C is for Cookie





I really think I owe my love for cooking and all things crafty to my mema. When I would visit her for the day or spend the night, she would let me go to her kitchen hutch and choose a cookbook. We would then sit down on the couch and look through the cookie recipes until I found one that I wanted to make. It always blew my mind that no matter what recipe I chose, she always seemed to have all of the ingredients for it.

After we made the cookies, she would pack most of them up and send them home with me so I could show mom and dad what I had made.

So today I pulled out the familiar red and white checked cookbook and looked for a cookie recipe to make. I settled on an oatmeal cookie recipe but of course, had to jazz it up a little.

 

Not Your Grandma's Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped pecans

3/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter chips

 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat butter on high for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat in as much flour as you can. Stir in remaining flour. Stir in chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, pecans, and oats.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. Let cool on cookie sheet for one minute and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

 



 

 

Cookie dough looks good enough to eat!

Well, they're kind of rounded...

Ready for the oven

 

"Anticipation....."

 

Fresh from the oven

Cooling on a parchment lined wire rack. Pretty tempting, huh?

This recipe makes enough cookies to share :)

 

While I'll admit this recipe has a lot of ingredients, it's very simple to make. I used my KitchenAid stand mixer and it incorporated all of the flour, chips, pecans, and oats with ease.

 

What's your favorite go-to cookie recipe to share? 

To keep at home all to yourself? :)

Happy Baking!

Melissa 

Sketchy Etch?

I LOVE all things monogrammed. Purses, bags, dishware.... you name it. I must not be the only one though, because a lot of it is expensive! So the craft side of my brain says "How can I make cool monogrammed stuff myself and not pay a small fortune for it?" If you can sew (which I can't) and have a capable machine, you can embroider just about anything made of material (there is a local business here that does it for me). What about all of those pretty personalized etched glass vases, glasses and picture frames? Craft brain convinced me it wouldn't be too hard so I gave in and headed to Michael's.
First of all, try to save your ad from Sunday's paper or go online to print out one of their coupons. Etching medium is pretty expensive! A 3oz bottle costs $12.99, however it seems like it will do several projects so it's really not that bad.

I'm not perfect by any means and I do mess up when I'm crafting. So let me start by showing you what didn't work. I used Scotch blue painter's tape and stuck it directly to my Cricut mat and attempted to cut out my last name. It was horrible! The blade tore the tape all to pieces. So I tried shortening the blade length. Still, no luck. Next I tried putting a piece of card stock down first and placing the tape on top.

 Success!

 

Yeah, it worked! I SLOWLY & CAREFULLY peeled the tape off of the paper and placed it onto my glass baking dish, smoothing out air bubbles as I went.

Getting excited now!

 

I slathered on the etching medium, dabbing it over the open areas of the tape. Wait 60 seconds and then rinse with cool water. (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this part :) Peel off the tape and wash the area with soap and water.

APPARENTLY, by me sticking the tape to paper first it decreased the stickiness of it (and since it was easy release tape anyway, I'm sure that didn't help).

That sure is a funky looking L

 

Not bad for a first attempt, I guess. I will definitely be keeping this one at home though :)

 

Not one to be beaten by a project, I had to try again. Another trip to Michael's and $15 later, I came home with Cricut sticky back vinyl and a vase. It looks like this:

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to use this to make wall

decals and such but hooray for double duty products!

 

Here goes attempt #2

I gathered my supplies. I used the Cricut again to cut out the M but stuck the vinyl directly onto the cutting mat and it worked great.

I kept out the painters tape just in case. 

Didn't need the tape after all, the vinyl stuck really well.

 

Again, I didn't take any pictures of the etching on the vase or rinsing it off. (Give me a break, they only give you 60 seconds!)

 

The final product:

Ta Da!

Now I'm looking around the house for other things to etch! It's so simple and the end result looks great.

 

What a great idea for a personalized Christmas gift!









She's Crafty

I've been itching to craft something lately. There's some part of my brain that just functions better when I'm crafting something and I can tell a difference when a significant chunk of time goes by when I don't get to use it.
I've been wanting to make a fall wreath and had been searching for some ideas. I found a few that I liked and combined them to make my own. This is what I did:

Step 1: Gather supplies. You'll need a Foam Wreath, Burlap (I used about 1 1/2 yards), Scissors, and Push pins.
Optional supplies: Ruler, and decorative items such as ribbon or flowers.

 

Step 2: Cut the burlap into 4 inch strips. (Note: I think I cut somewhere between 15-20 strips)

 



Step 3: Cut the strips into 4 inch squares. It's ok if the square is not perfect, no one will see it when you fold it and pin it to your wreath.

 

 

Burlap is REALLY messy when you cut it

 

 

Step 4: Prepare your squares to pin onto your wreath. First, fold the square in half to make a triangle.



 

Next, take the right corner of your triangle and fold it down over the front so the corners meet.

 

Then take the left corner of your triangle and fold it around the back to meet the other corner. It should look like this.

 

Or like this from the top.

 

Step 5: Pin your little burlap "bubble" to the wreath using a push pin. Insert the pin around the same area where your thumb and first finger were holding it together. This pins through all four corners and keeps your bubble intact. Make sure your pins have a ball on the end larger than the weave of your fabric so it will hold it to the wreath. As you pin, try to overlap your bubbles so it gives a full effect and covers up the previous pin head. (I used pretty white pearled pins so I don't mind if you see a few)

 

 

Keep pinning until you cover the whole front and sides of the wreath. I have no idea how many squares I actually used but it was a lot! You don't want your wreath to look skimpy. 

 

Even though you couldn't see it when it's hanging against the door, I didn't like the back of the wreath being uncovered. I used some extra squares folded in half to cover the bare Styrofoam. If you're just starting your wreath, I would suggest cutting a few extra  of your 4 inch strips and wrapping the whole wreath before you get started. 

 

The finished product should look something like this.

 

 

Now that's pretty enough as it is but I had to embellish it. I had some short floral picks so I wired some pretty orange flowers to them and stuck them directly into the wreath. I did move some of the bubbles around a bit so the pick could stick directly into the Styrofoam.

 

I added a brown satin bow and hook for the back and voila! My beautiful fall wreath!



 

What's hanging on your front door?

 

Happy Crafting!

Melissa



Things that go bump in the night

Brrrr! It's actually cold outside in October! I usually don't mind, especially at night, because I swear I sleep better. You get to snuggle down under thick, warm blankets and quilts and put your cold feet on your warm husband :).
This morning, I had just repositioned myself into a particularly comfy spot in the bed and decided to try to go back to sleep. It was about 5:30. As I was lying there thinking "Why in the world was I just dreaming about Big Lots and a To Do notepad" I heard a strange noise coming from outside my bedroom window. You know how your brain tries to get it's bearings and place a mental image in your head that would go along with the sound you're hearing? My mental image of this sound was someone taking a razor blade and cutting the screen out of the window. There was a pause, and then it started again. This time the noise woke my husband and we both jumped out of bed. We both started to frantically walk through the house to figure out what this noise was. Our little guard puppy stayed snuggled in the bed, either not hearing the noise or too warm to care. The noise stopped so we decided to start turning on all of our outside lights so we would be able to see if someone or something was out there. Hubby decided to take the gun for a walk outside (in her best Olive Oil accent "My Hero!") and finds nothing. No footprints or paw prints outside our window, and the screen was unharmed.
So naturally, I am wide awake now. I can not though, figure out what that noise was. Can you think of anything that would make that sound?
I guess for now I will keep watch on the couch, while drinking some hot earl grey tea and snuggled under a thick quilt my husband's mammaw made.
Have a great Monday!