What? I was paper crafting?

I know right. Paper crafting? What's that? I haven't even touched my paper cutter since I made thank you notes for baby shower gifts in October. My baby girl decided she would come a couple weeks early (THANK YOU, JESUS!), so I missed out on making Christmas cards.

Even so, when someone has a need for paper crafting, I like to help. You pretty much have to show up at my house to make that work though. That's what Laura did last night.

Laura (cake-decorating and paper-crafting Laura) needed to make favors for her brother-in-law's couples shower. The bride-to-be is an equestrian (is that the right term?), so the theme for the shower was "western." Laura made a freakin' kick-ass cake (which hopefully she will let me post a pic here). It has like, red bandana patterned fondant. And a belt buckle. It's awesomeness. Oh right. Paper.

So, I pretty much went through all of my baskets of Stampin' Up supplies, and realized that we were lucky enough to have all of the necessary ingredients for an awesome favor.

Here's what we came up with:

We used the Stampin' Up Top Notes die in the Big Kick for the main piece and stamped a paisley pattern with white pigment ink. A couple of punches and a handwriting font later, we were done. It's time's like these when I'm truly thankful for my craft shopoholism.

Jason's Socks

I finally finished these socks for my husband! He really likes them, although I think he will be stashing them in the drawer until it cools off a bit! Thankfully, he's a good sport and was willing to wear them outside for a few minutes for me to get some pictures!

Willie!

I finally finished the cuteness that I couldn't disclose earlier...the Willie Sweater! Designer Pamela Wynne sold this pattern to raise funds for her tiny dachshund puppy who needed surgery. When I saw it on her blog, I immediately thought of a little boy who needed such a sweater.

It only took me about a month to knit up, and it was my first try at colorwork. It's not perfect, and I learned a bit for next time, but overall I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I have yarn to make a girly one for my daughter! There are more details here on its Ravelry page.

My New Stash

At MDSW, I was quite successful in finding yarn for several projects I would like to start this year. As a side note, I am also interested in starting several projects that I bought yarn for last year...

Anyhoo--here we go.


Socks that Rock Medium weight by Blue Moon Fiber Arts.


Socks that Rock Silkie by Blue Moon Fiber Arts.
The above two yarns will be combined to become an Ulmus.


Some Brooks Farm mystery yarn. I really have no idea what it is, but it appears to be a super bulky. I'm planning on using it for Serendipity.


Some more Brooks Farm, but this one I can positively identify as Willow, a worsted weight wool/bamboo blend. This was an impulse buy, and I have no idea what I will do with it!

One of the best things about last year's MDSW was our total score on Koigu Painter's Premium Pallette Merino mill ends. By the time we arrived at the vendor, a sad little pile of 20 or so skeins sat there, and I picked out a few girly colors just for the hell of it.

Some Blue Ridge Yarns sock yarn. It's so fun--it comes with a variegated and a coordinated solid to use for the toes and heel! My only other impulse buy of the weekend. I don't really have a plan, but it will likely end up as something from Socks from the Toe Up by Wendyknits.
I also had my first look at Tess' Designer Yarns. I had not visited her booth before, but she really has some lovely stuff. I got some Superwash Merino Lace for trying out on my first lace project, Citron.

Also from Tess, I bought some Superwash Merino (worsted) that hopefully be used for Springtime in Hollis for my baby girl.

I also picked up some Shalimar Yarns Honey Worsted. I LOVED this colorway (called Sonoma), and I'm thinking it will be perfect for a February Baby Sweater. (Sidenote: when I stashed this on Ravelry, the owner of the company asked to use this picture on the yarn's Rav page!)

I also got a ton of Louet Riverstone Bulky in assorted to colors for a few projects that are too cute to divulge at this point. Check back later for details.

OMG, I think that's it! I'm finishing up socks for the hubster and then moving on to the aforementioned too-cute project!

MDSW 2010!

Well, for the second year in a row, I headed up to Maryland for the fiber festival of all fiber festivals, Maryland Sheep & Wool. It was pretty frickin' awesome.

Like last year, I drove up on Saturday morning, so by the time I drove from Durham to Alexandria to pick up Laura P., drove to the Howard County Fairgrounds, and parked (yikes!), it was about 2:30. By this time, we were famished, so our first priority was eating. Lamb.

After round one of eating festival food, it was time to fight the crowds and buy some yarn!

I'm not kidding when I say "crowds." Below is the main exhibition hall around 3:00 pm on Saturday.

It was worth it, because we saw a lot of this:

And this:

But it was hot out. Just ask Laura.

So it was time to get a little of this:

Thirty seconds later, my peanut-butter-dipped-chocolate-soft-serve-cone looked like this:

Then we met some of the locals:

After dropping a bunch of money on yarn to make things I don't have time to make, we headed back to the hotel. Laura P.'s cousin and aunt had come down from Delaware, so we had ourselves an awesome little girls night. You know you're going to have an awesome time when you just go ahead and call a cab to get to where you're going!

On Sunday, we headed back out to finalize our MDSW stash (to be detailed in my next post). We did have time to check out the sheep dog demonstration.

Border collies are amazing. Dogs in general are amazing. I love dogs. (Click photo to view entirely.)

To summarize, we ate, we bought, we conquered. And we got sunburned.

Can't wait until next year!

Finally....a cake!

I took all of those cake decorating classes last spring, and I'm not even sure if I used any of my new skills outside of class! Last weekend, my daughter was baptised, so I decided it was the perfect occasion to resurrect my cake decorating expertise!

I made a two-tiered cake, each tier having three layers. I called it a "Neopolitan" Cake since the layer were chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. That was a big hit! The cake is frosted with real vanilla buttercream and covered in rolled marshmallow fondant. I decorated it with royal icing apple blossoms and used decorator's frosting to pipe my daughter's monogram on the top. My fondant skills were a little rusty, but I was able to cover up imperfections with the apple blossoms!

Digital Scrapbooking

Recently, I decided that I really need to figure how scrapbooking fit into my overall life priorities. With the birth of my daughter, I really have A LOT of stuff that I need to make sure is accurately and beautifully chronicled. However small she may be, another human residing in our 1300 sq. ft. home has really cut down on the crafting space in this house. Therefore, I decided to give digital scrapbooking a go since all I need is my computer to do it.

I purchased the My Digital Studio software from my Stampin' Up demonstrator Paula Hodges. So far, I'm really excited about how it works. Another customer told me that it was similar to MS PowerPoint in use, and I'm finding that to be true. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to digital scrapbook using some free photo editing programs, or Adobe PhotoShop, but My Digital Studio appears to be really user friendly. It all uses all the Stampin' Up colors, punches, stamps, etc., so you can combine it was some actual paper crafting.

Right now I'm working on a photo book of my daughter's first few months and a calendar for my husband and I to use at our offices. Here's a sample of one of the pages I will use for the calendar.

(Excuse some of the lines...things hangover because this will be printed and cropped to full bleed.)

Knitting endeavors

So, it's like totally been forever since I've posted here. I've been a little busy--having given birth and started to raise a daughter and all. I've tried to make some time for knitting though.

I've started a really comfy pair of socks for Jason with my Socks that Rock superwash marino from last year's MDSW.

I've also completely fallen in love with Sarjeet's booties. I made these two pairs for a friend expecting twins. I also made a larger pair for my daughter, and they are SO adorable. Just adorable.

February Lady

My February Lady Sweater is coming along!!! Looks like I'm still on
track for enjoying it this fall :)

Been a while...

I've definitely been neglecting this blog! Our life has been full of home renovations lately, including those that have rendered my craft area unusable. I am going to try to get to those "She's All That" cards like I promised, especially because I need one for a baby shower this weekend!

However, my knitting guru, Laura P., was in town this weekend, so I thought it would be an opportune time to cast on my February Lady Sweater. I am using Brooks Farm Solana that I purchased last May at MDSW. It's difficult to describe how much I love this yarn and how lovely it's knitting up. Just scrumptious!!! I'm trying to get this finished by the end of the month so I can wear it as the weather cools off.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

This past Sunday, I really had an itch to try out a new cookie recipe. What I did not have an itch for, was going to the grocery store. So, I raided my box of baking goodies, and came out with a bag of Andes Candies baking pieces. I also had cocoa powder on hand, so I tried to find a recipe for chocolate cookies that would ultimately lead to chocolately-minty goodness. Thankfully, I came across this recipe.

They came out so nice and flat, that I immediately thought they would make the perfect outer components to an ice cream sandwich. I love it when I'm right.

I Have a Problem

Hi. My name is BigR, and I am a rubber stamp-o-holic.

Yikes! After several weeks of procrastinating, I finally got our office/craft room organized this weekend. It was a task that involved a big mess and a lot of filing, so I had been putting it off by claiming that other areas of the house were much higher priorities. However, this weekend, I really didn't want to go in to work, so organizing the office became a much higher priority. Obviously. (You will start to note that this post is a true Chronicle of Procrastination.)

In the midst of organizing, I started to notice how many Stampin' Up rubber stamp sets I have that have been neither used or mounted! I lost track of how many sets that actually was. I am happy to say that all of my stamps are now ready for immediate use, as I got all of the newbies mounted while watching season 4 of Weeds.

It's been difficult to make going to work after hours a priority, when I have such an urgent need for thank you, birthday, and graduation cards. For that reason, I spent a few hours last night getting reacquainted with my paper supplies and making the following cards:

Since I realized how many stamps I have that I never actually use, I've decided to challenge myself to use all of them. I think this will reintroduce me to what I have already purchased, and get my creative juices flowing for Christmas card design. Stay tuned for the results from my first personal challenge, Stampin' Up! set "She's All That."

Alright. Back to work. Really.

Tiramasu Cupcakes

I'm not sure I can really describe how thrilled I have been with Martha's new cupcake book. I'm so anxious to try every recipe in there!

This past weekend, we were guests at our friends' Italian feast. This was an opportunity to try out a new recipe from the cookbook. I decided to take a stab at Martha's Tiramsu Cupcakes.

The cake part was a dense sponge cake, which to me, sort of seems like an oxymoron. Since the cupcakes are drenched with a syrup made of espresso and Marsala, the cupcakes need to be able to stand up to a bunch of liquid. However, for me, the balance wasn't quite right and I think they need a bit more liquid to more closely resemble tiramsu.

The icing was scrumptious! Whipped cream, marscarpone, and powdered sugar. No problems there at all.

Overall, I think the cupcakes were enjoyed, and I'll try this recipe again.

Course 3 Graduation

After a total of 12 cake decorating sessions at Michaels (Courses 1, 2, and 3 combined), I think I can honestly call myself a cake decorator. I'm sure this falls in the novice to amateur category. The best thing about getting to Course 3 was realizing how easy fondant is to do, and what a finished look you give your cakes.


Here is my final cake from last night. I think it turned out pretty cute, and it sort of looks like a festive Fourth of July hat. The cake is currently sitting on my desk at work until I'm satisfied with the number of compliments I've received. Then I'll take it to the break room so my colleagues can devour it.

Harry Potter Cupcakes!

We had a marathon showing of all the Harry Potter films at our house
this weekend. These cupcakes (chocolate malt cupcakes from MSC) were
tasty, but the Gryffindor vs Slytherin color scheme ended up being a
little Easterish... Tasty though.

I Heart Royal Icing

This week was the third lesson in Wilton Course 3. The entire class was flowers, mostly using royal icing and the lily nail. I'm already a big fan of royal icing. It doesn't taste great, but you can do beautiful flowers that you can take to the grave with you. One could probably make all the royal icing flowers needed for life in a weekend (that is if your hands don't cramp out on you!). In class, we learned the poinsettia (pink), petunia (yellow), morning glory (blue and white), and the Easter lilly (white). These may be making an appearence on my final cake for next week...
We also learned how to do a fondant rose. I can't say that my first attempt at the fondant rose was really outstanding, but I have no pictures to show because the ones I made in class fell on the way home. (Don't feel bad, it was for their own good.) I'm hoping to practice some more of those this week and possibly include them on my final cake.

The Return of Cake Class

Tonight, Laura D. and I are officially halfway through Wilton Course 3 at Michaels. Last week we learned some additional buttercream techniques like lacy fill-ins and the ruffle border (not really a fan).

Tonight, we entered the world of fondant. I love it. Love it, love it, love it. I'm so impressed with the finished look the cake gets. Maybe if I were better at icing with buttercream, I would feel differently, but, fondant is awesome! I was feeling a little cheap this week, so instead of buying the premade fondant at Michaels, I used a recipe for homemade marshamllow fondant.

Here is the square cake, freshly covered with fondant:

The beginnings of the bow....

Finished product!!! (My bow wasn't finished, so there is paper towel in it to help it keep it's shape.) The rest of the cake is decorated with cut-out fondant dots and flowers.
Here is Laura's cake....she made a really pretty Carolina blue cake with dots and a white bow. Pretty!!!

Snickerdoodle Cupcake

Last Thursday, I got my brand, spankin' new copy of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes! Although I was pressed for time yesterday, I really wanted to try out one of the recipes. I went for the one that I had the most ingredients for, but didn't involve messing around with chocolate. So I tried the Snickerdoodle Cupcakes, which are topped with Seven Minute Frosting and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

When I made my Seven Minute Frosting, I was hoping to make it in a way that would completely cook the egg whites. In Seven Minute Frosting, you boil sugar, water, and some corn syrup to 230 degrees, and then pour it slowly into heavily beaten egg whites, and let it beat for.....yes, seven minutes. According to some egg association website, adding the boiling liquid to the eggs only brings the temperature up to about 120 degrees--not a completely safe temperature for all populations. So, if you want to get your eggs to 150-160 degrees before using them for frosting, you can cook the eggs in a double-boiler (I use my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl over a pan of water) while whisking them. I learned (the hard way), that the way to keep egg whites from becoming scrambled eggs over simmering hot water is to add some of the sugar from the recipe. Oops. Now I know for next time.