I Made It Monday (Or We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program)

For those of you who have recently joined my legion of minions...um...followers...I had been doing a regular Monday post called, "I Made It Monday." I'm a crafter and a professional chef (at least in my mind and according to my kids) but that isn't the only thing I am. That being the case, I do like to occasionally display with pride my creations. Most people refer to this as bragging and I do that too. But I'm totally modest about it.

Before I show off my accomplishments for the week, let's talk for a second or two about Pinterest. How many of you have a Pinterest account? I bet it's a bunch. Pinterest is the coolest thing since hot glue. Would it astound you to know that I do not have a Pinterest account? Well I don't because I already spend too much time lurking about on the internet wasting time that I should be spending in productive activity.

But every once and a while, I'll scroll through the Pinterest front page just taking a gander at what's there. I mean I am a crafter and a would-be chef so I should always look to expand my horizons and talent, right? The only problem is that each time I visit Pinterest I find myself feeling more and more inadequate. Interestingly enough, I am not alone in this feeling. A recent news article talks about how moms are feeling stressed out by the amazing things they see on Pinterest and like me feel bad about how perfect everyone else's life seems.

So last week I was perusing Pinterest and low and behold I found two recipes that looked really fantastic. The first was for a zesty shrimp and avocado salad and the second for something called "magic cake."

Now I won't print the recipes here because of copyright and all that but I think this is the original site for the salad. With the salad I was a bit hesitant to try it because it called for a bunch of things that I just don't like all that much like red onion and cilantro. And to be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of avocado but I have had it and enjoyed it in sushi and on a sandwich. But the photo looked so amazing and I really love lime and I'm on a low carb diet (which is working nicely, thank you) and this salad seemed just the thing to change up what I had been eating.

Not pictured: the avocado lurking just beneath the cucumbers.

So I replaced the onion with cucumber and the jalapeno with bell pepper (in the hopes the kids would be more willing to try it) and left out the cilantro. Looks pretty, right?

I hated it. It made me want to puke. I brought a small one cup serving with me to work the other night and as I ate it, I hated it more and more. I didn't even finish half of it. I'm not sure why. Maybe all of the replacements I made turned it into a disaster, but all of the ingredients separately I like just fine. Together? UGH!

After that fiasco I was really, really nervous to try the magic cake. Magic cake is all over Pinterest like glitter and there are so many rave reviews about it. What could be the harm here? A cake that magically separates into three different layers as it cooks, sounds pretty neat to me. I got the recipe from JoCooks but you can Google it and about 14 quadrillion recipes for it will pop up. It was a simple recipe with ingredients that I had - so no special trip to the store on a non-shopping day - and it looked pretty sprinkled with powdered sugar.

First of all the batter is so thin it might as well be instant pudding. As I was mixing it during the last stage, it started separating in the bowl and there were chunky bits floating around. I had my doubts, let me tell you. But I was making it for my gaming group and only had an hour before they arrived, so I knew it was too late to bail on a new recipe in favor for a more familiar one.

I wish I had taken photos of the process, because it was a seriously creepy batter. It smelled good as it was baking and when I took it out, it looked...done.

From this angle it's hard to tell, but it did indeed separate into three layers: a bottom rubbery crust, a middle custardy filling, and top cake-like consistency. Instead of just powdered sugar I opted to dust it with a bit of cocoa powder which actually helped cut down the intense sweetness of it. The guys liked it and honestly, it wasn't a bad cake it just wasn't magical enough for me, it was just kind of...meh. I will say though, that on a second try, after it had sat in the fridge overnight and didn't have anything sprinkled on it, I liked it a bit better. I think it would benefit from a sauce and more vanilla.

One of the guys suggested a sprinkle of vanilla sugar and I would have to agree that vanilla sugar would make a nice addition to the cake and to my kitchen!

In fact, I be there's a recipe on Pinterest somewhere for it.

I Made It Monday

So long story short. Last week was one just plain forgotten. Girl Scout camping was okay but the car breaking down in the middle of No Freaking Where was decidedly not fun, especially when the battery on my phone was going, we were hungry, tired and grungy AND I as a girl (if you know what I mean). Then a week of illness. A head cold got Cyra and stomach bug hit me mighty hard. All that equaled a big "Piss Off" to the world. Which was okay because it was clearly needed. On my end. Not the world's.

Anyhow, After a week of nothing and finally feeling better, I went about this weekend like a prisoner after doing twenty years for a parking ticket. Saturday I tackled the lawn and realized that despite Scott's assurance that I don't need a machete for the Zombie Apocalypse, I most certainly need one for the lawn! Then I spent Sunday baking.

Oh yes, my friends, I give you plenty of warning, this is a yummy I Made It Monday. I give to you:

Battle of the Beer Breads

I've been wanting to make beer bread for a while now and finally found some motivation. It could have been the sheer amount of beer crowding my refridgorator. Or maybe the...nope. It was pretty much all the beer in the house. Now, fair and honest here, I do not drink beer. I don't like it. Never have. Give me whiskey, rum, Bailey's! Scott, however is a big fan of beer - it's his job, you see, so we often have a good deal of it around. 

Beer bread is another matter altogether and I do like it. So, this is what I had sitting in the fridge:

Budweiser, Shock Top End of the World Midnight Wheat, Goose Island India Pale Ale, and Murphy's Stout

And wouldn't you know it I happened to find a whole slew of recipes online for beer bread. For simplicity's sake, I'm not going to upload a gazillion photos of batter and individual loaves. I'll focus on the ingredients and show the end results altogether at the...you know...end.

First up, the Shock Top. This beer, clearly for the December 22nd apocalypse, has been around the longest and needed to be used up. I really wanted to actually try drinking it with it's hint of chocolate, chili and other spices, but I just never got around to it. I found this recipe, at Tasty Kitchen, made with a touch of honey that I thought would compliment the Shock Top nicely.

Cast for Honey Beer Bread: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, honey, beer, and melted butter.

This was an easy recipe to put together. And Holy Moly! Melted butter! The butter was poured over the batter once it was in the loaf pan. I'd never seen that done before and I had my doubts, but man! did it turn out pretty.

Next, I went with the Murphy's Stout. I found a recipe on TheKitchn for a Cheddar and Chive Guinness Bread that looked like it would be delicious. Again with the melted butter! So much butter! Many of the recipes I looked at called for drenching the batter in butter. Who am I to argue with butter?

Ingredients: Flour, sugar...blah blah blah, cheddar cheese and chives!

For the last two loaves I used the same basic recipe I found on FarmGirlFare. Now her actual recipe is for a dill and cheddar beer bread, but she gives instructions for just a basic loaf. I used the India Pale Ale alone for one loaf and then for the loaf I made with the Bud, I threw in a packet of Ranch seasoning.

Cast: blah blah blah BEER! Could it be any simpler?

Rinse and Repeat. No wait! That's shampoo.

Out of all the recipes I tried, the last one is the easiest to throw together and the quickest cooking. Although, honestly I found that pretty much all the recipes are alike in the basic ingredients and the variations come with the extra seasonings and spices. FarmGirlFare offers a variety of flavors to try.

Now for the reveal:

From left to right (by beer): Shock Top, Murphy's. IPA, and Bud

By far I think my favorite was the Honey Beer Bread with the Shock Top. It's a bit sweeter and with just a hint of the chocolate and chili it could almost pass for a heavy cake. It could have used a touch more honey, I think, and a little less butter. The girls also preferred this loaf.

The Murphy's Cheddar and Chive was I think had the most powerful beer flavor come through. It's very hearty and I thought it could do with a bit more cheese and possibly some oats or nuts or seeds. This was Scott's favorite.

Out of all the breads, the India Pale Ale was kind of boring. There wasn't any punch, any zing, any pizzazz like the others to compliment the hoppyness of the beer. Also, it was very crumbly and the lightest of the four loaves. The girls didn't favor this one at all!

The Budweiser Ranch bread needed something more. Maybe some cheese, I'm not sure. Thinking about it, maybe it was the recipe itself because both the IPA and the Bud followed the same recipe and both ended up feeling incomplete. I like the lightness of the bread as compared with the denser loaves, it just needs something to punch up the flavor a tad.

All in all, I'd say it was an overall success. I think in general I have learned two very important things: first, all beer bread recipes are pretty much the same and very simple which means there is a lot of wiggle room to improvise and devise my own recipe; and two, the darker the beer, the better the beer bread. 

Bonus Bread Photo:

I also, because I'm crazy and was clearly on some sort of bread making trip, made a loaf of Irish Soda Bread which turned out so delightfully good that I'm going to need to make another loaf ASAP, because this one won't last for more than a day!

I Made It Monday

So crafty hasn't really been on radar lately. I've been...lazy. Yup. Just plain lazy. That isn't an excuse or maybe it is. Maybe the current financial issues that I've been going through have finally broken my creative side. Maybe I've been just a bit too obsessed with Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (it's an old game, but new to me!). Maybe it's because the cold snap that settled on us over the last few weeks has done a number on my hands (what does that mean anyway? "Done a number?" Tap danced? Belted out a song?) and now they are cracked and crusty with dry skin that no amount of moisturizing can fix.

Whatever the reasons, I proudly present a Christmas project that I made for the girls. I didn't take photos of the process which is unlike me but I didn't want the girls to accidentally find them on the camera or on the computer since it was a surprise. We've always used store bought Advent calendars in the past so when I saw this for sale at Hobby Lobby, I knew I had to give it a try.

Remember all that glue I spilled over my dining room table because I was mod podging? Well I was working on this along with some other projects. Actually, this is the second Advent calendar I made.  The first one I nearly completed but with the Florida humidity it was still a bit tacky when Scott put some other things on top of it as he rearranged stuff in our closet. The resulting gluey mess was not pretty but I was actually okay with the wanton destruction as it allowed me to learn from the first one and make the second one better.

I filled it with some chocolates and charms for a holiday themed charm bracelet that we assembled as the month went on. The girls had fun rushing for it every morning; of course, they said I needed to make another one so that they can each have their own for "later on."

I Made It Monday

I've mentioned before how I am a gamer - I should clarify that though I play video games and board games, my love is tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons and, of course, Pathfinder. For the past two plus years I've been playing in a single adventure path ("adventure paths" are self contained adventures that take a character from 1st level to a high level over the course of six interconnected adventures, hence, adventure path).

Two weeks ago my gaming group and I completed an entire adventure path. It is the first campaign I have ever finished. It was sad to see it end. Characters that we had developed over two years suddenly ready to retire and new characters and a new campaign to start. As sad as I was to see the old campaign come to a close I was excited to start a new one. Yesterday, my group started a new adventure path called Skull and Shackles in which we, the characters, get pressed into piracy.

I love pirates. I love pirate themed anything. And as it happens I also love to bake. Typically I make some kind of dessert, snack or treat for my guys each session. I spoil them really. But that's okay because I love baking so much that I can sometimes overdo things and having three extra guys in the house helps to take care of the food.

So this week for the start of the campaign I made my guys hardtack.

Seriously.

The dough was so sticky I had my doubts to whether I would actually be able to roll it out.

Now, I wanted my guys to actually eat the stuff so I didn't go with a traditional flour, water, salt recipe. I found one that called for oats, honey, and buttermilk. Again, not exactly hardtack, but...similar.

Interestingly enough I actually have a small round biscuit cutter.

 

The bottoms of the hardtack got a nice golden brown but the top remained a slightly pale shade of dough. "Dough" is a color, right?

Pretty, right?

These actually tasted pretty good. Although not technically "hard" the guys still got a chuckle out of it and Scott and the girls said they wouldn't mind some in their lunchboxes to snack on during the day. I'm definitely going to make these again but next time with a touch more honey and maybe some cinnamon or nutmeg.

And because I didn't want my guys to get stuck with scurvy (because who in their right mind would) I made a lemon wafer cookie. Oh my goodness this cookie was just about the most delicious lemon cookie I have ever made before.

A crisp buttery cookie with a tart lemon glaze. Yum!

I Made It Monday

I've been kind of slow on the crafting lately. Coming off of the holiday crafting high always leads me to a slow down in January and February. I've been feeling the yearning for some learning. I like knowing how to do things and I'm all about learning a new craft. There's about a half dozen crafts I would love to learn: spinning...okay spinning it the only one I can think of right now, but I swear there are more! I'm a bit bored with what I have right now and that makes it hard to want to sit down with a skein of yarn or a half dozen photographs and be creative. 

Plus, as I've mentioned before I haven't been all that...enthusiastic...with life right now. A lot is going on and often I find myself sitting with a project in my lap or on the table in front of me and no desire whatsoever to do any work on the project. I'll stare at the TV not seeing what I'm watching, worrying instead of working. It happens and I hate it when I catch myself zoning out. I end up putting the project aside and doing chores or more often than not, wasting time on Pinterest (I don't have an account and refuse to get one, but jeesh do I love scrolling through). Hopefully one of the biggest issues going on right now will soon be resolved and I'll get back into my normal routine.

I actually started working on today's project way back before Christmas but only finished it late last week. It should have taken a day or two tops. I worked on it for an hour, lost interest, went back a week later and couldn't remember what row I was on so I tore the whole thing out and restarted.

This happened a whole slew of times.

I got the pattern from one of my favorite crocheters, Ana Paula. Her book Amigurumi Toy Box features a quartet of cute sea creatures that make me squee. The jellyfish, though, is by far my favorite. 

"I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy."

I've hung him where I normally hang up our mistletoe and love watching Scott hit his head on it every single time he walks into the living room.

See how awesomely I am channeling J.J. Abrams? I think I've got a talent for lens flares.

I Made It Monday

Can I tell you a secret? I really hope this doesn't ruin my baking street cred, but I have never made pizza from scratch before.

Still think I'm awesome?

Look, pizza from a pizza joint has always been more convenient albeit expensive. It just never occurred to me to make it on my own. Maybe because making a yeast dough, until this past year, was intimidating. Maybe because until we moved ordering a pizza didn't seem like a luxury.

We love pizza. Back in the day, we had it almost weekly. Now it has become a special event item, ordered for a celebration, a reward or a special night. Our taste buds live for the days when a visiting family member offered to pay for some pizza.

I had a hankering last week for pizza, a desperate yearning that gnawed at me for days. But rent, power and groceries told me that pizza would have to wait. While I was menu planning (the only thing that keeps me on budget when I grocery shop) I was flipping through The Pioneer Woman's cookbook and found her recipe for pizza dough. (FYI - the recipe I used from her book, is not on her website so far as I can tell, however, this link will bring you to her page for a number of her pizza recipes. All of which look delicious.)

Light bulb!

If I want pizza, I thought, why not just make it. Yeast no longer scares me, we already have veggies down on the list, what's adding one or two more and the only major expense, cheese and meat, could be wiggled into the budget if I got rid of something, say like cereal, and planned more pancake breakfasts.

Pizza, my friends, was back in our lives! Bigtime!

Cast of delicious characters minus the sauce. The sauce was shy (I forgot to take it out for the photo and didn't feel like a reshoot.) Also, although I have sausage out, I ended up just using the pepperoni and some diced ham I already had in the fridge.

I chose to make an minor investment in pizza pans although I'm sure I could have used my cookie sheets. I figured if I had pizza pans I would be more likely to make pizza again to justify the cost the pans.

Pizza dough is a sticky dough unlike bread dough. And there isn't any kneading. Although I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe, I modified it slightly to make it a bit more zesty with the flavor. I added basil, marjoram, garlic and pepper to the flour before mixing in the proofed yeast. My dough looks nothing like the photo's in PW's book but from the get go it smelled heavenly.

Three hours of rising later, my dough still didn't look like the pictures, but I figured if it had risen I must have gotten something right.

I really love chopping vegetables. It's relaxing and delicious all at the same time.

Parmesan. Yum.

Fresh mozzarella. Double and triple yum!

The pizzas assembled. It was hard taking photos while I was in the middle of added the toppings so I just took shots of the finished products. The dough was stretchy and although I wanted to try my hand at tossing the dough, I refrained. I have marvelous self control.

Pizza #1 - half Hawaiian, half pepperoni

Pizza #2 - I guess you could call it a supreme.

And finally the finished and cooked homemade pizzas:

 

Now, certainly there were some problems. Stretching the dough out was an issue. I tended to stretch it too thin in places. Also, I left the dough for the second sitting out uncovered while I made the first pizza and the dough got a tad dried out. Scott (who knows a thing or two about pizza, having worked in the industry) said that I overloaded the middle with toppings which prevented the crust in the middle to fully cook - it was a bit on the mushy, doughy side. The sauce I used was store bought and more of a marinara than a pizza sauce and I probably should have stuck with a plain pizza sauce. But other than that and despite the mushy middle, these were phenomenal and I could have kicked myself for not attempting homemade pizza before this. 

Maybe after a few tries I'll look to making my own sauce too. And maybe, just maybe, if my gardening goes well this year, I'll truly be able to call a pizza "totally made from scratch." 

Well, except for the flour. And the yeast. And the cheese. So I guess I'd just be able to call it mostly almost totally made from scratch.

I Made It Monday

So last year I made a valiant attempt at chronicling our year in a scrap book. My goal was to go from December 21, 2011 to December 22, 2012. I called it Waiting for the Apocalypse. I got to about March before I stopped. The problem was I take so many pictures that I ended up with an overwhelming amount to go through. I got frustrated and, not a big surprise, distracted by other things that were slightly more pressing than scrapbooking.

But I still liked and clung to the idea of scrapbooking life as it happened. And it was in the course of looking for new scrapbooking resources that I stumbled across a few blogs that were talking about something called Project Life. I traced the links back to a woman, Becky Higgins, who had hatched and sold a scrapbooking system that cut out time consuming layout dilemmas and matching papers.

Project Life is a streamlined system. Something I can take out and spend an hour or two with and put away. I liked that.

I did not, however, like the price tag associated with all the accessories. I’ve got accessories out the wazoo! Paper, stickers, vellum quotes and sayings, albums…and did I mention the paper? I’ve got a lot of scrapbook paper. I’ve got enough scrapbook paper that I’m probably going to have to include it in my will.

The one thing I didn’t have was the nifty photo pages (photo page protectors…what are those things called anyway?).

So I ordered some (FYI - Becky sells her supplies through Amazon). Just a small pack to see how it would go. While I was waiting from my package to arrive I spent my evenings going through my shoebox full of scraps cutting them down to sizes that would fit the photo pages. I spent hours combing through the photos I’d taken trying to narrow the ones I loved down to a reasonable 5-8. Five to eight photos to capture the week. Reasonable and doable.

Once the pages arrived, I established a routine. Oh how I hate routines (more on that later)! But I knew that if I didn’t establish a day to scrapbook, it would just collect dust like the Camping book, the Apocalypse book and the Birthday Fiesta O’ Fun books. Mondays, I decided would be the day. Mondays I go into town and run my errands. I do the grocery shopping, I pick up the miscellaneous things I need from Home Depot or Target. Mondays I would print my photos and Mondays I would scrapbook.

And, my friends, I do. I am. It isn’t overly elaborate or crazy with crafty and creativity but I’m getting what I wanted to accomplish done. And that, my friends, makes me happy. And slightly proud because really right now, I need to show that I can start a project and finish it.

I Made It Monday - Tuesday Edition

Recently, in an effort to minimize the amount of time I spend in the kitchen, I’ve been researching OAMC (or Once A Month Cooking) and Crock Pot Freezer Cooking. Now this isn’t to say that I hate being in the kitchen. I don’t. I love cooking and baking and making. The problem is I quite often end up busy in the late afternoon running around with the girls or errands or crafting and then it is too late to actually make anything. 

Also, I forget to take things out to thaw.

Plus, guess what’s coming up in nine days? NaNoWriMo! And of course once November hits, everyone is on their own for food, laundry and attention. Having a bunch of prepped meals will make November run just a bit smoother.

I wonder if I can pre-cook Thanksgiving?

In any event, this will probably be a thing now. Six hours of prep, five recipes and at least nine meals clearly equal a win (although I only doubled one recipe, the way they are packed and frozen one bag would be one meal with no leftovers). The only minor drawback of prepping so many meals in advance is storage of said meals.

Up until about a month ago I had a freezer that we bought from a friend which worked fantastic. Sure it was older but it was wonderful! I hadn’t even gotten it stuffed full yet when disaster struck. Because we had to keep it outside on the screened patio (yup) the poor thing worked really hard keeping everything cold until it just couldn’t anymore and blew up.

Alright. Fine. It didn’t technically explode but it made a pop pop popping and then smoke started billowing from the vent. Luckily I was home. Even more luckily, I was out on the patio at the time so I was able to unplug it and stash all of the food in the regular freezer. We’ve been looking at getting another one but smaller to fit it inside…but with only 1300 square feet floor space is at a premium. So while I wanted to prep a few more recipes, I only made what I figured would fit.

Clockwise from lower left (in a spirally manner): baby portabella mushrooms, green peppers, red peppers, onions, carrots, sweet potato, Yukon gold potato, jalapeno, celery and zucchini.

 Once the veggies are prepped then it's on to the meat prep and assembly.

Just to give you an idea, this is one recipe divided into two one-gallon ziploc bags. So while technically one would cook these both together, it is possible to cook one at a time and not have to deal with leftovers - which in my case would be good since somehow leftovers often get shoved to the back of the fridge and neglected. Poor, poor leftovers!

And here is my tiny freezer neatly stuffed with prepped food. Five recipes fit nicely although I'm sure I could have squeezed in one more if I tried.

And, of course, the aftermath. Well, some of the aftermath. Scott was very nice to help clean up as I was finishing up the last of the recipes so what you are not seeing is all of the cutting boards, the stuff still on the floor (mostly canned goods that will be used in other non-prepped meals) and the multitude of dirty bowls.

Just for reference, here are some of the sites that I used for recipes and ideas:

Loving My Nest

Mama and Baby Love

Once-A-Month Cooking

Six Sisters' Stuff

Once A Month Mom

UPDATED:

I used the following recipes from Loving my Nest: Meat Stew (I used beef), Pork and Veggies, Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew.

I used Healthy Mama's BBQ Chicken from Mama and Baby Love. 

I used a Taste of Home recipe, Southwest Chicken, that I modified so I could freeze it.

And last I made Lime Salsa Chicken from a site I neglected to include above, Kojo Designs.

 (the first four links in the update will bring you to the recipe pages)

I Made It Monday

I've decided that I will take a break from my "I Made It Monday" series. I find that the summer is not a time I am very focused on crafting and while I have a few projects I am working on right now, they are intended as gifts and as such, I will not post them here until after they have been, you know, gifted. "I Made It Monday" will return in late August or early September.

I am thinking however on doing a Strange Florida Saturday...so many day trips to so many odd places in this creepy state!

I don't want to leave you without any photos though, so here is one of a scarlet ibis I took at the zoo. Scarlet ibises freak me right the heck out because 1) look at that eye! Can you not hear the ibis' thoughts? "Just one little step closer and I can jam my beak straight through her eye! 2) They are far too flashy. Kind of egotistical if you ask me (and as a Leo I totally know all about being egotistical). 3) I once got into a near shouting match with my 9th grade English teacher because of the short story "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst. I held the older brother accountable for killing Doodle and the teacher disagreed. Really?

"I will cut you if you don't give me some fish. Right. Now."

I Made It Monday

What happens when I combine my love of gaming, my craftiness and too many sets of dice? You get a new dice box! I made this a few years ago but as you can see it's getting crowded again. On a side note, I really need to stop buying dice.

The top and front designs are just doodles I did in silver, gold and black acrylic paint.

I painted a light brown on first and then streaked a darker brown through the still wet paint to achieve a wood plank look.

I wanted to line it with crushed red velvet...but all I had was red felt.

So many dice. I think I need a bigger box...and of course more dice would be needed so the box wouldn't feel empty. It is a vicious cycle. More dice, bigger box, more dice...pretty, pretty dice!

I Made It Monday

For this week's project, I was inspired by Carly over at A Sewcial Life. One of the few crafty bloggers I follow, her crafts are very folk artsy and whimsical. Recently, she posted about a summer scarf she made with this fantastic fabric she bought in India. I love scarfs but as a winter necessity. I had never considered them to be summer accessory.

In any case, in an attempt to utilize my excessive stash of yarn, I decided to make a summer scarf out of a light weight 100% mercerized cotton. I choose an open weave/mesh pattern called "honeycomb." It was a relatively quick project and I probably spent about two hours on it over the course of a few days.

I (almost) Made It Monday

Part of being a Leo is my insane tendency to start projects, become bored and/or run out of material and/or come up with a fantastic NEW project idea and abandon the old one (trust me it is way easier to blame this on fanciful astrological powers - even though I sort of think, occasionally, it's accurate). That often leaves me a half dozen or so projects laying around in various states of completion.

Today I share with you a few of those projects. All of these are crochet projects...I didn't even think to include unfinished scrapbook projects or whatnot because I'm fairly certain that that many photos would crash my blogger account!

Some were abandoned as hopeless. Some set aside in want of more material. Some I set aside as better ideas came to me. Some...I just got plain bored with.

For a while I was big into motifs. These babies are quick and easy to make and once I know the pattern it is almost mindless.

I had a plan for these. A good one too. I will probably finish it up but I left off in favor of a different idea. These were fun to make and the pattern reminded me a little of a merit badge or Star Trek insignia.

These had a strong urge to be a scarf but I couldn't decide on how I wanted to connect them, so in a container they go. The pattern here is a granny square.

These are blocks for a blanket but I ran out of yarn and since I didn't have the budget to buy more at the time I moved on to something else.

I really love this pattern. It's almost like a granny square but totally not!

Another blanket. Another project stalled for want of yarn.

That doohickey is called a stitch holder (in case you ever needed that information) and I love playing with them. I connect them all together and get mad when I need one and they all get pulled out...sort of like what I do with paper clips.

This is my current project and after two skeins of yarn I know I will need more to complete it. I am already budgeting in the money because I absolutely LOVE this. It is a variegated yarn (meaning multiple colors on one skein) and it reminds me of a sunset all orange and fire.

The pattern is a simple ripple stitch. I was going to do a sunburst pattern, but it looked odd with the variegated yarn.

My crochet bag. And the newest project I started - a friendship bracelet for Cyra.