Happy Leap Day! I can’t believe I made it through this month, making something every day! For my last thing I made a tummy warmer. Apparently these are all the rage in Japan? I saw them yesterday on neatorama. Trying to figure out more about them, I googled around and I found this tutorial at Planet June. She did a great job at explaining everything, and mine came out great.
Since my waist is much smaller than my hips, I tried to taper mine a bit. It came out alright, but tapering both sides would have been better. I will have to implement that in version 2. I just used a T-shirt that I took out of my free T-shirt drawer (you know that drawer, stuffed with XXL size shirts that you could wear as nightgowns, right?). After I made it, I put a cute little design on it. I found the picture online, printed it, cut out the shapes and used it as a stencil. I filled it in with silver puff paint, “painting” it on in a thin layer with a q-tip.
I might re-use the shirt a bleached a few days ago and make it into one of these instead, I think it will look cooler that way. I have to say, I’m wearing this one right now, and I’m pretty toasty! I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did this month!
I made this little dishcloth for today’s thing. It knits up really quick and easy, pretty much all garter stitch. It is worked from corner to corner, so it will always be square no matter how big or small you want to make it. My mom (who has very nice hair (hi Mom!)) taught me how to make these! I just used cotton yarn, with size 6 needles. What I love most about these is that since you can always make more, it doesn’t hurt as much if you really need to toss one because it got gross!
This is the first thing that I’ve made this month that I don’t like. I tried to use a paintbrush to apply bleach to this black t-shirt. In my head, it was supposed to come out all whimsical and pretty, but I think that it just looks blobby and strange. I actually think it looks cooler in the pictures than it does in person. I’ll still wear it around the house and stuff though - it’s still functional. The one cool part is that some of the bleach bled through to the back of the shirt, and it looks pretty neat (and I just now realized I didn’t take any pictures of that!)
This was a really yummy dinner with caramelized onions, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and bacon. The boyfriend invited me over for dinner, but once I got there, I slipped into my bad habit of taking over the cooking. Still, it was a joint effort. We ate this yummy concoction over some egg noodles, it was so good. I can’t wait to have the leftovers, I bet it will be even better after all the flavors sit together overnight.
This post is all about being an overachiever… or not leaving the house all day, I suppose that you can take your pick. To start off the day I made bagels. I’ve never made them before, and I think I should have let them rise a little more, but they still came out yummy. I made 6 - I left two plain, put garlic on two, and cinnamon and sugar on the last two. I’ve already eaten three of them, so I have a feeling these might become a regular feature in my baking routine.
After I ate some bagels, I got back to work on my pants. I finished them off and I’m actually wearing them right now. I love them so much! I hope that I can get the second pair done soon.
I’m also really happy with the way my buttonhole making skills are coming along. I was always scared of buttonholes, so I never used buttons in my sewing until recently. That said, I think I’m getting the hang of it:
And, last but not least, I also finished up the crocheted wrist warmers. Ahhh, now my hands are nice and toasty as I type!
I made this cheesecake for today, but we ate most of it before I remembered to take a picture. It is just a plain cheesecake, with a little bit of orange zest thrown in that gives it just a hint of citrus flavor that makes the sweetness of the cheesecake pop a little. The crust is made from cinnamon graham crackers.
I finally got around to making new pants from the ones that I took apart earlier this month. I wanted to really put a lot of efforts into these, so that they will hopefully last a little bit longer than the last pair. I might even have enough denim left over to make another pair.
Instead of using binding tape, I decided to use some pretty flowered cotton that I had left over from making a dress for my cousin’s daughter. For some reason, little embellishments in clothes like this make me smile, even though no one else can see them. So far, I have the pants basically assembled, with the front pockets in and the fly done. The waistband is assembled and just needs to be attached. That should happen in the next couple of days, and then I’ll have new, excellent pants!
I found this little program called Phun on Neatorama yesterday. I decided to use it to make today’s thing. I’m not too good with it yet, but here is a little screencast of what I made. Making little cars is so fun!
I love no-bake cookies! They are so quick and easy to make, and they taste so yummy with their combination of chocolate and peanut butter. I’ve heard that you can also make a plain peanut butter variety for those that don’t like chocolate (weirdos….), but I’ve never tried that. The best part about no bake cookies though, is licking the “bowl” (a.k.a saucepan) while it’s still warm and mushy!
Here’s the recipe:
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 to 3 cups quick oats
In a saucepan over medium heat combine butter, sugar, cocoa powder and milk. Heat until all the butter is melted and it starts to boil. Heat one minute past boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla. Stir until mostly combined, then add oats. Drop by spoonfuls onto sheets of wax paper. Let cool. Eat!
I made this in MS paint - I forgot how much fun the little spraypaint tool can be. As I kept going with this, it became a little bit obsessive. I started to think about how it looked and it started to feel to me like information overload. Basically, this looks how it sometimes feels in my head, with a lot of thoughts (both those that are unrelated, and those that mesh up with eachother). It’s noisy, it’s confusing, but at the same time, there is something just a little bit nice about it.
Looking at it in a more detached way, however, it physically reminds me of a station on the TV that just has noise, but in color instead of black and white. Noise is the opposite of information coming in though, so that makes it just that much more confusing.
I know, this is a little deep for MS paint, but sometimes you have to just go with it, you know? Tomorrow we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled things.
I decided to finally start on the second wristwarmer… I wasn’t feeling to creative last night, so this gave me a chance to still do my thing, but not have to put a ton of energy into coming up with something new to do. I know, probably not entirely in the spirit of thing-a-day. But, it is still a crafty excursion from the rest of my day. So, here is the progress I made on the second wristwarmer - I just started the increases for the hand.
Continuing with the kid’s craft theme, I also picked up some shrinky dinks at the craft store the other day. I started out just making random drawings, like a pig, lady bug, and a little worm. My roommate’s friend drew an awesome turtle, but unfortunately it didn’t survive the baking. We thought it would make a cute bookmark, but it curled all up on itself.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t realize quite how much they shrink, or how thick they get. It’s amazing - it starts off like a thin flexible sheet, and you end up with a hard plastic. So cool! So, before and after shots:
I made one of them into a necklace:
And then, after looking at them for a little while, I realized that I could make some really cool buttons…. so I did.
I had some fun in the kid’s craft aisle at the craft store the other day. After making it through half the month not buying any new craft supplies I had a lot of fun at the store after payday. First up, Perler beads! I bought a big bucket of them, which came with a few different shaped boards - circle, square, heart, star and hexagon. I just tried out the circle and square first - I got a little obsessive picking out all of the different colors, so I stopped at two designs. The circle reminds me of a sunset, while the square one is just geometrical fun!
I made a birthday dinner for my friend. We had lasagna, salad, yummy bread and to finish it all off, lemon cake with the icing I made earlier. It was all so yummy!
After an incredibly awesome dinner of Brazilian barbecue served on swords, the boyfriend and I made some match rockets. Pretty simple really, just take a paper match (wooden ones don’t work so well) and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil, leaving an overhang past the match head. Fold the overhang over a few times and place in a launcher that you’ve made by bending the center of a paperclip up. Hold a second, lit, match under where the head of the first should be and wait for ignition. Then the match rocket should fly across the room. Act triumphant and do your best mad scientist laugh about how you’re going to take over the world.
The other day, I was sitting at my desk typing away. I was wearing a shirt with 3/4 length sleeves, which I love for doing benchwork in lab (no sleeves to roll up or get dragged through chemicals, yay!), but not so much for working at my desk. My forearms were freezing! So, I know that wristwarmers are the new thing, but I had a need for them now, so I decided to get crackin’ and make some. I have one so far, and I’m not going to lie, it took me WAY more than an hour to complete. But, having jury duty is a wonderful time to get something small like this done. After 4 hours of sitting in one room with a bunch of complete strangers (plus the T ride there and back), I have one wristwarmer.
I’m pretty proud of it for my first real crochet project - I didn’t have a pattern or anything, just my arm and hand as a guide. I’m not sure if the techniques I used are “proper”, but I’m not sure that I care. I made a chain long enough to go around my arm, and then just started single crocheting back into the beginning of it to make a circle. I made a tube, with some decreases to fit along my wrist (which is freakishly small), and then a lot of increases to for the flare of my hand. Actually, I went a little overboard with the increases, so it’s a little puffy, but still, overall awesome. For the thumb whole I picked a spot and made a chain that was long enough to bridge the distance (done while on my hand, the lady sitting next to me looked at me a little strange then…). Then a few more rows around finished it off!
I can’t wait to make the mate, although I’m going to have to wait until I have feeling in my right index finger-tip again - it’s been numb for a while now. Yay for crafting related injuries!
I made this batch of frosting in advance for a cake I’m going to make in a couple of days (be on the lookout for that, I’m sure it will be featured here!). The cake is for a friend’s birthday who I’m making dinner for, hence yesterday’s birthday card. It was just a simple butter frosting, the recipe came from my better homes & gardens baking cookbook. It is very yummy - what, don’t you lick the beaters too?
I made this card out of heavy linen style paper, it’s an almond color, which worked really well with the brown and gold tones of the ribbon. I cut slits in the paper about an inch apart and an inch long, and then just threaded the ribbon through and glued the ends down. I’m totally loving how it came out!
Ok, today’s thing is a present for my cousin’s son. Foam pins of sponge bob and patrick star. Now he can wear them whenever he wants! I made these with adhesive backed foam sheets - I picked up a variety color pack, very handy. I have a lot left over, so I’ll probably make something else out of it before the month is out. The nose of sponge bob doesn’t show up well in the pictures, but he does have one, I swear!
I made this little origami frog that jumps for today. I remember making something similar, but more simple, when I was younger. I couldn’t remember how to do it, so I had to look up instructions, and I found some pretty good ones here. I even made a little video so you can see him in action!
