Sunday, November 21, 2010

Mushrooms


I finally found some mushrooms I'll eat! Martha Stewart had a segment on her holiday video about these meringue mushrooms and I thought, I can do that. The girls at the shop have a small obsession with mushrooms and gnomes, so I thought I would surprise them. So I brought the mushrooms in a big pan. The girls look at the pan, looked at me, and said "I don't eat mushrooms for breakfast Kelly." I guess they looked pretty realistic! :) You can find the recipe here, but the milk chocolate and white chocolate design on the underside of the cap was an idea from the video. You just wait for the milk chocolate layer to harden and then put a layer of white chocolate on and draw the lines with a toothpick or something. You have to wait for the white chocolate to firm up before it will work. These are YUMMY.

You may have noticed my lack of crafting and posting. I have been super busy at work. We just finished our annual strategic planning conference and I was leading. It's a big deal and made up of a lot of division chiefs and managers in positions higher than my own. So it's a lot of pressure to make the conference productive, exciting, and not a waste of their time. So that's where most of my energy has gone the last month.

We also had our annual Photography Contest awards ceremony last week and I have to give props to Mary and Cory who totally ran the whole show with minimal input from me (since I was taking care of the conference) and they did a great job. Mary ran the awards ceremony and everyone at the shop stepped up to help her out. I just want to say publicly that I have the BEST co-workers anyone could ever ask for! You guys rock!

I am also talking a break from crafting for a little while to get ready for the holidays and because I've started a new hobby. I'm learning to play the guitar! It's going very slowly, because of the points above, but I can sort of play a few chords without you wishing you were deaf. So there's hope! :) The kids get music lessons once a week. Haven is also learning guitar and Ethan gets drum lessons. They are both doing very well.

And in closing, we finally got the coffee organized at work. Thanks to Cory and Ryan who did all the hard work. The shelf above the sign holds the DVD player. Above that is a flat screen tv. This is all behind our coffee bar. The coffee buckets are on grid wall and are sorted to hold the different flavors of coffee we sell in the store. Corinnea, this is for you.


Saturday, November 6, 2010

Knit Cardigan



This wrap is loosely based on Simplicity 2603 and a shirt I have with a front drape like this. I laid out my shirt over pattern ease and traced it lightly. Then I looked at the instructions for S2603 online and adjusted my pattern. I found the lime green knit at KIK. Can you guess what it was? A jersey knit SHEET! It was a fitted sheet so I also scored a huge length of elastic out of the deal. This green is the perfect shade to match my Nicey Jane shirt which would have otherwise been banished to the summer clothes, but now can be worn through the winter. Of course I have to endure all the sideways looks at how BRIGHT this outfit is. But who cares? I say wear whatever color you want to. It's my way of brightening up the cold days ahead.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

10 Things that happened in October

1. Very successful Art and Espresso (our craft show)
2. Installed a forum and gallery on the the digital scrapbooking website. Did not pull out ALL my hair, but did bite off all my fingernails.....
3. Made Haven's halloween costume
4. Carved a Death Star
5. Started music lessons for the kids (Haven guitar, Ethan drums)
6. Got the kids addicted to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (probably my crowning achievement for the month)
7. Got Ethan hooked on audiobooks.
8. Sewed a long sleeved wrap shirt thing. (Will upload picture eventually)
9. Used a serger for the first time.
10. Ethan lost his second tooth. (You might remember he swallowed the first one. The tooth fairy collected the second one.)

I can't believe it's already November.

Halloween

Has it been a month since my last post?! Oops.

Halloween was almost called off this year (for our family) since it fell on Sunday. But the Garrison was kind enough to move trick or treating to Saturday night, which meant all the activities were on Saturday. So we participated in the movie theater's costume contest and the trick or treating.

I decided a month or two back that I really wanted to be Lois Lane. I've been going through a mild 40's phase (very mild, nothing drastic) and I wanted to wear a skirt I had made recently. Rob was out of town (plus he has facial hair) so he couldn't be my Superman. Well, my little man came through for me! He really wanted to be Dan from Bakugan, but I spent so much time on Haven's costume that I didn't get his accomplished, plus I kept telling him no one would know who he was. So he finally agreed to be Superman, which by the way, this is the first year he could actually fit in this costume, so it was a good choice.

Getting him to take a decent picture with me was challenging. But here we are. Lois and Superman.

Ethan lost his first two teeth this month. Yes, I'm that far behind on communicating. Sorry.

Haven decided she wanted to be the Cheshire Cat. 


But an anime chic Cheshire Cat. Huh? Ok, so she designed this costume herself and shopped on Etsy for the ears. I found the striped knit at Hilco (so NOT cheap) and whipped this out.


The bag was actually an afterthought and I threw that together Saturday morning hurriedly before we had to leave. Haven WON the handmade category of the costume contest at the movie theater! Yay!!!!

Here she is with some of her friends she walked around with.

And I know you want a closeup of the bag, right? That's my favorite part! Made with Timtex, leftover knit from the dress, and felt pieces. It was the perfect size for her candy.


Oh, funny story. After I finished Haven's bag Ethan had a FIT. He HAD to have a bag too. I told him I didn't have any fabric for him. I actually looked through his clothes for a Superman t-shirt but couldn't find one. I think I gave it to Kara... we're really a Transformers, Spiderman, Star Wars kind of family..... But anyway... He INSISTED!!! He was pulling out the pieces of pink and purple stripe and demanding a bag! Hilarious! So I took a regular blue shopping bag, turned it inside out, and appliqued a Superman emblem on the front with felt. It turned out pretty cute! You can kind of see it here:


Every year the girls at the shop dress up and we take a group photo. But there aren't many of us left right now since people keep moving... We didn't accomplish a group photo this year, but here we all are. All four of us who dressed up that day.
  Left to right: Katelyn - Hippy; Josanna - Native American; Nikka - Girl with Fan; Me - Lois Lane

I thought I would throw in an explanation about Nikka's costume. When I realized I wouldn't have a Superman I decided I would be the Girl with the Pearl Earring, the Dutch painting. I was going to be that all the way up until Thursday. Well, Nikka went along with my painting theme and found Picasso's Girl with Fan. She followed through. I reverted back to Lois when I got my Superman. Oops. So here's the painting Nikka was inspired by:


Ok, I know this post is now way long. Sorry Mary. But one last thing. No Halloween would be complete without some reference to Star Wars. Not because they are related... just because that's how we roll. So here is my first ever pumpkin carving.


If you are like many of my friends wondering what the heck that is, fear not. It is the Death Star from Episode IV. That's the big space station that blew up Leia's planet and then Luke blows it up at the end of the movie. Ringing any bells? I'm working on educating my co-workers on the world of Star Wars. Well, not so much that as teaching them the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. Eh hm.

This was not my idea though, so here's the credits.

On Sunday the AWANA program put on a Harvest Fest at the church. I have very few pics of that, but it was fun. Each room had a game with candy prizes. Nicely done.

Ok, that's about it. Hope you all had fun and safe weekends!