Ruffle Scarves

I came across Red Heart’s Boutique Sashay yarn at my local Michael’s store and thought it looked pretty cool, but, I had no idea how to use it – it’s a fishnet yarn that creates ruffles as you knit or crochet with it. So, after watching a few video tutorials and finding a pattern for a scarf I was ready to try out this new yarn.

 

With my first attempt at making the scarf I started by casting on 10 stitches, but, as I was going along I soon realized that the scarf was going to be a bit too puffy for my liking.

So, I started over by casting on only 8 stitches and was much happier with the final result. Using only one ball of yarn and knitting every row I ended up with a pretty cool looking scarf.

I’ve actually made a few more in different colors after a friend saw mine and requested I make her some. Once I realized that it was quicker and easier to work with the yarn by winding it into a ball before knitting, making these additional scarves was a piece of cake.

And in turn she showed hers to someone and they requested I make some for them to give as Christmas gifts. So I have a few colors all wound up and ready to be knitted.

Teardrop Double-Strand Necklace

While going through some papers I found a magazine rip out of a necklace that I liked and wanted to make – a long gold-tone necklace with semi-precious teardrop gems and pearls. I didn’t have those exact components, but, I did have blue/yellow swirl glass teardrops and gold seed beads. While I did have glass pearls as well I didn’t like how they looked with the teardrops and seed beads. So I opted to go with coral glass oval beads which I found at my local Joann’s.

My supplies.

I got to work on making the necklace and decided to place six size 10 seed beads between alternating teardrop and oval beads using gold beading wire. I made two of these strands in different lengths and attached them to a double-strand toggle.

And here’s the finished product.

 

Unfortunately I wasn’t too happy with how it came out. I didn’t like how the necklace was hanging with the double-strand toggle. Also, my strand length wasn’t proportioned well between the two strands so I felt that the longer strand was too long. And finally, the seed beads I used weren’t the best quality so the gold tone began to rub off. So, I decided to make the necklace again.

This time I used TOHO Size 11 Gold Seed Beads that I got at my local Michaels store. I’ve used TOHO seed beads in the past and have never had a problem with them fading so I knew they were a safe bet.

I got to working on the necklace once again and opted to use a single strand toggle this time in hopes that the necklace would hang better.

I was much happier with the necklace the second time around. Using a single strand toggle meant crimping both strands together which provided the weight for the necklace to hang better. To correct the problem of the strand length I decided to leave the shorter length as is and removed two each of the teardrop and oval beads and twenty-four of the seed beads.

Croissant Bread Pudding

A few months ago I went out to dinner and for dessert I had Croissant Bread Pudding and it was delicious. Since then I have been wanting to try to make it myself. I finally got around to it this past weekend. I normally make Panettone Bread Pudding so I pretty much knew how to make it, but, I made a few tweaks to make the recipe my own.

My ingredients were pretty simple: Croissants, Eggs, Heavy Whipping Cream, Sugar, Cinnamon, Vanilla Extract and Rum soaked Golden Raisins.

I started off by slicing nine croissants in half and tearing up the bottom halves and placing them in a greased glass baking dish – I usually just use Baking Cooking Spray. I then placed the top halves right on top.

 

I started making the custard by whipping together the eggs and sugar until they were combined.

I then added in the heavy whipping cream, cinnamon, vanilla extract and the raisins along with the rum they were soaking in.

Once that was all combined I poured the mixture over the croissants and pressed them down with a spatula to ensure that they would soak up all of the custard. I let this stand for about 15 minutes before placing it in a 350 degrees F preheated oven.

Since I was completely winging this I was a bit unsure of the baking time. I started off by baking it for 30 minutes covered with aluminum foil and then removed the foil and baked it for an additional 15 minutes. When I took it out the oven it didn’t seem like the custard was completely set so I placed it in the oven for an additional 15 minutes and that did the trick.

After it cooled I was eager to see if my “experiment” came out well and I am happy to say it did. My friends (aka taste testers) agreed as well.

I am sure I will be making this again, but, with a few changes. I think that instead of throwing all of the raisins in with the mixture I will layer some of them between the torn pieces of croissants and the top halves. Also, I think I will start off by baking it covered for 45 minutes and then removing the foil for the final 15 minutes.

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every year around Christmas time I do what I like to call “marathon baking.” Basically for about two days straight my oven gets a good workout with me baking up different types of cookies and other treats. My staples are Rugelach, Linzer Tart and Peanut Butter cookies, but, every year I like to try one or two new cookie recipes. Last year my newest addition was Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies after a friend of mine saw them being whipped up on a cooking show on the Food Network. When I checked out the recipe it sounded easiest enough – not so easy was finding Malted Milk Powder. I went to three different supermarkets before I finally found it and then randomly saw it one day at my neighborhood Target. This past weekend was said friend’s birthday so I decided to bake up a batch of the cookies once again since she liked them so much the first time.

Here’s my batter all whipped up and ready to go. You can’t really see it in the picture, but, I was testing out a new spatula that I bought at Sur La Table – it’s curved on one side and flat on the other so it’s supposed to be better at scraping the sides of bowls and I will say it worked pretty well. On a side note, at the mall I normally shop at the Williams & Sonoma closed and a Sur La Table opened. I finally ventured in a few weeks ago and signed up for email updates and in turn received a $10 coupon which I put to good use this weekend by purchasing this Spatula, a Better Batter Whisk and an Icing Spatula. All of which were on clearance so I ended up only paying about $2.

My batter is laid out and ready for baking – this is actually were I messed up last time when I made these cookies. The directions specifically say that you need to leave ample space between each cookie since they spread out considerably during baking, but, I overlooked that part and ended up having to separate all of my cookies.

When my first batch came out of the oven I still had the problem of them being stuck together and I also noticed that they were a bit too brown so I opted to bake my remaining batches at 9 minutes as opposed to 10 minutes.

My remaining batches were much better, but, although the directions say to place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet I think the next time I make them I will either lightly grease the sheets or use parchment paper. It was a bit of a struggle to get the cookies off the sheets once they cooled for a few minutes.

 

Here all of the cookies cooling before I placed them in a tin.

They were super yummy…. I’m sure I’ll be making them again!

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011 Ree Drummond, All Rights Reserved

Prep Time: 15 min

Inactive Prep Time:  —

Cook Time: 10 min

Level: Easy

Serves: 36 cookies

Ingredients  

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup golden brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 whole eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup (rounded) malted milk powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

One 12-ounce bag milk chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cream the butter, then add both sugars and cream until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat slightly, then add the vanilla and beat until combined. Add the malted milk powder and beat until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the butter mixture, beating gently until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir in gently.

Drop by teaspoonfuls (or use a cookie scoop) on an ungreased baking sheet, leaving plenty of space between the cookies (they spread out quite a bit). Bake for 9 to 11 minutes. The cookies will be very flat and very chewy. Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan with a spatula.

Optional: Allow to cool completely, then use 2 cookies to make an ice cream sandwich. Add sprinkles to the sides of the ice cream, then wrap individually in plastic wrap.

Banana Nut Bread

I have never a big fan of Banana Nut Bread. The few times I bought it it tasted a bit artificial to me. But last summer when some bananas I had started to overripe I decided to try out a recipe I came across on the internet. Recently when some bananas I bought couldn’t withstand the heat of the summer and started to ripen a little too quickly I decided to bake up two loaves to put them to good use. I prefer my bananas to be yellow with a tad hint of green to them. And yes I know that’s not the optimal time to eat them but for some reason I just cannot stomach them otherwise.

The overripe bananas.

They didn’t look like much once they were mashed up.

After creaming together the butter and sugar then adding the eggs and the dry ingredients my batter was pretty thick.

But once I added in the mashed up bananas my batter turned into something that was easily pourable into my prepared pans.

  

And after a little over an hour in the oven both of my loaves were ready and I must say they tasted delicious.

Favorite Banana Nut Bread

From About.com

Cook Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter or Margarine*

2 Cups Sugar

4 Eggs

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

2 Teaspoons Baking Soda

4 Cups Flour

6 Large Bananas, very ripe, mashes

1 Cup Finely chopped Pecans**

Preparation

Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift dry ingredients together; add to creamed mixture. Stir in bananas and chopped pecans.

Pour banana nut bread batter into 2 well-greased loaf pans; bake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. This banana nut bread recipe makes 2 loaves.

*I opted to use butter

**Instead of pecans I used walnuts

Seed & Cone Earrings

I came across an earring pattern – known as the Taos Earrings – while searching through the different projects available on the Artbeads website. They looked simple to make and offered the option of being able to combine different colors which meant they would be extremely versatile to wear.

First things first I picked out the four colors I wanted to use. Being that I only had silver bead cones in my beading supplies I was limited to colors that would look good with silver. Since its summer time I opted for bright colors.

Next, I strung the beads on my thread. Since I wanted the earrings to have a little dimension to them I opted to string a different amount of seed beads on each of the threads. Afterwards I looped the thread through a crimp bead and crimped it.

  

I then used an eye pin to loop through the thread, put the bead cone on and then using the straight wire portion of the eye pin created a loop and wrapped it around the bead cone to ensure it would stay in place. I used a fish hook earring finding to hang my creation and voila it was done. In total both earrings took me less than 30 minutes to make.

While I liked how they came out, I wasn’t too keen on the colors once they were done. So, I decided to make another pair using colors that weren’t as bold.

  

Colorful Cake Pops

Earlier this year a few friends and I bought vouchers to take a Cake Pop class. After some scheduling mishaps we finally took the class this past weekend. While the place was less than desirable we still had a fun time nonetheless and all learned how to make a new treat. Although, I think I’ll be tweaking the directions the instructor gave us when I attempt them on my own.

I ended up making a total of nine colorful cake pops. I stuck with the simple technique of dipping them in thinned-down dyed frosting and putting sprinkles on them as opposed to some of the fun creations my friends made. I’m sad to say that I actually didn’t try them after my friends tried some of their “casualty” pops – they fell off the stick before or after being dipped into the frosting – and they said that they were really sweet. While I do love my sweets anything overly sweet is just not my cup of tea. And considering the amount of frosting we used to bind the cake together in order to make the balls for the pops and then dipping them in frosting I was sure that they were a super sugar rush.

Craft Fair

A few weeks ago I participated in my first craft fair. While I didn’t sell as many pieces as I would have liked, it was a fun time nevertheless. I spent the weekend with good friends and it was learning experience for future shows I may participate in.

A full view of my entire collection.

A nice assortment of earrings and bracelets.

A full range of necklaces.

A close-up view of my Swarovski crystal pieces.

In preparation for the fair I was feverishly working to get earrings, necklaces and bracelets done. Below are a few pieces that were among my favorites.

Crystal and Seed Bead Wave Bracelet – Made with fuchsia crystals and yellow-tones seed beads.

Flat Even-Count Peyote Bracelet – Made with transparent ivory, turquoise and topaz 1.5mm cube beads stitched in a haphazard pattern. I used an actual button for the clasp.

Pink & Gold Necklace.

Freshwater Pearl Necklace with Crystal accents – I actually saw a similar necklace in a recent issue of Stringing magazine but it was strung from silk cord. I initially did use silk cord but didn’t like the way the necklace fell so I opted to use gold chain instead.

Glass Pearl Beaded Ball – This was an experiment gone right. I normally make beaded balls using crystals but saw it one day made with glass pearls so I decided to give it a try and was very happy with the outcome. Up close the ball almost looks like it’s comprised of small flowers.

Forty-Two Squares

I recently finished a baby blanket for a friend of mine whose baby girl is due later this summer. While I started back in April, which did give me plenty of time to finish it before her baby shower, I of course got sidetracked while working on it and was working feverishly the week before her shower to finish it up. I basically had all of the squares done; I just needed to stitch them all together.

I used the crochet pattern Beginner Crochet Baby Afghan from the Lion Brand wesbsite as a basis for the blanket but made a few tweaks. Instead of using the yarn they suggested – Lion Brand Jamie Yarn – I opted to use Bernat Softee Baby Yarn which was the same weight as the Jamie yarn and available at my local craft store. Also, instead of each square being 13 rows I opted to make them 17 rows.

The colors I used were Mango, Soft Peach, Soft Red, Soft Fern and Antique White.

While the pattern called for only 20 squares after crocheting up the initial 20 I felt that the blanket would be too small so I opted to add more. In total I had 42 squares to stitch together. Before beginning to stitch them together I laid out the squares to ensure that I would be following the pattern correctly.

After a few hours on a few days the blanket came together.

I was happy with how it came out and with the tweaks that I made. Maybe one day I will follow a pattern perfectly but sometimes throwing in a few changes can make such a difference.

A Colorful Assortment

A yarn and bead shop near me had a closeout on their entire bead inventory so I took the opportunity to stock up on some bead colors that I normally don’t gravitate towards – different shades of blues are always a sure bet with me. And while I did buy some blues, I was happy with the other colors I picked out as well.
 
Then it came time to put these new colors to good use.
 
The blue wave bracelet was made by starting with a five bead ladder stitch and then embellished with curves consisting of Swarovski Crystals and Size 8, 11, & 15 size seed beads. The double curve bracelet was made with Tila beads (flat square beads that have two holes) and size 11 and 15 seed beads. It was my first time working with Tila beads and while I was looking forward to using them I doubt they will become one of my favorites to work with. I didn’t care for how flat the bracelet was once it was finished. And finally, the earrings are made by starting with a ladder stitch of bugle beads and size 11 seed beads then embellishing it with size 8 and 11 seed beads. I like how these earrings look, but, I just find making them to be way too time consuming.