Floppy Bunny

Here's a bunny that I finally finished for Anne's baby. I started making it back in September, thinking I should be able to send it to her before the baby arrived in December since it's a small bunny and theoretically should take me a week's worth of evenings to compete - LOL! I finished it in early June and was able to give it to her precious baby when they visited my home while vacationing in NC.

This floppy bunny is crocheted in the amigurumi style from Floppy Friends pattern I bought from etsy.com. Mine still isn't as cute as the original, but I think I'm getting better from my previous amigurumi attempts.

I have another friend with a baby due in November and baby showers for her at the end of Aug and beginning of Oct. I'd love to have something crocheted to bring to one of the showers, but at my current rate, I don't know if it's going to happen. A crocheted gift would be especially meaningful since this friend taught me to crochet and I got her started in knitting. Now she mostly knits and I mostly crochet, go figure.

My Amigurumis

Last fall I learned about these adorable stuffed animals crocheted in a Japanese style called Amigurumi.  I finally tried it out myself.

DSCF1621

This poor blue frog was my first attempt.  He's blue because I had extra blue yarn.  But apparently not enough blue yarn because I had to use another color for one of his fingers and the backs of his eyes.  Unfortunately, I lost the magazine where I found this pattern, so I can't show you what the frog is supposed to look like.  The frog in the magazine is very cute, and although I'll admit that my frog has personality, it's not anything like the adorable frog in the magazine.  My blue frogs eyes are uneven and his arms and legs are attached awkwardly and the look on his face is just goofy.  But Coulson likes him, so that's enough for me.

 

DSCF1625

I just finished my second and third attempts at amigurumi, this time with a smaller scale project.  I got this pattern from a store on Etsy and if you follow the link you can see what they are supposed to look like.  I think these "Roly-Poly" animals are just adorable.  They're like a crocheted version of Weebles ("Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!")  I think these little guys came out pretty cute!  It helps that I used plastic eyes for them so they didn't turn out like the poor blue frog who has problems focusing. 

In June, my mom's family is having a big family reunion.  About 100 people get together every three years in Townsend, TN and it's always a lot of fun.  To help offset some of the costs, and to have some fun, we hold an auction at the reunion of stuff that we all bring.  I'm hoping to have a set of these animals to sell at the auction, if I can get enough done by June 20th.

I got lots of other adorable patterns from Etsy and I can't wait to try them out!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Whoopie Pies! Yum!

Today was my church's annual Mission Bazaar.  Apparently it's a pretty big event that they do every year.  They have handmade crafts, a bake sale, yard sale stuff, nicer second-hand stuff, a silent auction, breakfast and lunch food.  Last year they raised over $13,000 for local and world wide mission and relief groups.  (Don't yet know how well we did this year.)  Since Casey had to work today, I couldn't volunteer to help out during the bazaar, so tried to help out in other ways.  I spent a few mornings hanging out with all the old ladies helping them with the

Crocheted Headbands

crafts they were doing (you know, chatting about hearing aids and surgeries and doctors and which relatives were still alive - it was a great time!)  And I even contributed my own craft, these crocheted headbands.  I've never tried to sell any of my projects before, so this was a big step for me.  And I actually designed it myself, so I'm pretty proud of them.  Of course there are design and quality flaws, but that only proves they're really homemade, right?  I think someone even bought one!

So yesterday I spent the whole day cooking for the bake sale.  I've had experience cooking for a bake sale back in Winson-Salem when the absolutely wonderful Resident Spouse Association would have a bake sale to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House twice a year.  I've always enjoyed getting a chance to bake delicious yummies without having lots of sinfully caloric chocolate goodies sit around the house for days, which of course I have to eat before they go bad because I have absolutely no will power.  So with bake sales, I can bake up a storm, save a little for me and the fam and send the bulk of them away for a good cause.

I made my mom's favorite cinnamon bread, my favorite whoopie pies and my dad and Casey's favorite molasses cookies.  Coulson "helped" with a lot of the cooking.  Charlie tried to add tootsie rolls to the cinnamon bread and then sprinkled flour all over the counter and floor while emptying out the contents of my silverware drawer.  We all had a great day!

Anyway, the point of this post is to give you my favorite recipe.  When I was a kid my mom would make these for our classroom birthday parties instead of cupcakes!

WHOOPIE PIES

cookie

• 1/2 cup shortening or butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 cups flour
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Cream together shortening and sugar.
2. Add egg, flour and other dry ingredients.
3. Add milk and vanilla.
4. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet or sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.  (I use a cookie scoop, 1 scoop = kid size pie; 2 scoops = bake sale size)
5. Bake 7-8 minutes at 425 degrees.
6. Cool on cooling rack.

cream filling

• 1/4 cup shortening (crisco)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• half of a 7 oz jar of marshmellow cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• food coloring (optional)

1. Combine ingredients in mixer.  Beat until fluffy.
2. Add food coloring to coordinate with season or festivities!
3. Choose 2 cookies of similar size.  Spread filling on one cookie and top sandwich with the other cookie.

I usually wrap them individually in cellophane or in sandwich baggies.  They should be good at room temp for a couple days, but they also freeze wonderfully.  I stick them in my freezer and then pull one out when I want a special treat.  They thaw in a matter of minutes. Yummy!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Cute little animals

 

Tonight we all went to the Cabarrus County Fair.  We had a great time eating sausages, corn dogs, funnel cakes and elephant ears.  In the animal section, they had lots of baby animals - just hatched chicks, ducklings, pigs, goats and a calf.  It was dinnertime for the baby pigs and calf, so we got to watch them nurse and man do those animals abuse their poor mothers!  I thought my boys were rough with me sometimes, but those little animals were pulling, and nipping, and biting, and pushing.  Not the nice peaceful, latch-on and suck contentedly that we see in books.  Poor mamas!  And Charlie was amazed at the animals.  He stared open-mouthed at all the animals and was very curious about them.  But he only wanted to watch.  He started to cry when I moved him too close to one of the horses.

Ball Of Yarn

One of the craftsman booths, Happy Whosits, was filled with little crocheted animals.  I realized that this was a great way to use up extra bits of yarn and the woman told me that I could get lots of patterns on etsy.  So I've been browsing the different patterns and loving all the cute things I'm finding!  And through this browsing, I noticed these adorable li

ttle animals called amigurumi - a japanese style of crocheting animals.  So now, in addition to all the blankets and hats and sweaters and scarfs and christmas stockings on my to-do list, I can add a bunch of cute little animals. 

 

I'm off to the beach for a week.  I'm hoping for no rain, because a three-year-old cooped up in a house with a bunch of adults does not make an easy vacation.  But warm weather with sand and beach and sun and pool and ocean -- that's a breeze!

Send to a friend