Scrappy Scarf

This weekend I organized all of my fabric scraps. In doing so, I found a couple pieces I had cut out easily over a year ago. I had a cute scrappy cotton scarf in mind, but I never got around to cutting out more than three pieces. With my newly organized fabric stash I was able to find the rest of the pieces I needed to sit down and whip up a scarf.

I know it is summer and no one needs a scarf, but I love them as accessories in any season. This one is made out of lightweight cotton so its light and airy and perfect for an upcoming camp party I will be heading to!

Banner Bandwagon

I have, unintentionally, avoided banners until a few weeks ago. All it took was one custom banner for a friend and I was hooked. I love making them! I love the way they come together and how easy it is to make two very similar banners so completely different.

Here are some links to the banners I have available on Etsy.

Baby Banner

Name Banner

Happy Day Pennant Banner

The Little Things

The last few weeks have been a lovely treat for me. After settling in I have been able to spend time with my guy and my hobbies. I have been reading, baking, and crafting. There were a few days in there that is was simply too hot to do anything, but I enjoyed those days too. It is, however, getting around to the time that I have to get my butt back to work. I have had a couple interviews recently and am hopeful about my prospects. But, until then I will continue enjoying every moment of my lazy days. Here are a few photos of some of my endeavors.

 

After making one banner I kind of fell in love. This one is for the party I am having back home in a couple weeks!

This is the whole banner along with my perfectly messy craft room. If its a mess it means I'm up to something.

The last time we lived in Rochester, Ryan "obtained" a giant sized, classroom white board from RIT. He has since cut it into 3 more manageable pieces, one of which found a home in my craft room for project planning.

Fun with fonts. These are the return addresses that I put on our moving announcements. I am quite pleased with the way the "Rochester" font pairs with my own handwriting. I am fascinated, recently, with font pairing. I love the way it looks when the perfect fonts come together. Unfortunately, I am horrible at finding the perfect fonts. 

Finally, I baked some banana bread today, which left my house absolutely perfect. It was wonderfully cool upstairs and when you walked down the stairs you were met at the bottom with the smell of baking treats! That is truly one of my favorite little things.

Welcome Home

One of my very best friends came to visit us in our new home this week. She also brought with her 2 beautiful Hibiscus plants and loads of vegetables from her neighbor's garden. Just seeing her was gift enough, so these extras were, just that, extra!

This woman is one of the greatest people I have known, one of those friends that you know, with all your heart and soul, will be there for you at the drop of a hat no matter what you need. The kind of friend that, even though we lived half-way across the country from each other and didn't talk as much as we wanted to, I still feel close to. When she came to visit it was like we hadn't missed a beat. So, thank you, my dear, you are amazing!

Now We're Cooking with Gas

I always like to ask my guy if he has a preference for what I should bake. I really just enjoy baking and only very rarely do I have something specific in mind that I want to make. I have been getting antsy to bake something in our new house and to try my luck with the gas oven. I've made a couple batches of cookies, but really, I could bake those in my sleep. I wanted something slightly more challenging to try my hand at. So, when I asked what to make this time he answered immediately with Strawberry cupcakes!

I love strawberry cake, it is one of my favorites, but I have had so much trouble in the past finding a recipe that doesn’t use boxed mix. Most of the ones that I have found are simply “recipes” that call for including some type of strawberry preserve in with the box mix. That just doesn’t work for me. As I said, I like baking, I don’t want someone else to do the work for me, that's the fun part. The last time I made strawberry cake I settled for incorporating jam into a white cake recipe. While it tasted good it was still lacking something.

Luckily, this time around I stumbled upon a recipe for strawberry cake and strawberry frosting from scratch. It does call for a package of jello, but we’ll let that slide because it also calls for strawberry puree. And, I have made cookies that use jello for color and flavor in the past and they were a huge hit!

 

So thank you, Sweetapolita, this recipe was wonderful! I adjusted it only slightly. I cut the cake recipe in half and made cupcakes instead of a layer cake and I reduced the amount of frosting significantly. I like to make small batches of baked goods whenever possible. 

P.S There is a pound of fresh strawberries in my fridge that were supposed to be used as garnishes for the cupcakes, but I got so excited about the frosting that I completely forgot about them.

Cork Letters

I know I said that the pine cones would be my first project in the new craft room, but the inspiration for these corks hit me first. Such is the life of a crafter, I suppose.

I have had these corks hanging around for a while now. Ever since the unfortunate cork incident at Hallmark...

While I was working at Hallmark we started selling some cute cork holders. I brought in a bag I had been saving for a while to use as the display. Unfortunately, one of my girls didn't get the memo that these corks were mine and were not to be sold. Sad news for me when I came in the next day and all of my corks were gone. It seems silly, I know, but I had been saving those corks for a long time and I was really quite upset at the time.

Anyway, these corks have been hanging out waiting for a good project. I kept going around and around with what I actually wanted to make with them. I thought about a wine cork - cork board, maybe some coasters, a trivet? Today I sat down and made them into a 'K' and I was really happy with the way it looked.  Plus, it used all but 2 of the corks I had saved. So, I decided to sit down and glue those babies together. Now, I think I will have to save up some more corks. I want to make a monogram, that can eventually go in the dining room, using mine and Ryan's initials. 

The Beginnings of a Craft Room

We made it! And so did all of our stuff! All of the major furniture pieces have found their homes and we are now working on unpacking all of the boxes. It has been warm here in New York and this house does not have air conditioning so the unpacking has been going slowly, but there isn’t really any rush, I suppose.

I have started to put together my craft room. It is still very much a work in progress, but I can’t wait to get in and start crafting. While unpacking boxes I experienced something that I had not had to deal with before...too *much* space. I had most of my everyday supplies crammed into the drawers of my desk before.  Now, I have a whole room and I don’t know where to put anything. I am sure there will be lots of reorganizing and rearranging, but I am so excited about this little space.

 Mason jar storage is a necessity.

Some of my paintings and a few other personal touches.

My mom came to help us move in last week. Before our stuff came we decided to take a little tour of RIT (Ryan’s alma mater and current school). While walking the campus I found a handful of pine cones that shall be the first project in my new house. Ryan thought I was crazy, but my mom reassured him that I was just taking after her. That's what every man wants to hear right?

The lighting in this room is simply fantastic!

Lucky Cat

On my list of things I should do before I die, nowhere does it mention crawling under a hotel bed. But since it was either that or leave my cat in Dayton, OH, that is exactly how I started my third day of the trek back east. To make matters worse, the hotel was a little bit sketchy and the entire room, from the carpet, to the towels, to the bed felt damp.  Not cool, hotel, not cool. I still have no idea how that stupid animal got under there, since the bed frame was a metal platform and the box spring was locked into it, but he did.  He is lucky I like him, because that was really the last thing I wanted to be doing this morning, or ever for that matter.