The last few days have been exhausting~

My sister was having a hard time over-coming an infection and had to be hospitalized.  So I helped watch over my mom's house.  It was like grand central station with all the dang phone calls.  I am so glad we decided to take her in though.  She got so much better better in the 4 days she was there and came home last night.

In the last few days I have come to terms with my emotional eating.  I am totally fine with it because everybody loves cookies and pie.  I can make people feel great under the guise of me licking the beaters.  It's really a win-win situation.  I made cookies from a mix that came from The Dollar Store.  My son and the daycare kids said they were the best cookies ever and they kept telling me all day about how I made the best cookies.  I felt like I had cheated and got all these kudos over something I added two ingredients too.

So I decided to make more cookies.  This time "healthy" 5 grain granola whole wheat flour chocolate chip cookies.  Well I swear kids can smell whole wheat from a mile away.  Kiah wouldn't even try them and even his diabetic grandfather said they tasted too healthy.  Granted they were a bit thick I liked them.

I then felt compelled to make a I am Still Stressed So I need More Chocolate But Also Some Vanilla Pie ~

sorry for the crumby camera phone pic - heehee get it crumby

It consisted of a bottom layer of Nutella, then melted chocolate chips, topped with french vanilla pudding and graham cracker crumbs.  I didn't like it much, way too sweet.  My brother liked it though so hey.

I took a class today with Marah Johnson.  I love her classes because I know I will get my moneys worth.  She teaches you how to get more out of your scrapbooking products and everyday products like paper towels.  Totally eco a girl after my own heart.  I know if I take one of her classes I will come home with my hands stained with all sorts of colors.  Just how I like them.  Plus she always has so many fun products to play with.  This is a scrapbook page I made from the left overs from a class of her's I took a couple of months ago.

I don't usually scrapbook pics of myself, but she signed my paper "Dare to Follow Your Dreams" I figured it would be appropriate.

Well I hope you all have a nice Sunday, I can't wait to sleep in for once.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  We went hiking in a couple local areas over the weekend.  It was nice to get out of the city for a while.  Kiah hates to go anywhere that is out of a 5 mile radius because he gets car sick.  So we took his cousin along to keep him company.

It was quite a hike to get to the swimming hole.  But this is the swimming hole of swimming holes.  It is called the Garden of Eden because the Mount Harmon boys used to swim here naked.  I didn't like having to hike along side the railroad tracks with two kids in tow.  Thankfully the train didn't come by.  The kids had a huge pool to themselves.

Then to the other side there was this huge rock they could jump off of.

We got there about 5pm and by that time everyone was heading back up the trail.  There were only a few sets of people down there while we were there.  Which was nice, I hate to be in crowds of people.

The day before that Chris and I had gone hiking at a local hiking trail.  I don't think I sweat that hard in a long time.  It was quite the work-out.  At least I can say I exercised.

Besides that I have been trying not to focus on our financial state, working on a couple things for a Stampington & Co submission, trying to keep Kiah off of video games, and praying my sister gets better quick. 

I was so excited the other day when one of my photos made it to explore on Flickr.

This week I am not going to do my to-do list since everything is pretty much the same as the last weeks.  Once Kiah starts school again a couple of weeks I hope to be better at getting things done.  Yeah, yeah that's what they all say.

Something to satisfy your sweet tooth~

Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie - From Nick's Kitchen in Downtown Huntington, Indiana.  Courtesy of Country Living Magazine

Makes: 8 slices.  Working Time: 20 minutes  Total Time: 1 hr. 20 min.

2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 3 tablespoons for sprinkling
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (9-inch) store bought pie crust
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1.) Preheat oven to 350 F.  For filling: in a medium bowl, combine heavy cream, flour. brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, milk, and vanilla.
2.)  Fit crust into a 9-inch pie pan and dot bottom with butter.  Pour filling into crust.  Combine cinnamon and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and sprinkle on top.  Bake pie until set and center is firm to touch, about 1 hour.  Cool on wire rack.

What drew me to this recipe is that it has Quaker history and has been around since the early 1800's.  It has also been referred to as desperation pie because it is made with ingredients that were always on hand on throughout the year.  Hope you enjoy it!

Sayonara from my dinner plate.  Don'tcha just love it when your zucchini smiles back at ya!

Sorry this is a rambler~McDonald's Coffee High

 Wow, it's been almost a week since I last posted.  It shouldn't seem so busy. Especially since we only have a couple kids in the daycare.  It has been really hard on my mom and I for the last couple months.   We will have parents come to look at the daycare, but we never get a call back.  I think it is for various reasons: old dog, wanting educational based care, cheaper care.  Whatever it is, we're hurting and wondering if we should even still do daycare.  My mom has been doing daycare for 20 years and I have helped her for at least 13.  I love being able to work with her because it enables me to also care for my son and also my dad's mom.  And who doesn't love working from home (or mom's home).

I have hope that my little online shop will flourish so I can really do what I love and not have to worry about not having very many kids.  And that in lies a bunch of stuff I not sure I can handle. 

I should be jumping up for joy because I finally made another sale.  But instead I felt discouraged, frustrated, and to tell you the truth plain stupid. 

I have been doing a lot of reading on entrepreneurship, Kelly's workshop, Deepak Chopra. There has been a lot of questions like, "If you could do anything, what would it be?", "What is the one main thing that's calling to you?" Or implying it's better to pick one thing to specialize in.  But thinking of just one thing makes me feel like I have Crafter's ADD. My mind jumps from one photo, scrapbook page, vintage item, sewing pattern, clay brick, paint bottle.........I could go on and on.  I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

So as far as etsy goes.  I would like my shop to be like a gift shop of sorts.  Some vintage items here, natural body products over there,  with my other crafty whatevers interspersed.

I became enamored at the possibility of making collaged canvases with the ton of ephemera I have collected over the years.  Some being images that I have cut out of various calendars/books/magazines.  But then came the issue of copyright, since I have no way of remembering who the images are from.  Granted I can just make them for myself but what fun is that.  Copyright laws are so obscure and hard to figure out anyways.  Anyone have any advise or a link to some that are easy to understand?

Lately I have been posting my business-type stuff to-do list here on Mondays as a form of accountability.

1. Practice driving!  (I know I am almost 30)
2. Change shipping on etsy.
3. Fix up shop page- policies, bio, what-nots
4. Work on website
5. Finish up tutorials

 I feel like I can babble on for days but I'll spare ya.

Hope you all have a good week!

This picture above in my take on the Echo challenge - Stripes.  You can visit the group here.

Another page in the book of life~

I hope everyone's weekend went well.  I went to a couple of garage sales and an estate sale and found some
more goodies.  I also finished my canvas I was working on, got the stain out of the vintage dress I wanted to list on etsy, and listed said dress on etsy.  That was my first new posting in months.  I have got to get back in the habit - wait I never made it a habit- that's why I have only had 5 sales. Hmmmm.  I am debating on whether I want to try to sell my canvas or keep it.  I like it because it is a reminder to follow my happiness, but on the other hand, I don't have a place to hang it.  I feel kinda weird trying to sell it, since it was my first and I don't think that it is up to par with the other paintings out there.  But then again that is probably just my fear talking.

Gluing those stars on there was a bitch.  I used gel medium to glue papers on because that is what all the pros use.  Well, I guess I am not a pro because I could not get it to work for me.  The angel/fairy did not want to stay down.  The gel medium would dry so fast.  I think I will stick to mod podge for now on.

I have more goals for this week, some the same, some different~

1. List another item on etsy
2. Gussy up Facebok fan page
3. Work on website
4. Make a signature for blog posts
5. Work on tutorials.
6. Catch up on Kelly Rae's class

All that glitters is not gold......

This is the little precious that almost cost my granny her life.  I fell in love with this clip when I saw it.  Out of the whole estate sale this was the only thing that caught my eye.  I asked how much it was knowing that I didn't have enough; I only had $2.00 on me.  So when the gentleman said $3.00 I figured it was meant to be.  Chris and Granny were standing right next to me,  I looked at Granny and said, "Stay right here!" I ran to the car to scour the seat cushions.  I looked everywhere for change.  Why is it when you don't need it's there, and when you do it's not.  I did manage to find $.50.  When I resurfaced Granny and Chris were by the car.  I ran passed Granny and told her, "Go ahead and get in on this side" (the side away from the street) and ran off in hopes the man would take $2.50 instead.

The next thing I know Chris is yelling all the way across the yard," That piece of garbage is worth more than your grandma's life!"  What, is he talking about?  The man just looked at me and was like "Yeah, just take it."  I felt so bad.  I am still not absolutely sure of what all happened.  But from what I gather is that when I walked away instead of getting in on the side she was already on, she walked into the street without looking while a car was coming and Chris couldn't get out of the car fast enough to stop her.  It caused major drama. Since Granny has dementia we have to watch her carefully. Somehow Chris thought it was all my fault, and I was pissed because going to a couple garage sales is my only time out in the week and he was right there.  And I did say, "Stay Here!" in the first place.  Needless to say she wasn't hit and I still got a treasure and $.50 cheaper the original price. 

Does any one know what it is?  Or seen something similar?  It has sharp hooks on the clip so I don't think it could be a scarf or blouse pin.  I was thinking maybe a money clip but then again the hooks are so sharp.

 I am leaving you all with a quick and easy recipe you can use with a variety of summer fruits.

Cut plum, peach, nectarine, etc. in half taking the seed out.  Put halves in a baking dish, sprinkle with brown sugar and place a little dab of butter in each center.  Place under the broiler and let the sugar brown and caramelize.  Making sure not to let them burn.  Once done place a dollop of ice cream on the top with another little sprinkle of brown sugar.

Yeah, it's almost the weekend.

Linking up to:

I have been a baking fool lately.....

First off I think I found the best chocolate cake recipe.  I am more of a vanilla lover, but this cake may make me cross over.  I made it by altering this recipe I found at allrecipes.com. With over 800 reviews it couldn't go wrong

I altered it by adding coffee and using dark unsweetened cocoa instead of regular unsweetened.

This is their recipe with my changes.

Coffee Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup boiling water
1 cup unsweetened Hershey's Special Dark chocolate cocoa powder
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 1/4 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Grease a 9x13 inch cake pan.  In a medium bowl, pour boiling water and coffee over cocoa, and whisk until smooth.  Let mixture cool.  Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.  Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture.  Spread batter in the 9x13 pan.  Bake for 35-40 min.  Allow to cool.

 

My mom and I made it for my grandmother's birthday.  I was our first time using fondant.  They make it look so easy on those baking shows.  We hand placed each of those damn little pearls all around the cake.

Oh!, I am forgetting the best part the frosting. To use underneath the fondant.

Sweet Butter frosting

Ingredients:

1 pound butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:
Combine everything in a medium mixing bowl.  Mix everything together on low speed until well blended.  Then increase speed to medium for another 3 minutes until totally smooth.

This recipe was actually made by mistake.  I accidentally put in a pound of butter instead of a cup.  At least it doesn't have shortening in it- *gag*.  I like it, but then again one of my all time fav foods is creamed butter and sugar. So it may not be for everyone.  It passed my families inspections though; so all is good.


My goals for this week are pretty much the same as last week.  I had a lot of other things pop up that took presidence over last weeks goal list.  Gotta roll with those punches. 

1. Finish canvas
2. Try to get stain out of dress
3. Vintage Thursday
4. Art Walk
5. Catch up on Kelly Rae's class
6. Gussy up my facebook fan page

This is the vintage dress I wanted to add my etsy site last week.  But on closer inspection I noticed that some of the red trim had bled a bit onto the fabric.  Does anyone know of a way to get that out?  Any stain remover suggestions?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Mom for modeling!!

Hope you all have a nice week!

Happy 4th of July!

 I was lazy again and decided instead of getting up in the attic and finding my decorations; I would just make some.

This is very simple to make with items on hand and adapted for any holiday.  I did something similar to this for Halloween.  To make the pleated circles, take 4 pieces of paper in equal size and fold them accordion style.  Glue the strips together and then glue all the edges together in the center.  For the red crepe paper use a running stitch along the bottom.  Next you want to gather and pleat the crepe paper and sew the ends together.  Glue on to your pleated paper circle.  I had these vintage Americana milk caps.  They were perfect to finish it off.  I added a little ruffle of white crepe paper and glued it all together.  I glued all the ribbon with Fabri-Tac.  I added the feathers to honor our Native American ancestors since our land was their's first. 

 

The pic's aren't the best.  I swear my camera's begging me to get a better one.  

Linking up to the wonderful weekly wrap up at  

Recent vintage finds........

Vintage lace in a rainbow of colors!

Velvet, satin, lace, and woven ribbon!

and some abalone and bone buttons!