To New Beginnings

Just as I was thinking I needed some winter flowers in my life, perhaps paper whites, a co-worker brought in paper white bulbs for everyone! It was a great Christmas gift and I got to watch the bulb grow, each day it seemed like there was 1/2" more! (As my roommate suggested, I wish we could have taken a photo each day to document the growth) Now today, it had it's first beautiful bloom. A great start to a new year and new beginnings.
Happy New Year everyone and Thanks Lee!

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

For Christmas I got a hand-mixer (my previous mixer died as we were mixing the frosting for the 2009 Cookie Party Extravaganza) and 2 mini muffin pans. I wanted to break both of them in and was craving something chocolaty and bananay... I ended up modifying this Chocolate Chip Banana Muffin recipe, I tried to make them a little more healthy with whole wheat flour and substituting the oil for applesauce.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
1 c flour
3/4 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 c applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 c semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, applesauce, bananas and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes for mini muffins (22-25 minutes for regular muffins) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

The serving size for the nutrition information below is 2 mini muffins... not the healthiest, but oh, so delicious!

Finito!

I finally finished the baby quilt I was working on for my second cousin. I'm so proud, it looks like a real, actual quilt! And I made it all by myself! All of the blunders that I made in the process have seemed to disappear looking at the finished piece. After attempting machine quilting, I thought I'd never make a quilt again, but seeing the end result I'm not so sure. Only a couple of the corners on the quilt top match up, I probably should have picked a different fabric in a couple places, and the machine quilting was a big failure, but all-in-all I'm really happy with it! I kind of want to keep it for myself. I saw a picture of the baby's room and it will fit perfect in there.

I love the simple, contemporary design of the back.

A close-up shows the tie quilting I did after failing at machine quilting (it was pulling and gathering and looked horrible). On the plus side, I'm pretty sure that my grandma used a tie binding method, so it's even better to keep up the tradition!

I can't wait to give to to my cousins at Christmas and hold little Henry!

023 | Wallpaper Wednesday

Cookie Party: Year 3

The cookies have been baked, decorated and exchanged. Yesterday was our 3rd annual cookie party, which went as smooth as possible. We had over 2,300 cookies in our apartment which is even more than last year! I can't believe the delicious variety that we got this year, everyone brought such yummy cookies.

Here are all of the cookies on my bed, our buffet table! We had Almond Bark Pretzels, Mini Chocolate Chip, Gingerbread Men & Women, Gooey Butter Cake Cookies, Peanut Brittle, Peanut Butter Blossoms, Peanut Butter Cups, Reindeer Cookies, Rolo Pretzel Bites, Chocolate Mint Bars (my fav), Lemon Drop Cookies, Chow Candy, Chocolate Chip Brownie Bars, Strawberry Shortbread Thumbprints (my recipe), Chocolate Rum Balls, Snickerdoodle, Chocolate Chocolate Chip, and of course, Sugar Cookies! Whew!

A very blurry picture of some of the attendees and fabulous decorators!

A sampling a beautiful cookies.

This year my roommate and I each made apron's to give as prizes for the "Best Collection" and "People's Choice" contest winners. Above are the "Best Collection" cookies.

The white on white snowflake cookies won the "People's Choice" award.

Here are my decorated cookies with lots of blue and green, my favorite Christmas colors!

And the final assortment, I have three big boxes packed with deliciousness and ready to hand out!

Yum.

Crafty Chicks: 10 years

A couple weeks ago, I attend the 10th annual Crafty Chicks Craft show. This was the third year I've gone to check out the local artisan goods and support a co-worker, and I have to say their 10th year was the best yet! There were more vendors than previous years, meaning more variety and new crafts. I definitely didn't leave empty handed! Here are a couple of the delights I bought myself as an early Christmas present:




My absolute favorite purchase, a burlap tote from Angela Muir. She uses coffee bags from Kansas City's coffee brewery, The Roasterie. I love the graphic/grunge combination the typography and burlap create.

A cute turtle magnet from Nonna Illustrations. I was so impressed by her work, she illustrates everything she creates: paper, prints, magnets, baby blocks, etc. Very fun and cute designs, perfect for a baby's nursery.

And a perfect, lovely, little felted acorn from a co-worker and ATC trader. Very similar to the one I wrote about here.

The rest of the items I purchased are Christmas presents, so no peeking!

022 | Wallpaper Wednesday

Another quote from class, thought this one was interesting.

Studio Sweet Studio

With all the crafting I've been doing to get ready for the holidays, it leaves me longing for a studio space of my own. I've collected several inspirational photos along the way, so when the time comes for me to have my very own studio space, I'll have a place to start. Here's my favorite images from the collection:

Look at all the yarn and ribbon and how it's so beautifully displayed, a constant reminder of what's already in your collection. And what a clever (and cheap) way to house all your pencils and markers on the plastic cup pegboard!

Another wonderful collection of supplies. I could finally show off my glitter collection in a more permanent way.

I love the amount of workspace the two tables would provide. Sigh!

So dreamy...


Ah! Paper storage! I have the ikea Alex drawer unit shown in the above two images, but it's just not enough! I would love, love, love to have a beautiful vintage wood or metal paper storage unit! I'm on the lookout every time I'm at a thrift or antique store.

There seems to be a theme to what I'm drawn to: lots of organization and storage space, showing off supplies and images as inspiration, as well as light blue/aqua accents. One of these days!

Felt Flowers

Lately I've been in the mood to create these fun flower pins from wool felt, it seems to go well with my insomnia. I think I've been up to 3:00 or 4:00 am on multiple occasions making these. If I can't sleep I'll just pull out my sewing kit and get started, which doesn't help me getting back to sleep any faster, but it's turned up some fun results. I've experimented making felt with a couple of 100% wool fabrics, I just wish I could find some better 100% wool prints to felt for a cool effect.


A fav, I lovingly call "Poppy"

Probably my favorite (the colors just scream "Stephanie", right now anyway...)

Another fun modern design, made from hand-felted 100% wool fabric, which creates a nice subtle texture.

One of my favorite "corsage" pins, it's fun experimenting with different flower designs.




Fun collar flower pins


I'll probably be gifting several of these fun flowers for Christmas, one has already made it's home on top a wrapped gift as an embellishment.

021 | Wallpaper Friday

This quote was brought up in my class last night... hard hearing optimists are usually wrong, but it has a happy ending!

It's that time of year... cookie time!

Invitations are out for our 3rd annual cookie party! I was really happy with the invites this year, I've wanted to do something more extravagant the past couple of years, but I always have a hard time pulling it off in time. This year the invitations came with a cute little cookie cutter and multi-page invitation all wrapped up with bakery thread!







After last year's huge extravaganza, we unfortunately had to cut back on the guest list. There just isn't enough room in our tiny little apartment. It should be fun regardless! We're even having a cookie decorating context with prizes!

Client of the Month!

Looky looky! Megan, Lindsay and I are Clients of the Month for Complete Body, where we get personal training!