 and I am way past negotiation phase with the techno-gods.  For now, just know it is cool, and yes, in progress as it will be for a while I think!

Day 60: Little Girl Games with Big Girl Supplies

I have been thinking lately about child crafting that with high quality supplies are quite charming and appealing.  For example, I have seen beautiful origami crane earrings folded out of precious metal clay "paper" and then fired.  This "friendship bracelet" is great for any adult playing fancy dress-up when using beautiful fibers and colors.  Can you bloggers/readers/followers think of any more?  Post comments for brainstorm on this one!  I am sure you all have great ideas out there!

Okay, my mom turned me on to this idea (she did a class using these Japanese foam card things to make patterned weaves) and I then found a foam thingy in my daugher's friendship bracelet making kit.  Isn't this a great texture and variations are of course infinite.  I started this one AFTER the kids got in bed, and here I am blogging about it less than two hours later.  I spent my day resting, napping, and knitting, and then went "BAH, BLOG" and started a finish-able craft for this entry.  I used a link from the metal belt I broke apart.  I haven't figured out the closure yet for a necklace, but I will get there.  Probably sterling caps?  I like the highly finished look over the shappy-chic ribbon ended thing.  However, I just used some of the fiber that I have been adding to my pouches, and I am THRILLED with the end product!  I suspect, I will end up calling up my good friend Amy (I actually have TWO good friends both named Amy who both sell Silpada jewelery) and find a larger, heavy sterling pendant that I can use with a variety of these woven necklaces.  My mom is bringing up supplies on her spring break as well as she has made these covered with beads!  Oooh, ahhh!

Pretty pretty