Alright, pictures! I finally got internet again (just moved) and was trying to do all this through hubby's phone. Works, but also takes like 15 mins to write a message and that was a pain in the butt. So here's my wonderful package:


howling wolf pillow. the picture does not do it justice and it's kind of dark, but it's the only one i could take before the kids yoinked it.




bowl with a closeup of the resting deer on it


acccoooorrrnnns! i think they're going to live in my car as cuter version of fuzzy dice


i love this. raven silhouette




and my favorite, the deer pitcher. i took it outside to water my plants (thus the chubby baby feet). the handle and lid top is painted red. it's amazing


thank you murbeck, i feel so spoiled!

No action pics yet- in the process of moving and the little ones are with the grandparents, but here's the pictures. They're all so adorable, and I LOOOOOVE the taggie blankets. I never had one, but I adored the kitty fabric with the checkers on the back and the crinkly noise it made. Awesome package.


adorable little bags. pink and sparkly. right up their alleys. (pics don't do 'em justice)


annnnnnnd, the cutest onsie evarrr.


Thanks so much xoxheatherae !

So I was inspired by humboldtcherry's door hanging and decided to make a mantel hanging for my own home. It's based off of swedish and norse folk art, as well as german hex designs. I finished 2 flaps and have 7 more to go, but I was super excited and had to post 'em. Work in progress.

For both I used white aida and sketched my design in pencil then started stitching. Eventually I'll make a piece that ties em all together. I only ever did cross stitching before, so the other techniques are literally the first time I tried them.

The first is my welcome sign. It took me about 2 hours and I used padded and satin stitches and cross stitches.


close up:



The next is my distlefink, which is for good luck, and the tulips are for love and happiness. It took about 2 hours as well and is also the padded and satin stitch (see, i'm getting better from the first one, lol) and cross stitches.


close up:



So that's it for now. Next up is my dala horse. Teaser:

i was inspired by lilninjabear's valentine bulb post http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=338390.0 and figured since my hubby is an electrician, i'd make him one for his bday today.





i used a scrap block of wood, some wire i painted red, a burned out bulb and lots n lots of hot glue. made it for free (don't you love those?) fuzzy in the picture, but it says: "i'm glad you're not a plumber because i would've hated playing with s**t. (ich liebe dich immer mehr.)"

i had to make it funny to cancel out the mushyness. the german is what's engraved on his wedding ring and roughly means i keep loving you more and more. i generally sign off my cards to him with it. i hope he likes it.

I was looking online and some of those acrylic stands for flyers and business cards run upwards of $500! I've seen some cheaper $5ish ones, but the shipping alone was more than the product. I just needed one to display, so I figured i'd just make it for free out of wood i had in the back.

Surprisingly, I got a lot of compliments on it. Since I already put out the better one I made (and of course no pics), I whipped up this one up out of cardboard in about 15 minutes for a tutorial. It looks like crap, but bear with me. It looks way better once you throw some love into it, promise. 




Excuse the rough edges, I couldn't find my ruler and did this one fast just for a tut. the top has cutaways so it's easier to grab the flyer.

Tutorial:


my measurements. after you cut it out on cardboard you can tweak it to how you like it. (For wood, run it through a planer so it's all the same thickness, and cut all those pieces out. Sand out the rough parts)


cut it out and score the creases


beautify, hot glue together, and fill up. (For wood, wood glue together, then use small nails to fasten it. Sand, then paint if desired)

i added a card holder last minute. it's basically card sized, with 2 side flaps and a bottom flap.
it also works fine if you don't use the side flaps, and add one fin in the back.

haha at the male female one. the tattoo is awesome.

and the hippo! the camera and frog hat is adorable. (lol @ ditching school to play with it)

here are more pictures of the guts. the intestines can hang out:




now all the packages are starting to arrive! *excited*

Got my critter!!!!! AHHHHHHH! I was so freaking excited, and it was worse because it came yesterday but I wasn't home. Hubby kept giving me these hints that were driving me crazy, like "the box is huge, but it's super light," and "you're going to go crazy when you see it." Well I loooooove it. Jesa went with my nautical jules-verne-esque theme and used the pink I wanted, and just so chose my 3rd favorite animal (i didn't even tell her!), the squid.





whole package when i opened it




squuuiiiiiiidddddd and closeups of it's face and the cute (homemade? i never seen ones like that before) buttons. notice how there are both normal arms and the 2 longer puffy tentacles.


closeup of the sail. i'm loving the patch.



A TELESCOPE! Very explorer worthy 



Thaaaaaaannnkkks so much Jesa!! It's awesome and we're all in love with it!

So I just had these french toast muffins from costco that were amazing. Well, I really want to make it into a cake, and I can only find muffin recipes. All the cake ones are like coffee cake with maple syrup in it, or are more like bread pudding with french toast in it instead of bread.

I made the muffin recipe anyway (found at http://www.grouprecipes.com/53402/maple-french-toast-muffins.html )and used a maple donut glaze recipe (with a sprinkle of cinnamon) for the top. (I don't know why I decided to take the picture after it was in a ziplock bag, but I'm not happy with it yet, so more later)



I used the same recipe but only a 1/2 cup of sugar and used 2 tsp maple syrup since i didn't have maple flavoring. I also didn't make the topping or butter in the recipe, and made them in cupcake tins.

Now questions:

Is the muffin recipe pretty much the same recipe as cake? I'm guessing I might need to put more eggs in to make it fluffier, but would that be the only difference between muffins and cake?

And it had crumbles on top. All the recipes I'm looking at calls for crumbled real french toast... doesn't sound right to me. How else would you make crumbles?

wow. this critter is so good at picking up pieces of thread and lint and fluff. using old socks for my swiffer may be super productive...
but anyway, i'm done... but i'm not happy with it's clothes. i'm going to make a whole new accessory because it honestly doesn't look good with clothes on. i'll probably finish it by the weekend for sure, though.

teaser:



she was playing with it and managed to make it look not only like a blur, but nothing like itself, so i added in a teaser. apparently it alternates between making high-pitched beeps and low-pitched "brooooop" sounds. i'm soooo excited to send it once i figure out an appropriate accessory.

Just tried the recipe! I wasn't sure about the orange because I don't normally like fruit flavors in my chocolate, but they were AWESOME. I used the huge sprinkles, dark chocolate candy melts, and an egg shape cut out, since I figured Easter was the closest upcoming holiday.


I was super excited and was holding them up before they were dry. It was dripping on my thumb.

action shot.

They were all gobbled that night. Thanks Banga!