a dainty pink rose

yada yada yada

a yellow rose

again from my dad's rose garden. including a lovely bug in the top right hand corner.

a white rose

with a nice little shadow. again from my dad's rose garden.

Reverisble Bird Seed Skirt GIVEAWAY

Reverisble Bird Seed Skirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

again, very cute. i am glad i have a little girl so i can keep entering these giveaways...

A rose garden

Since i am going to be busy this week, i thought i would throw up pictures i took from my dad's rose garden...

first off, my wedding rose:


my dad planted this rose when i had my reception in his backyard. it was very pretty.

hmmm....cookies.....

off the back of reese's peanut butter chips:

Reese's Chewy Chocolate Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
3.4 cup Cocoa
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) butter softened (not too sure about that, think I would reduce the amount of butter)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups (10 oz pkg) Reese's Peanut Butter Chips


1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Stir together flour cocoa baking soda and salt. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with mixer until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in peanut butter chips.
3. drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes. (do not overbake, cookies will be soft.)

about 4 1/2 dozen cookies.

this makes very, very good cookies. but i definitely would use less butter.


tags: cookies

pretty flowers all in a row

well not in a row. that's why i plant wildflowers so i don't have to keep them straight. and i think i will try planting more wildflower seeds in that bed in the fall, see if that doesn't help with getting more flowers to grow...

hooter hider vs. blankets....

i have been pondering this for awhile, since I have been making them to support my craft addiction. when i had just had isaac, and i was carrying around blankets all the time anyway, i didn't really use/need my hooter hider. During the winter, especially, i always had a blanket on hand, and it didn't matter that the blanket was warm. Now that it is summer, i use it more often. it is lighter than a blanket, making more comfortable for the baby to nurse under it. it is smaller (i.e. thinner) and can be folded and placed in a diaper bag or purse without making it too bulky, so no need to carry around something extra. The clincher is that now isaac is old enough to know that something is covering and old enough to not like it and old enough to do something about it. He grabs and pulls on the hooter hider to no avail. take that baby. no more flashing mom in public.

i forgot to say another bonus for the hooter hider vs. the blanket...probably the most obvious one of all...you can see the baby as you are trying to get them to latch on. much easier than ducking underneath the blanket. and you don't get funny looks.

i guess the key to either the hooter hider or the blanket is to make sure that they are big enough that you are comfortable.

how the chemical elements have washed...

if you remember when i made shirts out of fabric that i printed designs on and were curious how they washed, the answer is better than i expected, but not as good as i hoped. the pink letters got a little splotchy.

unfortunately, i made them on my machine, not my mother's, since i need to get used to sewing on mine again-- because she came back from her mission and will want her machine back soon. and my machine has issues. if you are sewing together two pieces of cotton together with a straight stitch, you should be fine. though sometimes the tension will slip. and then you scream at the top of your lungs in frustration. and fix it and fix it and fix it again. and forget about sewing anything slick. or many layers. that's why i am glad my mom didn't want her machine back right away... and why i need to be hurrying with all of my projects and try to finish them...

anyway, the blues and the dark colors have washed ok.

the big red button

productiveness? not here.

yet another hooter hider...

if you really want to know why i make a plethora of hooter hiders, here's why.

for a lady in illinois this time...

normally, there are ladies who man the fabric cutting table, but for this time, a gentleman cut my fabric. he was saying that he liked this fabric, but he could only make only so many pairs of boxer shorts. got me thinking how hard it is to sew or make anything for men. baby boys are a little bit easier, but not much.

if i were a rich man...

la di ladi ladi ladi ladi ladi la

anyway, to add to my list of what i would buy if i had spare benjamins floating around. I really like this idea of putting your children's artwork in a collage though i doubt i ever will have enough spare money to do that for all of my children.

in a completely different tangent, i thought this was funny. though you might have to be a mormon to get it.

before it's gone

be sure to watch Dr. Horrible! it is only going to be available for free until tomorrow. i thought it was pretty funny. doug had to avert his eyes a couple of times, though.

fruit salad, yummy yummy

doug brought this to a potluck. we got this idea from a girl who brought it to another potluck when we lived in another state. i thought it was a cute, fun idea.

so did doug, who did the carving. (anything with knives, and he is all over it.)

a reversable pinafore

got the idea here

i got my pattern by tracing an existing dress and adding seem allowances, but i should have tried the dress i was using for a pattern on mallory first... after i was done cutting out the material, mallory wanted to try it on, and i couldn't pull it over her head. oops.

luckily i made it as a pinafore, so i can at least get it on. it's just a little tight around the neck.

pinafore, pt 2

here's the reverse side.

she's been doing this shrugging thing and grinning when i ask her to smile for the camera. silly girl.

a closeup of the aunt carma bow. she actually has four that would work with the dress, think of what fun hair you could do with that.

german techno rubber duckie

from the fourth of july celebration

 

i was trying out my fireworks setting on my camera. pretty interesting, though not what i expected.

i learned from my brother (the chemist) that purple fireworks are the hardest to make. remember flame tests in high school chemistry lab or the chemistry teacher putting pure sodium in water? kind of makes me want to be a chemistry teacher..

this is an interesting site that goes into more detail about the colors of fireworks.

a real microbe of unusual size

just in case you were wondering about a giant bacteria that you can see with the naked eye. very cool. at least look at the description of the name.

i think i found a new favorite site. just when i was thinking i was getting over my nerdiness...

Ice Cream Social Frock Giveaway

Ice Cream Social Frock Giveaway!!!!:
am really impressed. when i make something, i have a hard time giving it away. and look how cute it is!

I'm Crazy

Crazy for being so lonely...

actually i am very relived to have it out of my living room. I read somewhere that crazy quilts were termed such because you were either crazy to make one, or that they made you crazy by the time you finished them. both descriptions are apt.

the other side. I gave this to my sister last year for christmas. actually got it finished in early June of this year. I think Douglas Adams said that he loved the sound that deadlines made as they rushed by.

the fabrics i used for the crazy parts are scraps from my mom's stash. the yellow hat fabric is from a skirt that my sister made for 4H.

a close up of my biggest boo boo. my first quilt i would have unpicked it and fixed it. by the time i reached this point, i could have cared less. sorry sister.

i also saw red when cutting all the threads off. so i took it with me and made my family (including the sister who i was giving it to) help cut threads. and i used my mil's washer and clothesline to wash it. what great family to be abused.

pi

I finally finished the blanket for baby jael. Her mother picked the colors. i liked them because they reminded me of my grandma who used to knit slippers from yarn with these colors.

i used a 4-3-4 ripple pattern and the number of rows of each color was determined by what digit of pi i was on. (so i did 3 rows of the magenta, one row of green, then four rows of magenta, one row orange and so forth.) i was on vacation when i made the last half, the half that i wasn't quite sure what the digits of pi were. i thought it would be quite ironical if i messed up pi...

but luckily for all concerned i remembered correctly.