gingerbread haka

New Items

I just finished a custom order for two leopard print girl booties for expecting mothers. I decided to make two more to sell in my Etsy shop.

I also made about 50 plus sheets of thick and thin recycled paper that I also am selling in the shop measuring 8.5" x 11" in size. They vary a bit depending, because of their organic looking edges . Check them out when you get a chance would make a great gift for those crazy scrap bookers, art quilters and charcoal artists or sketch artists.

I had been saving Garrett's school papers from first grade mostly the activity sheets that are recyclable and a few egg cartons for stability and they seems to have done the job quite nicely!

Father's Day Dinner!

Well it was a huge success! The boys and I made daddy dinner and it was a piece of cake so to speak. We made a home version of Rice a Roni and we used the last bit of frozen peas from our garden last year that the boys and I harvested, and a nice fat slice of garlic Texas toast. For desert we made our version of No Bake Cookies. It was wonderful and that was a hit too! The boys loved making those the best of course.

Chicken Rice a Roni
2 heaping Tablespoons of Butter or Bacon grease
1Cup White rice any kind
1/2 Cup broken 1" pieces of spaghetti noodles
1 lb. chicken chunks or tenders fresh or frozen
31/2 Cups of chicken broth or water(if you use water add a couple of chicken bullion cubes)
1Tablespoon freshly chopped parsley or 1 teaspoon of dried
1 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of marjoram
salt and pepper to taste

Fry rice and spaghetti noodle pieces in a large electric or stove top skillet about 350 on an electric skillet and about medium high on the stove top until lightly browned and rice looks white and not clear anymore.

Add the chicken and remaining ingredients when it comes to a boil cover and let simmer until rice is tender and chicken is cooked through about 20min.

Now for desert!
The Turner's No Bake Cookie Recipe

1 Cup rolled oats
1 Cup powdered milk
1/2 Cup honey
1/2 Cup Crunchy Peanut Butter or Creamy(we like the Crunchy kind best our selves but what ever your personal preference is)
1/4 Cup of powdered unsweetened coco

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. It will be dry and you will need to take some time with it and knead it in the bowl with your hands for a while, but be patient it is all worth it!

Once the mix is somewhat form-able you may scoop up small chunks at at time pressing in your hands and form them into balls. Then lay them on a cookie sheet with wax, parchment paper or freezer paper and set in the fridge to chill, they will be ready to eat by the time dinner is done. If you have any extra which in our case that wasn't, store it in an air tight container and keep in your fridge, I think that they taste better when chilled a bit especially in the summer time. Makes 20 small rounded pieces.

Painting is finished!! Hooray!

I finished it yesterday and only need to add the signature at the bottom. I can't believe that its done. I can't wait to do another. Just as soon as I finish my other custom orders, I just received two more. Between that and painting and cleaning and playing and reading to the boys for our summer reading program our summer is going to fly by. Not to mention camping, fishing and floating the river. Isn't life so sweet?

Here is the final painting, I hope?

I think that I am done with this painting that is a custom order. I am waiting now to hear back from the woman who is buying it. I only need her approval of it before I can send it out and sign my name upon it. I think that it turned out better than the original painting and its a bit of a shame almost that we can't keep it ourselves. I am thinking about repainting the original to get it to look the way that I like it to, and also the way that my hubby likes it as well. The boys sure loved watching me paint, something that I also think that I need to do more often. When do we as mother's have the time to do all the things that we desire to do.  We make time!

Custom orders anyone??

I was really slow there for a while in March and April then I received two custom orders! How awesome is that? Anyway one is for a wonderful lady from the mid-west that has commissioned me to do an acrylic painting for her based off of the one listed on my etsy store called "Where night meets day" which by the way was painted from a couple of photos that I had taken of a beautiful sunrise a day or two before Christmas Eve one year. This painting will be different from the one listed as it will have softer tones to it and the size is a 20 X 30" as appose to the 36 X 47" one listed. Anyway I am about almost half way through to completion and was excited so far about the results that I wanted to share.

I also just got a custom order to do some denim baby booties! Only the size is going to be 6-9months instead of the 0-3months like the ones that I have listed. and since this is for an older baby I though that it might be appropriate to do a slipper bottom on it. What do you think? Since most babies like to start crawling and standing up by then.

I am working on some socks right now from a book called Charmed knits off of the Harry Potter Series, a great book for those of you who love to knit and love Harry Potter. I am making Harry's Sock. But in really bright self stripping sock yarn. It has been a joy to make. My goal is to make 5 pairs for each boy in my family so that's 15 pairs total! 30 socks! I want them all made for their next school year, think that I can do it?? I hope so!

Sampler Pillow Pattern

An image of the back of the pillow.
The Sampler Pillow is now available for purchase. I highly recommend it to anyone who would love to learn something new and to help them get past any fears that they might have about cabling, color work, simple lace, and buttonhole techniques. Thank you so much for stopping in and I hope to see you again soon. Happy Knitting, Abby

Crochet and knitted toys

These are some of my boys knitted and crocheted toys. the robot is from a book written by: Zoe Mellor called: Knitted Toys includes 25 patterns. The tooth fairy pillow is a free pattern that I got off of KnitPick.com. The earthworm is from Amigurumi Knits by: Hansi Singh whom use to have a store on etsy but I've only found here personally through flicker. Her book includes 20 cute knit patterns highly recommend this one its great. I recently started crocheting again, which I haven't done in years. Mostly inspired by my new love of the Amigurumi knitted and crocheted toys, I love them. They are great! My boys love them and I do too, especially since they use up all the scrap yarn that I didn't know what to do with otherwise. My new favorite book now is called Tasty crochet. So far I've tried the pumpkin pie and strawberries. I love the way that it works up so quickly! This book contains 33 patterns to choose from. My boys love all of these books and I highly recommend them all to you to try. Have fun with it. Happy knitting and crocheting, Abby